"The Sunshine Sliders" by Tricia Louvar
2 poems by Tayo Omisore
"Cover of UGK's International Players' Anthem"
My niggas/only want to get married/if Andre’s verse on Int’l Players Anthem/ is booming as they
walk down the aisle/Say they need a skirt as checkered as their past/I tell them they stupid as
hell/it’s called a kilt and it’s plaid/the bride was the one that walked down the aisle in the music
video anyway/them niggas don’t care/they still want to float down a blushing red carpet/a
bouquet microphone gripped/a lot of blackness is nostalgia/chasing old july suns/old summer
classics/the hoes that we let go and hope come back/with a broom that cleans up whatever mess
we made before we jump over it/it’s not right but it’s familiar/like a sunday pot with boiling
water/a bed we made and still lay in comfortably/a voice that calls our names down the stairs and
breathes easy when we breathe back/all my niggas still searching for 90s love/something steamy
and violet and Aaliyah/but didn’t the 90s already happen/are we not all vestiges of one last,
full 90s night/We all think that when love comes, we’ll have turn into the man we’ve always
needed to be/like Andre/proud and loyal/and vegan/or at least no longer hungry for any flesh but
our own/at least someone worth loving/I didn’t believe in magic until I woke up the next
morning next to a body that smiled when she remembered my name/Realized heaven might be
whatever universe is created when 2 heads lay on a pair of pillows at 11pm/both staring straight
at the ceiling and nothing else/all my niggas want magic but are terrible magicians/only good at
disappearing/too focused on black hats and snow bunnies and pulling out/only satisfied with
letting people pick a part of them/as long as all the cards are facing down/They wanna be like
Andre and Erykah/Like they can skip Ms.Jackson and go straight to The Love Below/All my
niggas want to be just like Andre/proud and loyal and vegan/but they don’t know/Andre hasn’t
been vegan for 18 years.
walk down the aisle/Say they need a skirt as checkered as their past/I tell them they stupid as
hell/it’s called a kilt and it’s plaid/the bride was the one that walked down the aisle in the music
video anyway/them niggas don’t care/they still want to float down a blushing red carpet/a
bouquet microphone gripped/a lot of blackness is nostalgia/chasing old july suns/old summer
classics/the hoes that we let go and hope come back/with a broom that cleans up whatever mess
we made before we jump over it/it’s not right but it’s familiar/like a sunday pot with boiling
water/a bed we made and still lay in comfortably/a voice that calls our names down the stairs and
breathes easy when we breathe back/all my niggas still searching for 90s love/something steamy
and violet and Aaliyah/but didn’t the 90s already happen/are we not all vestiges of one last,
full 90s night/We all think that when love comes, we’ll have turn into the man we’ve always
needed to be/like Andre/proud and loyal/and vegan/or at least no longer hungry for any flesh but
our own/at least someone worth loving/I didn’t believe in magic until I woke up the next
morning next to a body that smiled when she remembered my name/Realized heaven might be
whatever universe is created when 2 heads lay on a pair of pillows at 11pm/both staring straight
at the ceiling and nothing else/all my niggas want magic but are terrible magicians/only good at
disappearing/too focused on black hats and snow bunnies and pulling out/only satisfied with
letting people pick a part of them/as long as all the cards are facing down/They wanna be like
Andre and Erykah/Like they can skip Ms.Jackson and go straight to The Love Below/All my
niggas want to be just like Andre/proud and loyal and vegan/but they don’t know/Andre hasn’t
been vegan for 18 years.
"Eulogy For The Next Black Boy Potted in Casket"
Tayo Omisore is a poet, singer-songwriter, and undergraduate accounting student at the University of Maryland. His work is forthcoming in Stylus. His poems “Scouting Report” and “Cover of UGK’s International Players’ Anthem” were both finalists for the 2018 Jiménez-Porter Literary Prize.
Tricia Louvar lives in the Pacific Northwest and studied journalism, poetry, aesthetics, and documentary photography in college and beyond. She works in publishing as a visual artist and writer. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Brevity, Orion Online, Zyzzyva, and more. tricialouvar.com
Artist Statement: At a Saturday kaffeeklatsch, after splitting a piece of banana bread, I am the one nibbling pieces of its raw sugar left behind on the plate. Such an instantsummarizes my artistic impulses of focusing on the leftovers and the overlooked. I investigate the human condition and its relationship to impermanence with digital and analog tools.
Artist Statement: At a Saturday kaffeeklatsch, after splitting a piece of banana bread, I am the one nibbling pieces of its raw sugar left behind on the plate. Such an instantsummarizes my artistic impulses of focusing on the leftovers and the overlooked. I investigate the human condition and its relationship to impermanence with digital and analog tools.
