BLACK PEARL
Heart-shaped Africa is the axis of my ancestral roots.
I am a black pearl mixed with the dust of
a violet moon and brown sugar baptized in fire.
My rose-purple lips praise the faith of my
Great grandmothers whose heartstrings never
Cracked when singing the Black Folk’s blues.
My voice is the bitter cry of many oceans
And crossroads. My tears are uprooted trees
Longing for sacred firewater. My soul is
Entombed with the allure of lavender
Pouring from the gifts of dawn.
I have torn down that massive veil
Which made me feel my existence
Was once a problem. I will not bend.
Be harnessed. Kept silent. Be forbidden
To bear my own fruits or to dance
With the constellations.
My story will be told without the putrid
Disgust of hatred. Africa did not make
An outcast out of me. Why does
My Blackness still petrify you!
Am I not the first daughter of the night?
Roseland Taxi Dancer
I am unknown in a madcap crowd
In Roseland where loneliness is
The most popular stranger
Wearing the true face of a lie
Playing taxi dancer with the blues
Where jazz is the epiphany of poetry
I dance with you when no one can get
In your head once you are out of reach
Out of town Out of sight Out of mind
I listen to the woes of those who squandered
Cherished kisses from a whirlpool of deceit
With ingratiated flattery and hype
You can’t get everything by giving nothing
But I will love you only when we dance
A fearless waltz or a seductive tango
Your mood swings are my songs:
How profound when someone
With wit knows your worth
Whispering, “Return home
Where your sea legs belong.”
And I, a seagull, old as stale bread,
Smiled like a lovable pirate.
Veils & Walls
he wanted
her veil off
to see
the features
she wanted
his walls out
to feel
the space
The Immigrant’s Tale
I am a descendant of the Mother of Exiles:
An immigrant of weavers whose roots from
The Old Heartland saw the world as a loom
And used the imagination to be one’s destiny.
Most seafaring dreamers were purged
By vicious monarchs who treated us
Like slaves, putrid cheese, or thieves.
We were the mules and wetbacks chained
To cruel machines that catered to
An abyss of the ultra-rich and vile!
We were born in painful debt and
Wealth was an alluring mistress.
We were carried by an enormous wind of
Adventure, grit, and risks. We clung to
Hope to survive the storms of humble
Beginnings. I am that hungry refugee
Walking among the shadows – that
Street vendor with a heavy load of
Humor and cosmic irony bearing
Witness to the moronic hatred and
Privilege fears of the unknown.
We are still a labor of love in progress.
THE PLANET OF GLASS
It was a planet made of glass, homeless art,
Mixed nuts, plastics and mirrors; a place,
Where time lost its aura when nostalgia was
Outlawed for indulging in deathbed regrets
While some humanoids stool public trial
For stealing wisdom from
Long forgotten enchanting books.
This was an atrocious crime
The Medium could ever forgive.
What was their crime? Was it merging the
Eyes with the mind to meet the imagination.
Or seek warmth from naked ambitions
To be seduced by the human spirit.
No! It was a foolish attempt to be child-like
And kiss a bankrupt smile in a museum
Of wonder to learn to laugh anew and
Perhaps feel intimacy before daring
To ask life for its soulful meaning.
For this, all humanoids were poisoned with
Mortal doubt to taste repenting desires and
Give way to all flesh before succumbing to
Those frantic dust of metallic lungs called Man.
THE UNSEEN
Life’s but a walking shadow and thereby hangs a tale. Macbeth by William Shakespeare
They are quite often stared at but hardly seen crawling
Into night near your home, school, or office yet they
Who are so many do not hide inside their clothes or
Conceal themselves in sleep for these are the unseen
Mushroom ranks of faceless platoons and dehydrated
Souls with dry burnt lips and downcast sterile eyes
Who stumble endlessly like be shadowed bundles
Of curled laundry thrown out of the commonplace
To scramble nowhere where the horror is a mellow
Rhythm for abandoned hearts who rot in idleness
Like desperate flower-heads planted in the dark
They commit their hunger to the crimes of scavengers
By hustling pity with hands roped around their faces
To smuggle the past in a huge luggage of memories
Full of cigarette butts and ashes so they could bribe
Insatiable death and pawn old age for the silly little
Things while fading off before the naked eye