Say Yes!

BY Andrea Gibson

when two violins are placed in a room
if a chord on one violin is struck
the other violin will sound the note
if this is your definition of hope

this is for you
the ones who know how powerful we are
who know we can sound the music in the people around us
simply by playing our own strings

for the ones who sing life into broken wings
open their chests and offer their breath
as wind on a still day when nothing seems to be moving

spare those intent on proving God is dead
for you when your fingers are red
from clutching your heart
so it will beat faster
for the time you mastered the art of giving yourself for the sake of someone else
for the ones who have felt what it is to crush the lies
and lift truth so high the steeples bow to the sky
this is for you

this is also for the people who wake early to watch flowers bloom
who notice the moon at noon on a day when the world
has slapped them in the face with its lack of light
for the mothers who feed their children first
and thirst for nothing when they’re full...

Convenience Store

Love this Buddy Wakefield poem!! Always gives me chills.

"...She doesn't need me or any other man but she doesn't know that either, and I'm just hopin' like crazy she doesn't think I'm the one because the only time I'll ever see North Dakota again is in a Van Morrison song late (LATE) at night, I promise.

Y'all, I feel like she's 37 years old wearing 51 (badly), dying inside (like certain kinds of dances around fires) to speak through you, a forest, if you weren't so taken with sparks.

But she was never given those words.
She has not been told she can definitely change the world.
She knows some folks do
but not in convenience stores
and NOT with lottery tickets..."

Thank God for Babies

A good friend gave birth to her first baby yesterday and I'm so happy for her!! I got to hold the beautiful girl only hours after she was born and it was as if the gloomy cloud that has been following me this week suddenly lifted. Seriously, it's been a crazy week, but holding this little girl completely melted my cold and stubborn heart.

Thank God for babies. Despite all of our brokenness as humans, each new child gives us an opportunity to turn it all around. It's as if, with each infant He brings into this world, God is winking at us and saying, "all is not lost. There is still hope."

I was just so inspired that I had to express it in some way...check out this new poem - hot off the presses :)

Baby Sasha Saves the World
BY Susan Baba

Just when you think he has tired of us
our ceaseless complaining
our needless lies

our insatiable appetite for all that shines
the anger we throw around so carelessly
the half-baked love we offer up with similar ease

just when you think he has tired of it all
wrung his hands of all our failures
and left us to bring about our own demise

he opens a woman's womb again
thrusts a crying and desperate newborn
into the world's waiting hands
reminds us that all is not quite lost yet
there is still hope.

Dropping Truth on your Dome!!

Remember the Last Booty Call on Earth?

"Even when he cannot remember his name
or even his own address,
my number clings to his mind –
distant but clear"

Yeah. That one. I've been getting a few questions on why and how that poem came to existence and thought it best to address it in the public webisphere:-) I was able to explain the poem's origin and much more to a friend a few months back and thought I might re-post my response here.

You can read the full poem after the jump.

enjoy!
sb

ps...I'm oh-so stoked that people are reading the blog and that it's making them think. ::Blessed::

The simple fact is that most women, myself included, have self esteem issues. Sometimes these are relatively small and interfere, only minimally, with our daily lives. But sometimes, our skewed sense of self is debilitating and makes us do things that our wiser selves would blush at...We go back to the men that hurt us because laying in the arms of even the wrong guy can feel like "love." We crave that false sense of uniqueness that even the wrong male attention brings...to remind us that we are not just another body roaming the planet. That, even if only for an hour or a day, we are somebody...desired and desirable.

And I say "we" because it has been me and at times still is. It's funny how, even with this sort of emotional clarity, I still fall for it. It's almost like I'm carrying my raw heart in my hands, waiting for someone to help me carry it the rest of the way...and before finding out if the guy is trustworthy or even simply worthy, I hand over my heart...all of my love...and pray that he will handle it with care. Most often, he does not. Whether it is because he cannot or chooses not to, I can never know for sure.

So there it is. It pretty much boils down to low self esteem and insecurity. On the bright side, I'm learning that the more I start believing that I deserve better, the less tolerant I become of anything less. Hence "the last booty call on earth" post. I'm also learning that I am lovely and lovable...internalizing that shit and making it my mantra...reminding myself that I was created for nothing less than true love, by a God that is so much more. -susanbaba

God Doesn't Give us Dreams to Taunt Us

Ah spring! For some reason, the warm weather, longer days, and budding flowers of spring make me feel oh so hopeful. I'm not sure how a simple change in temperature can give me the energy to follow my dreams with renewed fervor, but it does. This poem by my friend and ex-roomie Danielle captures those sentiments perfectly! Lots of great lines in there.

Now get off your butt and turn your dreams into action!!

enjoy

Spring
BY Danielle Cooper

I hoped
I chased
I longed
Like there was nothing else
Like there was no one else

Maybe there isn't
Time changes everything

But I will create new hopes
I will run towards new dreams
And won't look back

Well, maybe once
And dare to believe
Some dreams I never have to let go

we are the ones we have been waiting for

::HEART:: June Jordan. Poet, novelist, teacher, human rights activist, journalist. She played a pivitol role in black arts and global politics and is cosidered one of the most significant African America, bisexual authors of our time. Jordan dared to speak out, with fiery honesty, about all that ails us, as blacks and as citizens of the world. She also left us with a haunting battle cry of our generation - "We are the ones we have been waiting for." These words inspired many other works, but, most importantly, Alice Walkers book, of the same name.

