Newt is angry,                     so
what else is new? Obama
plays nice with others
                                    thankfully

~~
just a quick note.

you can catch me blogging today over at MyBrownBaby. i am discussing the GOP "outrage" over the niceties President Obama extended to Hugo Chavez, and how my 3 year old son can teach the GOP a few things about manners.

check it out & please comment.
thanks!

i am tired and oh so hot. the temp was nearly 100 degrees today and my classroom doesn't have A/C. yes, it was torture. but we made it. by 6th period all the kids were tired and cranky, and i really couldn't blame them.

i have been slacking on putting up some of the poems for National Poetry Month. Forgive me. I am posting a new poem (just wrote it lol) as well as a poem from LoveBabz. please stop by her blog, listen to her radio show, and show her some love. she's a great woman.

peace

~~~~~~

i need a glass of shiraz
merlot and a margarita
i need a massage
an ice cream cone
a glass of ice
water washing over my skin

i need a beach
secluded and gleaming sand
free of hurt
or reminders of

today
i need a hug
or cool hand
brushing against smooth skin
and lips

i need to feel
bliss and reckless abandon
to do
whatever
i choose


(c) 2009, me.
~~~~

HE LIKES FAST WOMEN
by LoveBabz


A Porsche…

Easy to handle he says…
And yet they are constantly:
        Sleek...high maintenance…shallow…unreliable….

He longs for substance…

Something that can handle his driving style:

      Size matters…

Rolls Royce is never the obvious choice….

Classic lines… understated elegance….stability... a real pleasure to handle…
      Sure 0-60 in 5 sec is fast…

But when you slip behind the wheel of real luxury…hand crafted…butter soft interior
You no longer remember why fast was ever any good….


Grown women do not convince men that fast cars are …well, just fast…

Grown men have to want:
        Built for comfort…not for speed.



* want to submit your poem to be featured on this blog? email me. theprisonerswife at gmail dot com. peace.

the break-up muse



        matched
mis
words strewn
lying heavily on your tongue

i don’t understand
your needs
       unmet
mine

       alone
we
love in the trenches

(c) me, 2003

~~~
last week i spent three days with beloved. we hadn't seen each other since we rang in the new year and he was itching to see me. truth be told, i was ok with not making the trip, but i knew that our visitings are already few and far between.

before our trip i was feeling kinda uninspired by our relationship. we slipped into the dangerous lull of taking each other for granted. afterall, we live totally separate, but connected, lives. he is constantly on alert, dealing with the harsh realities of being locked up, unable to really be free. and i am just dealing with the day-to-day mundaneness of raising a child, working, and trying to keep my head above water. it has been so easy for me to detach myself from OUR life together. not that my love for him had been diminished, but it has certainly been forced to take a back seat to other parts of life.

but last week...good lord, the air was still damp with new snow, the sun somehow broke through, and once again i was greeted by love, my love. we talked, we shared meals, and we breathed in the solace of each other. it was like a reunion that helped to put our relationship into perspective again, to light the fire again.

and now i miss him.

i haven't really ached in a while. i haven't really, really missed him in a while. i've learned to control the missing. learned to put my feelings on the back burner just to make it through each day. but after seeing him, breathing him, i'm once again left feeling...everything.

i have been trying
to leave you for years. alone
now shoulders heavy

weight like sunrise. far
to go. we opposite. love
harder. in spite of all       things

stay pushing ahead
daily struggling to keep
above hopelessness

we fight for this life
this right to touch fingertips
anew. we grow, old.


(c) me. 2009.

monday came loudly
pushing weekend hard like i
belong to him, alone

not ready. buzzer
rings anyway. damn. too early
to be out, workin'

bell rings. students scat.
leaving notes, books, brains open
pour as much and fill.

traffic sucks. badu
sings me home, tranquil, though horns
blaze loudly through night

air fresh like new rain
poured over the city. repeat.
routine. day breaks soon.


~*~
(c) me, 2009. read.savor.repeat.

old man winter staggered in
yesterday, belligerent smelling
of christmas wine
singing his hellos
in a low baritone
he eased into his chair and cried

(c) me. just now.
~~~~

today is officially my first day of Winter break. i love it! i had plans to finish (uh, start) my Christmas shopping today, but now it's raining. i know, many of you are looking at my rain and WISHING that's all you had (i see you Xtina!), but this is Cali and we don't do rain lol.

