Whirlwind Publishing

A blackberry bush. It crept its way up a wooden fence that separated the house I was looking to rent a portion of from its neighbor. It’s what made me take the living space that, in a previous incarnation, had to be a closet or, at best, a pantry. I was ready to go in, close the door and start looking at the woman in the mirror after the mess I made of my life in San Francisco.

Not yet knowing a single soul in Oakland, however, I was soon going back to SF for favored activities: getting high and drinking. But I knew it had to end the day I distanced myself enough to see the her that was I on the phone with “my” married man – crying; and to also see/hear my friends whispering about me. I couldn’t stand the vision and couldn’t envision any other way of being – in SF. So I relocated – across the Bay to Oaktown – where I grew up – where I became a woman.

Oakland, where I saw black people everywhere; unlike in San Francisco where, unbeknownst to me, we were being gentrified out of the city; unlike Boston where we were corralled into certain areas of the city. Oakland, panther country, blackberry bushes, a rose bush-laden walkway hidden in the middle of the city and schools with Katrina-like trailers on the grounds for the “overflow” of students. Oakland, where I decided I would never again straight my hair – not that big of a decision for me because I could count on one hand the number of times I had “processed” my hair; where the question of my identity (African) was settled once and for all. Oakland which I loved yet still had to kill.

The Death of California

Flash back to the time
when death row was a death sentence
and not a record label
featuring the hottest gangsta rappers.
Turn the clock back fourteen years
and revisit the streets of San Francisco.

A city split up into districts
and I found myself living in the one
called the tenderloin
although there was nothing tender
about the loins found there.
Laotians as dark as puerto ricans
pimps as murderously greedy as leopold
and refugees from pretty san francisco
were some of what I found there.

Join me on my sojourn down memory lane.
Avoid the cracks in the sidewalks
and the crack held in hands
closed tighter than fists
until the money is handed over.
Hear the soft refrain of coca, coca
whispered with south of the border accents
because this part of memory lane
has diverged to the mission district.
Oldest part of the city, first home of the spanish
who gave the area its "I’m a conquistador
but I still love Christ" name
and now home to members of
every spanish-speaking population
in the western hemisphere
crowded together on numbered streets:
undocumented scarfaces
peruvian flutists making music out of air
ecuadorians I mistake for asians
followers of che and pancho villa
girls living la vida loca
la migra, la policia
and cinco de mayo street festivals
where all the bars open early
and offer discounts on shots of tequila
and one year, I got drunker than drunk
and stumbled and fell
for coco and her flame.

Street hustlers of the lowest order
they bypassed the soft allure of coca, coca
and went straight for the hard sounding stuff.
Crack itself wasn’t enough however.
Crack had an addiction to itself in liquid form
a liquid form known as cisco.
Crack, cisco, coco
and her flame who had the same name
as a version of the bible
became my roommates
who never made their rent
because their addictions left them too dysfunctional
to do more than dig through garbage
and exchange their food stamps for crack
since that was the only thing they hungered for.

I blame eek-a-mouse
for transporting me back to the apartment
where his music was the soundtrack
to homemade sangria parties
and weed dazed days
laced every now and then
with the purest variety of acid
sold in golden gate park
where food not bombs
ladled out free bowls of soup
where girls didn’t wear flowers in their hair
but instead cursed me out for ruining the vibe
of santana’s annual free concert in the park
when my bottle of vodka fell and splashed all over
their wannabe hippie gear.

Striding the streets of aztlan
in the grip of a california dream
which I awoke from when I turned my back
on the go west young woman mentality
and accepted that california
wasn’t the la-la land portrayed by hollywood.
California was the land that gave birth to the panthers
and the panthers gave birth to a sense of purpose
which I inherited when I relocated to oakland
after two years in san francisco.
I stopped looking at my wrist
and started looking at the woman in the mirror
and what I saw
led me to the understanding
that refusing to die is a form of rebellion.

I stopped living in california
and started living in occupied aztlan.
I developed a mentality described as relentless
because I was on don’t stop, get it, get it kick
which had me flipping pages nonstop
while my feet stepped and my heart beat
to the drums of uhuru.
My soul united with the will of the revolution
and out of my barrel of my pen came slogans like
the contract with america was signed 500 years ago
with the blood of indigenous and african people.

