Unfettered

UNFETTERED

UNFETTERED Poems

by

With

Kalilah Enriquez

a

Foreword

EVAN X HYDE

the

Flaming pen

by

Copyright Š 2006 by Kalilah Enriquez.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book or compact disc may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the author with the exception of brief mention in critical articles or reviews. a publication and production of the Flaming pen 8 Moho Street Belmopan, Belize www.myspace.com/kalilahthepoet Cover art: Self Portrait by Kalilah Enriquez Cover design by Mose Hyde Back cover photo by Richard Holder Back cover design by Kalilah Enriquez Printed in Benque Viejo del Carmen, Belize

By BRC Printing

ISBN 976-8197-10-2

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My mother and father (Margaret and Hubert Enriquez) for believing and supporting.

All my former English teachers and professors (especially Yvette Holland, Ethnelda Paulino, Emil Pulido, Steve Hightower and Paola Corso).

Sponsors and investors: Belize Paradise Ltd, HD Construction, Buck’s Best Buy, Kremandala.

The Belizean Poets Society and Lyrical Lounge (for removing me from the world of closet poets) Ludwig Studios, which offered me the opportunity to record the CD at a highly subsidized cost, and especially Paul, who produced the album.

All the artists who appeared on the CD: Tanya Carter, Dan Man, Shibabei, River or Fire. And also Irene Wallace, Mose Hyde and Orson Elrington.

Everyone else involved in the making of the CD: Channel 7 News for permission to use the Leslie Rogers story. Jonathan Vellos for doing some audio editing for me.

Evan X Hyde for writing the Foreword (and for employing me!).

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FOREWORD

By Evan X Hyde About two plus years ago, a group of previously unknown young poets began to come together and emerge as a force in Belize City. One of those young poets was Kalilah Enriquez, who was becoming a big star on KREM Radio and KREM TV. Historically, almost all of the poets in Belize have been male. Why this was, it is not for me to try to figure out or explain. The culture and sociology, economics even, of Belize have changed in such a way that Belizean women are more powerful and self-assured than they have ever been. That’s a fact. And Kalilah, as petite and polite as she is, is woman—all woman.

Personally, I paid only cursory attention to the tropical storm which became the Belizean Poets Society, because poetry is a world where I used to live, and it is a world I was forced to abandon.

Unlike the Biblical wife of Lot, I don’t look back.

But Kalilah, the zinc fence superstar, asked me to write the foreword to her book of poems— UNFETTERED. This is not a request I could have refused, and it is not an assignment I could have performed without a reading. Hence, welcome to Kalilah’s world. Welcome back to poetry.

For a black conscious male, there is nothing so exciting as a black woman who is confident of her beauty. In the very first poem of UNFETTERED, entitled Roots, the lady declares her natural and

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her real. I am black and I am beautiful. Songs of Solomon… in cornrows, liberated, no longer suppressed by a perm; no longer told to relax no longer forced to lye to myself.

Kalilah gives us a preview of the powerful sexuality which will later invade her work, in her very next poem—GARIFUNA DRUMMER. …an easy position for sweet submission.

The lady then becomes a warrior in EXECUTION STYLE: These youths are fed up at the cops’ lethal use of led.

Their faces red up at the man who left another youth dead.

They want to get up and make him lie in a cold bed, wet up the streets with policeman bloodshed.

Similarly, in FOR MISS IRENE once the trigger is pulled and only the fool remains standing, while his brother’s remains stink up the earth worse than dead possum and calls out like Abel’s buried blood,

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By the time we reach FORCE RIPE, Kalilah is beginning to get it on: but still, she’s sooo sexy at sixteen and her pussy is pristine.

Even when she loves her country in MY BELIZE, MY LOVE, Kal is a woman. as days go by, we’ll fall in love again and I’ll be your queen.

I’ll smile and you’ll smile.

Together we’ll be fruitful.

You’ll look at me softly and tell me I’m beautiful, SONNET OF SURRENDER sounds orgasmic. Hence, you will read this one for yourself, from beginning to end.

ARE YOU READY FOR THIS? could have well been the title of the collection: I will climb a mountain for you I will cross an ocean for you Whatever you want me to do Because I love you. baby, glass and wire will do as long as it comes from you and you’re sure it’s what you want to do You know, reader, there’s always bitter with the sweet. It’s SELFISH!

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Selfish because I won’t be your whore While you decide who you want more Selfish because I won’t used While you get to pick and choose NIGHTS LIKE THIS: It’s nights like this That I miss Having a man, Miss his kisses, Miss his hands, Miss his warmth, As we made future plans I’ll end this foreword with excerpts from LIKE A WOMAN. This poem says it all. Let the lady poet speak for herself.

All I want is to feel like a woman again wear high-heel shoes, tight jeans and lip gloss and be adored by the eyes of men.

