Nelson Mandela 1918-2013

History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave,
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.

-Seamus Heaney

Support Artist James Dupree in His Fight With City to Seize His Art Studio for a Parking Lot

Artist James Dupree fights city's seizure of his Mantua art studio for parking lot; View video and sign petition.  

Here is a link to petition:  http://www.change.org/petitions/jannie-blackwell-michael-nutter-return-the-deed-to-property-owners-of-3617-haverford-ave-philadelphia

Artist James Dupree

One of the Art Studios

David Adjaye Receives the WSJ’s 2013 Innovator Award for Architecture

Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture

When I see the innovative talent of the likes of Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye, I simply include him in my fold of third culture kids and beam at his success.   My own experience of having taught for 10 years at an international school had afforded me the amazing opportunity to work with young people who were multilingual, typically had 

Architect David Adjaye

lived in 4 or 5 countries and fluidly moved throughout the world as if boundaries were false impediments, absorbing the ideas, the aesthetics and the many ways of being from their host countries.  Adjaye was one of these global nomads as a child and continues to be one today.   The experiences he has collected along the way account for the singular and spectacular energy his architectural designs convey.  I had the honor to hear him speak and share his design vision on several occasions when he was a visiting lecturer at the University of Penn.

    Selected as the chief architect for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture, which is due to open in 2015, as well as the designer of the Nobel Peace Center in Norway and the Skolkovo Moscow School of Management in Russia, Adjaye is leaving his mark throughout the world.  The Wall Street Journal just named him its 2013 Architecture Innovator for an affordable housing complex he has designed in Harlem’s Sugar Hill neighborhood in New York City.  It is a combination of apartments, a children’s museum and preschool.

 “In outline, the high-rise, which will also provide housing for the homeless, is a big, chunky block with a serrated upper story; its bulk, along with its ridged panels of graphite-cast concrete, give it more than its share of grit and brawn. Yet look closer at those panels: Visible from the right angle and in the right light, the cladding bears the traces of a floral pattern, enormous roses etched into the rough surface,” said Ivan Volner of the Wall Street Journal( Click here for the entire article: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303376904579137492664041948

The Sugar Hill Apartments

According to Broadway Housing Communities, applications are now being accepted for the Sugar Hill Apartments and the Sugar Hill Pre-School. “Residential occupancy is estimated within the second quarter of 2014, and will include 124 affordable rental apartments, with 25 units set aside for homeless households and 1 for a superintendent.  The remaining 98 affordable apartments will serve individuals and families at 30%, 50% 60% and 80% of AMI (area median income).  Income eligible residents of Manhattan Community District 9 will receive a preference for 50% of the apartments within the lottery or 49 units.  Persons with disabilities and NYC Municipal employees also receive preferences.”

For more detailed information about the Sugar Hill Housing Lottery and the application process go to bhc.org/lottery or call the Sugar Hill rent-up hotline, 347-379-4112.

Here is a link to a recent feature the New Yorker did on Adjaye: http://www.broadwayhousing.org/2013/09/a-sense-of-place/

Support the Literary Journal Winter Tangerine Review

Current Issue of Winter Tangerine Review

Sojourner has a new poem in the current issue of Winter Tangerine Review. The artwork in this journal is absolutely stunning and arresting. https://wintertangerine.squarespace.com/current-volume/

First Person Art Festival Continues- Great Upcoming Events

Ruth Naomi Floyd, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez and Rita Dove

Last Wednesday, Drexel University hosted an amazing event, in partnership with the First Person Arts Festival,  where Toni Morrison and Rita Dove came to town to celebrate Sonia Sanchez and her year of service as Philadelphia's poet laureate.  It was an evening of conversation and song.  Singer, composer and photographer Ruth Naomi Floyd graced the event with her incredible voice.  

 

Ruth Naomi Floyd

The First Person Arts Festival continues. Here is a link to upcoming events:  http://firstpersonarts.org/  Photos are by Johanna Austin.  