And when I left occupied atzlan
and moved back to looted eastern shores
alongside assata’s knowledge:
that the revolution gave me more than I could ever give it
I carried with me the butterfly’s effect.

excerpted from still living on my feet

even though she’s not oj [aka didn't kill anybody and you know, she's not gonna go into a hotel and try to "steal back" her job] she does in fact bring to mind the oj trial.

i still remember sitting in my oakland living room and yelling, dancing around when the not guilty was reported.

this photo demonstrates how the response to the verdict was split across racial lines. i know "today is a different day" and whatnot but I felt like the black women in the photo yesterday following all the uproar.

i was proud that she stood up for herself and was clear as day while doing so. i laughed heartily watching folks from anderson cooper to that white man who posted the video (i see white people as white people first so his political leanings don’t mean that much to me. he was doing a very white [privilege] thing by posting that video.) scrambling to whitewash their racism.

pride aside, it does bear saying that sherrod is not the "change" we’re all looking for. black people/women are still gonna get fired on the flimiest of excuses. and silence will surround such firings. life under white nationalist america will go on as "usual".

but still, for that brief, moment, watching the news was nice. seeing the extremely pissed off look in the secretary of agriculture’s eyes this morning was priceless. hearing about her job offer {which i hope she doesn’t take but suspect she will] was also nice.

and you know what’s even nicer – although more dangerous: seeing white people like o’reilly and his ilk still saying if it was a white man/person, they wouldn’t be getting job offers and apologies.

LOL!

Damn straight…because more than likely an 82 yr old black woman wouldn’t be coming out to say [insert name] helped me save my farm. i still have it because of [insert name] and for damn sure, [insert name] wouldn’t be saying "i was saying what i said to indicate how much i have grown in understanding".

and for those who might not get that race is a card that can sometimes trump political leanings, listen to condoleezza rice’s as she acknowledges obama’s presidential victory over gone daddy gone {aka bush}.

the other day i was exploring wordpress.com’s poetry blogs. scrolling through the pages, i came across this poem. i liked the way it tied the planting season (april) and the harvesting season (august) to the mental state and facial expressions of someone who lives in the New Orleans/Gulf Coast area.

i was interested in the challenge zouxzoux referenced over at big tent poetry. so i went over there and found this week’s challenge:

What is your favorite poem? What about it makes it your favorite? Does it contain an image that rocks your poetry world? Does it provide a realization that changes you? Do you admire its poetic devices (metaphor, alliteration, repetition, form, etc.)?

Whatever it is you like about your favorite poem, try to use that in a poem of your own.

I started thinking about it. Do I have a favorite poem? Is it possible to pick out one and say this is it, this is the poem that, for me, stands head and shoulders above all others?

the one name that stands out as having such a way with words is ntozake shange. lines from her poetry and choreopoems move through my head randomly. even typing this just now, i can easily remember various lines and stories contained with in for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf.

speaking of for colored girls, it’s been announced that tyler perry will be directing the film version of the tony-award winning play. why do i think perry as director does not bode well for the adaptation? in fact, i’m actually scared of the whole idea. i think it’ll end in the same annals as jonathan demme-directed beloved, definitely one of my favorite novels ever; although not my favorite toni morrison novel. that honor is reserved for tar baby.

so it will be a poem from for colored girls. next stream i’ll try and answer some of the questions. the poem is due friday/the weekend.

An eyelash flicks
And the net is cast.

Infinitesimal sound
A flap and flash of color

Swallowed by netting.
No concern for the effects
Of interconnectedness;
Only dead things pretty
And docile.

i haven’t streamed in a few days. i’ve felt a resurgence of my muse and now that my late spring computer woes are over, i’m returning to my first love, poetry. i remember the time when i avoided the word poet. i preferred “writer”. still do but now, i’m okay with poet. it’s what i do – what i write. during my early years in oakland, i would try to take the poetic snippets that came to me and try to make them a short story or the beginnings of a novel; anything but poetry. this, though, i was a poetry reader and listened to poetry every day (in the form of hip hop). in a way, i felt stifled (a word forever my favorite because of archie bunker – yeah yeah yeah, he was a product of his age – and he grew out of his age – and honestly, edith would’ve gotten on my nerves too…although my word choice would’ve been “shut it” and i wouldn’t have called her dingbat – out loud. that’s rude. lmao)

anyway, poetry. my first love. the first poetry book that made an impression on me (outside of high school, which is when i began to get into it) was alice walker’s horses make a landscape look more beautiful. the poem that stands out in my memory is first, they said.

