The Gods Wrote #blacklivesmatter South Africa

Posted on January 20, 2016 by Frédéric.Arps.blogs

THE GODS WROTE

We are breath of drop of rain
Grain of sea sand in the wind
We are root of baobab
Flesh of this soil
Blood of Congo brush elegant
As breast of dark cloud
Or milk flowing through the groaning yearsWe also know
Centuries with the taste
Of white shit down to the spine…The choice is ours
So is the life
The music of our laughter reborn
Tyityimba or boogaloo passion
Of the sun-eyed gods of our blood
Laughs in the nighttime, in the daytime too
And across America vicious cities
Clatter to the ground. Was it notAll written by the gods!
Turn the things! I said
Let them things roll
To the rhythm of our movement
Don’t you know this is a love supreme!
John Coltrane John Coltrane tell the ancestors
We listened we heard your message
Tell them you gave us tracks to move

Trane and now we know
The choice is ours
So is the mind and the matches too
The choice is ours

So is the beginning
‘We were not made eternally to weep’
The choice is ours
So is the need and the want too
The choice is ours
So is the vision of the day

From: The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry.
NEW and USED: Abebooks.com The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry
NEW at independent bookstores: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780195125634

H.D.

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Frédéric.Arps.blogs

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/h-d#poet

Amazing person this. Read about her life in the link.

from Sigil

If you take the moon in your hands
and turn it round
(heavy, slightly tarnished platter)
you’re there;

if you pull dry seaweed from the sand
and turn it round
and wonder at the underside’s bright amber,
your eyes

look out as they did here,
(you don’t remember)
when my soul turned round,

perceiving the other-side of everything,
mullein-leaf, dog-wood leaf, moth-wing
and dandelion-seed under the ground.

from Winter Love

So we were together
though I did not think of you
for ten years

it is more than ten years
and the long time after;
I was with you in Calypso’s cave?

…

there is something left over,
the first unsatisfied desire-
the first time, the first kiss,

the rough stones of a wall,
the fragrance of honey-flowers, the bees,
and how I would have fallen but for a voice,

calling through the brambles
and tangle of bay-berry
and rough broom,

Helen, Helen, come home;
there was a Helen before there was a War,
but who remembers her?

Buy the Faber Book of 20th Century Women’s Poetry, ed. Fleur Adcock, from an indie bookseller here.

“My Prince” by Nathalia Bernstein (hat tip Rattle.com)

Posted on March 30, 2015 by Frédéric.Arps.blogs

Nathalia Bernstein (Age 9)

MY PRINCE

My prince is not coming on a white horse

but on a turtle.

That is why it will take so long

before we are together.

—from 2015 Rattle Young Poets Anthology

All women on women: love and sex. 2/4 #ValentinesDay #lesbian

Posted on February 14, 2015 by Frédéric.Arps.blogs

Words, Wide Night by Carol Ann Duffy

.
Somewhere on the other side of this wide night
and the distance between us, I am thinking of you.

The room is turning slowly away from the moon.

This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say
it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.

La lala la. See? I close my eyes and imagine
the dark hills I would have to cross
to reach you. For I am in love with you

and this is what it is like or what it is like in words..

From: Poems on the Underground, edited by Chernaik, Herbert and Benson.
Buy NEW and USED at abebooks: Poems on the Underground!!!

Established in 1970, Glad Day Bookshop is the world’s oldest LGBTQ bookstore and Toronto’s oldest surviving bookstore. In 2012, a group of 23 community members pooled their funds and bought Glad Day Bookshop to save it from closing.

“Our best strategy for survival is adding new revenues streams like food and drink – which means a larger space.
We’ve picked out a great spot on Church Street that would allow us to be a bookstore & coffee shop during the day and a bar at night.
It is wheelchair accessible, with an accessible washroom.

It has a cute patio, a small space for performances and walls for art.

We will be a space where everyone feels welcome, sexy and celebrated.

We will be a queer-owned, indie place on Church Street. We will amplify the love, creativity, sexuality, diversity & liberation that Glad Day Bookshop is known for.”

Oh, Lucille Clifton… “Listen Children/we have always loved each other” #BlackLivesMatter #ValentinesDay

Posted on February 13, 2015 by Frédéric.Arps.blogs

One of the most beautiful love poems for black children. So much love she has, and so careful to talk simply and direct. No big words, no flowers, chocolate or stars. Lucille Clifton passed away 5 years ago after many years of fighting cancer.