I want a man to make love to me until I say when.

I want him to feel the power of my sexuality.

Hear him whisper oh! when I take him to the next reality.

Give him a map of my curves highlighting my sensualities, so that I can feel like the woman that I am whose head is stuck somewhere

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beneath the sand waiting to be uncovered by the tenderness of a man.

I want to feel sexy once more to implore with a whisper and like a vixen, lure.

For my ahs and my ooohs and other sounds that I choose and the clues that I leave like a suspect on the news for my legs, long and smooth and the power they hold for my hips that gyrate with exotic gold for my lips, large and tempting, potentially bold.

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For all those I’ve loved.

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“…when you doubt my truth I sadly yearn To tell you all, to stand for one brief space, Unfettered, soul to soul as face face.”

-Unknown

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poet

CONTENTS

1

Roots

3

Garifuna Drummer

5

Approaching PG

6

First Time Voter

7

Execution Style

10

For Miss Irene

13

Old Man

15

Force Ripe

18

The Occasional Fight

19

My Belize, My Love

23

The Rhythm of Twenty Five

24

One Wednesday Night

27

Together We Grow

28

Baby Girl

29

Watching Her Grow

30

For Alexa

32

That Feeling

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33

Old Flame

35

BKA Finest

38

Sonnet of Surrender

39

Outlines in the Dark

40

A Moment

41

Are You Ready for This?

44

Sunday Morning #1

45

Sunday Morning #2

46

Selfish!

47

Be Careful What You Wish For

48

Wading Through Depression

51

Insomnia

52

Nights Like This

54

He’s Moved On With His Life

55

Like A Woman

57

Mosaic

58

Turbulence

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ROOTS (also affectionately known as WHAT DID YOU DO TO YOUR HAIR?) I’m going back to my roots, respecting the virgin growth and truncating the tainted.

It’s not a complicated operation.

The introspection was more difficult.

The scissors do the speaking for my soul, cutting the years of hatred away, releasing the tight curls that hid in bondage.

Now they spring forth in crooked spirals and fluffy afro puffs.

They zigzag across my head in cornrows, liberated, no longer suppressed by a perm; no longer told to relax; no longer forced to lye to myself.

I had even forgotten what my own real hair looked like, almost afraid what it might be underneath, instead of loving it for what it is, not for what the hairdresser did,

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instead of squinting at the stylized image on my screen, sadly showing all the things I didn’t know or want or want to know about myself.

I have a couple months of new growth but it seems the perm is in cahoots with self-loathing.

So I’m taking it all off and going back to my roots.

(Second place in Belizean Poets Society poetry competition 2005)

2

GARIFUNA DRUMMER His hands move slyly across the tight animal skin with no pretense of shyness. Tap, pound, stroke, caress. His fingers make love to the drum, and his beautiful partner—spirit— moans under his touch like a woman losing her prized virginity.

His hands expertly traverse her smooth, naked skin with superior knowledge of all her most—ah!— vulnerable areas.

He snaps his fingers, surreptitiously, shrewdly, in a motion so intense that she gasps and breaks, erupting in an orgasm of excitement.

Pleased with his results, he beats on. On, on, he beats on into the night.

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Years of experience have molded his fingers into—oh!—this dexterous perfection. They move adroitly under his rule.

He and his fingers are excited at the thought of her between his legs, an easy position for sweet submission.

In the middle of his song, he tips his head back and closes his eyes as sweat falls from his temple.

Smugly, he smiles, for he too has been satisfied.

(Second place in Belizean Poets Society poetry competition 2005)

4

APPROACHING PG (Before the road was paved) The sea sparkles under the sun like a diamond-paved blanket to heaven It is temptation difficult to resist but as much as I would like to move the misty blue with tiny ripples from my presence I cannot must instead appease my senses through imagination experience it with only my eyes allow mere memories to come coolly against my skin burn my eyes with its salt and make my nose run through a window foggy with 150 miles worth of red dust

5

FIRST TIME VOTER I pull it all the way out and examine the inky stain curiously.

For the rest of the day it will remind me until I hear whether the others are with me or the other color.

Either way, I’ve won.

6

EXECUTION STYLE I watched on TV as his life went down the drain, as they washed his blood off the pavement with water from a Crystal bottle, erasing the stains.

I watched again as Jules talked to his friends, their faces contorted with pain, and even more anger.

He neva have no gun! they said, but still, the policeman blasted a bullet through his head.

These youths are fed up at the cops’ lethal use of lead.

Their faces red up at the man who left another youth dead.

They want to get up and make him lie in a cold bed, wet up the streets with policeman bloodshed.

But instead, they cry and I cry too.

Even though I never knew him, something drew me to him because the situation isn’t new to him.

A policeman blew him away and it’s not the first time it’s been done.

It’s almost like it’s fun for these guys, recreation sending my brothers to the skies.

