Listening to music differently

There’s something in the blues that moves my everything—my skin, my spirit—in that familiar, Langston Hughes lazy sway kind of way. But this morning, I noticed the music, though it sounded the same, still running over with the yearning of a drought-plagued South for rain in July, its affect on me was different. The blues pulls at the heart, paints over pain as a lover, bitter but sweetly, says good bye to her love. My body still swayed, my fists still clenched to almost white, but my heart did not move beyond me. I have been heading to this place for some time—this place where music can be enjoyed and felt without having a direct connection to my current state: I don’t have the blues. My man loves me, lays with me, and the sun shines through his smile. There is no wish in me for the blues to burn, for the love to be returned or loved harder. I only want to continue to feel, to move as the current of a lethargic, forgotten body of water, to listen as the river speaks to me through the weary, I-been-born-to-roll-on-and-die, just-feel-me-cuz-ain’t-nobody-else-feelin-me blues. Because what beautiful shades of blue.

just a thought

Poetry has become a type of reward. I do my work. I work hard and well. I maintain focus, though it is at times like pulling teeth. Becoming a critic is an interesting thing, especially considering that, as a poet, I have only ever wanted to appreciate. The effort is there. The writing is getting better, tighter. The effects can be seen in the lines. Let me say to you or to me, I mean, this is my blog, that my relationship with poetry is the most sincere, most intimate, and perhaps the most sacrificing I have ever been in. Forrest Hamer, my sweet friend and mentor, he knows well of this. Apparently, it's normal. But I'm running here. I just touch keys to say that I am smiling inside. There is a poem behind this screen and freelance articles to be revised. I am a working writer who knows well of love. It is learning to maintain it, in all of its moods and colors, that I still must learn to know better.

Lizz Wright's The Orchard gets prose poetry out the wannabe critic

Being moved by good music is like being loved by a good man. I should know. My man is love, is music. And when my man’s words love me, ain’t no sound more better, more like life. I hold my breath sometimes just to hear them, feel them, feel him better. I do the same thing when it comes to good music. Cuz ain’t nothing between me and these songs but the same kinda distance that’s between my man and me, so I hold to these songs, their words like I hold to the smell of him, like without it, I just, I just fold in on myself, curl my body around the memory of him cuz he was once in the this very space and in this very space I didn’t really curl my body around him right, enough. I just get moved by good music, by Lizz singing those sexy come-lay-with-me blues: I wanna make love to you/when the lights are low/scream to you babe/just to let you know/all I want/is just a little touch from you/just a little bit attention/you know is gonna see me through . . . . and I smile cuz I got a good man lovin me whose good lovin hands I’ll be fillin soon. I smile. I smile and I manage to keep myself together as her blues become mine and mine never mind the feelins. They get a voice so good, my lips part as the music steps out of me to sing words I can hold on to.

Why Black History Month

"If the branch is to flower, it must honour its roots." Titinga Frederic Pacere

I was told by a “diluted” Caucasian (her word, not mine) that there should be no Black history month. I tried to listen, to be open to her ideas, but I couldn’t. I shut her down with the Black hand side before I even shook my head in uncertainty to what I’d actually just heard tumble from her lips.

I believe her explanation was something like ‘Black history being American history and having a month set aside for something that is the whole country’s is silly.’ But like I said, I turned from cool, unthreatening Sam to a force to be reckoned with, to much darker than my yellow skin suggests. I turned into a representative, something I have never quite been fond of but this girl who refers to herself as diluted, who actually gave voice to such self-hatred, while I’m thanking my white momma every day that she married daddy and birthed ain’t-too-proud-to-speak me.

I spoke. Of sober mind and body, I spoke to the very sweet though very ignorant girl. I asked her what she knew about Black history that didn’t involve the physical enslavement of my people (no way the girl had a clue about mental bondage though she was obviously dying of it herself). I asked her what she could tell me about Black history that didn’t involve Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, or Malcolm X. I asked her to name me five, just five, Black authors. She sat in silent ignorance, my voice smothering her bliss, the confines of my car holding it to her face to smell. She knew she stunk. She knew she misspoke. She has been overly sensitive ever since.

Your Average Black Chick

It's snowing in Central New York this evening. Syracuse to be exact.

I know because I just ran out with the trash when something begged and begged me not to run back. My hair was uncovered, as black as the sky where the snow is falling from. I realized on the walk back to my apartment, some 50 feet away, that I'm just your average black chick. Despite what the profile pic may suggest with that hair, that wild and free hair. It was part of my Halloween costume. I went as a poet; for me, the hair fit. Not to mention I was coming well past due for a perm; the hair just kinked and curled by nature. But it's not my usual. I'm a roller wrap kinda girl. Always have been.

The point is that under my night-black, iron-pressed wig, I, your average, homegrown black chick, actually stopped in the snow. The snow. Snow hits like water, and I was taught well, hence why I ran to the dumpster.

But on the walk back, it came to me: running in the snow, as if I could run from it, dodge it in some superhuman way, is such a silly action and an even sillier idea. Why not walk? As a sista, I've been running from rain damn near my whole adult life. And I mean running for real, like an escape convict with other folks' eyes at every window and sirens in earshot. So crazy, right.

I stood in the snow for longer than a moment. Felt its flakes kiss the crown of my head, and even muscled the audacity to look up. To let the cold, white pieces of longevitiy kiss me, as a friend who is also a lover would. I smiled, embarassed and upset with myself that I had been running all this time just too proud to be your average black chick.

Silly me. As if beauty can be seen ducking and dodging and running from rain and its cousin, the snow. Silly me. Beauty is best seen when she is standing still.

My Old Kentucky Home

There is something quite frightening about going home in 3days. I think it is because I am looking forward to it so much. Kentucky is one of those good and comfortable places, where you can be you all by yourself or with the world, either way, there's joy: Because it's Kentucky and Kentucky is God's country. I think it has to do with the place, as a whole. Its comfort and goodness can be devastating, especially to a young thang like myself. Damn state, calls its folk back till they come back. And here I am, going back. Again. First time I left, it was for California. I kissed the ground and spoke praise to the stars my first night back in that country.

I think it is important for young people, young adult people to remember that their parent's home doesn't have to be theirs as well. I remind myself that my parents settled in Kentucky to love each other loudly and to raise a family. They have successfully done both. So well in fact, that their house is still very much my own. I remind myself, however, that this is just the holidays, this is the time to go back but that one day, going back will begin from my home, in some other part of God's country (not just His Kentucky). And I will keep reminding myself of such a fact because so I don't get sucked into Kentucky like so many folk I know, so I keep my thangs movin' in a direction all my own. . .

Throwback piece from October '05:

Homecoming
I am nervous.
I am 20 stories above
snapshots of you
in my head and ready

to belly-up myself,
my harvested complexion
yielding to your nature.

But I am fighting the wind
with punches
as if it can feel my blows,
as if I have strength enough

to knock
the wind out the wind. Ha.
Nervous talk.

Because we both changed
since I left.
We fell forward into change.
You call it season.