Feb.25~ NOAH BERLATSKY

This week, SHINE welcomes back Chicago-based writer Noah Berlatsky. Please enjoy two new poems:  Poem Beginning With a Line By Vasko Popa, and Ain't No Mountain High Enough. Thank you, Noah, for sharing your work with the SHINE international poetry community! 

Poem Beginning With a Line By Vasko Popa

One is the nail, another is pliers.
One is the ocean, another is a vast web of plastic.
One is the pliers, another is rust.
One hammers and hammers on the roof of a bat’s head.

The bat is shrieking until all the rust flakes off.
And at last there is no ocean, only the plastic
breathing and breathing in its smooth and pulsing tides.
The shark is caught in it. The shark with teeth like nails
that are not really like nails, but built out of
someone else’s petroleum, reflecting
someone else’s colors. Pull them out of the wood.
Steal them for yourself.

Ain't No Mountain High Enough
​(for Mobley)

 Tammi Terrell dated James Brown
who beat her bloody
when she left one of his sets early.

She escaped him at last, and dated David Ruffin
of the Temptations, who beat her also.
He hit her in the head with his motorcycle helmet.

She escaped him at last and sang with Marvin Gaye.
Marvin’s father beat him relentlessly.
Marvin described Marvin Gay, Sr. as
“an all-cruel, changeable, cruel and all-powerful king.”

Marvin sang to Tammi,
“don’t worry baby.”
Tammi sang to Marvin, “Just call my name,
you don’t have to worry.”

Tammi got brain cancer and died at 24.
Marvin’s father shot him. He died at 44.

Throughout their lives,
they were both often treated
as if they had no rights
that white people were bound to respect.

But when they sang “don’t worry”,
they sounded like they meant it.
Marvin’s voice floated up, higher than a mountain.
Tammi’s rumbled low, deeper than a valley.

They said they would save each other.
They said they would save you.
Motown makes it feel
like there’s no sorrow in the world.

Noah Berlatsky (he/him) is a freelance writer in Chicago. You can find info on his poetry collections and chapbooks, as well as his writing on politics and culture, at his newsletter: www.everythingishorrible.net

---