Celebrating Ghanaian Writers- Meri Nana-Ama Danquah

Kinna Reads, one of my all-time favorite literary blogs, is celebrating Ghanaian literature this week.  I wanted to add to this digital fête by highlighting Meri Nana-Ama Danquah, a Ghanaian-American writer.  As a mother of an Ivoirian-American daughter, I am particularly interested in the voices of first-generation immigrant African women to the United States.  

Meri Nana-Ama Danquah

Danquah, 46, immigrated to the United States from Ghana when she was six-years-old.  She offers a unique and compelling perspective.  She is the editor of several anthologies including Becoming American: Personal Essays by First Generation Immigrant Women and Shaking the Tree; A Collection of New Fiction and Memoir by Black Women. Perhaps her most seminal work is Willow Weep for Me; A Black Woman’s Journey Through Depression which chronicles her clinical depression within the context of  being a woman of color with a health challenge historically not associated with Black women.

 Here is link to learn more about Danquah and her work http://aalbc.com/authors/meri_danquah.html and here is link to a presentation she gave in 2003 about her journey with depression:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AelCishP3PI

And here, of course, is a link to Kinna Reads:  http://kinnareads.wordpress.com/

Discover Ghana through its great writers !

Literary Journeys; Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison - Getty Images

Toni Morrison- Photofest

When my husband and I were deciding on names for our daughter-to-be, we had narrowed the list to Sojourner, Zora and Baldwin; people who knew how to wield words in ways that transformed people’s thoughts and actions.  I have been on a wonderful trip since being introduced, as a child, to writers and their work and the audacious idea that I could have access to these literary folk and journey with them for a lifetime.

I first met Toni Morrison 33 years ago, when I was 18 and a freshman at Williams College.  She came to campus to speak to the larger community as well as to my English class of 14 students who had recently read her book Song of Solomon. You can imagine the impression this experience had on a young girl, from West Philly, entertaining the idea that she, too, might want to be a writer. Since that momentous occasion, I have claimed Ms. Morrison and her ideas and truth-telling as something as necessary as love and water and as something I should proactively pursue.  I have seen her and heard her many times. I carried her books with me on my 10-year sojourn to Cote d’Ivoire.  It was while reading Beloved, pregnant and unsure of my capabilities to be a mother in an unfamiliar country, carrying my own history with me, that I decided that my daughter shall be Sojourner.

 Last night, I saw Ms. Morrison, again, at an event, CONVERSATION AND SONG WITH TONI MORRISON, SONIA SANCHEZ AND RITA DOVE, hosted at Drexel University, where she and Dove honored Sonia Sanchez and her year of service as Philadelphia’s poet laureate.  Morrison at 82 is still very much the lioness, the raconteur, and the master of deconstructing untruths disguised as the gospel.  She still helps me, at 51, to see through things; to reconsider a point of view.  

Sojourner, now 17 and a high school senior, was excited to share with me last week that she met up again and spoke with one of her favorite poets, Nikki Giovanni, who she first met when she was in fourth grade and  whose poem “ Ego Tripping”  was one of the first poems she committed to heart.  Now a poet herself, Sojourner is on her own literary journey and I hope it is just as nurturing and thrilling a ride for her as it continues to be for me.    

Sojourner and poet Nikki Giovanni

Here is an audio link to Toni Morrison’s 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech.  Enjoy:  http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=1502

* This event was also part of the amazing  2013 First Person Arts Festival . Here is a link to other festival events:  http://firstpersonarts.org/

The Brothers Size Presented by Simpatico Theatre Project

Tarell Alvin McCraney-Photo courtesy of the Vineyard Theatre

*Click link to a video of Mr. McCraney  speaking about his work:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oDkI7JEyNh8

Friday I was prepared for another evening of lackluster Philadelphia theatre. But the Simpatico Theatre Project production of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play The Brothers Size immediately engaged me.  Playwright McCraney, a recipient of one of this year’s MacArthur “Genius” Awards, expertly and seamlessly intertwined Yoruba mythology into an African-American social landscape and towed the audience into the world of Ogun and Oshoosi Size; two brothers seemingly different but bonded by their love for one another and a third character, Elegba, who shares a relationship, on several levels, with one of the brothers.  

