One More River to Cross by Black Satin
copyright @AyanaRAbdallah 2019All rights reserved
- Ago Osun
- Fricassee Blues
- Ginger Lily
- Lulama I Never Stole Anything
- Joseph Morgan
- Mind Hug!
- Ori Psychic Detox
- ‘Pieces of a Dream’
- Sky Canvass
- Superconscious
Ago Osun
●♀☼♂●
♫this is the morning we have made
sweaty bergamot-scented arms
slip into comfortable hug zones,
your strong lap my honey throne
honor and security,
precisely what i need today
in the kitchen iya’s ironing 2 yards of white cotton cloth
on a rickety ironing board
a cherished inheritance like the
panacea of her great grandmother’s smile
not fully awake
Ifatayo Lavita’s soft hum joins an impromptu outdoor chorus
hearing dantdantdidadoont dantdantdidadoont rhythms
of a yellow glass beaded shakere in her head
its gleeful rainbow invocations sidle
sacred drumming from a backyard of women and men
dancing in white robes on patchy grass,
children searching for stones amid cracked clay pots sprouting rosemary and thyme playfully dance circles around
blooming white flowers on a parsley hawthorn tree
this is the morning we have made
ancient praise songs sidle djembe drums
swell mystic synergies
liberating my soft dark brown halo
{unwrapped}
tickling your warm fuzzy chin
ahaha haaa—hoom
funny how, reflexively
your beautiful august head slowly pivots left then right
because you don’t like being tickled really
mischievously i play with the idea
you avoiding my nappy hair
you fresh as morning dew
my new day’s balm of gilead
the weight of your chin and head
sink into my nappy crown
grow satisfied fall backward
onto the cotton candy head rest
of iya sheun-renee’s white leather love seat
sitting on your lap
unbound
i am liquid freedom
coconut milk drizzling over my king’s hairy salt and pepper breast
i am the joy of guardian angels the ancestors’ gratification
wise egyptian queens Heteperes,[1] Hatshepsut,[2]
Nefertari,[3] and Arsinoe[4] their somnolent
heart beats conjuring soul memories
the fragrance of peaceful visions filling your heart
in your lap
i become you
{the sweet ripe breakfast melon you cannot eat}
what a marvelous
surprise ancestors
bequeath us today
my love
a gift of peaceful sleep under the same roof
for the first time
waking up to each other
for the first time
you and i
this is the morning we have made
you stretch into my nothingness my
couldn’t-have-imagined morning-after
my living-present, pure heart
yawning unfathomable matter
some mornings we talk on the phone
share dream interpretations,
but i do not feel to do so now
thoughts and emotions shift to your narrow hips
tenderly undulating beneath me
there is just enough room where
my left hand
creates small firm circular movements
sandwiched between soft leather and your lower back
relaxing you that way
moving closer in nose-2-nose intimacy
esu’s peppermint candy tumbles gently from cavernous flesh
wet, sweet, warm, pink minted-tongues
chase morning breath into poppy fields
and mirthful dandelions
hip-hopping buttercups
love-making between eighteen toes
this is the morning i remember, beloved
when another full amber moon wanes
and you
unlike the sensational meteor blazing northeast china[5]
are not here to marvel upon
heart open as the sky.
[1] Heteperes c2600BC is one of fifteen women who ruled ancient Egypt as pharoah. Her tomb and gold treasures were discovered in 1925 and predates Tutankhamun’s tomb. For an enjoyable detailed introduction to this queen’s victories, struggles, and love affairs, see Egyptologist Joann Fletcher’s Youtube video “Egypt’s Lost Queens (Ancient Egypt Documentary) | Timeline.” Timeline-World History Documentaries .youtube.com/watch?v=E3aNbNxKS6s. Accessed 7 November 2019.
[2] Architectural developer, military leader, and visionary pharoah, Hatshepsut c 1505 BC commissioned two pink granite oblisks the tallest in Egypt to be erected across from the temple of state god Amen Ra in honor of her spiritual father Heru. Hatsheput led three battles securing two decades of peaceful reign. See Egyptologist Joann Fletcher’s Youtube video “Egypt’s Lost Queens (Ancient Egypt Documentary) | Timeline.” Timeline–World History Documentaries .youtube.com/watch?v=E3aNbNxKS6s. Accessed 7 November 2019.
[3] Said to be the longest living pharaoh, Nefertari c1290 BC was an extraordinarily talented queen and wife of the domineering king Ramasis II. Her magnanimous 33 feet temple includes hieroglyphics of Thoth the god of knowledge and literacy on her journey signifying, some historians posit, courage to claim her abilities as a scribe. See Egyptologist Joann Fletcher’s Youtube video “Egypt’s Lost Queens (Ancient Egypt Documentary) | Timeline.” Timeline–World History Documentaries .youtube.com/watch?v=E3aNbNxKS6s. Accessed 7 November 2019.
