art

La Jablesse

| Sheree
La Jablesse, Zak Ove

After Zak Ove

Come, follow me, young man, into the forest. Come. You like the sway of my hips, and my secret smile?

Then come, follow me, if you want to see more, to touch more. I’ll be all yours in the hidden forest away from the waging tongues.

Pay no mind to my necklace of antique nails or the weathered ropes I wear like a scarf or shawl. It’s just my unique style.

Come. Not yet. Don’t peak under my wide brimmed hat or under my long skirts. Patience, you naughty boy.

Come follow me and I’ll be all yours in time. Brass horns and trumpets I adorn because I love to make merry and dance.

African mask I wear because I know where my people come from. Smelling of jasmine and rose with a hint of decay. Come.

Pay no mind to the way I walk, one foot on the road and one beached tree trunk for a cow’s hoof in the grass. Come.

Come into the forest, deep into the forest where the trees are tall and thick and no one will hear you scream as you are lost and fall down a ravine.

Listen, I need you, handsome young soul, to keep my own beautiful. I feed off your fear and lostness and fall.

Listen I’m happy to own my own narrative again. They call me La Jablesse- she-devil.

Listen, I say, I’m a woman in control of who she be and who she chooses to take to forest, to bed, and to death.

The Black Man

| Sheree
Go West Young Man, Keith Piper, 1987


After Keith Piper

The Black Man (body) projected with fears and fantasies never owning it’s presence

The Black Man (body) an object a commodity  to be possessed and used and abused 

The Black Man (body) traded for trinkets and spoons and guns then for sugar and cotton and rum

The Black Man (body) black mountain conquered claimed and reduced

The Black Man (body) once a boy breed as stud broken in like horse

Creatrix in Residence @ HOME

| Sheree
visual journaling spread

The rain pours down, the temperatures drop. And we’re inside.

Miss Ella has Covid again so we self-isolate. We do our bit to keep the infection rates down even if no one else does.

Forced to stay in door could play on my mind, could make me frustrated and resentful if I let it.

What I’ve been doing is getting creative. Creatrix in Residence @ HOME is me allowing my imagination to wander while my hands are busy. Even my body as I continue to knock out my 4 miles a day of walking, indoors. It takes a whole heap longer than when outdoors. So I mix things up with a bit singing and dancing to Silk Sonic.

Things could be a lot worse. But poor Miss Ella. Just getting better after her stay in hospital and now this is just another set back. She’s taking it well as she gets creative too with video games, you tube, make up and singing.

Apart from writing a poem a day for the month of April here, I’ve also been making a ZINE a day as I’ve been accepted to present at the Edinburgh Zine Festival 2022 in May. Getting all my creations ready to share, swap and sell hopefully.

Hopefully, all will be well by the time this comes along as Miss Ella is going to be my assistant, sharing in the non- profits.

Bound up with Memory*

| Sheree

After Marcia Michael

My body has a yearning for the past. In this country, I am duped to believe and live as if we were nothing .

Nothing until they allowed us into existence. Nothing until they opened their arms, and allowed us to carry on being their slaves into the 21st century.

Search and recovery, my body reclaims her history.
My mother transported it on her skin, buried in the stomach of the ship, boat, truck.

My father carried it in his voice, trapped in the belly of the ship, train, coffin.

I cannot rely on any colonial archives for finding me and my people. Now or in the future.

Colluded, concealed, constructed, the archives have fabricated the narrative that sees we as other.

Reduce us to a footnote, a scar, a tear.

My body is my archive.
My presence is a testimony.

My imagination will do the rest.

*Quote from Toni Morrison 


The Object of My Gaze, on going project by Marcia Michael. Me Remembering you – transformations, 2021

DuppyMigrant

| Sheree
Road Openers for (E), 2019, Alberta Whittle

There’s some deep grooves

laid down through the moves,

forced or voluntary,

in the migrant’s heart

a migrant’s heart will always be a split – colonialism running through the blood like dis-ease

stitched together, makeshift, with tartan, kente, plastic and twine, scattered cowrie shells divine.

a ghost of its former self,

a migrant’s heart will always beat

out of place and time.

An escape to the balcony with the pigeons was freedom

| Sheree
The West Indian Front Room, 1970s by Michael McMilan

Sunday afternoons, after fried curry and rice and West Indian dumplings,

we’d sit on a brushed flannel blanket covering the velvet settee. Legs too short to touch the multicoloured carpet beneath.

We’d sit straight, only our eyes moving, wandering over the bright yellow textured wallpaper, tracing patterns and exits until we were dizzy.

He sat in one armchair and her in the other. Armrests protected with white hugging linens. Dollies on head rest, sideboards, side tables. Everywhere.

Behind him hanging against the white washed wall was a black velvet scroll depicting the islands of Trinidad and Tobago. Home. A silence presence.

If he was in a good mood then there’d be port and a cigar and the gramophone sounding out with soul. Other times, black and white TV shows like Survival and the history of athletics, we had to watch. Still and silent.

We were his children brought up to do as we were told. To not ask why and call our elders uncle or Tantie . Any deviation from such a course of action would result in rage and beats.

My imagination became the place of expressing my range of emotions. My imagination became the place of power and choice. Freedom.

Pigeons. Standing there.

From a marionette flat

with a pebbledashed balcony

grey feathered birds, standing

there, there on the railings.

Storm Coming

| Sheree
Storm Coming by Paula Dunn

After Paula Dunn

based on the weather
handing over a landscape like a veil,

a limited palette
to keep things simple

but storm coming on, clouds layered,
winds textured

and dark low lying land brushmarked
and glazed for atmosphere

the yellows, oranges and browns brood
within depths of time and place

searching for a flick of white
to rest and breathe

Old Memories/ New Strategy

| Sheree
Old Boat/ New Money by Lubaina Himid

After Lubaina Himid

Worn timber, cowrie shells,
currency and shoreline,
you sound like waves
and the creaking hull of death.

I try to imagine, she said, what it would be like to be taken from all that I knew, moving in a stinking wooden vessel over something I knew not what to call but it swallows our bodies whole. See sea, sea see. Propped against a white wall to suggest a wave in motion, the angle of pleasure, as I witness it, from the other side, here and now, I rumble with displaced memories. Memories that traumatise but hold onto me like seeds buried within my hair, bearing into my flesh.

Colour is Mine

| Sheree
Van Gogh, 1959 by Althea McNish

After Althea McNish

Sunflowers

big and bold

inspired by Van Gogh’s

brandished

across a

yellow and white

striped field

black lines

outline floppy leaves

and dozing closed heads

bright colour carried to

this grey isle

not a luxury but a necessity

for survival

for blooming

another time

uprooted

sunflowers