Excerpt from We are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For by Alice Walker

"It was the poet June Jordan who wrote 'We are the ones we have been waiting for.' Sweet Honey in the Rock turned those words into a song. Hearing this song, I have witnessed thousands of people rise to their feet in joyful recognition and affirmation. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for because we are able to see what is happening with a much greater awareness than our parents or grandparents, our ancestors, could see..."

Poem for South African Women
BY June Jordan

Our own shadows disappear as the feet of thousands
by the tens of thousands pound the fallow land
into new dust that
rising like a marvelous pollen will be
fertile
even as the first woman whispering
imagination to the trees around her made
for righteous fruit
from such deliberate defense of life
as no other still
will claim inferior to any other safety
in the world

The whispers too they
intimate to the inmost ear of every spirit
now aroused they
carousing in ferocious affirmation
of all peaceable and loving amplitude
sound a certainly unbounded heat
from a baptismal smoke where yes
there will be fire

And the babies cease alarm as mothers
raising arms
and heart high as the stars so far unseen
nevertheless hurl into the universe
a moving force
irreversible as light years
traveling to the open eye

And who will join this standing up
and the ones who stood without sweet company
will sing and sing
back into the mountains and
if necessary
even under the sea:
we are the ones we have been waiting for.

Let’s open our fists and drop them.

Found this great poem after stumbling upon the Poem of the Day blog. It's a beautiful piece that tells us to throw off all that hinders and dare to become our better selves. There are just too many great lines here!!

Enjoy:-)

A Kol Nidrei
BY Mark Belletini

Let’s set it all down, you and me.
The disappointments.
Little and large.
The frustrations.
Let’s open our fists and drop them.

The useless waiting.
The obsession with what we cannot have.
The focus on foolish things.
The pin-wheeling worry which wears us out.
The fretting.
Let’s throw them down.

The comparisons of ourselves with others.
The competition, as if Domination
was the best name we could give to God.
The cynical assumptions.
The unspoken, shelved anger.
Let’s toss them.

The inarticulate suspicions.
The self-doubt.
The pre-emptive self-dumping.
The numbing bouts of self-pity.
Let’s sink them all like stones.

Like stones in the pool of this gift of silence.
Let’s drop them like hot rocks
into the cool silence.

And when they’re gone,
let’s lay back gently, and float,
float on the calm surface of the silence.

Let’s be supported in this still cradle
of the world, new-born, ready for anything.

i don’t understand you God

Although we know that we are anything but, it is tempting to live our lives as if we are invincible. Despite constant reminders of the frailty of life, it is easy to believe that our technology and law enforcement and all-around street smarts are enough to sustain us. There is nothing like a natural disaster to shatter that idea. In just a moment, the earth can turn turns against us, its feeble captors, and reminds us that we are small.

As I watched footage of Tuesday's massive earthquake in Haiti, I couldn't help but be hit by the magnitude of the damage and perplexed by the problem of recovery. Even the US, with all of its wealth and prestige buckled and bowed low under the weight of Hurricane Katrina. Much less a country with an annual per capita income of less than $400 and an average life expectancy of 53. How will they recover...tomorrow and in the years to come?

Anyway, all of this deep thought reminded of a fabulous piece that Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai wrote after the quake and tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean and claimed more than 200,000 lives. Another tragedy that left me with so many questions for God. ::le sigh:: Tsai gives voice to my confusion, but also leaves me with a sense of hope.

Enjoy the piece below and remember that life is too short. Don't let a grudge keep you from telling someone you love them. Tomorrow, it might be too late.

ps...if you're looking for an easy way to help, you can send a $10 Donation by Texting ‘Haiti’ to 90999. The charge will be tacked on to your monthly cell phone bill.

Aftershock
BY Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai

the week the tsunami hit
i started reading the Bible again
for the first time
since I was five years old

so cried CNN, the Associated Press,
Reuters, and the BBC
so cried the Red Cross
and nations across the world
glaring at each other
to up the ante
to loosen their purse strings

i turn on the morning radio
and there is so much laughter
the mouths are huge
monstrous

as prayers and exhausted sighs of relief
sounded from every phone call,
every family member:
i am alive
i survived
i can hear you

a sober vision

as i close Bible pages
take it by the spine
and throw it against the wall

it breaks open
leaves trembling like lips

i don’t understand you God
but i do understand that
it’s not your fault

POETRY > War

So, I've been reading a lot about the mass rapes that happened in Guinea during last month's military crack down. Hundreds of women, peacefully protesting for democracy were ambushed and raped by military officers...in broad daylight!! I know...madness!! It made my soul hurt and more or less broke my tiny little heart into pieces all week. But, it also inspired me to search around the net for some good news.



AND, I FOUND some!! Poets Against The War. There's more than a bit of politicin' on here, so be forewarned...but it's an amazing celebration of self-expression in the face of war. The organization's mission is simple -

to continue the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression.

There is something so empowering and liberating about art:-) I was even inspired to write a bit myself.

Poetry > War
BY Susan Baba

She will never kill
for justice
and you cannot make her.
She will fight with all her might for you to see that we are all precious
from the smallest to the greatest among us
we all have worth.
She will fight
with words,
attack you when you are not looking
with the bullet of self-expression.
She will read and write and create and love until the wall breaks
and there's a crack big enough
for hope to slip through.
That is what a poet can do.

::love::peace::justice