Listen Children

listen children
keep this in the place
you have for keeping
always
keep it all ways

we have never hated black

listen
we have been ashamed
hopeless tired mad
but always
all ways
we loved us

we have always loved each other
children all ways

pass it on

…………………………………………………

good times

my daddy has paid the rent
and the insurance man is gone
and the lights is back on
and my uncle brud has hit
for one dollar straight
and they is good times
good times
good times

my mama has made bread
and grampaw has come
and everybody is drunk
and dancing in the kitchen
and singing in the kitchen
of these is good times
good times
good times

oh children think about the
good times

………………………………………………….

Poem in praise of menstruation

if there is a river
more beautiful than this
bright as the blood
red edge of the moon if
there is a river
more faithful than this
returning each month
to the same delta if there

is a river
braver than this
coming and coming in a surge
of passion, of pain if there is

a river
more ancient than this
daughter of eve
mother of cain and of abel if there is in

the universe such a river if
there is some where water
more powerful than this wild
water

pray that it flows also
through animals
beautiful and faithful and ancient
and female and brave

………………………………………………….

The New Yorker remembers one of the great poets, Lucille Clifton!!

A longer, very satisfying, piece that has long lists of what to read for various age groups is at the poetry foundation.

BUY: My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry (A Puffin Poetry Book)
NEW and USED: Abebooks.com My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry
NEW at independent bookstores NEAR you: My Black Me.

Ted Joans sings out in love and gladness: “I SEE BLACK PEOPLE/I HEAR BLACK PEOPLE/I SMELL BLACK PEOPLE/I TASTE BLACK PEOPLE/I TOUCH BLACK PEOPLE” #ValentinesDay #BlackLivesMatter

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Frédéric.Arps.blogs

What a talented person… Painter, trumpeter and jazz poet…And revolutionary…

…and repatriate to Timbuktu and later moved to Canada where he died poor “was surviving by reading poetry and selling his personal papers to libraries. He had just completed his “Collaged Autobiography,” a remarkable memoir waiting for the right publisher.” See below for the link on this information.

Andandand short before he died he said:

“So in my rather sorrowful impecunious state, I find myself filled to the beautiful brim with love and with this shared love I continue to live my poem-life.”

Black People by Ted Joans:

I SEE BLACK PEOPLE
I HEAR BLACK PEOPLE
I SMELL BLACK PEOPLE
I TASTE BLACK PEOPLE
I TOUCH BLACK PEOPLE
BLACK PEOPLE IS MY MOMMA
BLACK PEOPLE IS MY DAD
BLACK PEOPLE IS MY SISTER,BROTHER,UNCLE,AUNT,
. AND COUSINS
BLACK PEOPLE IS ALL WE BLACK PEOPLE EVER HAD
NOW THAT WE THE BLACK PEOPLE KNOW THAT
WE THE BLACK PEOPLE SHOULD BE GLAD

From: My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry (A Puffin Poetry Book)
NEW and USED: Abebooks.com My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry
NEW at independent bookstores NEAR you: My Black Me.

Hold on onto life. Love. “For Black Poets Who Think of Suicide” Etheridge Knight #ValentinesDay #BlackLivesMatter

Posted on February 8, 2015 by Frédéric.Arps.blogs

For Black Poets
Who Think of Suicide

Black Poets should live — not leap
From steel bridges (Like the white boys do.
Black poets should live — not lay
Their necks on railroad tracks (like the white boys do.
Black Poets should seek — but not search too much
In sweet dark caves, not hunt for snipe
Down psychic trails (like the white boys do.

For Black Poets belong to Black People. Are
The Flutes of Black Lovers. Are
The Organs of Black Sorrows. Are
The Trumpets of Black Warriors.
Let All Black Poets die as trumpets,
And be buried in the dust of marching feet.

Etheridge Knight

Love your peoples. “We’re an Africanpeople/hard-softness burning black” by Don L. Lee #BlackLivesMatter #BlackHistoryMonth #ValentinesDay

Posted on February 7, 2015 by Frédéric.Arps.blogs

From: African Poems

We’re an Africanpeople
hard-softness burning black
the earth’s magic colour our veins.
an Africanpeople are we,
burning softly, softer.
Haki Madhubuti (Don L. Lee)

My Black Me

You. love yourself: i bleed every month. but do not die. how am i not magic. 5 poems by #NayyirahWaheed #BlackLivesMatter #ValentinesDay

Posted on February 7, 2015 by Frédéric.Arps.blogs

i am mine.
before i am ever anyone else’s.

―

i fell apart many times.
so.
what does that say about me
besides
i live through
wars.

―

if
the ocean
can calm itself,
so can you.
we
are both
salt water
mixed with
air.

―

sometimes
the beauty of my people
is
so
thick and intricate.
i spend days
trying
to undo my eyes
so
i can sleep.

