The Love Disappearing Act

You are not here anymore.

Our kisses are melted snow on my window

Your fingers are empty poles with the flags takes down
Your neck is a half finished hotel overlooking the sea in Malta
Your toes are the pebbles kicked away by children
Your chest is still a lion's, just a retired one
Your spine is a falling headstand after just 4 seconds
Your kindness is still tact in the crease of your elbow

But, your hug is a broken umbrella

Your love is a tiring hike, I am still willing to climb
Your legs are an emergency exit in a blazing fire
Your tongue is still the sky scattered among the stars

I still look for it at night

Your shoulders are flowery shopping bags for life
Your stomach is an untouched, silent golden bay
Your skin is my crumpled silk pyjamas
Your lips are London office workers on the tube at 8am
Your mind is two fast trains crashing together
Your voice is the silence between leaves of a wise grand tree

You are not here anymore.

Maya Angelou: The Now Free Bird

I am walking around the house trying to make my body do something to give my mind time to catch up with the fact that Maya Angelou has passed away. 

It has been 25 minutes since I found out on Facebook and reposted quotes on Twitter and expressed my grief but somehow that does not seem enough for such a magnificent woman. 

I should be in bed but I don't think I can sleep now so I am going to talk about Maya like we were on a first name basis with each other. The amount of times I cradled her book, 'I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings', to sleep it is like we were. 

Maya the woman who was the flamboyant fashionable scarf across many modern women's shoulders, also had the ability to keep you warm under the musings of truth from the soul, with a dash of inspiration and a wicked smile. 

The full essence of a woman. 

All of the above, but defined by none.

The most powerful impact upon me that she had was the way she spoke about serious issues like child molestation in a powerfully poetic way that leaves your heart in her hands forever, so you can then use your hands to rub away the dirt. 

 Larger than her writing though was her purpose. Her purpose to enlighten, uplift and inspire was achieved every day in her life throughout many continents of the world. The whole world is mourning this woman because her light was so bright, she had a little bit left for us all to share. 

Her impact regarding female empowerment is immeasurable. How many young girls and women picked up a pen because of her? I know I did. 

The perception of Maya by the world is like the perception of an oak tree to a freed bird. 

Whenever I thought about the probability of getting winkles on my face, my mind would switch like a bright light to Maya. I would start thinking according to standard of Maya...

Older = more grace

Older = more eloquence

Older = more creativity

Older = more influence
Older = more beauty

It is better to be older she would have me believe. Then, I would carry that smile of hers and struct my stuff like my young age didn't matter.

She will be the woman who will always be on my mind and her influence will be at the end of my pen. So, I will leave you now with my favourite poem of all time, 'Still I Rise' by the great Maya Angelou. 

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may tread me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you? 

Why are you beset with gloom? 

'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken? 

Bowed head and lowered eyes? 

Shoulders falling down like teardrops.

Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you? 

Don't you take it awful hard

'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you? 

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs? 

Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.  

So I say goodnight. 

Who Inspires You???

It is great to be a woman. Just saying. #Gratitude

10 Reasons Why I Am Grateful Today

We keep skipping over the important, little details of life like a scratched, same old routine record. We find it so easy to delight in what went wrong with our day. 

Today is different, I am share the reasons why I have an attitude for gratitude today…

1. My room when I wake up is perfectly heated for my physiological body. I am like a modern day Goldilocks with an afro, not too hot, not too cold.

2.I have an abundance of clothes to wear of different styles, so much so that I can catch up to a new “me” every day.

3. Food flows into my cupboards and then into my stomach, without much resistance.

4. I don’t have to walk hours for water, or for anything else for that matter except for self-inflicted exercise which I sometimes don’t mind self-inflicting upon myself.

5. I have instant access to pretty much any news story worldwide or the video of Solange kicking JayZ (…that’s when this access starts to get less desirable)!

6. I have very pretty bedsheets with birds and flowers on them. That makes me insanely happy.

7. I have found love a few times in my lifetime and I can look back on those moments and glow like a firefly near a switched on bulb.

