Nightengales: Angel Taylor's "Chai Tea Latte"

Here is a fantastic new artist I stumbled across about a year ago.  I love her voice and she is even more amazing in person.  Definitely check her out and buy her self titled album Angel Taylor: Love Travels

It is not enough to say you like an artist, you need to support them as well. 

The official recording for Chai Tea Latte is my favorite song, closely followed by "Best Father Around".

Words of Silence: Clayton Valli, "Dandelions"

"People evolve a language in order to describe and thus control their circumstances, or in order not to be submerged by a reality that they cannot articulate." - James Baldwin, "If Black English Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?"

One of the new things I have picked up is a love for ASL.  I have only been studying for less than a year, but I have found the language to be nuanced and extremely beautiful.  Below is a video featuring Clayton Valli.  He was the first person to ever receive a PhD in ASL Poetry.  Watch and enjoy a giant of the field.







Clayton Valli (1951—2003) was a prominent deaf linguist and American Sign Language (ASL) poet whose work helped further to legitimize ASL and introduce people to the richness of American Sign Language literature.  As a poet, Valli created original works in ASL that he performed to appreciative audiences around the country. His poems make sophisticated use of handshape, movement, use of space, repetition, and facial expression. Influenced by canonical American poets like Robert Frost, as well as Deaf poets such as Bernard Bragg, Valli often chose nature imagery to convey subtle insights into Deaf experience. His brief "Hands" -- which makes use of the 5 handshape throughout—is a celebration of the power of sign language to describe anything in the universe. "Dandelion" uses simple nature imagery to convey the persistence of ASL despite oralists' best efforts to weed it out.  (source Wikipedia)

Echoes: Verse 11, Robert Westley

A warning...

What's Happening
by Robert Westley

It is not necessary to wait long
To see it happen -
Happening in the streets
Red with black blood
Happening in hallways
Littered with semen stains
Happening behind doors
Where babies loll on the floor
Scream with pain and tear each others hair.
It's happening right now.
A young girl surrenders her secrets
To the boy she loves, but
When they rise from her bed
Nothing remains between the sheets but
Vaginal secretions, some dark decaying spit
No love and not even a condom.
Everything she will know of him is inside her now
Her bones are light beams
Her arms are wings
And if the bedroom widow won't do for a fall
The butcher knife is in the kitchen drawer.
It's hapening.
Happening, by the way, in your neighborhood
You of the fresh-dew flowers
You of the scornful looks who hide
Behind your money it's pulled
Not just your petty crimes
Like murder or theft
A simple toke of some smoke or coke
Cheap sins that wash off on Sunday
Someone's abusing your mind
Fucking your son
Deceiving your daughter
Filling your house with shit
As if I care
You could take the dare
End the affair
Eat a pear
Turn to prayer
Stare into reality like a basin
Full of heavy water
And cleanse your skin
Of the evil that's within
But forget it.
You are not what's happening.

Westley, Robert.  "What's Happening."  The Road Before Us: 10 Gay Black Poets. Ed. Assoto Saint.  New York: Galiens Press, 1991. p. 136-137.

Bio from The Road Before Us

Robert Wesley was born November 10, 1962.  "I am a native of New Orleans where I spent my first seventeen years.  I graduates from Northwestern University in 1984 with a B.A. in philosophy.  I attended graduate school at Yale University for the following three years, and then started law school at the University of California, Berkeley, in  f1987.  I am currently working towards completion of my dissertation in philosophy and the final year of law school.  My career plans include teaching, law practice, and economic development in the black community."

The Places I Have Been

To tell all that has happened to me in the last months would take more ink than this post can hold so instead of a recap, a few simple facts:
 

1. Still working in the arts.
2. No longer single.
3. New house.  Fewer roommates (although I miss the old ones sometimes)
4. Still calling the District home.
5. Happy and learning how to deal with the unfamiliar sense of balance that comes with it.



I am coming out of a period of much needed self reflection.  I needed to get right with myself.  Now it is time to tend to those things and people that were neglected in my absence.  Back to business. I am giving myself the reported simple task of making two post a day.  I want to stay true to the intent behind this blog and keep it to writing and social commentary, so expect the see the world through my eyes in more ways than one.

For now.  Rest assured that the lights are back on underground.