i played stay at home mommy today. i already made the munchkin pancakes & turkey bacon. i couldn't NOT make him pancakes, being that the first thing out of his mouth this morning was "Pancakes!" not "good morning mom" or "hi mom," but "Pancakes! Pancakes mom!" apparently my child is addicted to pancakes. he asks for them EVERY day, all day. i think if he could eat them all day he would. thank God for the microwavable ones (although i made 'em from scratch today).

this past weekend i devoured Sista Souljah's latest effort, Midnight. i am torn. i read the Coldest Winter Ever so very long ago (10 years?), and was looking forward to the follow up. it's an interesting read, a bit slow for me in the begining, and a bit unrealistic, but definitely entertaining. if i get my brain together this week, i'll write an official review. my only REAL gripe about the book? the pictures she included of Midnight. picturing him, his beauty, his blackness, in my mind was half of the fun of reading Winter...but oh well. i'm still waiting on the film!

what are you guys up to this week? done with shopping? trapped beneath the snow? holla at the kid.

bless.

Dear America,
you did it, baby. You lived
up to your promise

even though it took
some time, you defied history
& got it right.

dear America,
today I see for the first time
what Jefferson hoped

when you were born
anything was possible
and for the first time

          I feel he was right


(c) me, just now...on the dawn of a new day (Nov. 4th, 2008)

i.

friday took his time
knowing how long
i've been waiting
to see his face

he played hard
pretending he didn't care
to see me again
but really, he longed to feel
my lips against his
warmth. you see

friday needs me
as much as i need
to see him comin'
my way,
strolling slow like
i've been waiting
all week
to see him

~~


ii.
every black girl
needs a theme song
a song that curls
up inside her
feeding her dreams
with the fruit of possibility

every black girl
needs a theme song
to echo the dreams
she is afraid to share
with the world
which tears down
faster than it can build

every black girl
needs a theme song
to sway hips, confidently
tossing shoulder back
head up, knowing
that no matter what
she can handle it


(c) me, just now.
read. savor. repeat.

sun rose           red
eyes blinking back night
yawning cool like Coltrane
at the blue note

i welcome him           early
even though it's saturday
and our date is usually
pushed back

sun spoke warm
hellos as he rose
past night
to greet me



(c) me. just a few minutes ago. don't bite. savor.

i am trying to pretend
summer isn't running
through my fingers
like spilled wine

august has opened up
welcoming the fall
arms wide &
      smiling as if
she's ready for vacation

Freddie Lee



5 am. Surrounded in silence, he bathes.
thinking of all the things he can do. he
lathers, shaves, and drenches himself
in Obsession. the burgundy Olds
is spotless and it’s time.

seventy-one years have not slowed his pace.
he still speeds like a man of twenty-three
barely stopping at lights and signs, never
failing to honk at those who drive too slow.

He drives everywhere. exhaling Benson & Hedges
going to airports, and banks, and hospitals, praying
with the sick, delivering communion, rummaging
junkyards for new mirrors, and it’s amazing
how much gas he burns each week.

Granddaddy never sits still
unless it is to listen to Chick Hearn call the game
or watch John Wayne ride into the sunset,
victorious, having conquered a world,
my grandfather has never seen.