―

she asked ‘you are in love, what does love look like’ to which i replied ‘like everything i’ve ever lost come back to me.

―

Nayyirah Waheed

“i paid my 30 cents and rode by the bus window all the way down…” Nikki Giovanni #BlackHistoryMonth #ValentinesDay

Posted on February 4, 2015 by Frédéric.Arps.blogs

Photo by:

by Nikki Giovanni

i paid my 30 cents and rode by the bus
window all the way down

i felt a little funny with no hair
on my head
but my knees were shiny ’cause
aunty mai belle cleaned me up
and i got off on time and walked
past the lions and the guard straight
up to the desk and said
“dr. doo little steroscope please”
and this really old woman said
“Do You Have A Library Card?”
and i said
“i live here up the street”
and she said
“Do You Have A LIBRARY Card?”
and i said
“this is the only place i can use
the steroscope for
dr. doo little miss washington
brought us here this spring
to see it.”
and another lady said
“GIVE THAT BOY WHAT HE WANT. HE WANT TO LEAD THE RACE”
and i said
“no ma’am i want to see dr. dooolittle”
and she said “same thang son same thang”

From: My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry (A Puffin Poetry Book)
NEW and USED: Abebooks.com My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry
NEW at independent bookstores NEAR you: My Black Me

“The night is beautiful So the faces of my people.” Langston Hughes #ValentinesDay #BlackHistory

Posted on February 3, 2015 by Frédéric.Arps.blogs

When you have to learn to love yourself and parts of yourself that others are afraid of. When they choose only to see the scary in the night, and don’t connect you with owls and the moon and the dark grays, blues, purples of the night. When they don’t think of the sounds of grass and the cats in the dark.

When you have to learn to see the beauty where powerful others don’t even *notice* that beauty in you. Because they don’t look at you, or can’t even imagine you can be beautiful like they are. Or because they are afraid of one thing about you and they don’t see all the other sides to you that are like theirs, that *can* be beautiful.

When you have to point to the biggest, brightest light and tell people to see you just like that. When you have to point out the kindness, love, strength, weakness, endurance, impatience, fun, heat and love of your soul.

“My People”

The night is beautiful
So the faces of my people

The stars are beautiful
So the eyes of my people

Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.

Langston Hughes

My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry (A Puffin Poetry Book)
NEW and USED: Abebooks.com My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry
NEW at independent bookstores NEAR you: My Black Me

It has a cute patio, a small space for performances and walls for art.

We will be a space where everyone feels welcome, sexy and celebrated.

We will be a queer-owned, indie place on Church Street. We will amplify the love, creativity, sexuality, diversity & liberation that Glad Day Bookshop is known for.”

“I Have a Dream” Pat Parker. “i can walk the streets/holding hands with my lover” #valentines #blackhistorymonth

Posted on February 2, 2015 by Frédéric.Arps.blogs

I Have a Dream

i have a dream
. no—
. not Martin’s
though my feet moved
. down many paths.
it’s a simple dream—

i have a dream
. not the dream of the vanguard
. not to turn this world—
. all over
not the dream of the masses—
. not the dream of women
. not to turn this world
. all
. over
it’s a simple dream—

In my dream
. i can walk the streets
. holding hands with my lover

In my dream—
. i can go to a hamburger stand
. & not be taunted by bikers on a holiday.

In my dream—
. i can go to a public bathroom,
. & not be shrieked at by ladies—

In my dream—
. i can walk ghetto streets
. & not be beaten up by my brothers.

In my dream—
. i can walk out of a bar
. & not be arrested by the pigs

I’ve placed this body
. placed this mind
. in lots of dreams—
. in Martin’s and Malcolm’s—
. in Huey’s & Mao’s—
. in George’s & Angela’s—
. in the north & south
. of Vietnam & America
. & Africa

i’ve placed this body & mind.
. in dreams—
. dreams of people—

. now i’m tired—
. now you listen!
. i have a dream too.
. it’s a simple dream.

Pat Parker

More black poets to read through this link.

More about Pat Parker at the University of Minnesota’s Voices From the Gaps
Women Writers and Artists of Color.

It has a cute patio, a small space for performances and walls for art.

We will be a space where everyone feels welcome, sexy and celebrated.

We will be a queer-owned, indie place on Church Street. We will amplify the love, creativity, sexuality, diversity & liberation that Glad Day Bookshop is known for.”