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Time flies when you realize Alarcon was only three years ago.

My body tries to cope, to somehow keep the hope but my heart still cries and so do my eyes.

Because our youths are our most prized possessions yet they’re dying in these sessions, these deadly assaults with dangerous weapons.

Oh Lord! Please cure these dumb obsessions with the gun.

I’ll give you my confessions of all the bad things that I’ve done if you tell me how to win this eternal battle for our sons.

Take the guns off the streets and turn them into flowers.

Maybe then we’ll have the power to witness the final hour when real judgment comes down.

The towns are plagued by violence and all these crimes must cease, but all my prayers for peace fall on silence.

I try to make sense of these wicked experiences, understand what these crimes mean but it’s tough, when the man you call for protection could be the same one you need protecting from.

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When you run and you run and you finally surrender only to find you’ve surrendered to death.

When the threat to your life is so real that you try to do right but to live you must fight the protectors and servers because they might just kill you and claim self defense, then charge you with offenses post-mortem.

I got the sense and I’ve been feeling it for a while since they killed Leslie Rogers execution style.

(Dedicated to the life of Leslie Rogers Junior, killed by PC Aldo Ayuso on February 12, 2005.)

9

FOR IRENE WALLACE “Hurry up and come back,” was the last thing she said to her son the day his life was taken.

She didn’t know he wouldn’t come back.

He died from the bullet of a gun, Now her little boy’s gone.

-TOK, Footprints

I think of you regularly, every time certain songs play on the radio.

I try not to sing because the melody saturates my mouth with weariness.

The song is more than metaphor, and the mothers are left to mourn on the morning shows with bodies to bury and young lives unaccounted for, lives you had to work hard to raise because making men of boys is more than can be done with ease.

You put him to bed at night and dream of the type of man you want him to grow up to be.

But what’s there to make you forget how you lost him?

There’s nowhere for the pain to go.

Blaming self, you wonder was there something rotten you gave him? was it something you forgot?

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was there something you could have done to save him so you wouldn’t have to wave to him from above the ground?

Misery found you that night while you worked, the way it found so many other mothers in their sleep, in the streets, in their homes.

It bound you gagged you dragged you down then released you to the cold black tar of the town where you saw him in your mind with a chest no longer brown, but red, and without the gun they said they’d found.

You saw him how you remembered him, smiling, laughing, crying, now to imagine him dying! lying in silence and solitude with nothing but the black night to cloak him and the sirens blaring in the background.

So you make the villain out to be the one whose bullet punctured his body, but soon see the villain’s much bigger than one shot, one gun, one time, bigger than accidents, mistakes or self-defense.

The tyrant is what they tuck into their waists, hoping it will chase their fears and enemies away and make them Big Man. Instead it makes them not exist,

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but for the taste of another man’s flesh fresh from the dutty dutty ground.

The antagonist is what they put to their lips to take their minds away from the poverty no one can deny exists, the very poverty that creates the depression that subsidizes the crime.

Time after time they run blasting, mistaking bullets for brains and gun powder for power and the high grade talking in their heads for inspiration.

Then the second, the minute, the hour they execute the clarity they thought they had, they learn the truth, that there’s no redemption once the trigger is pulled and only the fool remains standing, while his brother’s remains stink up the earth worse than dead possum and calls out like Abel’s buried blood, leaving the pestilence to poison the whole community as other hungry kids seize the opportunity to jack cars at the funeral, while mothers hold their noses to stop the cold from running onto their lips and struggle with the next baby on their hips who could easily be next.

12

OLD MAN For Baba Odinga Lumumba I always wished I knew you better.

The ignorance of my generation caused sneers at you instead of smiles.

Occasionally when I questioned, someone would tell me Check di old man and I would wonder what he really knew.

Finding out bit by bit and most of it post-humously made me bitter for the way you’d been erased from history.

Yet, watching you in the yard backa di zinc fence, and then cloaked in Marcus Garvey on the Battlefield, I should have known.

The wisdom in your walking stick and the volts in your voice the sparks in your speech made me listen.

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Heads of Agreement was before I was born but hearing the stories, I could support your cause, would have thrown the first stone with you.

I never believed in repatriation (Louise Bennet seh, “Yuh haffi come from somewhere fus befo’ yuh cu’ go back deh”) but if I ended up in Africa, would have sweated in the galleons of Ghana with you.

The first year I knew you was the last you’d know me but your memory will live on in your words, in your deeds, in a victory you fought for: No bend, no curve, straightforward to victory.

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FORCE RIPE That girl walks down the street switching as her short skirt rides up, showing those delicious thighs.

The guys stare and lick their lips, seduced by her raw sexuality, stuck like a tick on a dog.

They massage their dicks as she flicks a look backward and bats her eyes, enough so they know they can’t get it.

Confident, that chick with the thick body so beautiful.

