Sunday, May 17, 2009
Saturday, May 2, 2009
A Very Special One
Greatest Woman in History: A Rock
The woman, a peasant, in the field, worked from dusk to dawn to reap its yield, she dug and planted yam to feed her fam. Sorghum, too, its grass to line the beds where her children lay their heads. Her husband was a farmer, hunter and went off to fight, while the woman kept the home fires alight. She cooked, she weaved. She traded in the market.
She has five children. One grew up; she got married young. The others still lived at home, their skin black and smooth, their smiles big and bright, like their eyes. Another she carried silently within. Then men came with talking sticks, that barked loud fire words. The villagers ran for the forest, tho their flight did them no good. They captured her, she fought and strained. And then tied and bound she was led down to a ship, thrown in its hold, dark and cold.
For forty nites upon the seas, she lay there chained amidst death and disease. When at last she emerged upon the deck, it was in a storm the ship was wrecked; her captors led her to the shore where she would see her Motherland nevermore. She was bought and sold to work a field not her own, when the sixth child was born. The last member of her old fam, so the master let her grow then sold her to another man.
Raped and sold at twelve the girl caught hell, beat and worked like a mule, reviled for her black skin. Preached at, raped again, the women took her in. She planted and plucked the cotton, she hated her life. One day she ran away and ran and ran until she was free. Then she went back. She returned to her old plantation, saw her momma’s face, in the dark. Her mother’s broken gaze by the dim fire light.
That nite she stole away, with her mother close behind, running, until they were beyond the reach of slavery.
The girl went back. No longer a girl anymore, she returned time and again until she stole away with three hundred men, women and children. A thief, a bounty on her head. Stealing property from wealthy slave owners. She traveled with a gun, on her railroad, underground.
She peeled the caps of the Confederates; behind enemy lines, disguised as a washerwoman, she signaled the Union spies. Slave girl, runaway, mother redeemer, Mata Hari.
Her children grew. One came to rule in Liberia far away. Another girl who once knew slavery, grew into a woman, started a business with her man. They grew influential, their plan to lead their community. Then instability. The crackers rose, burnt the town, lynched her man, the people fled. She wept and bled a rage that burned within all her living days. Jim Crow ruled the world when five crackers raped her then. She gave birth to a girl.
A girl became a woman who watched Jim Crow shrink, it never really disappeared. However, she raised a family and those she reared came along in a new age. She joined a movement called Black Power. Instead of the cracker mob the police took the job to lynch her man. They shot up her house, killing a party captain. Her man, drugged by a snitch lay in bed; the cops dragged him out and put a bullet in his head. She fled before the pigs made a tomb for the baby in her womb. Underground and on the run, she gave birth to her first, and last.
Another generation born. That girl became a woman whom, for reasons unknown, strayed from the path which marked her way. She, from a line so proud and bold, broke down in the dark cold winter of the racist summer, picked up the pipe, smoked the crack and never turned back. She sucked and whored thru the streets, never finding rest for her feet or her head. Raped, bobbed, beaten. Homelessness. Sometimes she went dirty begging for money, ended up in jail. Out, on the bricks, suckin you kno what for a few dirty dollars from tricks, lifting wallets and stuff. Her babies raised by the eldest of five, if that aint jive tell me who is going to make sure they thrive.
Eldest daughter started slinging, got caught up in the slaughter, took a fall from the government war against us all. And now she went to prison where she somehow came into another understanding of her place in this world. Lots of lessons to learn there yet she tried Jesus, then somewhere a book that turned her life around. When she got loose things had changed. The world appeared different. Her mother, beat down, broken cracked out still. Her sisters and brothers, some were well and some were ill. This one picked up and trod a different road, the road to liberty in a land where freedom was built on slavery.
Dreadlocks, cowries shells, sound of the cow bells and congos, the rhythm runs deep.
A woman standing up for liberation against injustice. Fighting for her children. Women raped in the Congo, she fights for that to end. Women, old women, who lost their pensions and homes and families in the financial swindles tear at her heart. Refugees from Darfur, in a strange land, their women dragging children behind them, clothed in headscarves and ankle-length skirts, arrive at the welfare office where she greets them and tries to make them feel at home. Lesbians turned out by their families. Runaway school girls at the bus depot, scooped up by her before the pimps suck their blood. Families without healthcare, they need a fighter, too.
Any woman working, feeding and clothing her family. Any woman, loving her man. Any woman, liberating her nation and standing tall against the odds, bleeding Harriet Tubman, Samora Machel, Mumia Abu-Jamal. The African Woman, the future, our mothers and lovers, our sweetest comfort when we BLACK MEN stand up and strike for right! When you have touched the women, you have struck a mountain.
For our Sisters. Eternal love and respect.
