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.

corporate america

it’s during the post-mortem days

of january that it is really felt

when winter becomes the trifling sister

with her razored, cold stares

then there’s the white tongue of frost

stuck out in mockery, just after derision,

licking away the distinguishable features-

we become frozen in the unity of nothingness

we rise beneath tears heavy with ice

but we become no wiser during

this unseasoned storm

the weight of what we absorb

is all that identifies us

as we melt into the numbing mire…

room service

staring into the hell-house mirror

219 suddenly becomes a 187

another death by distortion

he can’t help but wonder

who allowed her eyes to enter

into the room

he dialed lust for murder

but the line went dead

as cold as the snow that speckled

the windshield like drops of love

frozen and fractured

during the long journey back

to the beginning…

he stared at it

wondering if it was as long as

the ones her friend whispered about…

back to the beginning-

blood trickles

down the side of his face

though he is surprised

that he has any left

the tears have sapped his veins

been on the rack for a long time

down deep where no one can see

brought up every now and then

and put on display-

today’s mannequin for madness

that reigns throughout the lonely castle

made from the plastic of

childhood toys molded and mangled

like memories that mold and mangle…

a staff made from cuervo gold

is the only thing that he can hold on to

his soul oozing through his fingers

like wax from a candle that can’t be

blown out

he stares at the gimmick in the mirror

and starts to cry…

back to the beginning-

issues of manhood and money

his face (from an old photo)

taped onto a counterfeit bill

small denomination

he knows that he’s worth more

but the bill-of-sale has faded

since 1619…

denomination

the caste of brethren

that he shares the room with

damned by paper-thin divinity

and devotees they pay love to…

rosa verses/outkast

 

For Rosa Parks, who sued the rap group OutKast for defaming her name. Today is the 55th anniversary of her historic act of protest.

they should have

been able to sit themselves

in her space

they should have

been able to see the look

on her face

as she sat at the

threshold of birth

as she reversed the

spinning of the earth

but…no connection/no direction

trivializing

the struggle to fit

the rhyme

careless chants

do not echo from her time

she felt

the wetness on her face again

the spit and the spew and the

frost hurled from frozen lakes of blue

the complexities of their profane homage

deriving analogy from a historical stoppage

when a nation began to see itself through

the windows of mass transit…

something large, often empty and hungry for profit.

funeral for a doll

so fragile it was

so fragile it is

a porcelain offering from

a man without false shine

alabama hardness that often hid wealth mined

from beneath the carnage he often

reached the bottom of, acting as if he had

discovered some new form of extinction

in a land he defended as if it was his alone…

but her smile always lit the exit tunnel

when he choose to suffer the surface of things:

he would rise from the bottom slowly

as if lifted on a scaffold of crud and circumstance.

she smiles and giggles, as she did back then

remembering the way he handled her firstborn

pulling it out of a greasy bag that was

as rippled as the wine it once held gently

the same way he would hold her

from time to time, his breath smelling like that church

on the corner- he said it was his church- where the

men and women preached funny when they came out…

he would preach funny sometimes too

but he didn’t preach at the funeral for her little baby

that broke after it fell off the kitchen table when

he slapped her sister, sending her flying underneath it

into one of the already rickety legs.

he said that he was sorry about what happened to her baby

he grinned and said he would try to buy her another one

she really didn’t believe that he bought that one

but his teeth shined just like her little baby did

so she just smiled back and giggled…

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…

voodoo

the echoes of men

crying out

screaming out

her name

can be heard in the tone

of her incantations

he watched her for a long time

before seeking the remedies of her science

before summoning her style of divination

so preliminary  so momentary

now there she was

chanting an erotic syllabus

of liberations

simple sighs between day-to-day breathing

her power comes from

the ways that she is worshipped

that which is desecrated and disposable

becomes astral

a priestess becomes a savior

her spell is synonymous with others

except for the eyes

they search

they sear

they solder souls together

she never senses the veil

that was placed upon her face

long before she appeared.

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.

Black Dating in a Hip Hop Society

It might be wise to attach a disclaimer to this post: The views expressed in this video are not necessarily the views of The Muse Minefield (namely me). And there is some explicit language.

I simply see the video as a creative look at the complexities of the black male/female relationship today, particularly as it pertains to the Hip Hop generation. But after all is said and done it’s one man’s (who refers to himself as GQnupe) perspective that, from what I can tell, has attracted some attention and has sparked spirited debate.

Sometimes debate is good. Here’s hoping that it leads to more meaningful dialogue than it does deepening division. Hey, we can always hope…right?

Kanye West: Running away from the killer jackass

Sometimes the most precious lessons that we learn in life are the ones that almost destroy us. And if we don’t properly appreciate those near-death experiences (whether they be physical, spiritual, professional, etc) and learn from them, there’s always the possibility that the death that was delayed will burst forth like a violent echo that proclaims us as fools.

Without question Kanye West is a brilliant and gifted artist. I just finished watching his “Runaway” video on MTV, and also a portion of the interview that followed. Kanye has been blessed with extraordinary vision, along with the ability and fearlessness to express his vision in a way that inspires many. I truly respect that about him.

But here’s the thing about vision, especially here in America. Even the greatest vision is vulnerable to market forces, and having vision doesn’t necessarily assure your viability.

