Author: poetryfest

Another word for Great
Long mother
Stretching her arms across three generations
I ask, how many greats go in front of your name granny
And i hear her
At the same time, an obituary rewinds
Her picture is erased
In loving memory ignores that it ever existed
And the mourning never quite begins
And i see her
Like i had never seen her before

“If my grandma says she’s old, like a elder
What that make you? Ancient, royal, arrived”
There are still too many words tucked into her throat chakra
The weeping receded
effortless , unnoticeable overtime
Like a bald head that has no memory of a weighted skull

She was always all of that
Hand in full conversation to hip
Moving about the kitchen
Listen, there aint nothing like her cookin’
Head cocked, a layer of sass breaks the scale
her smirk, a full prayer
Line of aunties and God’s leading ladies
Her voice erupts the room
Into a full soprano ansemple
Singing
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine
[i mean vocally running alllll over the place]
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine
Let it shine, Let it shine, all the time oh yes

And they asked her
If she was a choir
And if she was a choir
If she were a revival
And if she was a revival
If she were holy

And if she was holy
If she transcends an earthly body
And if she transcends an earthly body
She were God
And if she was God
She was me, my mama, sisters, aunties
All Black/ All womb
And if she were this lineage
She must have been mad connected to the spirit
Have you ever seen a Black woman

surmise the summoning of sinners
Her blood/ mouth open wide
We know how to devour the body and pouring of Christ
On a sunday morning
Right before collection plates clatter for a second time in the same service
Don’t you dare deny an offering
A portion of your riches
That really belong to God anyway
Cause He can pick you up right now,
if you wanna get foolish

Grandma, your daughter, always gave me a $5 bill to drop in the collection plate
And i would be mad cause like i could only give once

Of somebody else’s money

But i was raised in a mantra
Of God is good all the time
& all the time, God is good

And grandma
Great grand, long mother
i don’t mind breaking the 4th wall for you
to say
I love you
I wish i got to spend eternity wide eyes bouncing on your lap
Memorizing your recipes
Holding your heart
With my laughter
& even though i never ever got to meet you
I just wanna say
Thank you
For visiting me in all these poems

For dancing your way into the present
So the future knows exactly what is coming
I am your choir
A full lipped scripture
Inscribed on this black girls tongue
“Life is tough, yes baby but I’m waaay tougher”

Asè

I want to tell a story
But when I open my mouth
Cobwebs and spiders come flying out
I cough up a dead rat, eventually
Who knows how long he’s been in there
But even you can see
The beast start to awaken
You don’t know when it’s coming
But you know that it’s arrived
The second you hear my voice
I speak and cannot stop myself
I don’t close my mouth until they tape it shut again
I become like the dust covered attic
Filled with old memories
But the place where you put the things you don’t want to think about
Or otherwise don’t want to see

I see the exiled poet
standing at the edge
of a roman city
waiting for hungry lions
eastern dragons
or dagger-carrying women
to immortalize his work.

too late
to praise lyrics.
a lifetime lived
to hear nothing.
your words are spit
on flowers planted
next to white stones.

I see your secret fear
you cannot face the elephant
or remind our countrymen
that faith is an Art
lost and found
by souls
standing their ground.

now is too late
to worship our work
and ponder clever clues
to your sorry existence
please do that your damn selves
we do not die to leave instruction
we die to leave you.

O how mighty thee stand
Your pillars intact
Empire of great
But held only by pact

O woe to thee
Who stand before God
And invoke your own despair
By taking to him a prod

You gloat on your wealth
On victories supplied
By the brave and Courageous
On the backs of those long died

Your towers are mighty
Only larger is thy ego
Surely nothing may happen
To those who build their own ergo,

Why doth my walls begin
To crumble under weight
Of all my splendor
And open the floodgate

Flood my land with sorrow
Of barbaric ideals
And curse the sea with blood
And slack lie fisher’s reels

When the empire begins to fall
So to its panic set in
Run! Cry those who were brave
And their screams echo then

Run-Take with you everything
But nothing you have-Run!
What might-Run-you have to save?
Run-when it closes in-Run

Might we-Run-have a chance to
Run-stop and rest our bones
Run- Oh God! Oh God!-Run-
On us-Run-it-Run-Hones

From July Baby

She shares a name with a state he’s never been in.
He loved her name,
and the way she would morph into
her Italian grandmother just to
show him how she says it.
Her close friends shortened it,
but that never interested him.
Just another nod to the fact
he wanted all of her.

