Taking Our Pulse There's an electricity in our bloodstream Creating an accelerated pulse Reading the pulse of society Causing (my) heart strings to pulse Feverishly We feel the pulse of the nation Thumping Against the walls of bodily suppression Stomping Against the pains of mental depression Marching Against the pockets of racial oppression Electricity flowing through Our synapses Syncopating rhythms through Our veins An energy Screaming from inside our chests Up to the collective's breast Up and down spines Craving Calm craving Fusion craving Unity Hold my hand Feel the power Surging Coursing through the people ready to fly And light the sky with Shift the atmosphere to Embody this Electric Love So that we shall never lose this energy or lose ourselves never lose us ever again.
Kay Jacobs is fairly new to the poetry scene. A native Louisianan and educator. She is the author of Within Shades of Mahogani, her first anthology of poetry that traces the angst of her adolescence and the conundrums of her college years. She is currently crafting poems for her next work, Beneath the Stripes of AmeriKah.
Editor-in-Chief Laura Lee Washburn is the Director of Creative Writing at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, and the author of This Good Warm Place: 10th Anniversary Expanded Edition (March Street) and Watching the Contortionists (Palanquin Chapbook Prize). Her poetry has appeared in such journals as TheNewVerse.News, Carolina Quarterly, Ninth Letter, The Sun, and Valparaiso Review. Harbor Review’s chapbook prize is named in her honor. She expects her next collection, The Book of Stolen Images (Meadowlark) to be out in a few months.
The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative 