between their toes seaweed mushes
it comes out of nowhere
squeals and screams
wet, cold skin meets cold, wet skin,
pods pop, bones crack, the sea rolls in
Seaweed
body
The Terzanelle – The Gaze
Too often we refuse to gaze
on something unpleasant to see.
Rubs against us all the wrong ways.
I don’t like to see an oak tree,
feel my neck snap. And my heart breaks
when there ‘s something unpleasant to see.
My words, a soundtrack for those taken;
blackmen whipped, flesh-eating scars, pain,
felt my neck snap and my heart broken.
Dead eyes and flashbulb smiles at the slain.
Who wants to look at these photographs?
Black guys, whipped, flesh-eating scars, pain.
Who has to deal with the aftermath
of bodies reshaped by tragedy?
Who wants to look at these photographs?
Callous grins surround,
too often we refuse to look.
Their bodies reshaped by tragedy
rubs us up the wrong way.
La Jablesse
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
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
Part 2 – Exploring Rituals To Be More Present in My Life, Never Mind Writing
A poem can start with the sound of water falling onto my body. Allow it’s curious wet teeth to sink into my flesh, to pull out chucks of questions to fuel a conversations with myself, later.
The ability to be present was a luxury my mother never had as she worked 3 jobs with her hand down toilets and fixed smile for the men with keys and brutal laughs.
I claim the ability to be present. To allow my yearning for a past to awaken a future I will imagine, as I salver my arms and legs and belly, housing a familiar homesickness I’m not sure where from, with coconut oil.
Turning cold hard oil, soft and warm against my skin, I reconstruct fragments of history, lost in colluded archives, and turn them into bleeding scars and pickled memories of somethings rather than nothings.
When I’m ready to forgive and understand, I’ll conjure Dad back from the dead, sit him down, and ask why he never ever mentioned love, in all his administering of disciplined care.
Dressed, hair twisted and walking across green fields, and under cherry blossom, I swallow doubts to turn a phase over and over against the roof of my mouth, rewriting with each footstep. Slide stepping cliches, kicking around experimental metaphors.
Or the poem could hit me full force when I walk into the coffee shop. Glasses steamed, journal in hand, eyes on drinks board, but already knowing my order by heart, the table I’ll take – number 13, my lucky number.
Acting like the fugitive from my life, here, I steal time to soften my gaze and repurpose the image of the sea into an open window that will startle you, dear reader, into a new perspective, into a new way of holding your mind and your heart towards yourself.
Bound up with Memory*
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
Happy New Year -Welcoming in 2022, or not!
I’m not sure I’m ready for 2022. I really didn’t have any plans for the start of the year, but I can still say things haven’t gone to plan so far.
I’m just not ready yet to embrace that New Year energy. That set intentions and make resolutions kind of vibes. I’m still moving at a snail’s pace out of 2021. And I’m okay with that, I think.
There’s an irritation there a bit, as I was hoping to turn a corner into 2022, and have everything thought out and a clear path forward. But who am I kidding? You need to put in the work for that to be the case. And for the last few weeks of 2021, I was on my knees.
One good thing so far this year is the Studio Notes went out. Later than expected but still out. Detailing a family emergency. You can read it here and sign up for the future editions, usually once a month here.
Happy New Year everyone, and I mean it as life is too fucking short and difficult to not wish for happiness most of the time!
Rest and Creativity
After a really busy November, I was looking forward to a quiet December. It has been a slower pace to last month, but there has still been deadlines and events that I’ve needed to prepare for and attend and reflect on.
So past mid-December already, and I just feel as if I can slow down again now. But I say this but I must have been resting in some kind of way because I went back to my art journaling practice yesterday.
My art journal practice is different to my visual journaling practice only in the fact that I use fewer words and these Black women always seem to show up in the midst of the page somehow.
Here we have another one, who showed up yesterday out of the darkness that was developing on the page. And isn’t she delightful. She’s got a twinkle in her eye and a wish in her heart.
To be in the studio yesterday, playing on the page, I even completing a handmade zine which will be on display in the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, was a joy and much needed. As it signalled to me that I’m back to listening within. That I’m back to creating for me and just for the hell of it. That I’m coming home.
Thank you, Sheree. Now continue to rest. And create.
Morning Water
A morning bath.
So close to my bleed but not quite there yet. Feeling the heavy but with grace.
Warming up after the sea. Rain and wind and lots of seaweed.
But I so so love it.
I’m going to be coming here more often from now on as I check out of all my social media account and focus on my internal landscape and what needs to come out.
I’m so looking forward to sharing my journey with you.
This journey of healing is never ending. But so appreciating the process.
Give me love any day of the week. And I’ll give you the core of me.
Living Wild Studios 