Akeem Davis as Oshoosi Size in THE BROTHERS SIZE. Photo credit: Daniel Kontz.

Ogun, the older of the brothers, who is hardworking and reliable, owns his mechanics garage and, of course, the symbolism of cars and freedom is heavy in this play.  Oshoosi, the younger brother, has recently been released from prison, where he served time with Elegba as well, and has returned to his brother’s home to start life again, on the outside.  In McCraney’s expert hands and in Simpatico’s equally skilled execution of this play, they jointly pull back these macho scabs, these layers of deferred dreams, and from a pit of denial, neglect and injustice, they excise and bring to the surface the raw, recognizable humanity of these three men.

Despite the starkness of the stage design, which was brilliant, McCraney clearly sees these characters and their struggles in epic terms, worthy of being presented on a world stage, eclipsed by nothing.  Who heralds the tale of working class African-American men, of Black men who love men, of struggling folks who want to revel in the touch of freedom?   What also reels in the audience is the language of The Brothers Size.  There is a rhythm to a lot of the dialogue, but the effect of the actors speaking their inner thoughts and the stage directions brings the audience inside of the characters; you are swimming inside of them and it is not a smooth ride as theatre should be. 

Akeem Davis (left) and Carlo Campbell in "The Brothers Size" at Simpatico Theatre Project. (DANIEL KONTZ)

Bravo to all those involved in this production.

The last performance of The Brothers Size is tomorrow, November 3, 2013.  Sunday is a 2:00 p.m. performance at the Walnut Street Theatre’s Studio Five.   Click here for more info.  http://simpaticotheatre.org/landing/season/the-brothers-size/

Meet Ghanaian Painter Gabriel Eklou

Love, 76 x 89 cm, 2004

Gabriel Eklou

          Bravo to Safia Dickersbach and her efforts, through her production company Showcase, to give international exposure to artists creating on the African continent.  Her first project focuses on artists from Ghana and their work is indeed eclectic, exquisite and immediately engaging.  I am now a fan of Gabriel Eklou’s work. Check out some of his paintings and the video interview of him with Dickerbach.  

  

Legacy, 102 x 102 cm, 2004

Baobab in the wind, 102 x 127 cm, 2013

Here is the link to the video interview:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LAnz2N5-p0

Living in the Time of Breast Cancer

   

Yellow Medicine Review Fall Issue 2013

Yesterday I had my annual mammogram. It is unnerving and shocking to think that in this country, with all of its vast wealth and medical advances, that breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for African-American women and that the breast cancer death rate is 60 percent higher for African-American women than their white counterparts. Have we ever considered, too, about how other women around the world, particularly those with minimal or no access to quality health care- how do they cope with breast cancer?

I have a poem in the current issue of Yellow Medicine Review; A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art, and Thought.   It is called Homesick Spirits and it is about a traditional healer, in a village setting, in Cote d’Ivoire, trying to deal with the onslaught of a seemingly new phenomenon taking rest in women’s breasts-which of course is breast cancer.

Buy this issue, read the poem and perhaps think about how you can initiate some small change for a huge problem. 

http://www.yellowmedicinereview.com/id13.html

http://www.yellowmedicinereview.com/id13.html

Toni Morrison and Rita Dove to Join Philadelphia’s Poet Laureate Sonia Sanchez at Drexel University

Toni Morrison by Henry Leutwyler

"Sonia Sanchez will celebrate the end of her term as Philadelphia’s Poet Laureate with an inspirational night of personal stories, readings and live music at an event entitled “Conversation and Song: Walking the Laureate Road,” hosted by Drexel University and First Person Arts.

Rita Dove

Sonia Sanchez by Laylah Amatullah

Joined by her friends, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison and former Poet Laureate of the United States and Pulitzer Prize-winner Rita Dove, Sanchez will lead a conversation on what it means to be a literary luminary, the intersection of poetry and prose and how their work impacts their personal lives. Internationally acclaimed jazz vocalist and composer Ruth Naomi Floyd will perform throughout the evening."