The boys wish they could get their hands full of that booty but the baby’s off limits and besides, she’s waiting to be the bride for that special one before she’s lured in the bed of a bum.

But still, she’s sooo sexy at sixteen and her pussy is pristine.

They salivate to make her rainforest wet, be the first lumberjack to lay wood but she’s a good girl.

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Now here comes the latest breggin bredda thinking he’s “da bomb”, sooo into himself.

He carries a brush in his back pocket and a mirror in his wallet for periodic checks and touch-ups every half-hour.

She sees him and she’s somehow impressed, maybe by the way he’s dressed; more likely because he hasn’t stressed himself out trying to get with her.

When he approaches, she’s hospitable, doesn’t yet realize how pitiful he really is.

Plus, she’s young and she’s dumb and falsely feels her fine figure will allow her to treat him like the rest of the neighborhood fellas.

She won’t let him fell the tree but she’ll flirt and she’ll tease, He’ll have to fantasize to see her fine figure unfold.

But he’s older and bolder and sooo into himself.

He’s stunned when she stops him at a kiss.

Such a narcissist, he can’t conceive that his dick could be undesirable, that this chick just doesn’t want it.

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So he punctures the pussy and uses his power to pound her with his penis, violate the virgin vagina, deflate her esteem of self, send this force ripe sexy sista to a sinister place; sadly, make her ashamed of her natural sensuality.

The confidence of a sophisticated teen, now a confused statistic, and he doesn’t even realize it’s called rape.

17

THE OCCASIONAL FIGHT Sometimes the sea that provides solace is brown, brackish, bitter; debris from the rain litters its surface.

The salt foams up in bubbly patches of white near the coast, and in little dots further out toward the islets of mangrove meters away.

On better days, it’s calm, comforting to watch the bright blue mirror the sky, complacently copying what it sees above.

But today these waters are capricious, as if declaring individuality, exercising the right to be grimy and grey whether or not the sky’s countenance agrees.

So its tide doesn’t tickle the sea wall today.

It wages hostility against the unnatural front, seeks to reclaim the edge of the city originally in its possession— a hopeless rebellion against progress.

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MY BELIZE, MY LOVE We grew together, you and I. You’re only two years older, I was born in ’83.

I climbed your trees, tried to swim your seas, played ketch in your yards as we enjoyed these wonderful days.

Through childhood you were my best friend.

No one could separate us as I explored your highs and lows, your odds and ends.

You didn’t laugh when I experimented with teenage fashion trends, so I accepted you too with all your multihued blends, the kind that sends a kid like me self-acceptance.

With what sense I could muster, I passed through puberty.

The same time you were ripe for the picking.

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I got my first kiss when you got your third rape.

While I was kissing, you were already stripping.

Your innocence was gone by the time I learned of guilt, even though we’d been pretending to be one.

You stopped telling me your secrets but they always came to light after the damage was already done.

We would fight and make up.

Fight again, almost break up.

But still, I was willing to forgive.

You broke my heart.

You made me cry.

I was so down, thought I might die.

I didn’t think I could continue to live with you.

Like so many other sistas I thought of leaving, taking my love to foreign lands and I did for a while but always knew I would return to the pleasures of your incredible hands.

And, maybe that’s why you have me hooked.

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But how I hate it! When you let these crooks sneak a look at you beneath the sheets, pillow talking, treating you like a whore when you’re marriage material, so much more than what they make you out to be.

Even Goldson could see your value, your worth.

You’ll always be a prize to me.

How I wish, oh! how I wish for the pleasures that we once had, the times when we were madly pristine.

We’ll fix all the things that went awry.

As days go by, we’ll fall in love again, and I’ll be your queen.

I’ll smile and you’ll smile.

Together we’ll be fruitful.

You’ll look at me softly and tell me I’m beautiful, making me feel like no one has ever made me.

I anticipate the day we reunite, turn wrongs to right, as we share our love and give this land some babies.

And then maybe what good is to be will be.

I’ll be free to love you; you’ll be free to love me.

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We’ll be happy as we intertwine and you’ll be once again, my beloved land by the Carib Sea. (Second place in Belizean Poets Society poetry competition 2005)

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THE RHYTHM OF 25 The breeze blows through the palm trees on the bay Swaying them to the rhythm of twenty-five Sun rises on the coastline as the children play Play freely to the rhythm of twenty-five Ducunu man sells his first meal of the day Pockets jungle to the rhythm of twenty-five Miss June want milk but Chiney close today All cultures feel the rhythm of twenty-five Up north, the farmer cuts his cane and prays Thanks for the fortune of the rhythm of twenty-five Down south, fisherman finds where the fish they lay And reels them in to the rhythm of twenty-five On the cayes, the tourists they try the Punta sway The drums sway them to the rhythm of twenty-five At school, teacher says pickney have to march today And they march to the rhythm of twenty-five Parade comes down the street, people jump and wave Jump and wave to the rhythm of twenty-five Pickney beg fi join in di parade Whole faamli join in the rhythm of twenty-five MC pan di truck halla, “Hip Hip Hooray!�

The people bram down to the rhythm of twenty-five Belizeans all celebrate Independence Day And party to the rhythm of twenty-five And wave their flags for the pride of twenty-five!