8. My friends are seriously good for me like the foundations of the world’s biggest Whole Foods (I think that is in Bowery, New York).

9. Communication is so easy, I don’t have to use the payphone, fumble with change or use pigeon post (yes, there was such an historical thing).

10. I have the ability to smile every second of every day and right now I am listening to Gabrielle ’Sunshine’ so I am definitely using my abilities wisely.

What are you grateful for today? Do your own list and see how much happier it makes you. 

Preschool Poem

Poems are found between jagged, soul-bearing rocks

and rusty scissor spliced memories from preschool.

Poems come because you can't use those old fables

to create a statue of how you should see yourself.

So you re-create a memory insisting it sticks

a more pleasing picture onto your palms for future reference.

Writer's Rant Of Frustrations and Traumas

I write because that is my expression of self. A writer only writes to structure sentences out of the madness of words. It is a form of sanity within a crazy community of life. It is a counselling session with the only person listening possibly being behind another computer or curled up in bed about to fall asleep ...so they may not be listening at all, but still you continue to write. Like possession. Question is how much structure is too much structure, once the work flows out of you?

My creative process is first I talk to myself out loud to try to understand what I am trying to say clearly, before putting finger to computer type pad. The ideas are never formed fully until they come out of my mouth, then the words have the freedom to reject themselves or to commit themselves to a page. Whichever course of action it takes is fine with me as long as I am allowed to speak and write with an inhibited flow. Once I reach this point, I put the writing back into my mouth and chew a bit more until the work is easily digestible for others.

Then, at that point, it is advised by some to squeezed the work into a uniform worn by many, for it to be recognisable, in the form of traditional poetical structures.

Personally, the day I put my writing under rules and restrictions is the day I stop writing, I believe. The world already has so many rules and restrictions regarding social interaction, romantic relationships and expectations of the future, do I really want to put rules on my writing like a religious, non-personal text? Where does the freedom come from within these strict rules? People say try the strict rules first and then comment. I say it is like trying out marriage just so you are able to participate in the arguments.

It can be said that writing in itself is a set of grammatical rules. I would argue that the flexibility using the grammatical rules in manipulating your writing into something unique is where the beauty lies. It is like using table salt for an infinite number of recipes. Grammar, like salt makes things taste better, and that is enough to use it time and time again. If you told me I could only use MY salt for your YOUR limited recipes which you created a couple of centuries ago, you would ignite some hot sauce passion in me I'm afraid.

Let's go to science for a further explanation of my feelings. Grammar, to me, is like the elements in a periodic table. Metaphorically speaking, we want to create explosions with our unique words put together uniquely in poems. We want to use experimentation to achieve new magical compounds. Yes, there are rules in science which I highly respect but I am looking to break the rules to blow up the laboratory of a brain, not just observe others staring into a petri dish of one.

I understand that sonnets, haikus and limericks may be useful strategies to show-off your acceptance into an intellectual community, but in reality, life throws hard things at some people that is more intense that a page poem that is edited to death, could ever be. For some people, performance poetry is not about recognition, it is about getting yourself from trauma to practically functional.

I would say trauma affects an individual on many levels, maybe even far in the future, when your memory has forgotten about a grievance but your soul and body hasn't. Person-centered counselling is where someone sits and discusses whatever comes into their mind with a counsellor to reflect your own words. The reasoning behind the therapy according to Carl Rogers, is we, as humans have all the foundations within ourselves that we need for complete healing. What is so different between that and a free-write poem with the counsellor being an inert pen?

This is not about halting learning, most definitely not, in my opinion. It is about discovering voice, which is a lot rarer but consequently comes from all that you have learnt. An opinion of learning the rules of poetry just to break the rules of poetry, is like building a house only to knock it down again. Why not just work on building the perfect house that you want in the first place? It seems to me you would get a much more fulfilling product in a shorter space of time.

Once you know what you want, the road is a lot shorter. I have learnt.