[4] 900 years after Nefertari, queen Arsinoe II c316 BC is worshipped alongside Isis. A teen bride, Arsinoe’s arranged royal marriage took place in Greece but ended in upheaval when her husband mysteriously died. She fled back to Egypt to save her life where she convinced her younger brother a pharaoh to marry her. See Egyptologist Joann Fletcher’s Youtube video “Egypt’s Lost Queens (Ancient Egypt Documentary) | Timeline.” Timeline–World History Documentaries .youtube.com/watch?v=E3aNbNxKS6s. Accessed 7 November 2019.
.
[5] Malik, Tariq. “Brilliant Midnight Fireball Lights Up Sky Over Northeast China.” Live Science, livescience.com/china-fireball-turns-night-to-day.html. 8 November 2019.
Fricassee Blues
●♀☼♂●
learn
communication skills sister
learn
how to talk to people
best to learn black people have rights
fuckn’ with me
you could
find yourself
waking up
from
the dead
that’s right
sometimes i surprise mahself
so U definitely don’t know me
maybe it’s
because
you’re stupid
or a scorp
just
a young
white
privileged
person
accustomed
to
having things
go your way
maybe
trouble never
knocked on your hard-earned door
practically breaking it down
never cold-socked
you into a black out
maybe
you know
nothin’’
about
faith
cuz
all your life
you felt it’s been you
just
glorious you
making things happen
or
maybe you’re just
slow to understand
too unintelligent
to know how cosmic law works
“what
goes around
comes around” eventually
whatever
the case, watch
you don’t run up
on the wrong
dark some ting
just as stupid
arrogant
and young
as you.
maybe a purple sister wid’a
borrowed switchblade
hiding in the palm of her hand
guts you swift like an island duppy
taking you outa heah—-
i’m just
saying____________________
learn
how to communicate
learn how to talk to people
Ginger Lily (Visiting the Columbus, GA Botanical Garden)
●♀☼♂●
♫♫♫
Above abundant blooming acres, a TV news helicopter
briefly overcomes chattering woodpeckers, cardinals, cuckoos and ducks.
Unlike my redhaired friend a congested victim of a summer cold,
my mood is elevated to a heavenly space
a bush of aromatic white ginger lilys hugging my back.
7:30 am
Silence abruptly returns.
Breaking it a handsome woman’s sumptuously hungry yawn
exhibiting a perfect set of new upper and lower molar implants. I’m happy for her. Smile. It took a decade of planning and saving to fill naked gums. How devastatingly altered her economic life became adjuncting at the college after her husband died. I watch these thoughts pass like a slow-moving cloud train. My body browned naturally from plenteous melanin and June sunshine. Also floating. Out of body now. I observe it sitting on a wooden bench, leaning self-consciously into grass-green foliage. No judgement.
Ever treat yourself to a gingler lily high? I watch myself answer myself.
Yeah.
Plant intoxication’s the best high
—soft eyes closed breathing naturally
then slowly deeply, I daydream😊
chewing on the tender stem of a deliciously fragrant white ginger lily
time travel on the wings of its hypnotic allure back to night Jasmine evenings in Jacksonville, Fl.
My friend sits at the opposite end of the bench
enveloped
in personal quiet revelry.
I will not interrupt to tell her how I miss those late evenings
cavorting with charming flower faeries, invisible, in the borders of wild flowers, evergreen shrubs, and southern red oaks or question if the exquisitely spicy spirit team welcoming visitors at the doorway of my Princeton Square Blvd condo have moved on as I have done.
I will not disturb her peace divulging memories of a medium
size brown Florida king snake occupying my first-floor open patio
nonthreatening not venomous, but a neighbor a nosy unlikeable white lady complained about snakes and the leasing office cut down its nesting tree, not knowing or not caring that its prey is rattle snakes and other venomous snakes, that it rarely bites.
No use fooling myself. My open eyes drink in a brilliant canopy of vast azure. Tranquility the angel at my side. But I am not meditating. Thoughts and feelings visit as they please. When she waves a thin swarm of flying insects away from her smooth angular face, we share a soft gentle smile–my friend and I.
Our plan was to arrive at the botanical garden before touring teachers and their students. Typically, we don’t talk much during our walk preferring submersion into rivers of morning sunshine, benevolent sky, noisy birds and early morning crickets. We walk a mile from her lavish senior community in harmony pretending we don’t hear automobile engines roaring past us on the hill.
