Eleven Shades of a Black Girl

Against the heated sands of a summer beach,
She is bronze.
And in the shade of a summer tree,
She is cinnamon.
With cherry blossoms in her midnight hair,
She is honey.
And with roses in her caramel palms,
She is chocolate.
When the falling leaves of autumn lay against her legs,
She is almond butter.
And by the glowing blaze of a winter fire,
She is coffee.
By the light of morning's rays,
She is brown sugar.
And by the pale moonlight of night,
She shines toffee.
And when the moon is new,
Her silhouette is black
Against the radiant stars.




*This is my poetry. Please do not copy the text, reuse it or plagiarize. Thanks!

Building the Line

“Chain ten more” nanny says as we sit,

And I watch as her hands
single crochet, double, treble, popcorn and
Cluster stitch lifeless yarn into lustrous intricate design.
Watching is part of the process, as did my aunts
And so mother as well.
We are learning to grow with her on our shoulders.
Small, damp fingers fumbling with sticky wool
Until they move steady and the string flows like water through my palms.
When I have one-hundred chains
I teach cousin how to chain
And we sit quietly as time grows on
She, watching my hands
I, watching nanny’s hands
As we slowly build her up.



*This is my poetry. Please do not copy the text, reuse it or plagiarize. Thanks!

Isabel, Daughter of Abra

The space in time won’t thwart your aging cries,
Her flesh, like fire, it seemed a sin to hold.
And though your hearth in embers ever dies,
Your babe remained unguarded in the cold.

Your daughter’s cinders grew and flamed in anger,
Forever veiling frost too chill to bear.
And now to her you will remain a stranger,
Begging He to spare her in your prayers.

He says you must see Him before your child,
So her His way you showed as best you could.
But her soul remained as dang’rous as the Wild,
So you to her will stay misunderstood.

His path you step to enlighten all mankind,
The one you cherish most forever blind.


*This is my poetry. Please do not copy the text, reuse it or plagiarize. Thanks!

Already Sleeping

Daughter,
I am jealous
Of your beating heart
For you say I have none
And that is why I am awake
Standing at the foot of your bed
And you are already sleeping
Fighting me in your dreams
Your heartbeat keeps me awake
At night
It pounds, gently until the darkness
Shakes with it
And I watch you, jealous
My old feet, cold on your mahogany floor,
Jealous
Because you sleep at night
Without knowing that I have none
Because I gave it away, for you.


This poem is in Volume 49, Edition 1 of the
University of Puget Sound Crosscurrents Literary Review.
*All Rights Reserved*

Collateral

Not a father, but a dad.
I think sometimes
You take this act of charity too seriously.
Maybe this bastard child
Would rather be
A bastard child
Than remain the object of a love that hurts:
Unconditional, unwarranted…
Unwanted?
Your kind of love,
Is the catalyst for war
Because no one can change
My blood into yours.
This war makes a casing out of your heart
And I your only collateral.
Your arms warm and open for always,
I come weeping to them,
Before the smoke has cleared.


*This is my poetry. Please do not copy the text, reuse it or plagiarize. Thanks!

Three Generations of Soul Food

Grandaddy’s on the porch,
chewin’ tobacco in front of little cousin Eva,
talkin’ ‘bout old ways to work and old ways to make things and old ways to raise things.

Big Ma’s in the kitchen,
bakin’ remedies and fryin’ corncakes with the lard
from yesterday’s bacon.

Pa’s in the study,
sweatin’ hard-earned figures onto coffee-stained pages,
sweatin’ food into our bellies.

Mama’s in the garden
Tearin’ at ‘bama’s red soil,
So that tomorrow we can have some collards with our chops.

And I am listening,
To wet tobacco hit dry earth,
To hot grease sizzle in a 60-year-old cast iron pan,
To money put food on the table,
To the rip of root from soil,

And my spirit grows with it.


*This is my poetry. Please do not copy the text, reuse it or plagiarize. Thanks!