(c) me. 2003

~~~~

my grandfather passed away the summer i moved to New York, a day after his 74th birthday. my mother and I were actually in NY at the time trying to find me an apartment. he had been struggling with brain cancer for most of that year. his decline was startling. he went from a vibrant 73 year old man who still preached, served communion, and drove all over the city for God knows what, to a man barely able to feed himself. i hated to visit him in the hospital. not because i didn't love my granddaddy, but because i couldn't bare to see him like that.

my granddaddy loved the lakers. love to hear Chick Hearn call the game & wrap their win up in jiggling jello and hardened butter. we would watch together and argue over Eldin & Vlade. we would watch as Robert Horry would will us to win with yet another clutch three pointer. we watched as Kobe & Shaq embraced after they brought the crown back to LA where it should have stayed all along. and we watched as three parades marched through downtown, signaling victory.

it's coming up to the 5th anniversary my granddaddy has been gone. and the lakers have gone through many changes since them. they've lost, Shaq left, they gave us some hope, only to lose again, but now they are back on top. as i watch them today, i am still proud. still a diehard laker fan, but i can't help but feel a bit of emptiness. my granddaddy would love this. he would love the new players & the excitement they bring. he would love how Kobe has finally begun to share the ball. and he would love that they are on top. i hope they go all the way this year...not just for our city, and the fans, but for my granddaddy. it's been far too long.

The Healing Improvisation of Hair
by Jay Wright

If you undo your do you wóuld
be strange. Hair has been on my mind.
I used to lean in the doorway
and watch my stony woman wind
the copper through the black, and play
with my understanding, show me she cóuld
take a cup of river water,
and watch it shimmy, watch it change,
turn around and become ash bone.
Wind in the cottonwoods wakes me
to a day so thin its breastbone
shows, so paid out it shakes me free
of its blue dust. I will arrange
that river water, bottom juice.
I conjure my head in the stream
and ride with the silk feel of it
as my woman bathes me, and shaves
away the scorn, sponges the grit
of solitude from my skin, laves
the salt water of self-esteem
over my feathering body.
How like joy to come upon me
in remembering a head of hair
and the way water would caress
it, and stress beauty in the flair
and cut of the only witness
to my dance under sorrow's tree.
This swift darkness is spring's first hour.

I carried my life, like a stone,
in a ragged pocket, but I
had a true weaving song, a sly
way with rhythm, a healing tone.

~~~

(me, on the way to work.)


black women & hair is as complex as astrophysics, as deep as the atlantic ocean, and as contentious as discussing affirmative action. our hair, just as our bodies, have been agonized over, objectified, and gentrified to suit the needs of society.

even with all that surrounds us, we manage to do our 'do in countless ways & look FABULOUS in the process. my hair has been natural (sans relaxer) for some years now. i decided to stop relaxing my hair back in college, just to see how my natural texture felt. i'm not one of the militant ones that argue that ALL black women should just let their hair be. i feel like we are intelligent/complicated women. we should have the right to choose our hairstyle based on our personal tastes. i DO have a problem with those that ask, "why don't you get your hair pressed? it would be so cute!" as if my natural kinks ain't cute.

honey, i'm FLY. so i let it be.


anyway, i love this poem & i wanted to share it. bless!

untitled

our discourse ended
cut short by a synthesized voice
signaling the end. time never seems
to meander when we speak. it sprints.
running away from all the things we need
to say, as if it can only handle so much.

yesterday, the sun rose orange
and early and i pretended to wake you
kissing fingers to lips, whispering hello.
your early morning grunts overwhelm
my memory, filling me with a sense of longing

today is not starting out right.
you are not here. and you will not be
curled up inside me anytime soon.