Our plan
sit
contemplate
meditate
▲▲▲
Out of the blue she exclaims
as if channeling,
don’t concern yourself with materiality,
career, homeownership, marriage, sexual love
evolve
your purpose?
elevate souls
counsel, help people heal themselves
by loving themselves deeply
unabashedly
star seeds
spirit seeds
moon seeds
natural laws accenting cosmic views
manifest an idea for a poem a dance a song
you are
creator
you know this
░—-░—-░—-
but i am —–
disturbed
because honestly i don’t know where i am going
rather, i am igbodu
armed primarily with ancient self-knowledge
literally transforming
in the shadows of uncertain difficult times
polyps extracted during a colon resection, missing my granddaughter’s graduation from Sarah Lawrence College, a withdrawn tenure-track contract, sudden relocation, sudden unemployment, releasing romantic delusions, pretentious self-serving colleagues and friends
my good fortune?
trusting life
that’s all i have
bruised
some aspect of this thing called me fumes
SCREAMS
into the void
this friend, spirit, woman, guide, who is speaking?
spewing lofty ideas from a position of material opulence
married 61 years to the same pilot
homeowners in one house 45 years
who is she to tell me what is or is not fit for me?
am i not as grace nichols a ‘long memoried woman’
beading life’s rhythms on a calabash of never ending
black-woman-stressors trying to calm down
bathing in basil, thyme, rosemeary, vanilla bean,
white roses, carnations, and sage trying to calm down
collecting beads, cloth, stones, and fresh wild flowers
for prayer, affirmation, manifestation, ancestral altars
am i not nursing this black body back to health
after how many near nervous breakdowns (no one knew of them)
seeing my childhood dream house engulfed in flames?
Lulama I Never Stole Anything
●♀☼♂●
They met in a basement laundromat
Lulama and a blond midwestern mother
turning a typical laundry-hour into story-time
entertaining curious tenants with well spun funny tales
about bank robbers, their stupidity and how thieves deserve eternal damnation
“I’ve never stolen anything,” the blond wound down almost in a whisper.
Lulama’s deep brown eyes flew wide alert
the long hair line above them beguiling, black, beautiful
Quiet throughout the loud woman’s stories
she imagined never taking anything that belonged to another
remembered
the one sweet lemon drop at the supermarket
plucked from the dispenser’s sticky golden stream
filling her thin bulging plastic bag
paid for by weight, once a month
remembered
a new roll of toilet paper sealed in drab blue paper
hurriedly swiped from the truck stop’s bathroom
reeking of urine and pizza (a rest stop in the 17 hour
ride to Jacksonville, where she celebrated her 40th birthday)
remembered
a box of yellow number 2 pencils, a plethora of rainbow highlighters, two reams of copy paper, a stapler, some blue ball-point ink pens-her favorite,
meticulously arranged in an attractive wooden organizer with four cubes in her home office– guiltless reminders of office supplies the college provided faculty, but should she have returned them when her contract terminated?
and on occasion
once back in the Lexus
turning the key in its ignition
she remembered
that the too-skinny-to-write-with-ink pen in her purse
belonged to the bank teller
Proud of herself
the young mother elaborately fanned clarifying fires as if
she could read Lulama’s thoughts
“I’ve never even walked away with a cashier’s ink pen, no matter how much I have on my mind”
Eyebrows jump high on Lulama’s forehead
before the mother completely turned her back
before she picked up a small child’s T-shirt to fold
Lulama found her tongue
In disbelief
she pointed to a bottle of clothes softner
wedged between a box of detergent and a pile of
blue jeans in the woman’s basket
“That’s mine,” said Lulamajudgement not altogether absent
Joseph Morgan
●♀☼♂●
It’s blistering hot at 7:30 a.m.
i amble happily back to my fire red 2005 Toyota
jot down this poem on my iPhone
keeping a promise to him
impressions a cloud of pink around the entire Walmart parking lot
Beautiful souls may travel light
soft spoken his calm ultramarine eyes gulp my energy
but i am not drained in the least
its his long brown eye lashes hovering above
creative visions and day dreams
thoughts stubbornly wedded to the power of the moment
that… … … fill me with a high dose of his innocent
trust and love of life
i’ve lived in this dustbowl for 11 months now and no one but
he has initiated compliment of my nappy hair style and with a sincere
welcoming smile at that!
