My Hair 01/15

For every season,
a new cut, color or style
makes it way
beyond hollywood tresses
and into the bathrooms
of most of my closer friends.
And, we expect the change,
like hot flashes,
to be bolder than the last,
b/c hair speaks
some inviting language
we often forget
under flat iron steam
and that box 54 gold.
It defines a mood,
hidden under the I don't care
of a hat or scarf,
playfully sophisticated,
flawlessly funky,
and everything in between.
However we chose to wear it,
it's not perception,
not an excuse for psuedo-science
laden with ignorant extensions
of what you don't know;
ain't nothing wrong with me
b/c my hair is as much accessory
as new shoes.
It's all mine,
twisted,
 fro'ed out,
soft,
beautiful,
just like me.

#Nigeria 01/15.

Unselected humanity
papers the floors
of network news,
creasing
under the wait,
jamming office chair wheels
and stopping
business as usual,
for as long as it take
to be remembered
rather than dismissed,
tossed in the trash,
forgotten,
written out of history;
‪#‎Nigeria‬.

How we do. 01/15

Writers
spend time alone,
crowded by the comfort
of coffee shop banter,
seated
in between the next inspiring line
and a 3rd year philosophy student,
we inhale bits of the world,
scratching scraps of today
with a borrowed pen.
Characters dress,
sliding scarves from strangers
and making it a skirt,
and speak too easily
to be forgotten,
assuming headspace
until the unrented pages
of the manuscript
are comfortable enough
to be called home.
Scenes swing,
painting and re-painting
linguistic strokes of background,
of foreground,
of filler.
These wealthy words,
boiling in a waterless pot,
congeal imaginary places
to the reader's mind
and become as real as the taste
of jello in the summer time.
Writers
eek out,
 squealing and halting
until word birth
is paramount to
wherever we were going
and isn't complete
without it; we brake for ink
and let social media
be our inkwell
and our Quill,
scribbling at traffic lights,
before the doctor comes in
or half-time.
We are always inspired,
finding new ways
to smash this human experience
into 26 letters
and a myriad of thesaurus references,
auto-spell checks,
and character limits.
Writers are so much more,
but you may not know,
b/c you didn't notice
the pen
we left behind.

01/15. I'm not a Revolutionary

I'm not a revolutionary.
I live on the edges of revelations,
sitting on top of the cornucopia
and swing my feet for fun.
See, I don't hide between
the braided fibers,
other people's brick and mortar buildings
casting shadows on what I ain't got,
b/c my fingers already bleed enough
to fill the wells of your eyes,
pop those strained vessels
and ask you why are you stuck?
Stuck right there
sucking on pipedreams
that nobody sold you.
See you bought it,
invested your rusted pennies
in day old candy
and ran with happiness,
waited everyday for that fallacy fix.
I'm not a revolutionary.
I get pissed at stupidity,
so angry at ignorance
that I want to teach in the streets,
and you sit there,
drinking Monsters,
toxifying yourself by choice,
acting like I have no rights.
See, I am more than right,
I left,
quit the game,
gave birth to my own metaphysics,
 slipped it into some poet-tea,
and watch you,
b/c my aroma
is an elixir,
stripping you,
sip by sip,
leaving your purchased problems
in a pool
where you won't swim again.
I am not a revolutionary.
I breathe this battle,
the daily maintenance
of managing muse and mastery,
misery and magnificent,
like it's my life,
as if my children and grandchildren
need more than erased history
and incomplete reunion conversations
to make them wholly human,
wholly universal,
holy black.
I am not a revolutionary.

Being Mommy 01/15.

Joy
Smoothes creases
Fm wrinkled, sleeping
Foreheads
Or listens to slumbering silence
And smiles.
Peace
Sinks,
Weightlessly
Between bliss and possibility,
Into us,
Like warm, expansive embers.
Love
Wraps her fingers
Around our fragility
And strokes us to sleep.

01/15. Sacred Places

Sacred places
Swallow our individuality
With swiftness,
Shredding egos
Without the sounds of
Ripping paper,
And set us with ourselves,
An inkling
In the presence of grandeur,
Letting us be.
Sacred places,
Simple stations
Situated in our routine survival,
Anchor us,
Assuredly understanding
That we are and aren't
So much more,
If only when time seems
To cease on a Sunday am;
We are still here.

A dream Deferred. published 00 Poetry's Elite. The best poets of 00.

Pacific crests give birth
to volcanic silence,
sea salt whipsers,
asserting that to listen
is greater than to be heard.

Tablespoons of sunlight
decorate Tahitian clouds,
whipping them,
beating each puff to perfection.