(c) me. 2008
~~
i spoke to beloved yesterday for the first time in a week. he is...ok, all things considered. still having issues with the COs, so it looks as though i will have to move further into advocate mode. i am learning so much about what it truly means to be committed. i never thought this would be my life. even joked with him that i'd totally NOT stick by his side had he ever found himself on the wrong side of a prison, but life changes. five years, and a son later, this is our life....FOR NOW. *sigh*

last night i went to a party for the first time in YEARS. when i say party, i don't mean a gathering of boho types listening to jazz & reciting love jones quotes (oh, you know what i'm talkin bout!), i mean a Divine 9, KAPsi frat party. back in the day, my sands and i were ALWAYS at the center of attention at these parties. we strolled deep, (innocently) flirting with frat and just having a good time. last night officially sealed it: i'm old LOL. i didn't even know HALF of the new sorors who were there, and the Nupes...they were way more energetic than i remembered. i had a good time though. i was still able to keep up with the Neos, learned a few new strolls, and enjoyed seeing people i haven't seen in years.

how was your weekend?

& don't forget to share your poems in the comments section. shout out to LoveBabz & Stephen Bess for posting poems for National Poetry month!

Few times in my life have I been completely mesmerized.

In 1999 while channel surfing, I came across this man and his poem on the PBS documentary, “I’ll Make Me a World*”. Saul Stacey Williams completely blew me away. I had never HEARD a poem sound like that before. Never heard a man beat-box in the middle of a stanza. Never heard words strung so dangerously together. Never felt any energy like this from any poem, I’d ever read or studied. I was awestruck.

In an instant, my entire view of poetry changed. Until then, I thought emcees had all the fun. I thought they were the only ones aloud to ride beats with words, but Saul Williams switched up my whole thinking. Soon I began seeking more. Back then, we didn’t have you tube, but the Internet was just starting to be BIG (for me at least), so I searched and searched and found everything I could find that he wrote. Time after time I was blown away, and was sonned by his immense ability to pair word and emotion and my inability to mimic it.

Fueled by this newly discovered muse, I practiced. I wrote. I recited poems, and I found the courage to actually perform in front of groups of people. Until then, poetry was something I did privately. I did not share my words. I did not declare myself a poet. Until then I was stuck, conversing only with myself and my psyche, afraid to share my voice because I thought people wouldn’t get it.

But they did.

And here I am. A degreed writer. A blogger. A poet. I used to be afraid to call myself a writer. I never thought I was worthy of the title, as if writers were only those famous ones we’ve read in English class.

But I am
indeed a writer
living in papyrus
with pen and paper
always within reach

peace.



**If anyone knows how to get a copy of this series (I'll Make Me a World), PLEASE email me. theprisonerswife at gmail dot com. thanks

baked macaroni
ambled through the living room
making us hungry

you rang, bringing sun
and sadness with a taut smile
wishing you could share

everything with us
is somehow lacking in ways
hard to explain over

again I want you
to meet me places you can’t
imagine exists

somewhere beyond this
time parceled out in tidbits
love sustains us all

~~



so, we are home and back into the routine of our everyday life. yesterday was Easter and like a mad woman, I decided to take over the cooking duties. you see, usually my mother and/or grandmother slaves over the hot stove, but I decided to give them a break. thanks to my sista*friend/super-chef-on-call, i pulled it off (and it was good). i whipped up fried chicken (which was a bad idea because it was about 90 degres yesterday!), potato salad, baked macaroni, and mixed veggies. needless to say, everybody enjoyed my cooking which made me feel all grown up! (even my grandma wanted the recipe! LOL). so my ego got a bit of a boost, even as my press was sweated OUT.

although i wasn't ready to go back to work today, i told myself that i would think positive. instead of dreading the morning, i said that today would be a GREAT day, and it was, had it not been for the headache. but it's over now (thank the LAWD!) and tomorrow is a short day for the kids (handclap). i think i'm still experiencing a bit of time-zone confusion because i'm pretty tired and it's only 6.

i find myself wanting to write poems again, which is a good sign. i haven't been writing as much as i should. so many times i feel like i'm squandering the opportunities i've been presented with. i watch others put their dreams together and turn them into reality, and then i secretly wish to do the same, but just...don't...quite...do...it.

what's the holdup? what am i really afraid of?

i guess, i'm the only one that can answer that. and it needs to happen. soon.