as if he knew i would arrive today, he wraps
me with a warm smile that is pure magic
a four-foot carpet rolled out just for me
When i reach Joseph, we chat easily moving from one random topic to another like we’ve known each other intimately for a long long time
I want him to know that i care do not judge
and so listen attentively
selfconsciously policing my teacherly-person
instinctively guiding discussions
He has a lot to say about movie production
and team work, not that i understand all that he says
he’s soft spoken and some of his thoughts tangle in my ear canal
was he a movie producer in another life time, i wonder,
actor, film script writer, business executive in hollywood?
i almost giggle with happy anticipation, feeling certain
his life’s purpose must entail creative expression
My contribution to the conversation is mostly a nod
because i’m trying so hard not to really think about anything
exploring the shadows of timelessness clinging to the man before me
Joseph vibrates light one must feel not see
like knowledge and freedom coupling under protective wings of becoming
who is this gentle soul pink naked feet unclad?
navy blue flip flops the quality found at any $1 store offer contrast
a story of abundance crowning personhood and a heap of possessions
in a swollen supermarket cart
who is this gentle soul staying hydrated in desert heat
his puissant sweet smile repelling anchors of mental discord? who is this man seemingly content with his homey cart: a narrow stream of felt plaid material yellow, orange and white piles high crawling in and out of aluminum wire windows, rests on a dingy white sheet, a worn black leather jacket, other indistinct clothes, a crate of water, books, umbrella, some empty soda cans, a bunch of empty plastic 16 oz water bottles.
Day’s inn hotel in/on buckmans that’s where i can find him later
Instinctively i frown uncertain
did i got the location of the inn correct?
what’s his plan for the day I ask
lay in the grass he pipes and i smile
most of us are too “civil” to “cultured” too “miseducated” too busy
Joseph’s shifting his weight throughout our chit-chat
me too, each of us ignoring strangers who glare through us circle wide into the recently smelly tarred road, avoiding close contact
I think i told him he dresses like a dancer, commented
on his grace and style and artistry his lithe body a living canvas
When i ask permission to take his photo to write a poem by, he’s excited says he hasn’t seen himself in a photo for quite some time, then strikes a pose back against a brick corporate wall, right arm stretched out horizontally entire body decorating cement and capitalist invention
with honor, humility, forgiveness.
Joseph’s a person who has acquired many things throughout unpredictable travels, I think about this throughout the photo shoot
Images
the suggestive oversize red low cut T with 9 wide oblong slits heart to navel, strings of intriguing black leather and silver necklaces their dangling pentacle, chains, washers, a yellow and green beaded choker; cool pale blue cut-off jeans naughtily set off atop black thigh high tights, and fish net stockings barely holding on to original shape.
Take a look at the “man in the mirror” his figure seems to plead
a pink body-wash glove with cut outs for fingers and thumbs
and indigo adidas cap boast his delight.
awesome, we chime in harmony studying his photo
the addidas cap is the only thing he doesn’t like
inexplicably our worlds turn inside out
nothing he says is clear enough for me to make sense of
i read the first draft of the poem dedicated to him
ask first if he’s listening cuz he breaks into a ramble of thoughts that
have nothing to do with the photo as far as i can tell
respectfully, kindly, he responds
yes
quiets down stands tall with knotty hands
folded limp resting in front of him
listening now
when the poem concludes his eyes sparkle
he says he likes it but after that some aspect of him recedes deeply
like his voice even lower softer than at first meeting
I should leave and continue running errands for the day
part of me does not wish to leave him there
the flow of his essence spilling out into a careless
world of blind heartless fearful people
So i stand with him a little longer listening to his
melodic incomprehensible messages
enjoying the respite of his blue-green eyes
Mind Hug!
●♀☼♂●
the next time
you gaze
upon a full silver moon,
get your mind hug on!
languish there
dissolve in brilliant
invigoration
new beginnings
cheerful
faithful
baby steps
let moon shadows
scratch that annoying
brain itch
smile
Ori Psychic Detox
●♀☼♂●
in the land of ancient Iz[1]
what is veritable and to whom pales
beyond
boundaries of phenomenology
like the colorful costumes of flesh and blood and bone and roots—
masks the unfathomable wears
in fact, one errors referencing a nomenclatural space called Iz
but how else to relieve the pressures of that something blanketing
a zoo of manifestation with mesmeric veils of ignorance?
as a small child we look to the sky feeling inexplicably one with it
believing like a bird we too can fly
if we’re fortunate someone perhaps a teacher at school
will introduce us to physics and expand
our childhood inquiry into matter
or it may be at an airport we glean a sky magazine article
and learn a new hypothesis that the infinitely imperceptible
space we know exists but can’t touch is no more than a tiny point of departure
nearly an octillion[2] a 1 followed by 27 zeroes. from a point of reality tinier than mere naked eyes perceive explodes the protons, electrons, neutrons all the particles we commonly refer to as Self, sky, boat, Facebook, moon, oranges, heaven, drum, lion, purgatory, D flat major scale, water, peppermint every manifestation.