Words, Wide Night by Carol Ann Duffy. When whom youlovelivesfar away. #valentines #poetryisjustawesome

Posted on February 1, 2015 by Frédéric.Arps.blogs

Words, Wide Night by Carol Ann Duffy

Somewhere on the other side of this wide night
and the distance between us, I am thinking of you.
The room is turning slowly away from the moon.This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say
it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.La lala la. See? I close my eyes and imagine

the dark hills I would have to cross
to reach you. For I am in love with youand this is what it is like or what it is like in words..
.
.Grand to hear that Duffy is first Lesbian Poet Laureate!From: Poems on the Underground, edited by Chernaik, Herbert and Benson.
Buy NEW and USED at abebooks: Poems on the Underground!!!From another poetry blog comment: a reference to George Gerwshwin:

Blah blah blah blah moon
Blah blah blah above
Blah blah blah blah croon
Blah blah blah above.

Tra la la la, tra la la la, la, merry month of May
Tra la la la, tra la la la, la, ‘neath a cloud of grey.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah your hair
Blah blah blah your eyes
Blah blah blah blah care
Bla blah blah blah skies.

Tra la la la, tra la la la, la, cottage for two
Blah blah blah blah blah blah darling with you.

Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah…

It has a cute patio, a small space for performances and walls for art.

We will be a space where everyone feels welcome, sexy and celebrated.

We will be a queer-owned, indie place on Church Street. We will amplify the love, creativity, sexuality, diversity & liberation that Glad Day Bookshop is known for.”

Making cow eyes. For the love of cows. Cowscowscows “Cows” by Peter Kocan! #Valentines #poetryisjustawesome

Posted on January 31, 2015 by Frédéric.Arps.blogs

Cows by Peter Kocan

Cows graze across the hill,
Measuring the day
As their shadows tell
Irrelevant time. Their gait is half-way
Between moving and standing still.

The sun is gentle on the green
Of their meadow, their mouths deep
In its heavy warmth,
A watcher could fall asleep
In the depth
Of that untroubled scene.

From each dewdrop morning
To every day’s end
They follow the cycle
Of the rhythm of the world turning
In its season. A miracle
Of normalcy is a cow’s mind.

Beyond thought’s prickling fever
They dwell in the grace
Of their own true concerns,
And in that place
Know they will live forever
With butterflies around their horns.

More about Kocan:http://evidenceanecdotal.blogspot.ca/2013/05/a-miracle-of-normalcy-is-cows-mind.html

“There is a field near the main kitchen where cows from the hospital dairy graze. There’s a peacefulness about cows.

At weekends you take a book and sit under the tree near the field and read a little and listen to music on your transistor and watch the cows.

Sometimes you lean on the fence and click your tongue at the cows and they will wander close and sniff at you and

examine you with big peaceful eyes but with a dubious look also, as if they’re wondering what your game is.

You don’t stay leaning on the fence too long. It’s a bit too visible there.

It might look odd.

Other people don’t spend their time looking at cattle. Looking at cattle is

probably a symptom of something. ”

The New Oxford Book of Australian Verse, chosen by Les A. Murray.
USED: http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=14144434264

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Awesome poetry from all over.

Clear and simple! Guaranteed!

Tag Archives: love

The Gods Wrote #blacklivesmatter South Africa

H.D.

“My Prince” by Nathalia Bernstein (hat tip Rattle.com)

All women on women: love and sex. 2/4 #ValentinesDay #lesbian

Oh, Lucille Clifton… “Listen Children/we have always loved each other” #BlackLivesMatter #ValentinesDay

Ted Joans sings out in love and gladness: “I SEE BLACK PEOPLE/I HEAR BLACK PEOPLE/I SMELL BLACK PEOPLE/I TASTE BLACK PEOPLE/I TOUCH BLACK PEOPLE” #ValentinesDay #BlackLivesMatter

Hold on onto life. Love. “For Black Poets Who Think of Suicide” Etheridge Knight #ValentinesDay #BlackLivesMatter

Love your peoples. “We’re an Africanpeople/hard-softness burning black” by Don L. Lee #BlackLivesMatter #BlackHistoryMonth #ValentinesDay

You. love yourself: i bleed every month. but do not die. how am i not magic. 5 poems by #NayyirahWaheed #BlackLivesMatter #ValentinesDay

“i paid my 30 cents and rode by the bus window all the way down…” Nikki Giovanni #BlackHistoryMonth #ValentinesDay

“The night is beautiful So the faces of my people.” Langston Hughes #ValentinesDay #BlackHistory

“I Have a Dream” Pat Parker. “i can walk the streets/holding hands with my lover” #valentines #blackhistorymonth

Words, Wide Night by Carol Ann Duffy. When whom youlovelivesfar away. #valentines #poetryisjustawesome

Making cow eyes. For the love of cows. Cowscowscows “Cows” by Peter Kocan! #Valentines #poetryisjustawesome

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