I did it!

I went to an open mic spoken word event sunday. Yes me..at an open mic. Here's how it happened. I took this art class last fall called "Soul Art". It was taught my this sweet lady Elsa Robinson and It was one of the most liberating things i've done in a long time. It's basically art with no boundaries. Two hours of quiet reflection, and basically putting on paper what is in your heart. Fantastic stuff, I loved it! I bumped into Elsa last week at a festival and we got to talking. She told me that her daughter puts on a once a month open mic event for poets in the community and there was an upcoming event on August 19th. So yeah i signed up before my brain could kick in. There's nothing scarier to me than reading my work to a room full of strangers. But I showed up, sat quietly in the corner taking in all the other performers. My heart was pounding the entire time. I have to admit it was difficult to listen to the other poets cause there was this raging battle between my brain and my heart. So I got up the courage and just walked up there and did it. I have to say, I was eerily calm. I just stood there and let the words tumble out, I did a piece called Pandemic, and it was very well recieved. Absolutely loved it! can't wait for the next one!

Happy Birthday to me!

It was my birthday on the 15th. I just can't believe another year has gone by. The older I get, the more low key my birthdays become, i've just come to really appreciate the quiet moments in life. I like to look at my "one year older" self and think about what I know now that I didn't know then. I know now that I can never be perfect, I know that the only standard I need to live up to is one I set for myself. I've come to appreciate that having a handful of close loyal friends is far more important to me than surrounding myself with people who don't genuinely care about me. I know that it is always possible to start over. To fall and stand up, to fall and stand up again and again and again. I'm so so grateful for another year of being ALIVE and healthy. Cheers to that!

Was it not you that said I would amount to nothing?
That my nose was a little too wide
My lips a little too thick
So I should just stop talking
Yeah…
It was you who said that my
Loud talking
Sole stomping
Would get me nowhere
Now I see you standing there
Nose turned up, jaws locked tight
Trying to deny me of my light.
With that “oh no you didn’t” look in your eyes
Trying to hide your surprise
Didn’t I tell you I would rise?
You must’ve forgotten that my
“African-ness” mothered empires long before you took first breath
What you thought I would fall to my death
When you turned on me with stone cold eyes and said
NO!
No you cannot sit here, eat here
No your too black ass cannot live here.
What you didn’t know that on my
Too wide hips
I carry the strength of mothers
Who tended the earth, baked bread, kept house, herd cattle, went to battle
Screaming child on one hip, commanding respect with the other
Don’t you remember when?
With your too tight lips you proclaimed
My people unfit to live
We’ve got nothing more to give
Sapped out, sucked dry
No more tears to cry
How could you believe
That you could erase a land 7 million years rich in history?
It seems to me
That you must’ve thought her children
From Ras ben sakka to Cape agulhas
From Cape verde to Ras hafun
Would turn and run
No it’s our turn
We are a people of motherless children
Stolen resources
Starvation and suffering
But we are a people counting on relief
A people of hope beyond grief
And strength beyond belief

I'm scared...

This blogging thing is harder that i thought. Putting yourself all out there requires a certain amount of bravery. Maybe I shouldn't care as much cause i'm pretty sure the only visitors I have are my sister and my boyfriend haha!...but its still scary. These poems are near and dear to my heart and it's a scary feeling to think that someone might interprete them wrong. Did i mention i'm scared...I decided to start blogging for that very reason. I've been writing for a long time and i'm pretty comfortable with my work. But the thought of sharing it with other people has this crippling effect on me. I really really love spoken word and it's something i've always wanted to get into. But again this fear. Speaking the words that I know so well is like the hardest thing to do. I'm deeply inspired by Bassey Ikpi, a Nigerian sista who's doing her thing in the spoken word community. Love this woman! I wonder, what is it about human beings that makes us so focused and concerned with how we're perceived by others? Don't get me wrong, i'm a pretty confident person in my everyday life, but i guess that's because that doesn't require me to reveal anything about myself. I've decided to take baby steps, put out a little bit at a time, work myself into this thing. I'll start by putting up poems that I have already shared with other people, maybe that way i'll get a little braver.

I wrote this about the AIDS epidemic, it's funny it seems like I find it easier to write about things that hurt than about gum drops and roses...

Pandemic
It is this deep, dark, empty thing
caught between chest and throat
Begging lips for relief in words.
The noise of 2 million heavy sighs

Our mother is dying…
the one who bore us all, She lays in squalor and
we all pretend we never heard her fall

It is the regret of unsaid farewells
It is tongues caught mid sentence
Quick whispered goodbyes
Tears frozen in eyes…too young still
quiet prayer, cast up in desperation

This steady rumble, commands our attention
Calls us from our apathy
Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Nigeria

Our mother is dying…
the one who held us in her green.and red.and gold

It is motherless children
Cries unsoothed
Bottomless grief
It is stolen childhood
interrupted hopscotch, freeze tag, hide and seek
cold and bleak

It is broken promises
Naïve trust
Gross miseducation


It is dreams unfulfilled
Stories left unfinished
Hope snatched from weary hands
Eyes deep with despair

This is not, sit and wait
Maybe later
This is not, so far away
Maybe some other day
It is today, it is today

Darfur

I heard they took the baby
Snatched him sleeping in your arms
The one with his mother’s eyes
The one with his mother’s quiet voice
He didn’t cry when he was born
A quiet cough and his gentle smile
He looked into your eyes
That where his eyes
As if to say, “I’m here now, rest”
He slept, smiling through the night
Didn’t notice the chaos around him
Basim…
You wished him happiness
You had never known
Prayed he’d only know joy, and smiling and peace
You had never known
Hid each of your hopes and dreams
In every soft fold of baby skin
You wanted to save his little baby things
Keep the soft of his cheeks
Hands
Too small to carry guns
Heart
Too pure to murder
I know you did all you could
Offered the grains you had to last the week
Begged them to take you as you were
Run you ragged into the ground
If you could only keep the soft of his cheeks
Keep those hands too small to carry guns
They took all you had to offer them
Left you tattered and ashamed
Then turned around,
Carrying 8 years worth of hoping and praying
Kicking and screaming in their arms…

Your father called you his beloved
Habiba…
He prayed his love would keep you safe
Sooth your fierce temper
Quite your defiant tongue
Wanted to explain
The sudden burst of woman
Teach you to protect and hide
The too wide hips your mother gave you
The things that made you prey
All he left you was his courage
Hoped you would use it when the time came
Use it when they came
For the smoothness of your hands
To sooth their anger
They wanted to see again those eyes
So much like their mothers
They lost the hopes and dreams
Tucked away in baby soft skin
Knew nothing of joy and smiling and peace
Forgotten the old softness of cheeks
The hands
Too small to carry guns
The heart
Too pure to murder
Your father knew that you would fight
Wanted to protect you
Show you stillness and quiet
You would not let them take
The softness your mother left you
Steal the light she gave you
12 years worth of hopes and dreams
Dripping down your legs
Spilling out your eyes
Wanted to save your little baby things
The softness of cheeks
Hands
Too small to hold guns
Heart
Too pure to murder…

And so it begins

I don't remember the exact moment in time when I realized I needed to write. I've always been a highly perceptive person, I interpret body language, feelings, sounds, sights in ways that aren't always direct. I guess you could say I speak the language beneath the language. I've been thinking about the first piece of poetry that moved me, showed me that you can say so much by saying so little. Reading out loud in my tenth grade classroom this piece struck a chord inside of me.


Strange Fruit
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.