The event will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 6 from 7:30 p.m. – 9 p.m. in Drexel University’s Main Auditorium (3141 Chestnut St.). Tickets are $35 and are available for purchase online. Discounted tickets are available to First Person Arts members for $28 and to Drexel students, faculty and staff for $5 with a valid Drexel ID. For questions about tickets, please contact Jacqueline Rios at 215-895-6910 or jsr62@drexel.edu.

* Source- Drexel University/Events

Happy Birthday to Thelonious Monk !

Happy Belated Birthday to Thelonious Monk! The best way to keep his legacy alive is to share him with young folks. Mysterious Thelonious by Chris Raschka is my favorite book to introduce the little ones to Monk.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-531-30057-2

Bertrand Russell's 10 Commandments of Teaching

I love these!!!!  ...and so do my little ones !


Bertrand Russell's 10 Commandments of Teaching

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.

2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.

3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.

4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.

5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.

6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.

7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.

9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.

10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

Welcome The 2013 National Student Poets

Photo by Lawrence Jackson 

Here are the new 2013 National Student Poets, of which one is my daughter, Sojourner Ahebee.  These wonderful poets were recently- Sept. 20, 2013-received in the White House by First Lady Michelle Obama, who is the honorary chair of The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.  Featured in the photo with Mrs. Obama are the 2013 National Student Poets Michaela Coplen, Sojourner Ahebee, Nathan Cummings, Louis Lafair and Aline Dolinh.  

The 2013 National Student Poets at Their Appointment Ceremony in Washington, D.C. 

           Here is a link to learn more about the National Student Poet Program:  http://www.artandwriting.org/the-awards/national-student-poets-program/

Here are the 2013  National Student Poets with U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey 

at a Library Congress event in honor of the 2013 National Book Festival. Sept. 20, 2013

Photo Credit- D. Cummings

The 2013 National Student Poets on the balcony outside of the
Poetry Room of the Library of Congress- Photo Credit- D. Cummings 

 Sojourner is representing the Midwest region because she attends boarding school in Michigan.

Supporting partners of the National Student Poets Program include President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, Institute of Museum and Library Services and Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. 

                                      The 2013 National Student Poets with writer Joyce Carol Oates 
                    at the 2013 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.- Photo Credit- D. Cummings 

Poem Raise Your Head and Try Again Featured in Blackberry: A Magazine

My poem, Raise Your Head and Try Again, about the historical amnesia of Europe and the United States when it comes to their involvement in fermenting and benefiting from the crisis in The Democratic Republic of the Congo, has recently been featured on Blackberry: A Magazine's website.  Here is the link. Do share!
http://www.blackberryamagazine.com/spoken-word-wednesday-octavi/

BIRMINGHAM SUNDAY by Langston Hughes

BIRMINGHAM SUNDAY by Langston Hughes

Four little girls

Who went to Sunday School that day
And never came back home at all--
     But left instead
     Their blood upon the wall
     With spattered flesh
     And bloodied Sunday dresses
     Scorched by dynamite that
     China made eons ago
     Did not know what China made
     Before China was ever Red at all
     Would ever redden with their blood
     This Birmingham-on-Sunday wall.
Four tiny little girls
Who left their blood upon that wall,
In little graves today await:
     The dynamite that might ignite
     The ancient fuse of Dragon Kings
     Whose tomorrow sings a hymn
     The missionaries never taught
     In Christian Sunday School
     To implement the Golden Rule.
Four little girls
Might be awakened someday soon
By songs upon the breeze
     As yet unfelt among
     Magnolia trees.

__________________________

Birmingham Sunday By Joan Baez; Remembering Our Girls

Joan Baez has forever been one of my role models of a socially and politically engaged artist.  She has been front and center in campaigns for human rights. Here is a link to Joan singing Richard Farina’s song Birmingham Sunday;  a song in commemoration of the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, September 15, 1963
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shgSLKb-onA

James McBride Will Discuss His New Book -The Good Lord Bird-At the Philadelphia Free Library