i went looking online to find the poem. as i expected it was hard. not only was it hard but upon reaching alice walker’s official website, i read the following:

“My friend and spirit helper, the magical artist, Shiloh Sophia McCloud, who is co-creating this website, had originally planned to offer dozens of my published poems, already available, though often in mutilated form, on the Internet. Because of complicated copyright rules and laws, meant originally for my protection, I cannot protect my poems that
are already on the Internet, nor can I offer them in the body of my present work.  Therefore, wherever a poem would have been, I have simply left its title.  These poems can be found in one of my six volumes of poetry, available in the library or from the website bookstore.”

huh? because of complicated copyright laws she can not offer her own poems on her own website; poems which happen to be already available on the internet – albeit “in a mutilated form”. why didn’t these complicated copyright laws stop those people from posting her work? methinks “alice shenanigans”. why not just say “i want you to buy my books”. i can respect that. a technologically proficient, magical artist/spiritual helper and complicated copyright laws just sounds strange and bizarre.

i’d like people to buy my books too but what i’m realizing is that i’m not going to be able to go out and hawk my books in the way that i’d like. my primary responsibility is to be a mother, a good mother. I tailor my writing around his schedule and am thankful he is in camp during the weekdays so i can focus fully on my words. it’s times like these when i’m glad that i started reading alice walker at such a young age. essays such as one child’s of one’s own. it grounds me nowadays and considering that my child has started to drop not so subtle hints (you spend more time with the computer than with me. i think you like the computer more than you like me) about my time spent writing and reading. all i can think is “hot damn ho here we go again” [one of my favorite rap sayings ever]. this coming from a child who no matter how many times i return him to his bed in the middle of the night always, ALWAYS wakes up right beside me!

for instance [yes, this is about to turn into a venting session], i wrote most of a personal pantheon overnight but it wasn’t finished by the time my lil black star woke. so i set him up with the x-box and said “i’m going to finish writing so you can play games or watch saturday morning cartoons”. now it should be clear that virginia woolf’s room of her own isn’t a reality for me. i write on the couch in the front room – no separate, isolated aesthetic for me. so star found what he wanted and “hot damn ho here we go again”: mommy, look at this, mommy let me pause it so you can look at this, mommy did you see? mommy mommy mommy, like this commercial:

STAR if you don’t STOP, i’ll turn the x-box OFF and you’ll be sent to your ROOM. [SHIT – this word said in my head. i don’t [consciously] swear in front of children.

speaking of star, this stream has just been dammed [aka he’s awake].

Yesterday, I was roaming around wordpress.com’s poetry/writing blogs and came across this site. The word that caught my eye was heliolatry. I knew helio meant the sun so it’s just a hope, skip and jump from there to sun idolatry. As someone who thinks ancient people’s deification of the sun makes a whole lotta sense, I love anything having to do with Ra. I posted a comment on the site saying I would write around the word and I did. Below is the result.

Personal Pantheon

Heat seeker, I am
Supplicant but never prone.

Heliolatry coded
Inside melanin.
Daily devotional
round Ra’s
Earth-rooted
Temples.

A marriage, a synergy
Of  Atum-Ra, Mami Wata
and
the endlessly giving goddess
Earth.

my child asked me the other day if someone we’re familiar with "thinks well"? i laughed and laughed. what a question from a six yr old! after i finished laughing (and calling everyone i know) i asked him "do you want the truth or a child appropriate answer?

he’s my child: he wanted the truth.

"some people just have ‘boo-boos’ in their head but don’t think they have boo=boos in their head. they think you have the boo-boo”. my son looked at my like i was crazy. i started laughing. “it’s true!” 

of course, being a child, he still wants to talk to this person. the innocence of children. such innocence is admirable but in the real world such innocence is at a premium. i can’t have my lil black star be a sitting duck for the irresponsible people {aka boo-boo heads”} of the world but what i’m realizing and accepting [with sincere thanks to the universe] is that it’s not my battle. it’s his.

my psyche will not be the landscape on which this “battle” will be fought; his will. my only duty to him in this matter is to make sure he comes through without a boo-boo of his own in his precious head.