but what’s behind that tiny point of departure the bare eyes don’t see?
can it be Izzness
the unfathomable
the void of conceptualization
thus, that space where
no victimization
no depression
no outside
no inside
no sickness
no wellness
no east
no west
no courage
no fear
no slavery haunts
no judgement
no manichean maxim breeding opposites, light and dark, good and evil no mythic rendering the epic of gilgamesh and its sumerian clay cuneiform tablets fictitious
no poverty
no wealth
no success
no north
no south
no injustice
no justice
no failure
no love
no hatred
no greed
no success
no generosity
no clarity
no confusion
no winning
no losing
no death
no life
no enemy
no friend
no peace
no fury
no age
no time
?
detoxing
in
a
panacean
void
[1] Although the language varies from person to person, it is the metaphysics of oneness, emptiness, and the infinite shifting into the finite that have preoccupied poets, healers, sages, and philosophers throughout the ages. I first heard the term “is-ness” while contemplating a Mooji baba question: “can the perceiver itself be perceived?” For the
fundamentals on Mooji’s is-ness, see Ms Direwolf. “Mooji Stay As The Isness.” You Tube, 13 June 2014. www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mooji+isness. Accessed 13 November 2019.
[2] Childers, Tim. “We May Finally Understand the Moments Before the Big Bang. “Live Science, livescience.com/physicists-model-reheating-universe.html. Accessed 13 November 2019.
‘Pieces of a Dream’
●♀☼♂●
what quality of peace do you expect? dream about? hope for?
it matters what we create honoring a time of peace
like
everything else, peace is illusory a feel good
prayer
affirmation
intention
harmless
toothless
yet the peace my people adhere to bears jagged fangs
in waning moonlit hours that turn milk into blood scavengers thirst for
clinging to our skin like salty perspiration is May 14 1985
hard-to-die memories of city officials dropping a bomb on MOVE
a peace-loving lock adorned communal-living household of black
families living country style in a West Philadelphia inner city neighborhood,
eleven people died five of whom were children
did MOVE members die because a few negroes complained to city officials about the chickens waking them up at 5 am? not likely
for us
always the threat of systematic institutionalized
violence
against us lurks
mildly asthmatic and breathless
below the ===space where white flags signify surrender
memories of a police robot killing freedom soldier Micah
form rivulets of exhaustion wearing down nerves and patience and faith
there’s no doubt about it
peace is the justice my people die for and it bears sharp fangs
see us crying over graves swelling with corpses of children, women and men
murdered at the hands of police officers abusing their authority with impunity
“Wow, you’re doing all of this for a failure to signal?”
That’s 28-year-old Sandra Bland’s response on July10, 2015 to a police officer in Hempstead, TX, demanding she exit her car as he pointed a stun gun in her face threatening “I will light you up!” Sandra’s cell phone video shows her thrown to the ground and the officer’s knee holding her down. Three days later this Prairie View A & M alumnus and newly hired university ambassador was found hung in a Waller County jail.
unprotected
and caught up in the system
that’s my people
so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the peace = i claim
for myself and for this species i call huwamity
well, its unattainable
living run-of-the-mill days in ordinary ways
peace is gotten only in the beatitudes of a divinity so high she forgets to breathe
[i]Huwamity is a linguistic symbolic debunking the word humanity as biased language. Here the term “humanity” is interrogated as inherent reference to females and children, for “man” is the only visual inspired the only identifiable agent of power.
SKY CANVAS
●♀☼♂●
Hail white cloud big foot!
From my country home sunroof,
I am transfixed by your floating artistry gliding in and out of yourself
banishing anxiety
Is that a cavernous mouth sticking out its fat tongue?
In my sudden minute of distraction,
you become a dog lapping up musky campfire smoke
then a wispy tail of a small case letter y
inside a bull’s eye
now turning a vaporous 8
What giant’s legs you have white cloud big foot?
wide as boulders
they float-stretch beyond distinction
like my worry never to return
goodbye
Superconscious
●♀☼♂●
we all,
feeling
unprotected,
respond differently
to the vicissitudes of life
manichean dynamics
challenges
surprises
disturbing currents
of events
some steal
become bitter, depressed
others are alcoholics
each
fully
in
control
whether we know this
or
not
Ayana R. Abdallah Nappy Edges Poetics 