(First place in written entries for 2006 Belizean Poets Society patriotic poetry competition.)

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ONE WEDNESDAY NIGHT Darkness falls on Belcan as tires burn at its feet.

The black smoke blows west, putrefying the old capital with the scent of coming attractions.

The students have been peaceful, but the ghetto youths join in with a different call, as they raise their fists in a pumping cry for Albert Street.

Swarms of bicycles buzz by, headed to the center of commerce.

Some watch, wait and wonder.

Others run to rob.

They repave the streets with glass and plastic.

Window shopping means break the window and take.

People shop for all the things they always wish they had.

The intention isn’t to hurt, just to get the due deserved.

The sufferahs speak with stolen bolt cuttahs, and take off with Nikes, leather basketballs

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and huge barbeque grills.

Ideology surfaces briefly when Ashcroft’s place gets rocks at the windows, but people are too preoccupied acquiring the things they are taught to desire.

The riot squad watches on the heels of the Swing.

Across the bridge, the politicians evacuate as soldiers keep them safe behind muscles, grimaces and armour, stoic, unmoving until the word is given.

Then they sweep Albert Street clean, bellowing, “Left, right, left!”

Dressed in black, they move perfunctorily, swiftly, effectively.

Their presence inspires fear and flight.

No one attempts to challenge.

Shields protect them from the rocks of the National Assembly— the assembly of people nationally made to suffer from poor fiscal policies, represented on the Albert, ironically (appropriately) by thieves.

People scatter like the shattered glass, no longer the formidable force of a show window. now little shards ready to cut if you step or try to take what they just took.

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At the end, it’s Thursday morning.

Pisshouse takes them by the truckloads, crammed into the backs of SUVs like slaves in the hulls of ships, twisted, contorted to fit.

They charge 109.

There is no State of Emergency.

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TOGETHER WE GROW Together we grow, Comrades in spirit, Trees waving in the breeze.

Together we work The loamy dirt into form, Face that looks like us.

Together we play In yards with parched yellow grass And love the color.

Together we learn From scrapes and cuts and bruises Everywhere, all over.

Together we laugh, Laugh out loud—spontaneous, Full, pitchy guffaws.

Together we sing In tune, off-tune, in between Melodies we hum.

Together we love, We cry, we strong, we grieve, we die, we fly, we live.

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BABY GIRL I feel you moving, baby girl, inside me.

You’re kicking and jiving, bouncing and smiling.

Yeah, I know you’re smiling ‘cause I feel you on the inside of this big black dome, the home you’ve known for these months.

Baby girl, don’t you ever feel alone, ‘cause mama’s here on the outside while you curl and unfurl in me.

I’m your fortress standing tight, doing right for my bright black pearl.

It’s our world of communication, your little vibrations, gyrations, my circulations, as my fingers navigate this globe, my love.

So kick and jive, bunce and smile, baby girl.

As long as I can feel you I know you’re just fine.

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WATCHING HER GROW She could make me laugh an love, or worry and smile with her little style.

Toothless grin, arms flail.

Her eyes crease at the corners.

God! Halleluiah!

She gets up, stands, stays, then falls. She does not cry like other babies. I am proud.

Then her rendition of a kiss: spit on my face.

Affection. Love you.

Baby blue, and pink.

I think of stereotypes she will overcome.

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FOR ALEXA My! How you’ve grown!

I remember feeling you in my belly the first time you moved, fluttering like a little butterfly.

I wasn’t even sure if it was you, but you moved again, and then you moved me.

I knew there was life inside.

I watched my body change, saw my belly blacken, stretch and swell.

I was proud of it because I knew inside was you.

It took all my strength to get you out but you were determined.

I’m sure you helped yourself along the way, and helped me too, like you’ve done so many times with your daring eyes with your undulating laughter with your innocence that never fails to amaze me when I think, “I conceived that”.

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Through my most trying times, small as you are—you’ve helped me. when I snuck off in private to cry, then I hear your little voice ask, Weh mommy deh?

I prepare for your entrance, clearing my tears before you find me.

Yet, you always seem to know.

You push open the door with your little hands, crawl into bed beside me, wrap your little arms around me and kiss me on the nose before you fall asleep.

It always works, always reminds me how blessed I am, and how stupid for indulging in self-pity.

To think!

Someone didn’t want me to have you, wanted me to deny you a chance to laugh, to announce your presence with your first cry.