Simply streaming on streaming. I want to write about something gentler. The past few days I’ve dealt with race riots, a country being asinine and my brain feels tired. I think how the past few streams have been written and rewritten to the point where the original intent was lost. The point is not to edit and re-edit. The point is not to diatribe. The point is to stream.

So what’s on my mind right now? Discontinuity and immigration. How both have influenced my decision to stay here in Boston. This is the longest I’ve stayed here since I lived here as a child. In a way, it’s good because it has allowed me to confront the ghosts that made me leave in the first place. However, I been confronted them and still want to leave. But discontinuity, the legacy of immigration, stops me.

I never knew my grandmothers or my grandfathers – not a single one out of the set. My mother’s mother died in Africa and her father in Lebanon. Daddy was a subject of a poem. So when I had my child, knowing that between his dad and I, my mother was it in terms of grandparents, I decided to move back to Boston. I’ve been here ever since; going on 5 years now.

It is not my kind of city. It’s just blah. I don’t know where in the US wouldn’t be blah. Prior to Katrina, I had planned to move to New Orleans. I had planned it originally while I still lived in Oakland but then marriage, divorce, motherhood and Katrina happened.  So here I am – watching the wheels and my own beautiful boy – and simply streaming.

Doing the things I do late at night, when mommy has a chance to be tichaona again (sipping summer ale slowly, watching tv shows with curse words and werewolves and vampires eating nihilistic pole dancers),  my mind travels to sylvia plath. The only person to whom I would even mention the name sylvia plath  would wonder if something is wrong with me. I can hear her accented concern in my head right now. I’ve been known to have disdain not only for Sylvia Plath but for what I call the Sylvia Plath school of poetry. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against those inclined toward suicide. Obviously, they need help from mental health professionals because [real talk] even a roach will fight to defend its life.

[caveat - I am referring here to adults in “full possession” of their faculties, not victimized children who feel that’s the only option out of the hell their life has become. When children become occluded with reality to the point  they can‘t hear their inner voices telling them stop, that‘s partly because they are, in fact, children. It is our responsibility to be in tune with our children. The fact that children are killing themselves is an indictment of adults as far as I‘m concerned - not other children; regardless of how many lawsuits the parents of the dead children file.]

I’m not entirely unfamiliar with the phenomenon. I remember times, in my late teens/early twenties when I would spend time looking at my wrist. But I never picked up the knife or even made much of a move toward it. Thankfully. Nowadays, I couldn’t imagine not living…or wanting to be without life.  And the fact that I can bring it forth is even more miraculous. I love being alive and I love being a woman.

after reading a comment stellaa made on day 6’s stream, i started wondering have “riots” always been segregated by race. a snippet of a memory comes to mind of a mention in the people’s history of the united states (at least i think that was the book) of a colonial era rebellion that was multiethnic – btw it is not only black people who are “ethnic:”

An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage that is real or assumed.^[1][2] This shared heritage may be based upon putative common ancestry, history, Culture, Traditions, kinship, religion, language, shared territory, nationality or/and physical appearance. Members of an ethnic group are conscious of belonging to an ethnic group; moreover ethnic identity is further marked by the recognition from others of a group’s distinctiveness (wikipedia)

i remember once talking with a white friend. we were discussing music and i said i like ethnic music such as irish and whatnot. he got offended. “irish is not ethnic”. man.

so yeah, traveling back in my mind, i was able to produce the name of the rebellion i had recalled: francis, i think. no. bacon. bacon’s rebellion. hmmm. not so sure black and white uniting over the cause of driving the indigenous people from their land is something to point to as an episode of interracial unity. buffalo soldier is my least favorite bob marley song. do they [did they] even have buffaloes in jamaica?

i’ve been searching for other instances where interracial unity was a feature of riots and/or rebellions. it appears slavery and segregation forestalled all that. oh wait. harper’s ferry. would that count as a riot? would nat turner burning up virginian plantations? what exactly is the definition of a riot? is the same as a rebellion? different? same bat channel. different riot stream.

Links:

Bacon’s Rebellion (Wikipedia)

Bacon’s Rebellion documents (sourcebooks)