I feel the art of writing, like business, cooking and science, needs innovation and discovery alongside the tried and tested methods. You are likely to fail at times, but you also have the ability to create a piece that is so unique and explosive when you choose to throw out the textbook, that it may just be worth being labelled a rebel. Where would we be without innovation? Definitely not with iPhone in hand writing all those beautiful sonnets.

It was exceptionally flattering a few weeks ago being recognised by a women at a party for a performance, but interesting not by name (or my big hair) but by my the outfit and the poem's content. I would say it was refreshing actually for labels like my name not to matter but the performance to shine for it's own merit. I wonder if one day we could do the same regarding poems. Instead of the esteemed title of the established, traditional structure that makes the poem so brilliant, it will be the content and how it is was dressed up in an outfit of modern mixed prints, where you do a double turn walking down the street, but somehow it really works regardless of structure. It's just so you. And no one else can rock that look.

Like I said, I have the utmost respect for those who think very differently to me on this subject, yet I also have respect for my own feelings regarding this matter too.

Snowstorms, Delayed Flights and T-shirts

Currently I am delayed. I am in Brooklyn, stuck in a snow storm. My flight out of the USA has been delayed for two days. It is not the end of the world. It is also not the end of my trip, it seems.

I am doing a bit of reflection today with the New Year coming in and everything, thinking about life. How things can happen that are out of your control that disappoint you that lead to circumstances that amaze you. For example, this Nottingham Roosevelt Travelling Scholarship, if I was a woman who had not experience domestic violence then I would not be on this scholarship researching domestic violence and the role of creativity. 

It makes you think maybe you should be grateful for the tough things that happen in your life because it is quite possible, it is shaping your character for tomorrow. If you become an eternal student, the lessons come along and that may just include bad weather for a season. 

From the women, I have spoken to who have experienced domestic violence and didn't returned to their partner, I found there was some form of finding your voice that occurred after being silenced for a long time. 

The arts were crucial in this process as it allowed the women to get to the core of what she was feeling and then express their pent up frustration, anger and disappointments that so often come with a partner being emotionally or physically violent. It was more than the process of releasing through tears or talking, but the process of creation that was most empowering to these women. 

Instead of tearing down an old house with nothing in place of it, these women were able to build a brand new house that they no longer had to escape, but to find safety in at last. They found themselves.

The arts, which involved forms of communication like poetry, song-writing, drawing, painting and film really had a two benefits; first to empower the woman that created the art for her to know she did not go through this traumatic event in vain, and then to communicate to other women the realities of domestic violence to empower them also.

In America, there were many events that were held especially during the month of October in every state under National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. One of the most powerful set of events that I attended was the Clothesline Project which is a national attempt to unite women who have experienced domestic violence through T-shirts. The idea is for women to use their creativity to design a coloured T-shirt, a different colour for a different category of abuse as a "provocative, in-your-face, educational and healing tool" http://www.clotheslineproject.org/history.htm

I cried after seeing some of the T-shirts. 

I spoke to a domestic violence survivor who said that whilst she was with her partner she had to pass her outfit choice by him first before she went out, or he would not go outside with her. He would buy all of her clothes for her as a control tactic and then say she was very unstylish. She lacked confidence at the time and believed him. 

She described a process of healing that came to her by customising a top that she owned, once she had left. She said she knew he would be very mad if he knew what she was doing, and how empowering it was to know that he could no longer make everyday personal decisions for her, like how she looked. Now, she says she believes in herself more and more and continues to customise her clothes to create her own style as creative empowerment within her life. 

It can be the simplest things that means the most to these women once they decide to leave for good. If you can imagine their whole life is changing drastically and every step is a affirmative that they are now on the right path. Miss a step and they are likely to go back. For example, miss the important step of empowerment in domestic violence survivors and how can she believe she can live without him. 

“In youth, it was a way I had,

To do my best to please.

And change, with every passing lad

To suit his theories.

But now I know the things I know

And do the things I do,

And if you do not like me so,

To hell, my love, with you.” 

― Dorothy Parker, The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker

This project had a powerful effect on women, by helping them find their voice creatively the same way this scholarship has had a powerful effect upon me to create value from my experiences also.