Our Vision Is Our Voice

Our Vision Is Our Voice
By Sonia Sanchez

Our vision is our voice
we cut through the country
where madmen goosestep in tune to Guernica.

we are people made of fire
we walk with ceremonial breaths
we have condemned talking mouths.

we run without legs
we see without eyes
loud laughter breaks over our heads.

give me courage so I can spread
it over my face and mouth.

we are secret rivers
with shaking hips and crests
come awake in our thunder
so that our eyes can see behind trees.

for the world is split wide open
and you hide your hands behind your backs
for the world is broken into little pieces
and you beg with tin cups for life.

are we not more than hunger and music?
are we not more than harlequins and horns?
are we not more than color and drums?
are we not more than anger and dance?

give me courage so I can spread it
over my face and mouth.

we are the shakers
walking from top to bottom in a day
we are like Shango
involving ourselves in acts
that bring life to the middle
of our stomachs

we are coming towards you madmen
shredding your death talk
standing in front with mornings around our waist
we have inherited our prayers from
the rain
our eyes from the children of Soweto.

red rain pours over the land
and our fire mixes with the water.

give me courage so I can spread
it over my face and mouth.

Poem for Some Women

Poem for Some Women
By Sonia Sanchez

Huh,
I'm alright.
I say, I'm alright.
What you looking at?
I say, I'm alright.
doing okay,
I-I-I'm still writing, producing
on the radio.
Who I foolin?
I'm a little ill.
Now I just got a little jones,
Jones, jones, habit, habit.

Took my seven-year-old to the crack house with me on Thursday.
beautiful little girl,
prettiest little girl her mama done ever seen.
Took her so she understands
why I late sometimes
with her breakfast, dinner, bedtime
needings, bedtime love.
Wanted her to know how hard it is for me.
You know, a single woman,
out here on her own.

You know, so I took her to the crack house
where this man, this dog, this former friend of mine lived.
Wouldn't give me no crack,
no action.
Even when I offered my thighs
to give him some again for the umpteenth time,
he said no.
All the while,
looking at my baby,
my pretty little baby.
And he said, 
"I want her. I need a virgin.
Yo' pussy's too loose.
You had so much traffic up your pussy,
you could park a truck up there 
and still have room for something else."
And he laughed,
this loooonnng laugh.
And I looked at him
and the stuff he was holding in his hand.
You know, I couldn't remember my baby's name.
He held out the stuff to me,
and I couldn't remember her birthday.
I couldn't remember my daughter's face.
And I cried as I walked out that door.
What's her name?
Pudd'n'Tang.
Ask me again, 
I'll tell you the same thing.
Couldn't even hear her screaming my name,
as he tore into her pretty little panties.
Prettiest girl you done ever seen.
Pretties little mama's baby you done ever seen.

Bought my baby this pretty little leather jacket off the street.
When I went to pick her up on Sunday, 
seven days later,
walked right up to the house,
opened the door,
saw her sitting on the floor.
She said, 
"Mama! Where you been? Mama, I called for you.
Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama! 
They hurt me something bad.
I wanna go home! 
Mamaaaa!"

Mama's little baby
loves shortening, shortening.
Mama's little baby loves shortening bread.
Put on the jacket.
Put on the jacket.
Mama's little baby loves shortening bread.

When we got home
she wouldn't talk to me.
She just sat and stared,
wouldn't even watch the TV
when I turned it on.
When we got home,
She just stared at me with her eyes,
dog-like,
just sat and looked at me with her eyes
'til I had to get out of there.

You know,
my baby ran away from home last week.
My sweet little shortening bread
ran away from home last night.
And I dreamed she was dead,
dreamed she was surrounded by panthers
who tossed her back and forth,
nibbling and biting,
and tearing her up.
My little shortening bread
ran away from home last week.

Peek-a-boo.
Peek-a-boo.
Peek-a-boo.
I see you
and you
and you
and yoooou.

Holly Iglesias's Poems

Thursday Afternoon: Life Is Sweet
Conceptual Art
Ex Libris

Ex Libris

Ex Libris
By Holly Iglesias

Unlike the sock who mistook static for love, love, passion is never lost. We may empty the house, stripping art from the walls, boxing cups and diction-aries, albums and coats, but the fervor of our days will remain, sparks rid-ing the air like dust before settling on the new owner's book, the story changed each time she averts her eyes.

Conceptual Art

Conceptual Art
By Holly Iglesias

An act of recovery, they say in curatorial tones, archiving the mundane, rooting through the baggage of inmates deposited long ago for safekeeping, anonymity the new caché, a hunger for narrative free of consequence. Within a small strapped case, the single shirt, carefully starched, his winter drawers and the geography text once memorized to win a ribbon that Mother tacked to the parlor wall, boasting of her genius boy. Before he began drooling in church, tweezing the hairs from his forearm, singing to himself as he walked to the foundry after a breakfast of oats and beans and splashing his cheeks with her cologne. Before he began seeing things that weren't there and begged her for stories in Polish to soothe his fears, his grief for uncles buried in an old world and the clumsy name no one in town could pronounce. He lived out the balance of his days in gray pants and black shoes, took meals at six, twelve and six and dug graves when told to. His single pleasure, if you dare call it that, the school book, a quiet, solid thing upon his lap each afternoon, his fingers as smooth as the pages, patting it, stroking it, to calm the seas roiling between its covers.