Monday, April 20, 2009
FROM THE DESERT OF MY SOUL
My soul was a desert
then you walked thru
my soul was an empty place
filled with ravens
lizards and hyenas ravaged there
then you walked thru
my soul was dry
there was no water there
no laughing no tears
there was no place like it
and nothing in it to love.
My soul was a desert
where the badlands ruled
my soul was a hard pasture
filled with cracked earth
and dry springs
sandstorms ruled there
lightening
a pitiless sun
and no laughing
no love
there was no tenderness in it.
My soul was a sinkhole
filled with mountains cast down
my soul was a pit
worms and varmints burrowed there
floods disappeared into it
leaving no trace
of having ever been
and no one
dare explore its depths.
Then you walked thru.
You stayed awhile
unafraid fearless
turned my soul into a garden
a place of refuge from the wilderness
the dunes disappeared
the badlands shrunk
now fresh springs gurgle
and shade trees bend gently to the breeze
gorgeous birds sing amid the plants.
All because of you.
Now my soul
is a paradise a site
where joy screams with love
peace thrives
my soul a place
where an invitation
always opens
nobody wants
nobody suffers.
You walked thru.
Stay awhile
stay as sweet as you are.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Who Will Unite the Family of Sufferers
Who will unite the family
of Sufferers all they see,
families fighting neighbors
in strife, street sets knifing and
shooting over contested turf as
war elephants that once crossd the
Alps languish in z/o/o/s and the
BLACKS who drove them, Slaves.
Kefing in retirement, lost nerve
left his taste for the battle the art
of what he does best, what he kno
and he kno why when the face
of Oppression wears no hood no
mask, comes at us looking human.
Kefing. Maroon general yesterday
commando mon capitan legendary
leitmotif of revolutionary artifice
steppd back from the fray, keen to
bosses dogging workers, defiant of
presidents imprisoning Africans and
bombing isles, fighting striving for
principles ethics liberation
ethics sans morality, meantime a
majority immoral contracts America
to transparent lies, indignance feignd
over a president fallen, in the polls.
The president, the Beast, a pike
in his hand, his snake eyes gaze
from atop the heights upon a World
for conquest ripe. Who will unite
the family of Sufferers all:
they see conflict and for what
do they struggle except a
World in disorder our own world
forfeit, & surfeit to Shaytaanz Cause...
Souls bought and sold for a mess
of porridge a barrel of oil a kilo
of paste between some borders or on
a city block; your mother on the corner
working the street, your brother in
that window robbing her house and
you in the cut slinging this poison.
A family of Sufferers, all you see
hundred dollar Jordans a fresh Polo
shirt and a merc camouflaged as a
housewife anxious to bail when the
Beasts lock you down in SCI. A cell,
Pelican Bay, now a world away from
your picturesque living room in the
midst of the City, the bank house
parkd in a hi-rise and your Lexus
gliding over a raggd street while
a certain old ladys tired feet scurry
to carry her groceries home to safety
which your keen eyes never peepd.
Somebodyz grandmother, and her
daughter caught up in The Slaughter
that you call The Game, player. So
far so good, none of the fiends you
sling to has crackd her olden head–
no neighborhood walking dead,
none have broke wild for her purse
on Sunday morning along her way to
church praying to a Jesus who aint
trying to hear no begging saint. A
white Christ a white god a red Santa
or Satan on a Christmas producing
no Jordans for grandma's tired dogs.
Who want to hear that nowhere shit.
Conscientious, grandma cares for
Feyshelle's kids, 'cause girl caught
up in the street. Who repeatd that lie
five percent truth and the rest lies
white lies black lies statistics what
made you believe Kefing makes
any difference and this postal slop
means less to him than agitprop(?)
a nonpaying job, an occupation not
on paper not yielding ends not
giving up any liquidity or financial
dividends. Not gonna help grandma
feed Feyshelle's kids no matter
what yo. Polemics in a community
whose leaders the church the city
the police the pimp the hustler
the barbershop owner and the
Mason recognize nothing you say
you dead-ender, we'd rather listen
to a damn jitterbug, stop that Black
Revolution, aint no revolution, its
Obama and Steele and Condi.
Its big bank giveaways and Hilfiger
a fresh cut and a fine dyme honey
for my money and a whole lot more!
And Feyshelle's kids on an empty
lot collecting bottles while she
tricks for hustlers and ballers turnt
out, foisting her kids on grandma,
you talking sucker shit about a
Black Revolution and Feyshelle
yet holding onto her good looks
getting high, and we counting
money, We Counting Money
WE COUNTING MONEY
no time to read books.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The Ability
These things Ive known inside of me has been Dormant, for instance my artistic ability Ive always had a passion for expression, writing, and art well I say to myself life happens, and you have other things on your agenda, I told myself before the second half of my life I will be getting to this...mind you I'm not that old, but I desire to make a living off my passion Whispering art is a blog of expression.