(going to meet my man)

on visiting

smalltown u.s.a.
a blur of cows and branches
and prisons emerge

out of nowhere we
rush to hold memories in
tangled fingers and

polaroids. you ask
for a soda, burger, and
what's new in the world

everything has changed
and stayed the same all at once
your face tightening

remembering each
curve of my lips. we smile but
watch the clock tensely
~~


(in the sticks...literally)

tomorrow is our last day of visiting. i can't believe how quickly these four days have seemed to zoom by. i am tired. i will not return to work on monday rested, but rather still feeling like i need a vacation. my son has been acting out a bit. beloved and i have been having a wondering spin on the dance floor. i am dreading tomorrow. i wish i could stay longer, but work and bank accounts do not permit it. tomorrow will be a bit sad, but i will be brave. when 3:05 hits, and the COs call out that visiting is done, my heart will drop. his heart will drop. we will hug and kiss for minutes on end, but it still won't be enough. he will go back, be strip searched and lock in to a lonely cell with nothing but his memories of our conversation and kisses. i will go back to an empty hotel room to pack, and get ready for a long and lonely flight. in a few months we will do it all over again. the joy. the heartache. coming together and leaving again. this is the cycle of our life. for now.

writing is fighting
a barrage of words    banging
paper    ears     your heart

    struggling
to conect beyond the noise
beyond what makes us

     wondering
if anyone can hear
our inside voice, really

or if
it even matters
at all.


~~~~~~~

i'm in a rush, posting between periods. but i'm struggling to teach my students how to write...clearly. they are so stuck in a world of txt messages and IMs, that it seems as though basic, standard English is like Chinese to them.

as someone who writes well, i'm having a hard time conveying the nuances of the language to my kids. so much of what i write and how i write is caught up in my ears, i'm wondering how i can help them tune into that melody.

any advice? bell rang. peace.

(pic taken by my camera phone. i took this after her encore. she came out to test out a song she wrote in the hotel. check out the hotel pad in her hand. an artist never stops. lovely!)


untitled (inspired by she)

last night     a testimony of words
echoed through wombs
waves of blues met
earlobes    hips and fingers
   pursed as if
waiting for a savior

a philly jawn
honeyed and aged
urgent like
rain in the dessert
weaving stories through time
bringing us
closer
to ourselves

~~~~***~~~
i had the pleasure to see jill perform last night. WHEW LAWD! is all i can say about THAT. you. must. go. see. her. now.

buried beneath a mound
of papyrus i breathe abstract
minds meld time & words
into a revolution of syntax
i break back        pack minds
raw and heavy
even if heads ain't ready
i'm on time
full of grammar and rhymes steady
student of this game
my students name's may change
but i break levies   and brains
be growing like weed smoke
permeating rough throats and sentences
wondering what use this writing shit is

it is
life blood to silenced laughs
the cadence of a smile
before it breaks
face screwed like minds
birthing dope lines that reach
beyond this

it is
more than anything
we could imagine

before we saw it
heard it
felt it in our bones
the difference between what's known
and that foreign shit you only dream about

it is
grabbin paper and
whatever writes
to write your story
late nights when
the lights won't burn
when darkeness inhabits everything
but your imagination

it is
this
it is that
and
it is
everything in between

~*~
didn't set out to write a poem...just wanted to say i've been busy teaching, but it be like that sometime. ~peace

damaged collateral

I.
yesterday joseph came
home       draped in crimson
muslin smelling       gentle
          white lotus leaves
bowing underfoot

they call him hero
help him
          into the cadillac
hoist old glory
and play riffles
like trumpets in a parade

was it worth it?
               mother sobs
was it worth it?
               we all wonder      angry

he came home
like this

II.
fireworks paint the sky
      orange
               red
                    a ghastly purple
Mosul erupts           a cacophony
of women and wailing
babies struck down

without uttering a sound
we watch
seduced by the blood
pooling silently
beneath our feet