loop dance

they walk to and from their escapes

oblivious to all other escapes

until they are apprehended by the

screech and smoke.

they contemplate the rush

then snap back into their deity

their lesser heavens at each end

of an assembly line of plaster molds

that bob up and down

rock back and forth

wobble side to side

some are empty except for

the hollow

(ants carry their crumbs with more dignity as the ecology embraces them).

all ceilings are gray now

some praise their Michelangelo

many have no time for art

their flesh hanging on the thorns

for the butcherbirds

though out of sight, still circling overhead.

black clouds

are at waist level and rising

becoming wisps of another world

as escapees chase the color of summer leaves.

Ntozake Shange: When the rainbow prevails

When I die, I will not be guilty of having left a generation of girls behind thinking that anyone can tend to their emotional health other than themselves.

Ntozake Shange

With Tyler Perry’s movie For Colored Girls opening today, I felt compelled to devote a post to the vision and influence of the woman whose literary work the movie is based on, Ntozake Shange. I believe that this is a day to celebrate and that the celebration should be about something far more significant than any success or failure that may be assigned to the movie.

In preparing for this post I came across an interview of Ms. Shange that was done several years ago. When asked why she decided to become a writer she said, “I couldn’t find anything that truly reflected what I thought was my reality and the reality of other women my age. Since I couldn’t find it, the only responsible recourse was to write some myself.”

The movie will be introducing Ms. Shange’s play for colored girls who considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf to a new generation, specifically a new generation of African-American females. Ms. Shange survived several suicide attempts to become one of the most accomplished and recognized writers of our time. Her story is not only one of survival, but also of triumph against destructive forces that besieged her from both within and without.

In another quote from the interview Ms. Shange shares that “…the imaginings of women of color are particularly sacred to me. Those are things we cannot afford to lose when we are being beaten down constantly.” Those words still resonate with raw relevance today, and regardless of any reactions or reviews that the movie may incite, I believe that it will serve a far greater purpose than for the pursuit of profit or praise…

lost sketches

death was not so much final as it was finished

like a chalked profile slowly filled

with asphalt and aspirations

blackness as texture and tone

the mixture for pencils broken in desperation

upon the outlined emptiness

within the outstretched hands

(the grabbing and pulling back)…

we sometimes die like unfinished sketches.

I can see him sitting in the basement

in the darkness, for long periods of time

staring at the dusty, webbed, gray paper

(and the occasional unopenable window)

holding, caressing, the tinted skin

he had poured himself into

(brown like himself and just as fragile)

a prop for the art,

the partial depictions of the man

that he had run away from,

of the man he had become,

with each stroke that he didn’t make her

scream out his favorite portrait,

or simply appraise him as a man

within the walls of that gallery

(uneven alley of self-portraits bought and sold)

where each of their works were displayed

(it was her motions that often formed

the brush, if not her tongue)…

there is that portrait on the elder’s wall

confirming that he had compared sketches with the sun

and had exchanged notes with leaves that fell out of season

beauty both portrayed and betrayed, turned against,

within the walls of that gallery

(collections of reproduced conscience bought and sold)

where his profane works were the most celebrated…

we are sometimes forgotten like lost sketches.

impromptu

you are so unrehearsed…

with you, dusk cannot be forced upon the morning

with meaningless whispers

the half-filled wine glass is no longer

my shallow pond

it’s rim is no longer

my circumference:

i stumble from the stage with each smile

like a child who has just become aware

of his existence

of his surroundings

this is where, and how, i bow:

afraid to look down for too long

or you may be gone…