Driftwood quills etch
sand papyrus,
broad strokes,
eaten by the tide,
painting "I love you".

Emergence. First Published in The colors of Life. 2003

Cypha be loosed
and drift fm the moutnais
like ashen morning mist
dressed cautiously in a collection
of last week's tears and volcanic spittle,
Wail in discnotent
as the rapture unearths itself
at your feet
like borrowed Burkenstocks
yet again modling to support,
the fabric of our lives.
Magnificent splendor dusts your trails
as if it were a cross between Hailey's comet
and a falling star,
a directed ascending path convex
to your daily endeavors awaits.

Lies. First published 04 International Who's Who In Poetry

Every dream succumbs to the fairy tale
and twists itself around the shatter truth
lieft behind in our childhood.

Classes laid concrete,
cushion against the angst,
superimposing bourgeois academe
on country familiarity.

Breath inhales words,
straddling the dictionary,
the concept experience brings,
and every moment defining itself.

Relationships saunter
wearing your dad's Doc Martins,
face value unntered in disbelief,
gathered dust like collected books.

Every trust is belayed,
reinvented, gargled like salien
and ingested, only to warrant solitude.

Right Now 11/2/93

Too much is going on

Like the stars you can’t see-

They still glimmer

And twinkle,

But the experience is not yours,

It’s theirs,

The kaleidoscope needs no more turning,

Just plain what’s happenin’ to them

And whatever they feel

Is as real as what you can’t see.

Too much noise

In the way of silences,

Cars trapped by broken lines

Lying fat and not vertical,

Whose horns blow without remorse,

But only a reminder,

Like veins in a rock-

Layer upon layer of history.

Too much time wasted,

Like rebirth of eras past,

Bellbottoms and all,

On luxury and not the harm done,

No paddle to swing at a child

Who has not a reason to be punished

Except eager foolishness.

Too much breadth collecting on windows

And wiped away

By unaccultured, un-American women at night,

Snickered in the hope

Of minor understanding;

All bread has its measure of taste,

Like wine to a connoisseur or a wino

Whose tongues decipher loss of flavor

And tell you its junk.

Text Poetry 08/14

I miss you in a space you don't occupy,

 a picture yet to be hung on the wall, 

but they are merely painted.

 I stand, staring, as if 

whatever you are will transform conversations into a collage, shuffled snapshots

 stepping beyond our lips

 and collecting mileage in trips. 

But I am talking to my sheets

and they haven't your voice. They only listen.

Healing sores

 is picking scabs and changing bandages, 

except emotions can't be peeled away 

and pain doesn't fit neatly under gauze. 

Relationships ask you to unmask the plaster, 

stop filling the cracks. 

Look at the ugliness and find more than crusty dreams?

 Maybe,

 when feeling fit more like a coat and less like skin

 or more like new shoes, not worn slippers. 

Maybe then will there be light.

Impromptu Poetry 07/14

bubbles burst like fireworks,

Snap, crackle, pop,

Splashing down cheeks

Like rivers of joy

And leaving only the scent

Of happiness.

Yeah, that's what growing up is like,

That familiar softness of release

That can both catch and cure us;

More than a pillow but less than hotel beds.

See, living straddles that intimacy and vulnerability are the sheets we lay under,

Wrestle with and wash weekly. Sometimes, we forget to fold them,

But we own them and every crease,

We smell the essence of ourselves in the faded colors and relish in that truth.

Yeah, that's growth,

That's me,

That's you,

Getting more comfortable in us.

And, we watch those bubbles land on the edge of our dreams

Waiting for that moment to pop,

Like exhaling is too much and

Inhaling ain't enough,

Yeah,

Where breathing beyond the pretty is too much,

And we sit,

Silent,

Waiting for choice to choose,

The bubble to burst,

And we sneeze.

Dayum.

The universe is funny.

To My Les. Pulbished on VoicesNet.org

TO MY LES
Yesterday, I cried,
for the crumbling facade
strewn before me
masked in dusk’s twilight
granulated dreams sifting through the undertow,
and all I did was look in the mirror.

Last night, your image grieved my dreams
and haunted me
dismissing my decade
with succinct brevity
questioning my impishness
my backwards desire
to constantly be the actress,
not the artist.

Your voice became
my seed’s father
and we shared creative intimacies
at 2am
webbing inspiration
until only the quilt is left.

Until now,
missing you was like a forgotten eulogy
words addressing death instead of life
and you were a yellowed article,
never scrapbooked,
revisited with every unpacking,
as if you were part of the ritual
sharing a planned space
caught only by death.

In these most lonely hours
you still look out for me,
desperate for me to descend the crystal stair
while you hold my hand
and we laugh.