Mountain Climbing and Other Views on Romance

A writer friend and I got into an interesting discussion recently regarding a fiction blog series of his entitled Jaylen's Journal.  I read the piece and was really intrigued by some of the ideas about it and that lead to a VERY long comment that I decided to turn into a blog post of its own.   I recommend you read the blogpos first and then my comments make a litle more sense.  You can find the post at: Doin Just Fine: Jaylen;s Journal, Entry 1

-----------------------------------------------------------

You always manage to construct phrases that stay with me. Your final line that it's easy to sleep with a broken heart when that is all you know (paraphrasing please forgive me) was poignant and sobering. So much so, that I am going to deviate from my usual pattern. Instead of analyzing the technical aspects of the piece, I will follow in the footsteps of your subject and respond from a place that has little use for quantification, reason, or order. I will give voice to the intangible.

To love is not a very difficult task. What is very hard is the recognition of that emotion; the simultaneous act of taking ownership of it while giving it away to someone else to hold, nurture, protect, and harvest. I think the difficulty emerges from the fact that although we give it away in the hope of receiving those blessings, love can be dropped, stunted, violated, and left fallow. So we are left yearning but fearful.

We climb the heights of passion sometimes slowly other times quick to stand at the precipice that overlooks paradise but we are afraid to enter it because it requires us to set foot off of the mountain we have spent so much time climbing and to free fall with only an all consuming hope that some how we will float or lean to fly and make a new home in heaven. That is the dream of love that sustains me at least.

But as you know. I don't sleep much and therefore have precious little time to dream.

And I don't like climbing mountains or heights and alot if other shit that I used to paint my poetic picture.

When you climb you get dirty. You bleed. And by the end of it all you tend to end up looking a hot mess. Not to mention that in my metaphor the only options you have I'd you manage to get to the top are to stay at the top of the mountain probably with some sense of accomplishment, but alone and probably hungry. Or you jump, and learn the same lesson as icarus that you pobably should have kept your feet on the ground, fuck what you heard.

So keep climbing.

(shrug)

What the hell else do you have to do today?

Red Ink, Chapter 3

I stood shivering in the rain outside the hospital.  My throat was raw from the sobs that had racked my body for that last hour.  I was spent and alone in the dark, but I could not go back to that room. 

“God,” I whispered through chattering teeth. 

“Why?”  I asked. “Why?”

I looked up to the heavens, but the only answer I got in return was a rumble of distant thunder and the pitter-patter of rain on my face. 

“Fuck!!!  FUCK YOU!!!!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.  It was clear my questions and threats were going to go equally unanswered.

I had to escape.  It did not matter where I wound up I just had to get as far away from this place as possible.  I chose a direction at random and began walking.  By this point my clothes were completely soaked, but I did not care.  I did not care about my clothes, the rain, or anything.  I just needed to keep moving, to do something other than sit and wait.

“Is this Mr. Dupri?” 

Cars zoomed by me as I wondered along the side of the road lost in the haze my thoughts.  My path zig zagged on and off the sidewalk as I replayed the night in my head.

“Mr. Dupri, sir.  There has been an accident…”

The sound of a blaring car horn startled me back into reality.  I hesitated for a breathe as the car barreled towards me, but jumped back onto the sidewalk expelling the air from my lungs.  This was no good.  I could feel the helplessness of earlier creeping back to the surface threatening to unsettle my momentary composure. 

I looked on either side of the street and spotted a bar with its lights still on.  I darted across the street, this time paying careful attention to the oncoming traffic.  There was light music seeping out of the bar onto the street outside. 

There wasn’t a bouncer so I just walked in and grabbed a seat at the bar and looked around.  It was nearly empty except for a couple sitting at a table in the corner and a few old timers sitting at the end of the bar talking to the bartender.  It was exactly what I needed.

“Well you look like shit,” one of the old guys barked with a grin.  “Didn’t your mama teach you to come in out of the rain.  You are as wet as a dog.”

I looked down at my soaked clothes, “I guess your right.”

“Lay off the boy Mike,” the bartender said as he walked over to me.

“What ya havin’?” he asked.

“Jack.  Straight up,” I replied.

I watched as he poured the drink and handed it to me. 

The lobby smelled like Lysol and I could feel my hands sweating. 

“So, what you doin’ at a bar in the middle of the week looking like you feel in a pool wit ya clothes on?”

“If you don’t mind, I didn’t really come here for conversation.” I spat back.

“Have it yo way.  You just looked like you needed to talk a bit,”  he said.

