Vox Populi
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Michael Simms: Brotherly Love
AWP conference, Philadelphia, March 2022
I broke from the colloquy of ten thousand poets,
walked down Arch Street with the March wind
in my face and a few flakes falling. I was headed
for dinner but, as things turned out, I became a witness
to love. Evening filled the air with light and shadow.
Two young men walked toward me holding hands —
the air was cold but the men were warmed by laughter.
A stylish older couple passed by arm in arm,
their faces pink and happy in their woolen scarves.
I walked past the Kabuki Sushi and the TexMex Grill,
past the elegant Notary Hotel with its marble floors
and mirrored halls where we’d discussed Dickinson,
past the magnificent City Hall in the Second Empire style
of 88 million red bricks and thousands of tons of white marble,
over 700 rooms and 250 sculptures, capturing artists,
educators, and engineers who embodied American ideals
and contributed to this country’s genius as the bronze says
and the tall clock tower, witness to the slow decay
of this glorious city of brotherly love and anguish.
I came to the Fogo de Chão Brazilian Steakhouse
on Chestnut Street where a great haunch of roasted calf
is carved beside each table and I tried not to think
of the terrified yearling who’d given his life for this spectacle
of consumption. Not having tasted flesh for 15 years,
I filled up on fresh greens, beans, fruit and light fluffy
Pão de Queijo at the lavish salad bar
and my young friends and I laughed and gossiped
and ranted about the current war and the past president
and who’d won the big-ass poetry prize
and whether someone else, meaning one of us,
should’ve. Next, the U-Bahn with live loud music
by SlamJam but I couldn’t hear anyone talking,
hadn’t had a drink in 37 years, too old for sloppy,
and my friends were heading to the Good Dog Bar
The Black Sheep Pub or the Harp and Crown –
they couldn’t decide— so I said goodbye and walked away,
calling it a night after 68 years of mostly good luck
and walked up Filbert toward Thirteenth where it passes
beneath the Convention Center, the wind becoming fiercer
and the snow faster and harder, white in the darkness.
People hunched over as they walked,
holding their collars close around their throats
and I remembered going to the Flower Show
at the Convention Center the day before
where the air was heavy with jasmine and gardenia
and I thought heaven if it’s anything at all
must surely and entirely be warmth, scent and color.
I turned onto thirteenth street, a block-long tunnel
where people sleep on the sidewalk huddled in blankets
and plastic sheets, hoodies hiding their faces,
their hands neither black nor white but gray
with the dust of the city, a few zombie drug addicts
but mostly just people with nowhere to sleep
except this dark cold cave their lives had become.
A man with a puppy snuggling inside his coat
glanced up, puzzled. People like me usually walk
the long way around to avoid people like him
because we’re afraid to look deprivation
in the eye, resent admitting our own dumb luck,
but in my superior compassion, my arrogant morality
I decided to risk walking among the indigent
as if I were Mother Teresa and not just a tourist
of misfortune. A car stopped. A white woman
in jeans handed a Styrofoam box
to a man hunkered and trembling on the sidewalk.
He nodded thanks and the car moved to the next man
and the next, each one receiving supper,
perhaps a Last Supper I thought wryly, immediately
ashamed of finding irony in compassion.
The car came to a woman with two small girls,
the mother dressed in rags but her children in pink parkas,
the woman giving everything to her children,
keeping nothing for herself, and the small family
received the dole of fried chicken, mashed potatoes,
brown gravy, a dinner roll, a small heap of chopped greens
and a delicate plastic fork, tines breaking off
in their food. The car pulled up
to the last man standing on the sidewalk,
gray hoodie pulled back revealing a scarred face,
dreadlocks like a black halo.
The social worker handed him his dinner
and the man leaned over to kiss her cheek,
a chaste thank you, an affectionate reward
for her kindness, but the woman yanked
her head back, avoiding his kiss
and the two stood surprised,
their faces a hand’s breadth apart,
two travelers caught in a web, uncertain
how to break loose from the other’s gaze.
Michael Simms is the founder and editor of Vox Populi. His publications include poetry, essays and speculative novels. In 2011 the State Legislature of Pennsylvania awarded him with a Certificate of Recognition for his service to the arts.
Copyright 2023 Michael Simms. From Strange Meadowlark (Ragged Sky, 2023). Republished In the anthology In Sheep’s Clothing: The Idolatry of White Christian Nationalism edited by George Yancy and Bill Bywater (Roman & Littlefield, 2024).
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whew. thanks as always for your hard glittering truths, michael
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And for yours, Abby.
Michael Simms https://www.michaelsimms.info
Author of Nightjar Author of American Ash Founder of Autumn House Press Editor of Vox Populi
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So true! We don’t want to acknowledge our ‘dumb luck’ That is at the root of so much reckless disregard and hypocrisy. Yes, Michael, you nailed it. Thank you for this haunting and beautifully crafted poem.
