Episode Rapture

Episode Rapture ©

no wound visible to the naked eye

consumed by aching emptiness

hope ran away

was it really my fault?

because I trusted?

was he right?

NO.

he raped my soul of her love

on the inside I was just trying not to die

then purpose set me on a new path

healing steps to recovering me

dreaming bigger singing louder

and hope came back home

and love restored my soul

now my life lights the world

written by cgl November 16, 2010

a song in the front yard

a song in the front yard
BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS

I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.
I want a peek at the back
Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows.
A girl gets sick of a rose.
I want to go in the back yard now
And maybe down the alley,
To where the charity children play.

I want a good time today.
They do some wonderful things.
They have some wonderful fun.
My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine
How they don’t have to go in at quarter to nine.

My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae
Will grow up to be a bad woman.
That George’ll be taken to Jail soon or late
(On account of last winter he sold our back gate).
But I say it’s fine. Honest, I do.
And I’d like to be a bad woman, too,
And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace
And strut down the streets with paint on my face.

In Love

in love with your heart
at first by mere chance when we
danced long in the park
in love with your Mind
thinking we could make music
just taking our time
now deeply in love
ready to find out what else
you and me could be

written by cgl 5/12/11

Happy Birthday Miss Lou

On September 7, 1917, Miss Louise Bennett, better known as Miss Lou, was born in Kingston, Jamaica. She has been described as Jamaica's leading comedian, as the "only poet who has really hit the truth about her society through its own language," and as an important contributor to her country of "valid social documents reflecting the way Jamaicans think and feel and live.” Through her poems in Jamaican patois, she raised the dialect of the Jamaican folk to an art level which is acceptable to and appreciated by all in Jamaica.  Check out more of her works here:  http://louisebennett.com/works.asp

Dutty Tough
by Louise Bennett
Sun a shine but tings no bright;
Doah pot a bwile, bickle no nuff;
River flood but water scarce, yawl
Rain a fall but dutty tough.

Tings so bad dat nowadays when
Yuh ask smaddy how dem do
Dem fraid yuh tek it tell dem back,
So dem no answer yuh.

No care omuch we dah work fa
Hard-time still een we shut;
We dah fight, Hard-time a beat we,
Dem might raise we wages, but

One poun gawn awn pon we pay, an
We no feel no merriment
For ten poun gawn pon we food
An ten pound pon we rent!

Saltfish gawn up, mackerel gawn up.
Pork en beef gawn up,
An when rice and butter ready
Dem just go pon holiday!

Claht, boot, pin an needle gawn up'
Ice, bread, taxes, water-rate
Kersene ile, gasolene, gawn up;
An de poun devaluate.

De price of bread gawn up so high
Dat we haffi agree
Fi cut we yeye pon bred an all
Tun dumplin refugee

An all dem marga smaddy weh
Dah gwan like fat is sin
All dem-deh weh dah fas wid me
Ah lef dem to dumpling!

Sun a shine an pot a bwile, but
Things no bright, bickle no nuff
Rain a fall, river dah flood, but,
Water scarce and dutty tough.

What If Poetry Led this World of Prose?

I read on the Experiencing History blog today, that today in Black history in 1960 a poet was elected as the first president of Senegal. Leopold Senghor studied French grammar and taught in unversities around France. A year after enrolling as a French military officer, he was taken captive during German invasion. During the two years he spent in prison camps, he spent his time writing poetry. After the war, Senghor became Linguistics Department with the École Nationale de la France d'Outre-Mer. He eventually became the first president of Senegal and this poet and philosopher personally drafted the Senegalese national anthem, "Pincez tous vos koras, frappez les balafons".

Here's one of his poems:

Night in Sine

BY LÉOPOLD SÉDAR SENGHOR

TRANSLATED BY MELVIN DIXON

Woman, place your soothing hands upon my brow,

Your hands softer than fur.

Above us balance the palm trees, barely rustling

In the night breeze. Not even a lullaby.

Let the rhythmic silence cradle us.

Listen to its song. Hear the beat of our dark blood,

Hear the deep pulse of Africa in the mist of lost villages.

Now sets the weary moon upon its slack seabed

Now the bursts of laughter quiet down, and even the storyteller

Nods his head like a child on his mother’s back

The dancers’ feet grow heavy, and heavy, too,

Come the alternating voices of singers.

Now the stars appear and the Night dreams

Leaning on that hill of clouds, dressed in its long, milky pagne.

The roofs of the huts shine tenderly. What are they saying

So secretly to the stars? Inside, the fire dies out

In the closeness of sour and sweet smells.

Woman, light the clear-oil lamp. Let the Ancestors

Speak around us as parents do when the children are in bed.

Let us listen to the voices of the Elissa Elders. Exiled like us

They did not want to die, or lose the flow of their semen in the sands.

Let me hear, a gleam of friendly souls visits the smoke-filled hut,

My head upon your breast as warm as tasty dang streaming from the fire,

Let me breathe the odor of our Dead, let me gather

And speak with their living voices, let me learn to live

Before plunging deeper than the diver

Into the great depths of sleep.