Meet the SOREN LIT host and Founding Editor, Melodie J. Rodgers.
Listen to SOREN LIT Podcast episode #1:
Bum Speaks
by Melodie J. Rodgers
Poverty cyphers,
orbiting my surroundings.
The Goddess of the Sheltering Arms Soup Kitchen
collapses runny mash potatoes on my plate
and I welcome all nourishment,
with eyes closed.
The salty, drippy slop
performs transfigurations
manifesting a steak and baked potato.
Unfortunately, eyes open to reveal the bitter truth.
Walking barefoot, I am angry at politicians,
the policeman monitoring the corner,
and sickly crack heads that give me a bad reputation.
Rags cling to my being,
hands ache yearning for warmth.
Ashamed of my status,
clean-cut fellows spit towards my feet.
"What do you want?” they ask me.
A moist mouth, dignity.
To read the newspaper
amongst the subway riders
wearing a grey suit
and a polka-dotted tie.
A chance to stroll up to the Black woman in the yellow dress,
who waits patiently for the #6 bus,
and tell her that she is
the most beautiful, being, breathing.
"What do I want?” they ask me.
To be a man.
Melodie J. Rodgers is a Black and Southern writer who lives with her hubby and warrior child beneath the sleepy magnolia trees of Atlanta, Georgia. Her creative writing has appeared in the Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review; G.R.I.T.S. – Girls Raised In The South: An Anthology of Southern Queer Womyns’ Voices and Their Allies; Embark Literary Journal; Underground; the CIEE Brazil Poetry On Film project; and many others. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte.
Listen to SOREN LIT Podcast episode #1:
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