He believed in the evil eye
so when people asked him about
his absence on the weekends,
he would redirect the conversation.
Until eventually,
he would give them one hint.
This was his new favorite game.
He would tell them that she shares a name with a state,
then chuckle as they yelled out
Washington?
Colorado!?
Ew, Oregon??
His secret lasted no longer than a few days
before he caved.
Not too long after that,
she walked.
It was around the time of
the midterm elections so for the next couple of weeks,
he heard her name,
but not in the way he grew to enjoy.
It was a bunch of old dudes on the news talking
about how politicians need her to win.
that she was important.
Shit,
of course she is.

A few months later,
he found himself at dinner with somebody else.
He wasn’t ready,
this felt dirty.
Simply just being there
meant that she wasn’t.
She was really gone.

The conversation lay dull and uneventful,
as they ran through the classic first dinner questions.
Not before long,
the new girl asked a question,
that caught his attention.
A question that pulled the right side of his mouth
to his cheek just the slightest bit.
A smile.

She asked him

“If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?”

And for the first time in
way too long,
it was okay for him
to
say her name.

When you think of him,
you think of the smoke
that stung at your eyes.
That which did not technically
form a full fire.
You preferred the tongue
to the flames.
How it hung
out of his open mouth,
how it invited you wide-eyed,
to keep you
under the moon
where your face became slick
with the dusk.
The smoke arched higher
& the soft flesh of your back
smacks the chair that
you found on discount
that one summer.
You had taken turns driving, you & him.
Flipping through radio stations,
bursting through the vivid vocabulary
of paint swatches that you had slipped
into your back pocket
to learn their names:
Paper lantern, drift of mist, soft fern, & him.
Him, your silver lining, your every hue.

It’s quarter to six as I open my eyes
Glimpsing the world through veils
A heavy rain falling and the wind
Turned up way too loud
Pries it’s stiff fingers at the window

There is no sound but the pad of my feet
I make my way to the kitchen
And look out at the tiny yard
Where the oak tree is dressed for weather
And never stuck inside

The milk looks pale and worried
I add a splash to my coffee
The pills on the table
Watch me eat breakfast
A sad thin green vase gives a winks

The dog is content under the table
Yawning with delight
The blue and white tablecloth
Making a dry and safe tent
I say her name-she twists with pleasure

No light is pooling in the window
Raindrops nibble down the windowpane
I sing a song of water
Yes, I’ve been to the well, the river, and the pump
And know my baptism has come

Now I am floating free of myself
Taken root in the backyard
Watching life from beneath the surface
I’ve left you instructions about the dog
On the door of the refrigerator

My heart is lifted

The morbid star
That rises high above
Awakens me from internal slumber

I am a night serpent
Becoming one with the shadows
Who lurk on lonely windowpanes

My mind is an asylum
It was cursed the day
The dead walked among the fire

Ashes to ashes
Ashes to ashes

The air hangs low because of
The stench of burnt skin
My ears bleed red

I am a damned soul that is
Nothing more than a charred
Voiceless black hole

My heart is a dead chamber
Veins thick with tar
I leave a trail of dust when I march

I hunt in nocturnal light
Extracting the life out of
bone and flesh

I only exist to touch
The interior
Of your remains

I want to feel your last breath
In my everlasting grasp
Feel it drain from your pores

Watching your eyes become
Vacant canyons
This is what I breathe for

As death takes over your body
I want to be the last image
You will ever see

Falling from the sky
Floating on the summer breeze
Never land again

Grown from seeds so small
Watered roots spread far and wide
Sturdy was our love

Seasons came and went
When one autumn settled in
Released with the wind

Security lost
All that we had ever known
Traded for freedom

One gust changed our life
Is it a loss or a gain
Never be the same

empty seat again
a scarlet dragonfly stops
and leaves on a breeze