Summer Reflection

I have always considered my family to be on the unconventional side - in a big way. Most of my relatives live their lives on the edge of religious fanaticism in a place that most of America has left behind if not forgotten. My fellow college peers would look on their lives and think them poor, culturally deprived and unhealthy, while they consider themselves blessed because they have not let riches and the ways of the world pull them from God. During my childhood summers, down in the Alabamian south, my grandparents and aunts raised me with a firm discipline that I both feared and respected. Even though my mother fled to California to escape their religious admonishments she still raised me with the strongest discipline. Whenever I went over to my other friends' homes I thought them lucky becuase of how relaxed their parents were. It seemed that kids my age were always aloud to do so much more than I ever was. I always stared in amazement whenever I saw my friends arguing with their parents or talking back to them. That was simply unheard of in my family! It seems that kids these days only get grounded for breaking the rules - like breaking curfew or lying about your whereabouts or drinking or drugs...but never for speaking disrespectfully to their parents.
My family has always seemed weird and overly disciplinarian to me and never until this summer have I fully understood or respected them more for raising me the way that they did (even though I still think that they are a bit cooky).

This summer I lived between two houses: My boyfriend Ben's house, and at the house at one of my highschool friends. Both of their families were the type of families that I had idolized during childhood. They both lived in two-parent homes, my girlfriend's mother has divorced and remarried and had more children, and Ben's parents have been together all his life. They lived in nice houses with backyards. They have both lived in those houses long enough to plant trees and grow substantial gardens - to me a mark of stability and the comfort of permanence. I have moved 13 times, not including the time I moved to college. We never had time to plant any trees...and if we did we never saw them reach full bloom. Their families represented all of the stability and financial comforts that my family's dysfuntions could not offer and I thought finally, at least for a little while, I could have a break from the craziness.

Well, not neccessarily. I learned first hand what stability in excessive riches really means, to me. My girlfriend's house is three stories; I had the basement level all to myself - along with two other bedrooms and another bathroom including my bedroom and bathroom. Also in the basement is an entertainment center which goes unused along with the bedrooms, for months until someone like me happens along. On each floor is a washer and dryer. And while I was there they accumulated two cars along with their three already existing cars. So all in all by the end of my stay they filled their block with 6 cars in a family of 3 drivers. A neighbor across the street threatened to report one of the cars abandoned if it was not moved. I realized that the car problem could be solved if they put two in the garage, but it was filled with bycicles that have seldom been used. In this house their is never a shortage of anything. Where one is needed there are three or seven or twelve...I soon learned that my friend's family was the opposite of anything that I wanted for myself. To me, to live in excess is to forget the importance of the things that you own. When you can buy anything you want you forget how much you rely on them. Money is taken for granted and so are the things that you surround yourself with. Soon you think and live like everything can be fixed with plastic and you lose sight of the things that really matter. Maybe my grandparents had it figured out all along.

With Ben's family I had an issue of respect. Early on in the summer I witnessed one of his sister's many temper tantrums. She is almost 17 years old. I was so flabergasted by it. His father was trying desperately to help her with her physics homework and everything he seemed to do would only make her scream louder and longer. When he finally left her alone she screamed at him to come back. What bothered me was not her screaming but that Ben's dad did nothing to show her that screaming at him was wrong, and disrespectful. Throughout the summer his mother asked me a few times how to better approach her without her witdrawing even farther or screaming. Ben's parents think that the issue is with their daughter's withdrawal from the family alone, but they haven't even addressed her disrespectful behavior. I was always afraid of screaming at my mother, not because I feared her but because I feared showing her that I disrespected her and in turn feared losing her respect. From an early age I learned that screaming and arguing with my parents was never to be done. That kind of behavior was on par with lying.

I guess it depends on values. I respect other's values and realize that though I may not agree with them, they have those values becuase they make them happy, and that's really what it comes down to. I learned that growing up I was so concerned with not being like my family that I wasn't aware that they had already changed me, raised me to have the wonderful values that I have, values that are so much apart of me, that I live them everyday without even knowing it.

New Blog

Hey Shari,

I bet you have always wanted to have a blog! This one is for you.

Love,
Ben