Whenever
I am with you
my heart folds into songs
my mouth can’t sing
every time
I see you
there are
images of the sun
melting on a black woman’s skin
and
every time you
touch me
beloved
I become a wind of
water falling from rocks
I become a firefly
in a dark night
singing about
your luminescence
Photo Credit: unknown
All Rights Of The Artist is Reserved
Let’s talk about
hand in hands
heart in a rainbow cloud
the first chapter of love
I seek you in fields of
bulrushes and sinking sands
and offer you a part of me
filled with dreams,
full fledged warmth of safety,
dance in the feet of a toddler,
laughter in an empty room,
kisses and caresses dented
in a body devoid of light,
a black god in the skin of a leopard
waning magic round the crescent moon
Let’s talk about that love.
Photo Credit: Unknown
All Rights Of The Artist Is Reserved
Dear Black Girl,
I can’t wait to
sunbathe in your
melanin ocean once again.
The bell rings and voices echoe into their shelter
A mother weeps,
watching her child gasp for air in a world where learning to hold the wind is not a problem
A father feeds on crumbs of bread and nurse his emotions in a bottle of whiskey, another way he was taught to be a man.
The world collides in translucent dreams
and the mirror on the wall breaks into pieces of open wounds
still she sits in the midst of
flowers with mouth for gun
and stitch her broken heart
the only way she knows how
Behind closed doors
are many stories unheard
The bell rings and voices crawl back into their haven.
Photo Credit: Unknown
All Rights Of The Artist Is Reserved.
Today,
I woke up with
A syrup of black gold on my tongue
Pieces of black diamonds all over my bed
Powder of black ornament all over my chest
Pearls of black rubies sitting in my mind
A sweet mixture of
Where I come from
The rainbow pattern of
my ancestral route
The pulchritudity of the black race
Am I allowed to feel
The tenderness of my rich culture
and tell you boldly why my eyes lights up like the
Lantern of the Photuris firefly
With my head held high like the Giraffe?
No need to get beyond
The lines of how panther
weaved this intricate web of glory
with a single stroke of valour
When you see
My Nubian sisters
You’ll get to know
Why our drums beat
with insistent thunderous rhythm
You’ll get to know why
Our head is often held high
like the branches of the baobab tree
Not ready to fall for any penny
I woke up with
A syrup of black gold in my mouth
Pieces of black diamonds on my feet
Now tell me
am I not beautifully ebonyic?
Photo Credit – Unknown
All rights of the artist is reserved.
So he took time to revisit
your body again like an antique,
First it was the gallery in your mind,
This time, you’re a poem
for him to read and understand
For him to delve into it receptacle of warmth,
For him to dive into it spring and oasis around your shore,
appreciate the diction in your eyes,
the metaphors on your breast,
the similes around your curves,
the run on lines on your lips,
the rhetorical questions in your steps,
the euphemism in your laughter,
the metonomy in your left thigh,
the theme in which you wrap your lines around his neck.
Since you dismissed darkness
by showing your teeth,
glittering like a fiery furnace
men have run from their huts
just to sit beside you
so you can show them
the mystery of hiding the sun in your mouth,
of capturing rainbows in your eyes,
of sheltering whispers of wind in your palm.
Of flavouring your tongue with the sweetness of rain,
of making your breast a haven for ‘twinkle stars’
But
Since this poem is about you
I’ll sit under the canopy of your voice so you can continue…
Photo Credit – Unknown Artist
All rights of the artist is reserved.
My prayers ain’t healing the world
My mother,
sister,
father,
brother,
they stopped kneeling every morning
“these prayers are filth washed under the ground” they said.
I’m trying to pray for redemption without choking on my tears.
I’m trying to pray for freedom for the one we have is not enough to turn us into fireflies.
You see my blackness and
I am undeserving of life
it’s all over your face
it’s in your voice
it’s in the way you spit my name out of your mouth.
I don’t want to live holding funerals for my oppressors in my chest while you bury my people in front of me
my chest hurts
my head hurts
I want to breathe
I don’t want to be Eric Garner
I don’t want my father to be Alton Sterling or my neighbour, another Philando Castile
I don’t want my sister, a Sandra Bland
I don’t want my mother to be Diamond Reynolds who had to swallow her screams and tears for fear for being shot beside her already shot boyfriend
I don’t want to be the four year old at the back of the car who had to watch her father bleed to death and her mother immobile
nor the one who saw his father being shot in the chest on the internet
I don’t want to.
I, a son of a black man don’t want to die for being black.
I, a daughter of a black woman don’t want to die for being black.
I, too am hungry for freedom beyond the one we have.
Look out for the moon
when it rains at night
it might just be hiding
under the shadows of
the blue and white clouds
Look out for the moon
when it rains and you will
find me sitting on its shoulders
waiting to be rescued by
your radiant smile.
Photo Credit – Unknown
Copyright Of The Artist Is Reserved.
Art comes in many shades;
Scarlet letters and handwritings
left to breathe alone on abandon houses,
Once Upon a Sundream, how a book of poetry and black coffee became each others companion,
A half blue moon and a yellow dancing sun who is not willing to burn the world into ashes,
An Unfinished poem and a woman carrying a baby with a gun in hand,
Tattoos that resembles fire and water and broken mirrors left to heal by themselves,
Darkness making love to light,
Stars listening to the heartbeat of the moon,
That is a million poem breathing fire
That is art.
Photo Credit: Unknown
All rights of the artist is reserved.
When you meet someone
who makes you dream of
following the stars at night
when there are none,
watch the sea silently breathe
at the back of your left ear
as you listen to poems in whispers,
poems dip in honey and milk
with their hands on your thighs
and their voice inside your heart
while you sip on black coffee and allow them to transform your body into a river of poems.
Photo Credit- Unknown
All rights of the artist is reserved.
The Hands Of A Lonely Boy 