sustaining transformative love

home of artistic responses, interventions, creations and celebrations: this is the place where we reimagine community. this is the way that we make a loving world.

Friday, July 20, 2007

for sekou:

raised by jack-o-lanterns and parking tickets
dandelion eyelashes part the onyx birthstone

in weary times
our soupy mouths form easy o’s like lake huron
lumbering towards the universal sound
the land of rocking chairs

when poets die
let their henna circle my body seven times and become a new mole

crimson neither stopwatch
nor discount metronome

when poets dielet them be carried through the streets on the lips of harmonics and
earlobes.

Kim Arrington is a singer/song writer/playwrite/poet and all around fly sista. google her and be inspired. www.kimarrington.com
please send your sekou poems to me and i will post them where ever i can.

ebony

Thursday, July 19, 2007

for sekou, now!
Now!
for sekou sundiata

i know what is means to have miles davis in your skin
to speak like a weeping willow
to resist citizenship
to chew gum like a gourmet meal
now
i know how to harness a dream
right behind my belly button
and hold it there til it sprouts wings
bears fruit
blows across an ocean like a liberated spore
you asked me the question
is the american dream a dream or a program
and at that moment i knew you were a blessing in my wounds
a libretto for the revolution epic
a hinge for me to hold onto in times of extended prayer
now
i know why i love my daddy's black taffy laugh
and his eyes like an anthology of sunsets
and his one purple nail that speaks slow around his chin
a chin that drinks the moonlight
i know now sekou you drink the moonlight
let it fill your vaselined cheeks articulate your tongue reawaken your tonsils
you asked me
what is a dream with out education
you asked me what is a dream with out education
youaskedmewhatisadreamwithouteducation liberation resistance love light
youasked me me me mmeeeeeee
whatisadreamwithouteducation
maybe its gospel without mahalia
or hip hop without rakim
or jazz without john
or new orleans without the mississippi
or my grandma without the love of her life
or me without poetry
orororoororororor
you asked me
what is a dream without education
i say it aint it aint it aint a dream with out the technology of technicolor

may the spirits walk you gently down
and raise a song in your honor
may elegba grant you safe passage
asheooooo asheooooooooo ashe

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Brown and Blue (for Alex)

(presented at the Art of Community Healing Workshop at the United States Social Forum)

i.
this
is a first breath
again
and now
put your hand on your heart
if you hear this
and breathe

ii.
where is the place
for little girls
who breathe in bubbles
sneak home in song

where is the place
for this little girl
who would make a jumprope
out of every cloud

iii.
dark is a place
not a color
not an absence
dark is a place
of resewn curtains
where the law is fear
where the knot is not (w)hole

iv.
family
is a place
a chainlink playground
of struggling grass
and broken glass
we could grow a garden here
unbottle this mosaic
this is almost home
when i tilt my head

vi.
and loud is the spot
next door
the place that wants more
and loud has a secret revolving back door
an off the books staff
and a filthy kitchen
i heard
that on thursday nights
loud is a front
one panel from shroud
and loud
is the place that i hide


vii.
but free is a place too
it's the place that I loosen
when i'm speaking the truth
that the ancestors use
like a brown parachute

this
is the place for little girls
and their songs
where always learning
is never wrong

this is a first breath
again
and now
put your hand on your heard
if you hear this
and breathe