black women

When the wife leaves Without closing the door

| Sheree

In the shape of a tree,

my scar is painted with code.

Through the letting of blood, I wait

for the sound of my screams.

But what I do not plan for

is the mashed up sycamore spinners,

the trampled copper conkers

and the singed bramble bushes.

Graceless and broken,

I get high on the thoughts

of owning myself; the plumage

of starlings embroidered

on an intimate mind. 

Draft- Flipped inside out 002

| Sheree

I learn to be here, becoming,
as each riding curl of water,
rolls towards my toes
and retreats.

Nothing stays the same here

– liminal layered space/ place

Black Sea – Sea black.
Night is my skin …


These sands must testify

for the desires of the masters

and yet I stand here breathing

not doubting my back toes

digging in, claiming healing

A Million Tiny Sherees

| Sheree

I feel like I’m holding a million little Sherees
in my arms and each one with a need to be fulfilled.


I’m lost, not knowing what to do for the best,
who to listen to the first. All are fragile and in pain.

They’re little me’s at different times in my life.

The little puffy afro-ed toddler.
The dreadlocked housewife.
The first school bunchies kind of kid.
The jet black straight haired newborn.
The baldy divorcee.

Mini Sherees all making noise
vying for my attention, craving love
wanting to be seen and healed.

I’m afraid one will slip through my fingers,
or I’ll break the neck of another.
It’s a huge responsibility to carry myself
alone. And not allowing one single Sheree in.

Sending Out Some Hard Love

| Sheree

I want to send out a love that feels hard to the people so when they feel it they pay attention.

That they don’t dismiss it as soft.

I want them to feel it in their gut like a punch. Recall the power.

That they don’t miss the promise it holds.

Yes, I want to send out a love that feels hard to the world so they stop taking it for granted.

That they don’t forget to send it back to me.

I come to the page not knowing what I’m doing.

| Sheree

I come to the page not knowing what I’m doing.

I might have disrupted the page already with paint, or marks or collage. But this was done to eradicate the blank page. And this was done with that one purpose in mind and then left to see another day.

I come to the page not knowing what I’m going to do. Will I make a mark with paint, pencil, piece of paper, what? I just know I need to start.

I might want to cover the white spaces. I’m drawn to colour. So using colour excites me. So I drop a dollop of paint, red maybe and then I know I need to move it across the page. But how? Finger, card, roller? Each brings a different texture to the page, each brings a different coverage to the page.

So now I’ve started but still I have no idea what I’m doing or where this piece is going. But I start responding to the mark that has just gone before. What do I need to do next to work with this last mark or interruption? What would speak with it? What would speak against it?

If I have no idea, that I pick up a pencil and allow my hand to loosely move it over the page, making circular marks. This gives me a moment to think, to look at the page and see what is missing, what is needed.

But when I say thinking, I don’t mean conscious, logical thinking. Let’s call it musing or dreaming instead. As my mind is empty when I’m in the creative process. The outside world falls away. My cares and worries fall away. I’m just focusing on the page in front of me. And not in a concentrating way, or a hard stare kind of way. Just like my hand is holding that pencil, in a loose kind of way.

I come to the page not knowing what I’m doing. But I’m listening. Being attentive to what the page, the piece now coming together wants from me, wants next. One mark, then the next, communicating to each other and then the next.

At some points in the process, I’m up close, working on just one corner of the page. At other times, I take a step back and allow other parts of the page to come into my line of vision. At some points, I fall in love with just a section of the whole. I give it some care and attention. I bring it up and out further. I make it sing, because in the process, I sing through it too.

At this point, the rest of the page needs, deserves this care and attention so I start listening elsewhere. Keep coming back to the places I love and savouring their presence.

I come to the page not knowing what I’m doing but being open to the dance of possibilities. I make myself vulnerable to the process as I feel this it the only way I can move forward with the process.

I come with no expectations, no desires to make pretty art.

I come to the page to feel and express.