burning white houses on uppercase hills,
moonlight snatched by stained glass shards.
smoke always rises; liberty trees 
get chopped down. flags wave, blood 
runs from star-spangled bodies—half-mast
at half-past the final hour, neither levees 
nor tear ducts can dam the turn of loosed tides
in divided houses, devoid of center.

but yo! a revelation appears on the cross
streets of Du Bois and Yeats. with trembling soles,
heads turn to the heavens and cry out:
a second comet! but i see no light above.
only flame-strangled figures—a hurtling
mass in the night, a thousand eyes, pale 
legs galloping to the beat of terrified bones.
scorched by brimstone’s stench, my nostrils sense 
dread in each heated breath of this beast.
be not fooled by forecasts of a falling sky.
straight up: the apocalypse is nigh, says i, 
the messenger from the lower vaults, 
whose people survived many a doomsday,
weathered every storm to be born.

“Like Russell, Nichols lived by her principles.”
— from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette tribute to Bill Russell and Nichelle Nichols


what does breaking the color 
line sound like? is it a console 
bleeping or sneakers squeaking
on hardwood? is it warp driving
to galaxies or defying gravity?
i am in constant orbit of a binary
system of stars who took command
of systems that sought to ground them.

from starships to championships, unbroken 
circles trace my trajectory: rings around 
planets, necks, in ears, on fingers. hoop 
dreams transcend the end of seasons.
lieutenant means “holding a position”
like a center on the block. so i am 
posted lowkey till the final buzzer
sounds like the color line breaking. 
in lieu of flowers, shoot 
ashes from deep into deep.

Russell Nichols is a speculative fiction writer, poet, playwright and endangered journalist. Raised in Richmond, California, he got rid of all his stuff in 2011 to live out of a backpack with his wife, vagabonding around the world ever since. Look for him at russellnichols.com.


RETURN TO SPRING 2026 ISSUE OF REBEL'S ZEITGEIST