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Thank you so much, Joan, not just for this generous comment, but for all you do for poets and community.
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Chills of vivid emotion.
Congratulations on this wonderful poem.
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Thank you, Vengo. I appreciate your encouragement in so many ways.
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Thank you. Wonderful poem. I remember your “quotidian poem” prompt. It works–if the poet has the power of observation–and the heart.
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Yes, well I guess every poem is a journey. If not a physical one, then a spiritual or psychological one.
Michael Simms https://www.michaelsimms.info
Author of Nightjar Author of American Ash Founder of Autumn House Press Editor of Vox Populi
>
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Thanks Michael for this. For beautifully making us uncomfortable. That denied kiss is the flip side of Naomi Nye’s Gate A-4. Thanks again.
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Thanks, Emily. I know Naomi’s poem, but I hadn’t thought of it as the flip side of mine. I’ll have to think about this pairing. Michael Simms https://www.michaelsimms.info
Author of Nightjar Author of American Ash Founder of Autumn House Press Editor of Vox Populi
>
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Thanks Michael, clearly one of your best.
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Thanks, Mel. I appreciate your ongoing support.
M. Michael Simms https://www.michaelsimms.info
Author of Nightjar Author of American Ash Founder of Autumn House Press Editor of Vox Populi
>
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Years ago, I was chatting with a Catholic priest, my spiritual advisor. We spoke of the Berrigan brothers, and he asked, “Who are today’s prophets?” I said something vague, but I really didn’t have an answer for him then.
But today – this poem – this is old school prophecy.
jst
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John, I am very honored by your praise. Thank you!
Michael Simms https://www.michaelsimms.info
Author of Nightjar Author of American Ash Founder of Autumn House Press Editor of Vox Populi
>
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Oh the heartbreaking closure! and “Two young men walked toward me holding hands —
the air was cold but the men were warmed by laughter” — —–and so much more. What a poem!
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Thank you, Laure-Anne. It’s so nice to see you back on these pages. We missed you! Michael Simms https://www.michaelsimms.info
Author of Nightjar Author of American Ash Founder of Autumn House Press Editor of Vox Populi
>
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Wow! I was there. And felt the beauty and the cold and my privilege. Maybe someday I’ll get to play with the big kids and go to a conference. Thank you. ( the ending. Oh the ending)
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Thanks, Barbara! Your presence on these pages is a blessing.
Michael Simms https://www.michaelsimms.info
Author of Nightjar Author of American Ash Founder of Autumn House Press Editor of Vox Populi
>
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You are at the height of your powers and outdid yourself with this one, Michael. Bravo.
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Thank you, Beth. Writing the poem required me to look at myself in ways that I’d never had to do before. Some of what I saw I didn’t like. Michael Simms https://www.michaelsimms.info
Author of Nightjar Author of American Ash Founder of Autumn House Press Editor of Vox Populi
>
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Michael, you nailed it! Absolutely gave me back my experience of those three days. Thank you. I found that all the complexity was drained from my experience every time somebody asked and I said, I had a great time, a great time. Thanks for restoring all that was slipping away.
Bravo!
R
>
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Thank you, Maestro. I admire your poems so much, your praise means a great deal to me. Michael Simms https://www.michaelsimms.info
Author of Nightjar Author of American Ash Founder of Autumn House Press Editor of Vox Populi
>
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Simms is back with this poem after a war he waged for Ukraine.
The language and the humur are different. The passion is more thin and real since it touches on social and humane dilemma.
A new one..
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Thank you, Saleh. America is a rich country, but the poor here live much like the poor in other countries, hungry and sleeping on sidewalks. There is no excuse for the way we treat the needy.
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Thank you for sharing your experience in this wonderful poem. You brought me back to the city I grew up in and I felt like I was walking with you.
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Thank you, Lois. My experience in Philadelphia was enlightening. Great history and architecture there, but I was troubled by the many homeless.
M. Michael Simms https://www.michaelsimms.info
Author of Nightjar Author of American Ash Founder of Autumn House Press Editor of Vox Populi
>
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Wow, what a great takeaway, better than a tote bag for sure. And I love how you used the stolen kiss. Hope you read it at Mulberry Street.
Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone Get Outlook for Android ________________________________
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Thanks, Ellen. I’m grateful for all you do for me and for other poets.
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I echo the other’s comments. You brought me to and through the tunnel, with all the often conflicting emotions of being human. Beautiful poem.
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Thanks, Melanie. It was a difficult poem to write because it made me face my own privilege, and the denial of that privilege.
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Excellent. That ending: damn.
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Thank you, Billy.
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Thank you, Michael, for your poem, which took me there/
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Thanks, Mary Jane. Sorry we didn’t get a chance to get together. Your car broke down in Wisconsin?
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Ripper poem, Michael! You take us right there and we are with you each step of the way, the images, the emotional responses, the self-judgment, all of it…
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thanks, David!
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