Underneath it all, the book...part 1

This morning I awoke with his voice tickling my eardrums. "Wake up,Selah" he said with a smile. I loved the melody of my name rolling off of his tongue. It sounded like a volcano. Heat mixed with a myriad of colors, swirling and twisting on airwaves until they reached my ear where it would cool and blow across my body like ash. I could hear the joy in his recanting. It made me wonder if there was anything more perfect than me being the first thing on his mind. It started this way three months ago. He'd call me in the morning before we both rushed off to our busy days, talk about the things we had to do during the hours we weren't together. Each day we touched base three times to keep us sane. Jerrod was my touchstone. Connecting me to a world that knew nothing about me but was ready to trample me under it's hard and heavy boots.

I stay woke

Have you ever been involved with someone that absolutely drains you of your creativity, motivation and ambition? I have. It's a dark power that will wrap it's arms around you (bear hug like) and squeeze you until you pass out into a haze of quiet. In your stupor, you notice everything... slowly. Your mind doesn't function as swiftly because you're not aware that you're asleep.



I was listening to Erykah Badu's new cd, "New Amerykah" and I'm so impressed with the song, "Master Teacher" because it embodies all of what I've been feeling lately. I don't know anyone that can write a song about massive ignorance, wrap it in a melody and spit it out like a bird feeding it's chicks an evening feast.

Fortunately this song caught me and snapped me out of my stupored haze. I've had several epiphanys as a result. They are as follows:

There are too many people willing to sit on your dreams, crush your spirit and drag you down to their level.

Don't let them

You have to want something so badly for yourself that no obstacle stands in your way.

If an obstacle does appear, go over, around, through or set that bitch on fire.

Reach as many people as you can, touch lives and change something for someone with your choices.

Focus

Everything you wish is attainable. God has written it, it is so. Predestined greatness. You are a master teacher. Stay woke.

Maybe not

I've been reading a lot lately and I've found one thing to be so totally and intrinsically true. You can't post people's poems all willy nilly. Especially if they're in the process of putting it in a magazine or other publication for publishing. I never knew that, and that's is absolutely ...well I'll not go there. In any case, I will just use my poor little blog to talk to you all in cyberspace.

I'm working on some creativity workshops. This has to be the most interesting thing I've done in a while but my focus is just not here. The more I tell myself to become more focused and disciplined, the less focused and disciplined I become. My "boss" came in here a while ago bringing another person from another somewhere to look at my students and see what they were doing, like they're science experiments or something. She walked around the class, looking at the logos they were designing shaking her head, nodding and asking questions. My students generally hate that. I'm pretty sure too, that this woman was not introduced by title or whatever position she's supposed to be occupying or applying for. They may be trying to replace me. Oh well. I'm ready to go out with a blaze of glory...well not literally, I'm just ready to go. My students and I were all counting and it's about 40+ days until the end of school. Everyone is ready.

This Moment

by: jaha Knight


I walked with you today
cold and breathless
through evening fog
Wandering through
the mists of fantasy

I played with the
crisp lips of imagination
Sprinkled dust through
the eager embrace
of forever

Made the stardust fade
from eyelids soft
and veined
each shape
like moon crescent
apologies
Crooked

Hinting at
your sins
hidden with
tennis shod feet
stepping away
from

misdeeds
mistrusts
misogyny
misgivings

I'd voice
loudly
clanging each word
with emphasis
"I don't love you"

chasing your back
shivering up
bones
settling in
like mildewed
dandelions

Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

by: Leroi Jones

Lately, I've become accustomed to the way
the ground opens up and envelops me
Each time I go out to walk the dog.
Or the broad edged silly music the wind
Makes when I run for a bus--

Things have come to that.

And now, each night I count the stars,
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted
I count the holes they leave.

Nobody sings anymore.

And then last night, I tiptoed up
To my daughter's room and heard her
Talking to someone, and when I opened
The door, there was no one there...
Only she on her knees,
Peeking into her own clasped hands.


When you're weary and a bit jaded, you can see all the tragedies in the world. The beauty that is right there in front of you, wrapped in tufts of simplicity seem to evade you. It seems that in this poem, Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) is talking about how he'd become a bit disillusioned and then the simple act of a prayer and the faith of his daughter gave him hope and brought back a bit of light. I love this poem, it inspires me to want to write. Let's hope I can come up with something just as haunting.
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LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) is a poet, writer, political activist and teacher. He was born in 1934, in Newark, New Jersey. He graduated from Howard University in 1953, and published his first major book of poetry, Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note, in 1961. He founded Totem Press in 1958, which first published works by Kerouac, Ginsberg and other lesser-known writers of the time period.

In 1968, LeRoi Jones changed his name to Amiri Baraka in reverence of his Muslim beliefs. He has taught at several universities, and continues to write to this day.

Alfred A. Duckett

Sonnet

Where are we to go when this is done?
Will we slip into old, accustomed ways,
finding remembered notches, one by one?
Thrashing a hapless way through a quickening haze?

Who is to know us when the end has come?
Old friends and families, but could we be
strange to the sight and stricken dumb
at visions of some pulsing memory?

Who will love us for what we used to be
who now are what we are, bitter cold?
Who is to nurse us with swift subtlety
back to the warm and feeling human fold?

Where are we to go when this is through?
We are the war-born. What are we to do?

Alfred A. Duckett is the african-american writer pictured above. He wrote the aforementioned poem, Sonnet. I had to share this poem because of its haunting poignancy. I have the tendency to write poetry that catches you in the beginning and works hard to keep the imagery in your mind since your attention has been snagged but this poem is a the reverse. I love the way he starts off gently and builds the crescendo until the end. The last line makes you want to sob for the lonely lost people in the poem. They can be your next door neighbor, survivor of the Haulocast,

Poetry is a voice for the voiceless...

"Amidst the tearing and screaming, hope lingers between black and white lines, between the grandeur of what we long for and the squalor that presses cruel against the heels of the surviving spirit." -Staceyann Chin

I've long thought about what to do with my blog. Should it contain the ramblings that I have been known for? Or should I do something more emphatic with the opportunity that I have to give voice to other poets whose work I greatly admire? I've decided. My poet SPEAK blog will discuss, enumerate and expound on the greatest poets I've found and I'll include the works that I admire with an interpretation of the words that so greatly move me.

Am I a scholar? No, I'm a poet. I know what I think about the words. If you too have an interpretation of these things poetic, I'd love for you to share that with me so that we may have that dialogue on this blog. Let's create a community of poets and poetry aficionados here that are willing to share their voice so that we too may make the world change.