swifts  &  s l o w s · a quarterly of crisscrossings

To All the Bogarts and Bacalls in the World
Nicca Ray & Kofi Fosu Forson

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ALL the BOGARTS in the WORLD

I’ll be your Marlow, Phillip, your Phillip Marlow, your Dix Steele, your Sam Spade
I’ll cock my gun, I’ll grin my smile, I’ll knock on (any) your door meaning business.
A bad guy, a good man, a not for the faint of heart. I’ll be your Blaine your Rick your ricochet.
I’ll be the line where the trouble starts. The cross where it stops. I’ve got my holster my gold my
honey. I’m climbing for the treasure into the Sierra. I’ve got that woman on my mind. To have
and have not. The Laurels, Maries, Vivians, Irenes, the here’s to you kid. I’ll curse, I’ll fight, I’ll
threaten. I’ll speak my mind be misunderstood. I’ll swerve the canyon roads to get what I want.
If there’s no gun, I use my fists. I make beauty cry. I make men fear. The wor (l) d suspicious. I
won’t aim my pistol at the gangster who wants to shoot the hurricane out of the sky. I’ve got the
key to their largo. I am power. I am conviction. I’ll sway the heaven out of hell.

SHE like BACALL would know WHAT TO DO

Ain’t nothing like you’ve ever seen Frankie, Mister McCloud. You can call me Noreen.
Nora is a sad girl waiting on Daddy when she wants something stronger than Shirley Temple.
I’d sooner fix you a drink than get you cock-eyed, pointing that thing at me, one for each hand.
I take my poison like a good girl. Vodka-stiff on ice, knocks me out, like counting bullet holes.
If all I ever wanted was paradise, what have I found in you? Dreams never come true; they don’t.
When we’re sailing away like we are, wind blowing in my hair; I swear I could kiss dynamite.

AMERICAN GIGALO

Detach
Pose in waiting
A knock on the door
The translators job begins
A woman
A model
A politicians wife
Wrapped up into one
Detach
Refuse intrigue
Keep posing
Speak French
Act bored
Be indifferent
Shut down hearts
This is just a card game without the cards
Without heart

BROOKLYN BOMBSHELL

The walk-on
Heavenly blonde
Back from Estonia
Husband’s sparring partner
Haitian man
Film director
“Voulez-vous…”
Lose the accent
Tongue in cheek
Lipstick-smeared
Dress or undress
Ready for cue
“Don’t shoot,” she said.
“I’d ride your horses from here to Sag Harbor”.
Say it with feeling
The walk-off
That wasn’t too bad

DEAR PROFESSOR MAURICE PHIPPS

I’m just a white girl who took your class at Columbus College in 1995. A white girl who wrote
down the words of your first lecture in my journal. I’ve got the weight of your mind on my
shoulders, Do you understand. A white girl who came across that journal entry just the other day.
Do you Understand its power to change the rut of this democratic state? Do you own land? Or
do you work to pay the owner of the property you call home. I remember thinking I understood
the hypocrisy of democracy. How a black man wasn’t entitled to what this white girl was.
Especially if she came from money. Are you ever going to own this democracy? Your rights?
Your will? Your state of mind? Who do you owe for what you’re calling yours?
My mother’s boyfriend was a black man who grew up in Philadelphia moved to Los Angeles and
became a poet. Her relatives disowned her and his refused to meet her. Are you black? Cause it
matters. Are you white? Cause it matters. I didn’t hear another use the word nigger until I moved
to an upper middle class white neighborhood when I was in high school in the late 1970s. I ran
home and asked my mother how this could be happening. Are you poor? Cause it matters.
Are you rich? Cause it matters. My mother told me stories of how, in the 1940s, her parents
invited black men and women over to their house in the white suburbs of Detroit and how in the
morning she would walk out to go to school and on the sidewalk in front of her house was
written, Nigger Lover. Her father wasn’t going to let that stop him from choosing who he wanted
as friends. My mother fought for civil rights. She said we had to keep fighting. I was raised to be
woke, Professor Maurice Phipps. Raised to be woke. Think about the mind and learn how to
think. Cause our minds can move us into change. Think about the mind. Learn how to think.

In memory of John Singleton
Higher Learning

Greetings to You, Plain-Jane-Chic, Southern Blonde

Oh where do I come from, the hills of Aburi, weathered walls at Heaven café.
What fresh hell is this, man with an African heritage smoking with red-headed girls!
I am not Nosferatu; my blood spills after shaving not the fang on the neck of a pale face
Why do I feel rats running through my blood stream each time I see a white girl in the Bronx?
I’ve been to new wave dance parties; I’ve rocked and rolled with suicidal teens of grunge!
Yet on the grit ‘n grime platform at Grand Concourse, sight of a blonde girl brings me fear.
America’s wonder doll terrorizing the black male and gifted for his masculinity, gangsta lean.

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Nicca Ray is the author of two books, the memoir, Ray by Ray: A Daughter’s Take on the Legend of Nicholas Ray (Three Rooms Press) and the poetry collection, Back Seat Baby (Poison Fang Books). Her poetry has recently appeared in Maintenant 15 (Three Rooms Press), Paper Teller Diorama (Great Weather for Media), Love Love Magazine Issues #4 & #5, poetrybay, and in the anthology NYC from the Inside. She is a 2020 Acker Award recipient for memoir and a Pushcart Prize nominee.

Kofi Fosu Forson has written and directed plays for the Riant Theater. His one-man show of prints, video film, Cushion Pill, and taped loops of monologues ‘From New York to Liverpool and Back Again’ premiered at Loft Space Programme, Liverpool, England. He has collaborated on the projects Gender, Space, Art and Architecture at Media Noche Gallery and Dismember the Night at Tribes Gallery. Among his published poems and stories featured in print and online include, NYC 1 and NYC 2 (Three Rooms Press), Understanding Between Foxes and Light (Great Weather for Media)… His current poetry manuscript, Ghost of Brother Blackburn and Other Poems, was shortlisted by Broken Sleep Press.