Thursday Afternoon: Life Is Sweet

Thursday Afternoon: Life Is Sweet
By Holly Iglesias

I know what's happening, see what's coming, and try like mad to fight it. Tapioca simmers in the dented pot. The Joy of Cooking says to use a bain-marie but I say, bain-marie, my ass. That Rombauer woman never shopped at Goodwill a day in her life. (He'll be home in three hours.) I stir constantly, watch carefully because that's what the damned book says to do but any fool knows that the stuff is done when the spoon starts to drag.
Tapioca has many lives, grows a new skin each time a scoop's dug out. Those beady little eyes--even though the cookbook insists on calling them pearls--bounce from the box all dry and nervous and then the hot milk leaches the starch out and makes a gluey mess. The book says, Never boil the pudding, but screw that: I love those thick, beige swells exploding like volcanoes, the sound as the surface breaks, the smell of burnt sugar at the bottom of the pot.
They tell you, Spoon the pudding into individual cups, but I put the whole mess in a plastic bowl and watch it quiver as it slides into the icebox. The kids like to press little dimples into it, then lick their fingers clean behind the icebox door so I won't know who did it. Me, I push clear through to the bottom of the bowl and my finger comes out so coated that it fills my mouth.
I leave the pot on the counter, won't wash it for hours. (Slob, he'll say, but I'm learning to ignore him.) The residue dries into a sheet as sheer as dragonfly wings and the kids will peel it off, laughing and drooling as it melts in their mouths. I can hear them yell now as they race up the driveway, pitch their bikes against the gate. The screen door slams and in rushes the smell of them: sweat, cotton, soap, candy.

Luke Havergal

Luke Havergal
By Edward Arlington Robinson

Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal,

There where the vines cling crimson on the wall,

And in the twilight wait for what will come.

The leaves will whisper there of her, and some,

Like flying words, will strike you as they fall;

But go, and if you listen, she will call.

Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal---

Luke Havergal.

No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies

To rift the fiery night that’s in your eyes;

But there, where western glooms are gathering

The dark will end the dark, if anything:

God slays Himself with every leaf that flies,

And hell is more than half of paradise.

No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies---

In eastern skies.

Out of a grave I come to tell you this,

Out of a grave I come to quench the kiss

That flames upon your forehead with a glow

That blinds you to the way that you must go.

Yes, there is yet one way to where she is,

Bitter, but one that faith may never miss.

Out of a grave I come to tell you this---

To tell you this.

There is the western gate, Luke Havergal,

There are the crimson leaves upon the wall,

Go, for the winds are tearing them away,---

Nor think to riddle the dead words they say,

Nor any more to feel them as they fall;

But go, and if you trust her she will call.

There is the western gate, Luke Havergal---

Luke Havergal.

Jill Scott's Poems

Nothing Is For Nothing
Ain't A Ceiling

Nothing Is For Nothing

Nothing Is For Nothing
By Jill Scott

I had been turning tricks longer than I actually knew it.
Being whatever they wanted me to be whenever they wanted me to be it.
A freak, inside, outside kitchen counters, laundry mats, two at a time,
hotels, motels, and backseats of leased cars, vans and jeeps.
Made myself like it ’cause they liked it and I liked that they liked it
and so I continued being the perfect image of a wet dream.
Nasty, wild, exotic, erotic.
Freak was they wanted so freak was who I was.
And everybody was walking around talking about me.
Like teenage pregnancy wasn’t becoming synonymous with being black and woman.
Like America wasn’t suffocating our thoughts.
Like there was nothing to talk about what was doing or screwing.
And I thought the whole damn thing was ridiculous, which it was.
‘Cause I was content giving my men a little heaven
between their struggle to breathe and contemplation of suicide.
Wasn’t I good for the cause?
Closed mind, open legs, making niggas forget why they’re so damn angry.
Wasn’t I good?
Then the mood swung as well the tempo and I became an ideal.
They want her pretty and docile, caring and stupid
and there I was on your Mark, Seth, Joe and I was Suzy Homemaker on the hunt for love;
Cooking and cleaning, ironing and faithful and a freak cause that’s what they liked
and I liked being what they liked so what they liked was who I was.
A prostitute, selling my soul for emotional gain,
struggling not to be the third generation of lonely women in my family.
Struggling to gain but gaining nothing but confusion, frustration, illusion, and emptiness ’cause there was no love,
just empty condom wrappers on the floors to be discarded like me.
A prize performer long before I actually knew it too,
’cause I was faking me out of the me I would become.
The me that I see now.
The me that holds onto herself with both hands and all feet.
The me who must have love and give it.
The me who brings more to the table than good looks and a wet hole.
The me that is confident, and intelligent and filled to the brim with respect for me.
And a freak ’cause that’s what I like and I like being what I like and what I like is all a part of what I am.

Ain't A Ceiling

Ain't A Ceiling
By Jill Scott

You say life's been hard on you. 
Well brother I got news; it's hard on me too. 
We seem to face the same old issues. 
Some are just surface, some are deep some deep down in the tissue. 
And I know slavery has played its part, word. 
Being separated and subjugated and that passes to the brain of a child 
So I want to step off what was, and start with the right now 
You say "the world just don't understand" 
But I ain't the world my love, I'm your woman. 
And I know how deep it really goes 
Trying to tread on a dream when the water feels low. 
Ohh, if our ancestors could walk, barefoot, afraid in the dark, for miles and miles... 
I know we can do this, come on let's start.
I wanna be real with you
I wanna get healed by you
I wanna grow up with you
I wanna be more with you
Be what’s in store for you
Open the doors for you
to a truer healing
Can you imagine the feeling
The sky ain’t a ceiling
At all