Writer James McBride

Abolitionist John Brown

“I was born a colored man and don’t you forget it. But I lived as a colored woman for seventeen years.” These are the words of “Onion” Shackleford, JAMES MCBRIDE’s latest protagonist, looking back on his years running with the ardent and often violent abolitionist John Brown and his ragged ‘freed’ slaves in the Kansas Territory in the late 1850s. Brown’s failed 1859 raid on the federal armory at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) is imprinted in history books, with no former slaves as survivors. But McBride uses the kidnapped Shackelford, disguised as a girl, as a fictitious lens to look back at our country’s ugly and rich history. McBride returned to Radio Times to discuss his new novel, “The Good Lord Bird.” -
Listen here: http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/2013/09/05/james-mcbride-retells-the-john-brown-story/

James McBride | The Good Lord Bird  (A) 
When: Thursday, September 12, 2013 at 7:30PM 
Where: Central Library
1901 Vine Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
(between 19th and 20th Streets on the Parkway)

Cost: FREE
No tickets required. For Info: 215-567-4341. 

James McBride is the author of the New York Timesbestselling memoir and 2004 One Book, One Philadelphiaselection, The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother, in which “race and religion are transcended by family love” (New York Times Book Review). His novels include Miracle at St. Anna—which he adapted for Spike Lee’s film—and Song Yet Sung, a tragic and triumphant tale of a slave revolt in Maryland during the tense days before the Civil War. McBride is an award-winning composer and screenwriter and a former staff writer forThe Boston Globe, People, and The Washington Post. InThe Good Lord Bird, a young boy born into slavery joins abolitionist John Brown’s crusade, concealing his identity and gender to survive.

James McBride will be joined onstage by his band for the "John Brown Good God, Good Lord, Good Riddance Gospel Tour."

* Source- Free Library of Philadelphia 

Are My Hands Clean? - A Thought for Labor Day!

Are My Hands Clean?

Performed by Sweet Honey in the Rock. Sweet Honey in the Rock, Live at Carnegie Hall
Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9sBRnVeUuI


Lyrics and music by Bernice Johnson Reagon. Songtalk Publishing Co. 1985

I wear garments touched by hands from all over the world
35% cotton, 65% polyester,the journey begins in Central America
In the cotton fields of El Salvador
In a province soaked in blood,
Pesticide-sprayed workers toil in a broiling sun
Pulling cotton for two dollars a day.
Then we move on up to another rung—Cargill
A top-forty trading conglomerate,takes the cotton through the Panama Canal
Up the Eastern seaboard, coming to the US of A for the first time
In South Carolina
At the Burlington mills
Joins a shipment of polyester filament courtesy of the New Jersey petro-chemical mills of
Dupont
Dupont strands of filament begin in the South American country of Venezuela Where oil
riggers bring up oil from the earth for six dollars a day
Then Exxon, largest oil company in the world,
Upgrades the product in the country of Trinidad and Tobago
Then back into the Caribbean and Atlantic Seas
To the factories of Dupont
On the way to the Burlington mills
In South Carolina
To meet the cotton from the blood-soaked fields of El Salvador
In South Carolina
Burlington factories hum with the business of weaving oil and cotton into miles of fabric
for Sears
Who takes this bounty back into the Caribbean Sea
Headed for Haiti this time—May she be one day soon free—
Far from the Port-au-Prince palace
Third world women toil doing piece work to Sears specifications
For three dollars a day my sisters make my blouse
It leaves the third world for the last time
Coming back into the sea to be sealed in plastic for me
This third world sister
And I go to the Sears department store where I buy my blouse
On sale for 20% discount

Are my hands clean?

SEAMUS HEANEY ( 1939-2013)

Digging
BY SEAMUS HEANEY ( 1939-2013)

Here is an audio link of Heaney reading this poem; one of my favorites.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177017

Fruitvale Station

I  saw Fruitvale Station last night. WOW! I am so exhausted trying to protect my own son that I am just about smothering him and myself.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445_162-57594533/fruitvale-station-recreating-a-tragic-loss-of-a-life/

Philly's own crusading/activist lawyer Michael Coard will lead a discussion on Fruitvale Station at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute. A recommendation from Juliet Goodfriend, BMFI's President: Fruitvale Station is perhaps the most affecting and interesting movie I’ve seen all year. It succeeds in bringing you inside the lives of people whom we all should know better than we do." 