You can go in, but you should prepare yourself

I downed the whiskey and let its warmth thaw the chill in my chest before responding. 

“What is the use of talking it won’t change shit,” I said.  “All I want to do right now is have you refill my glass.  That would be a big help.  And this time make it a double.”

I offered him a crooked grin that didn’t reach my eyes along with my now empty glass.  He gave me a look, not buying my bullshit grin for a minute, and refilled my glass.  I picked it up I knocked it back without a wince.

“One more please.  You can put this one on ice,” I said smooth as silk. 

The bartender simply poured and headed back to the old timers.  I wrapped my hands around the glass and stared at the amber liquid. 

I stood in front of the door trying to will myself to take one more step.

I took a sip from my glass.  I could feel the effect of my previous two shoots starting to take effect and sighed as I could feel my mind drifting off.  Hiding from that room even in my thoughts. 

***

I don’t remember how long I staid at the bar, but I do know I was good and drunk when I left.  The bartender wanted to call me a cab, but I refused and stumbled my way back down the street.  The walk seemed even longer on the return trip and by the time I got back to the hospital my legs were about to give out. 

It took all of my remaining focus to retrace my earlier steps back through the winding corridors of the hospital.  Left.  Right.  Left. Right.  Until, I found myself standing back outside the door just as lost as before.  My hand trembled as I reached for the door handle, but I willed it still.  I opened the door, took a breathe, and walked in. 

-----------------


I promise to reveal who is in the bed at the hospital in the next chapter.  Lol, I know I have been dragging it out a bit, but I was trying to decide between a few things that I hope will make the wait worth it.

Echoes: Verse 10, Ted Hughes

Theology
by Ted Hughes

No, serpent did not
Seduce Eve to the apple.
All that's simply
Corruption of the facts.

Adam ate the apple.
Eve at Adam.
The serpent ate Eve.
This is the dark intestine.

The serpent, meanwhile,
Sleeps his meal off in Paradise--
Smiling to hear
God's querulous calling.


Hughes, Ted.  "Theology."  Norton Anthology of Poetry.  Ed.  Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy.  New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005. (1813).

----------------------------------------------------------

Examination at the Womb-Door
by Ted Hughes

Who owns these scrawny little feet?  Death.
Who owns this bristly scorched-looking face? Death.
Who owns these still-working lings? Death.
Who owns this utility coat of muscles? Death.
Who owns these unspeakable guts? Death.
Who owns these questionable brains? Death.
All this messy blood? Death.
These minimum-efficiency eyes? Death.
This wicked little tongue? Death.
This occasional wakefulness? Death.


Given, stolen, or held pending trial?
Held.
Who owns the whole rainy, stony earth?  Death.
Who owns all of space? Death.


Who is stronger than hope? Death.
Who is stronger than the will? Death.
Stronger than love? Death.
Stronger than love? Death.


But who is stronger than death?
                                                  Me, evidently.

Pass, Crow.



Hughes, Ted.  "Examination at the Womb-Door."  Norton Anthology of Poetry.  Ed.  Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy.  New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005. (1813-1814).

------------------------------------------------------


Ted Hughes was born in Mtholmroyd, South Yorkshire, England, and was raised in Mesborough, a coal-mining town in South Yorkshire.  He won a scholarship to Pembroke College, Cambridge, but served two years in the Royal Air Force before matriculating.  He studied English, archeology, and anthropology, specializing in mythological systems (an interest that informed much of his poetry).  He later worked as a gardener, night watchman, zookeeper, scriptwriter, and teacher.  In 1956, he married the American poet Sylvia Plath, and the couple spent a year in the United States before moving to England in 1959.  Plath committed suicide in 1963.  In 1970, Hughes settled on a farm in Devon.  In addition to poetry and books for children.  He also edited numerous collection of verse and prose, and was founding editor of Modern Poetry in Translation magazine.  He was poet laureate of England from 1984 until his death.  His poem vividly describe the beauty of the natural world, but celebrate its raw, elemental energies.  He often embodies the primal forces of nature as mythic animals sch as the pike, the hawk, and "Crow," a central character in a long cycles of poems.  His translation and recasting of Tales from Ovid was published to critical acclaim in 1997, and less than a year later he broke his silence on his relationship with Plath with the publication of Birthday Letters.  He received the Order of Merit from Queen Elizabeth II only twelve days before his death, from cancer.