As I watch you sleeping beside me, stretched out across the bed— my! how you’ve stretched!— with your long lashes fanning your eyes, and your chest heaving up and down, I remember, and I’m glad that for me, there was never a choice.

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THAT FEELING Does it flicker like a flame?

Or sparkle like a star?

Does it burn like a bush?

Like a fire from afar?

Does it throb with intensity?

Can it make sense to me?

Is it vague like an oracle Prophesizing destiny?

Is it strong?

Is it weak?

Is it meek?

Is it kind?

Does it shine Like newly-polished shoes?

Is it great?

Can it break?

Does it sing From within?

Is it something That you never want to lose?

Does it feel like the next side of the blues?

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OLD FLAME Oooh.

You are looking so good, better in fact, than what I last remember, and that was impressive!

It’s nice to see you doing well, moving right on up there like I always knew you would.

Funny, I had this little crush on you once upon a time, and seeing you again rekindles the little light I hid in the corner of my eyes whenever you came around.

I got the impression then that it was mutual, but we were both too shy to admit it.

Our lives crossed paths again a couple years ago.

We were more self-assured so we abandoned inhibitions for the sake of old friendship.

I felt the little light resurface, this time in the upturn of my lips.

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Neither of us said it, although we knew it would have been nice to take this further— but (sigh!) talk about bad timing.

Now here you are again in my life, anchoring at my bay when I thought that ship had sailed.

You have a presence that strikes me.

You know who you are and that is sexy.

I feel the light this time in little tingles all over, like acupuncture.

I’m excited at the prospect of what could be this time around.

We both blush over drinks, cheeks pink as our Alize.

You look divine in the dim light and I’m loving what you say… but your body language is saying everything your lips refuse, making small talk while I’m ready for the long walk with you.

Then you raise your hand to get your glass, and I hear a quiet, but distinct clink, notice a glint of gold through the side of my eye, and finally figure out why we’re still at the bar— damn!

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BKA FINEST I could never forget those eyes: dark, piercing, beautiful, large, black, intense; shadowed by artwork for eyebrows.

The first time I saw them, he was sitting across from me on a train, staring. I pretended not to notice while I read about the Black Jacobins. But my mind could not focus on the past. It was on those eyes that I could feel studying me as I pretended to read.

When I disembarked, he followed, said hi meekly, then confessed the attraction, and that he’d passed his stop half an hour ago. I smiled, said he was sweet, and he said my smile warmed him up in the cold Brooklyn subway.

Both broke, Metro kept us connected.

Took the D train to Rockefeller Center to watch the big tree get lit, not knowing we would light a fire in each other that night too. When the lights came on, we blocked pedestrians so we could kiss, and New Yorkers, they didn’t saw awwww; they were annoyed

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and cussed the kissers. care.

We didn’t

One time a scout approached us in the park, thought we looked cute.

Neither could believe when we didn’t get called back, because to me, he was the hottest thing alive, and to him I was incomparable. Consoling, he whispered something to me in Haitian that I didn’t understand, but sounded beautiful. Between his Creole and my Kriol, we mixed well.

We shared romance in Wendy’s. Held hands under the table and giggled like the teenagers in the next booth. Sat there for hours, long after the cheese fries were done, and the cheesy lines we fed each other made us full.

When we left in the snow, nose tips freezing and red, our cheeks glowed and the smiles stayed crazy-glued to our faces. At my door, we lingered despite the cold, neither wanting to say bye first, each wanting the moment to last just a minute longer.

Leaving saddened us both, but we were prepared, knew it to be inevitable from the beginning.

Guess that’s why we were sure to maximize the fortnight affair with prolonged stares, comfortable smiles, and calling card phone calls

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in between. Eventually, I would let go and live in the real world, miles away from him, an unforgiving world that sometimes made me question love.

But whenever that doubt arose in me, I took myself back to those deep piercing eyes on a train underground in a city I never thought I could love.

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SONNET OF SURRENDER Fantasies swirl ‘round in my mind Like hurricanes with calm, shapely eyes Flooding my body with powerful tides Of whim. I am weak but willfully blind.

I fight the forces of the wind and rain That slap my cheeks unforgivingly.

The tempest spurns me, so spuriously.

I am dripping wet and ashamed.

And after the brief calm it comes again With winds like cold breath upon my neck.

I tremble violently as I let Sense surrender bashfully to shame.

And then, all is over, through and gone.

Flowers bloom once more and it is done.

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OUTLINES IN THE DARK There is beauty in your outline As I observe you softly in the dark, Memorizing your shadows, as if To reconstruct them in a charcoal drawing.

I trace your figure with a cursory glance, Note your solid lines for future reference, Giving you the deference of detail.

A smooth line to emphasize movement As you inhale shallowly And your eyes half-open and roll back In dreamy trance. Could I penetrate The romance of your smile?