See the acclaimed drama at BMFI starting this Friday. Join Michael Coard, Esquire, for a discussion following the 7:00 pm screening on Monday, July 29.

http://www.brynmawrfilm.org/

Drone by Solmaz Sharif

   

Victims of Drones

  I am horrified by the Zimmerman verdict. I am equally confounded not by President Obama’s response to the verdict, which I welcomed, but his myopic generosity of spirit and public policy that fails to allow him to see himself also in the children killed by U.S. drones.  It is time that we connect the dots and rise into a quality of action that validates and protects all life. 

   I share with you a poem entitled Drone by Solmaz Sharif.  

Drone

By Solmaz Sharif

Let this be the Body
through which the War has passed.
—Frank Bidart

somewhere I did not learn mow down or mop up • somewhere I wouldn’t hear your father must come with me or I must fingerprint your grandmother can you translate please • the FBI has my cousins’ computers • my father says say whatever you want over the phone • my father says don’t let them scare you that’s what they want • my mother has a hard time believing anything’s bugged • my father and I always talk like the world listens • my father is still on the bus with contraband papers under his seat as uniforms storm down the aisle • it was my job to put a cross on each home with dead for clearing • it was my job to dig graves into the soccer field • I wrote red tracksuit • I wrote Shahida, headless, found beside Saad Mosque • buried in the same grave as the above • I wrote unidentified fingers • found inside Oldsmobile car • I wrote their epitaphs in chalk • from my son’s wedding mattress I know this mound’s his room • I dropped to a knee and engaged the enemy • I emptied my clip then finished the job • I took two steps in and threw a grenade • I took no more than two steps into a room before firing • in Haditha we cleared homes Fallujah-style • my father was reading the Koran when they shot him through the chest • they fired into the closet • the kitchen • the ninety-year-old standing over the stove • just where was I • uno a uno tu cara en todos los buses urbanos • Here lie the mortal remains of one who in life searched your face • call me when you get home • let’s miss an appointment together • let’s miss another flight to repeated strip searches • that Haditha bed • magenta queen sheets and a wood-shelved headboard and blood splattered up the walls to the ceiling • they held each other • they slept on opposing ends wishing one would leave • mother doesn’t know who I am anymore • I write Mustapha Mohammad Khalaf, fifteen months old • I write Here lies an unknown martyr, a big security guard with a blue shirt, found near an industrial area with a chain of keys • Martyr unknown, only bones • they ask if I have anything to declare then limit my response to fruits and nuts • an American interrupts an A and B conversation to tell me you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do • he strikes me as a misstep away from she was asking for it • what did you expect after fishing Popov from a trash bin • what did you expect after accepting a marbled palace • they drag the man who killed my uncle out of a hole • they inspect him for ticks on national television • no one in my family celebrates • when the FBI knocks I tell them I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do; they get a kick out of that • she just lay there and took it like a champ • she was dying for it • at a protest a man sells a shirt that says My dick would pull out of Iraq • my mother tape-records my laugh to mail bubble-wrapped back home • my mother records me singing Ye shabe mahtab mah meeyad to khab • I am singing the moon will come one night and take me away sidestreet by sidestreet • sitting on a pilled suburban carpet or picking blue felt off the hand-me-down couch • the displaced whatnots • I practice the work of worms • how much I can wear away with no one watching • two generations ago my blood moved through borders according to grazing and seasons • then a lifeline of planes • planes fly so close to my head filled with bomblets and disappeared men • scaffolding sprouts nooses sagging with my dead • I burn my finger on the broiler and smell trenches • my uncle pissing himself • shopping bags are legs • there is half a head in the gutter • I say Hello NSA when I place a call • somewhere a file details my sexual habits • some tribunal may read it all back to me • Golsorkhi, I know the cell they will put me in • they put me onto a crooked pile of others to rot • is this what happens to a brain born into war • a city of broken teeth • the thuds of falling • we have learned to sing a child calm in a bomb shelter • I am singing to her still

*Source-Witness   http://witness.blackmountaininstitute.org/