According to an article that I read today, in reference to the 2009 MTV VMA – Taylor Swift incident: “There is some evidence that West’s public appeal has not rebounded since VMA-gate. A recent analysis by e-Poll Market Research showed the percentage of people surveyed who currently have a positive view of West sits at 16 percent- down from a high of 58 percent in 2004.” 

That’s what some people refer to as falling from grace. It was the Taylor Swift incident that prompted President Obama to call Kanye a “jackass” in off-record remarks immortalized by ABC’s Terry Moran through Twitter. When the President of the United States calls you a “jackass” and most of the world nods in agreement, that’s a clue that there are things in this world that are bigger than any vision that you can ever hope to conceive.

To his credit Kanye has publicly apologized to Taylor Swift. But there are a couple of quotes in the article that indicate that he still hasn’t properly appreciated his near-death experience. He was quoted as saying, “I realized my importance only after my position was savagely taken away from me.” But as MTV personality Sway stated during a phone interview for the article, “Nobody took away his career…What they took away was his reality.”

We have to be careful about creating our own reality. Another quote from Kanye in the article: “Blogs are where people who could never be you try to tell you how to do you.” That’s real deep, Kanye. But the last time I checked the President doesn’t even have a blog…

mandingo

if she truly believed that a woman’s

words can kill a man

why wasn’t she more careful?

like the alarm that promises July’s radiance

but only delivers the narrow eyes of the blinds

searching through a shackled greyness

her moans often sound an empty dawn.

someone said

that the true test of a man

is the woman he loves…

she weeps this proverb

into the pillow that she hugs

as they make love facing her favorite painting

of an African woman carrying her manchild

on her back as she stands in the middle of a village

laughing with another woman.

he often rests his head upon that same pillow

struggling before he’s able to sleep

as he tries to recreate the same old dream:

that her old lovers were conquered in the moaning…

When a death video goes viral

“For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.”

Proverbs 1:16

There are few things more precious than a Mom and Dad’s memories of their children, of guiding them through the laughter and the crying, the discoveries and the disappointments. Watching the twinkle of innocence in their little infant eyes develop into the sparkle of wonder and anticipation during the years of adolescence, to become the brilliant star of a promising adulthood.

When those memories are unconscionably violated by images that are impossible to erase it is nothing short of an abominable tragedy. 

When I came across the news story that the parents of Dayna Kempson-Schacht received a graphic video of her just moments after her fatal car accident, and that the video had been posted online, the first question that popped into my mind was: Why would anyone want to do that? How can someone be so callous and insensitive as to send grieving parents a fresh reminder of such a devastating loss?

It was suggested that the video was sent to the parents only to make them aware that the video existed. OK, I can see warning the parents that the video existed, but did they have to send them the actual video? I guess that one person’s good intention is another person’s grievous invasion, separated only by the thin line of common sense, or lack thereof.

But is it merely a lack of common sense, or something deeper and darker?

With this incident coming on the heels of the coverage of the Tyler Clementi story I’m certain that the conversation regarding the sometimes catastrophic combination of technology and temptation will intensify. The thing is that while technology presents its own set of temptations it is simply modernizing those temptations that have plagued mankind since the beginning of time.

But right now my thoughts and prayers are with Dayna’s parents. I can only imagine that the day that they received the video they woke up determined to get through another day, armed with only the loving and lasting memories of their daughter. I’m sure that it never occurred to them that they would be dragged down into someone else’s spiritual poverty.

I figure that someone has to be living a pretty miserable life to pull a stunt like that. But like my mother has always said: Misery loves company.

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…

The blessing of a functional toilet

I will never forget an exchange that I had with my mother many years ago regarding the toilet in our bathroom. It was an exchange that I now feel helped me to slice life into smaller pieces at a very young age and it still reverberates throughout the framework of the faith that I have today.

I can’t recall exactly what the situation was that led to the exchange, but I can still remember how stunned I was at what my mother said. I had made an innocuous comment regarding the fact that our toilet had never been stopped up to the point where my father had to rod it out, or worse, remove it to rod out the drainage pipe.

My mother meekly replied, “We’ve been blessed.” Now, you have to know my mother in order to fully appreciate what I’m trying to describe here (God I love her so much. I have truly been blessed). As she said those words she looked right into my eyes with a sweetness, a simplicity and sincerity that disguised the depth of the point that she was making.

Without this spoon-fed revelation my young mind would have never linked a blessing from God and a toilet together, understanding as I did what went into toilets and what was flushed down toilets.

Yet this was Mama who was telling me this. And I knew how serious she was about God and church, because she dragged me to church every Sunday against my will. But I still looked at her with what I’m sure she recognized as stupefied silence, a look that I’m also sure said, “Now, how you gonna sit there and tell me that God blessed us with a good toilet?”

She met my silent expression with a silent expression of her own, but her’s definitely wasn’t stupefied…

dust to dust

our bodies bounce and bend as if we’re requesting entry into the grooves

of the dusty Smokey Robinson record that crackles and skips

but we continue our dance like we’re back in 1969

long before we met but we remember the dreams that we had as kids, the feelings that we had as kids

when the air was different / when the care was different

we wondered what it would be like, the way it would look, the way it would feel…whatever it was

but we would only catch the last part of sentences, the parts that would sound the best- what some would call climaxes-

where the men would start laughing and the women would start shushing them, saying “them kids might be listening!” We were…

and here we are, bringing the dust to our tongues like the sugar we licked off our fingers when we were kids…