Touch that dream with my bare hands And lie with you in black and white?

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A MOMENT We dance, slowly, savoringly, with no music, movement or cause, only the quick beats of our bodies as we breathe, and the warmth of the closeness.

Clothed by nothing but brown skin, creamy, cocoa-buttery, and images of red revealed through the glare of diffused noir light.

We make beauty that can only be felt.

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ARE YOU READY FOR THIS? “You have to touch me. On the inside part. And you have to call me my name.”

-Toni Morission, Beloved

I want to be everything to you that a woman can be to a man.

Like Beloved, I want you to touch me on the inside part, and I want to touch you there too, make love to your heart.

I want to wake up at night and trace your outline in the dark. and watch you sleep. and hear you snore.

Baby I want to give you more love than you can find anywhere else.

I want to lean on my elbow and adore you silently.

That’s how I want it to be between us.

Just hush.

There won’t be any fuss tonight. just the motion of us and the sound of us and the smell of us and the taste of us exercising love.

I want to wake up and examine your face and fall deeply into the sea of your eyes.

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Now that’s funny, cause see, I can’t swim but this feeling I’m in makes me float.

You’ve made ripples to rock my boat.

It’s like I have helium inside but it doesn’t make me talk funny.

I just feel funny. Honey, with you love isn’t just a word.

It’s an action verb.

So I won’t say “I’m in love with you” because that makes love the object of a preposition while I have other premonitions and predispositions.

I will say “I love you” and make it an action verb a word that implies doing feeling thinking believing giving you all the strings to my heart.

And I won’t say “You are loved by me” either because, baby, that’s the passive voice and I love you with an active force and a keen mind.

Now, some people say love is blind and that’s funny too ‘cause you’ve made me see.

You’ve massaged my senses and created a work of art like Beethoven’s Symphonies like paintings by Salvador Dali like a charcoal drawing like a movie starring Halle Berry.

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You’ve made me so very, very into you.

I’ve written love poems to guys before in silly little rhyming couplets: I will climb a mountain for you I will cross an ocean for you Whatever you want me to do Because I love you.

But with you I mean every consonant ‘cause you’re the one part of my life that’s been constant and I am faithful to every vowel so whenever you want me to take them vows, well, I’m here.

I don’t even need a diamond set in a fancy gold ring baby, glass and wire will do as long as it comes from you and you’re sure it’s what you want to do.

When the preacher asks you if you really do and you say you really, really do I won’t know whether to smile or jump or cry ‘cause you have me dreaming of white dresses, flowers and life.

So when you pinch me and tell me I’m really your wife all I can ask is, Baby, are you ready for all the love I’m about to give to you?

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SUNDAY MORNING #1 sunlight through my window stirs me to life

senses unfold

one

by

one

body

piece

by

piece. love is cooking in the kitchen. bacon s i z z l e s.

johnny cakes

r

i

s

e. baby rolls

over in her bed, soon to be in my face

with kisses and pleas for shaw-clit milk.

Frankie Rhys on the radio

says in deep bass “This is jazz on a Sunday morning.�

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SUNDAY MORNING # 2 on a Sunday morning body wakes to a house that smells like Disiclin, sanitized of all vestiges; no accidental memories. fuzzy slippers move feet aimlessly across cold tile. eyes squint at the light in the living room; curtains close. water and bread, no butter. finger raises to shut up the evangelical preaching on the tube, and pop in a blasphemous cd. shower temperature too cold then too hot; no towel on the rack. clean panties, tee-shirt, knotty hair, ice cream, book by zane. fridge humming in the background, fan overhead. stretch out on the couch. back to sleep.

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SELFISH! Selfish for trying to hold my heart together While deep cuts threaten to sever my love.

Crazy glue won’t hold it forever.

If I let go it will never be the same.

Selfish because I won’t be your whore While you decide who you want more Even though I bravely bore your child.

I’m beginning to abhor you.

Selfish because I won’t be used While you get to pick and choose.

Why don’t you wear my shoes for a change?

I bet your reds would turn to blues, and then grays.

These are trying days.

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BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR The anxiety sours and churns itself into lumpy milk; the irony, so concentrated it drips in lumps, staining the carpet with pungent cottage-cheesiness: The rotten result of getting exactly what I wanted.

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WADING THROUGH DEPRESSION I wade through depression like through swamp water waist high.

Liquid pressure forces itself against my inner thighs.

I wade through this depression that holds me back, that bares my body down to my naked soul.

I try for progression, which teases me vindictively, dangles itself in front of my, teasingly.

It’s what I want with no digression, like a first date sans first impressions so I can wade through this depression and love me and be me and feel like me again.

But when will I regain consciousness? rearrange my heart, get rid of this mess? when will I feel fit to fight to pass this test?

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I’m only guessing my way through the mud, undressing myself for a rape forgetting my blessings forgoing my faith in love.

And why praise love when it stuck me in a hole? when it turned wholes into halves but never halves into wholes when it desecrated my soul when it confiscated my rightful role as the She, the quintessence of femininity like the bust of Nefertiti like the lips on my beautiful black queens, like the hips on young mommas-to-be.

But instead I’m forced to wade through depression like through wet sand that clumps up against my hands and pours outta my glands instead of sweat and pushes me through foreign lands with no meat and turns I cans into I can’ts but never I can’ts into I cans through equatorial heat.

My body’s beat and my spirit deserves a rest, deserves to check in as a guest at a day spa get facials and all the best go to church and get blessed but still I wade through depression like a beast.

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It’s unjust oppression too much jail time for my transgressions I’ve paid for all my sessions of sin so why can’t I ever win?

Be in instead of out, and not out instead of in and quit wading through depression ‘fore I sink.

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INSOMNIA It’s hard to sleep when my sheets still smell like you, and your aroma invades my dreams, becoming the pro- or antagonist, depending on the night.

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NIGHTS LIKE THIS It’s nights like this that I miss having a man,

miss his kisses,

miss his hands,

miss his warmth, as we made future plans and all my wishes came true.

It’s nights like this that we would have watched a movie, maybe cooked some food.

I would have lit some candles, turned off the lights to set the mood.

and it would have been sooo good.

It’s nights like this we would maybe take a walk down the street, around the corner, take a stroll through the park and we would talk to each other, sharing smiles in the dark as sparks fly

between the two of us.

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Now nights like this are cold and lonely.

I am the only one in my bed.

Mine is the only head to sink into the oversized pillows like lead.

Red nights fade to pink and washed-out whites.

I’d rather be dead— no, I take that back.

I love my life, but damn, how I miss being a wife!

On nights like this, I walk alone, sleep alone, and dine alone, missing the noises of my now-quiet home.

So I punctuate the silence with song and before long I hear someone and rush to the door, slightly embarrassed because the visitor may have heard my attempts at allure.

Still the prospects of the coming company are comforting.

Then my high falls as I realize that blessed noise is only my own pathetic voice echoing off the walls.

I guess on nights like this I must make do with what I can, but damn, on nights like this how I miss having a man!

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HE’S MOVED ON WITH HIS LIFE These months have been like daggers, obtrusive, incisive, invasive, drawing blood, then infecting with pointed misery.

Time only sharpens the blade.

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LIKE A WOMAN All I want is to feel like a woman again wear high-heel shoes, tight jeans and lip gloss and be adored by the eyes of men.

And I want their thoughts too.

I want to capture their quintessence, bottle it like vanilla essence, and then, I want a man to make love to me how and where and when I please.

With ease I’ll make him feel the power of my sexuality.

Make him whisper, oh! when I take him to the next reality give him a map of my curves highlighting my sensualities so that I can feel like the woman that I am who is lying somewhere beneath the grainy sand waiting to be uncovered by the tenderness of a man.

I want to feel sexy once more to implore with a whisper and like a vixen, lure.

I want to be adored for my breasts that curve up 55

with a push-up bra, and the rest of my body inspiring awe.

For my ahs and my oohs and other sounds that I choose and the clues that I leave like a suspect on the news for my legs, long and smooth and the power they hold for my hips that gyrate with exotic gold for my lips, large and tempting, potentially bold.

I want him to look at me with soft, imploring eyes and realize that my silent cries mean discontent.

I want him know exactly what I meant just by the inflection of my sighs, when they rise like a question or fall out of flow.

I want him to show me love and affection, demonstrate that his intentions are good. give me soft, expressive strokes with all the passion that he could.

I want him to feel me inside and out, shout to heaven and click send on a message of what our love is about.

And what I really want is for him to tell me how and when I can feel like a woman again.

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MOSAIC Her fragile glass heart is cracked, soon to shatter if placed near extreme heat.

It will survive as a mosaic then, with incorrect pieces at incorrect places— a heart healed with colored grout, still art, but never the same.

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TURBULENCE How must I fly when the forces of nature conspire to bring my little aircraft down?

Cruel winds toss me around like a mean game of throw to throw.

I falter under the force.

It’s hard to keep flying, but I stay the course.

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CD LISTING 1

Lyrical Lounge Intro Orson Elrington Roots

2

featuring Shibabei

3

Garifuna Drummer featuring Shibabei

4 5 6 7

8 9

Execution Style For Miss Irene Force Ripe Belize By the Sea Performed by Tanya Carter

My Belize, My Love One Wednesday Night featuring Dan Man

10 11

12

13 14 15 16 17

For Alexa That Feeling Performed by River of Fire

Are You Ready For This? featuring Frankie Rhys

Old Flame BKA Finest Insomnia/Nights Like This Like A Woman Outro Mose Hyde

Produced by Ludwig Studios

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