Sleep Sweet Ruby

As a child
I thought her mean
Barking orders
Do this
Do that
Clean this
Wash this pot

Now I miss her so much
My sweet miserable granny
Who made the best ackee
and poke fry
No joke
Lick di plate dry

Who taught me all my values
With a belt cross mi backside
Who taught me; "put on di pot
Food soon come
God soon send a man
bring sum from grung"

Who taught me;
"Di man work hard
Mek sure
share im di biggest plate
By time im reach di yaad

Keep the place clean
And shine di floor
And everything you have
Yuh fi give tanks for
Before you don't get anymore"

She teach mi to wash clothes

Pan di wash board
Mek sure yuh go to service
And serve the Lord

I wish she was still here
Screaming "gineration of viper
Go wash up di plate before mi pick piece of cedar
And corn yuh bahine"
Man those were good times

Sleep sweet Mrs Ruby
I wish you could see me
I think you would be proud
But I know in my heart
You are looking down
With pride.

AFRICA CALLS

I want to visit Africa for myself, see the motherland and talk to real Africans. Me, I'm a watered down version of the true African, mixed with the Jews and Indians, estranged from my own land, born Jamaican, Americanized. where I'm from I wasn't categorized by color, but now I'm here they call me black. Still my homeland calls me back, but what could be stranger, she doesn't know me, and I don't know her...

Identity Poem: Who am I?

I am a Caribbean flower, born and bred in Jamaica,

Mixed to perfection by my many ancestors.

I am African, Jewish, and Indian,

With honey-gold complexion,

And tell-tale eyes.

A lover of many different tongues;

English is my native one.

Passionate to a fault with the words I draw.

I am a yard girl with roots too deep to trace,

I straddle the fence.

You can call me other.

I am not like my father,

Even less like my mother.

I am Jamaican by roots;

Land of the humming bird,

Where Dunns’ River falls;

Where we are awaken by the rooster

At the crack of dawn,

Eat ackee and salt fish,

And go white river rafting.

Yet in all this:

I feel estranged to her.

I have been here so long;

I am an American girl.

Gripes and Dreams

GRIPES AND DREAMS

I am still mad at him. I think this is just another issue I/we have within our relationship that will get swept under the rug. He'll forget, I'll hold a grudge, onward we trudge through the slime and the sludge until love expires.

Speaking of love
She's a prostitute
Whored out
Always dripping from our mouths
Without meaning
How are we to incorporate this word with true feeling
When it's used so loosely?

I digress:
This love thing is an excuse
That people use to attach themselves to others 
Like freshwater leeches
Bite into their flesh
Suck out their juices
Then leave them to bleed out
Unless, unless it's true love
Which I wouldn't even recognize
In thirty nine years
True love has never seen my eyes

Like knock off Gucci and Luis Vattons
Are all you find in the hood
Not even the good ones
I don't sport them though
I'll hold out for the real
Don't like to settle
I want to know how it feels
Bathe in it
Swim daily in it's splendor
Making sweet memories 
I'll always hold tender

Then again
They say I am a dreamer
Doomed to live my life wishing
Lost
On a fairy tale mission
Seeking prince charming
And happily ever afters
When I am sentenced only to live
The life of the fairy tale crafter
A dreamer...

 

 

 

In the measure that you master yourself, that you control your mental forces instead of being controlled by them, in just such a measure will you master affairs and outward circumstances.   -James Allen

SIX WORD STORY

Pushing her over, his feet slipped.

   -Moshia Pen

#sixwordshortstory

 

 

 

ROSE COLORED GLASSES

I weep for humanity

All the pain and cruelty 

We inflict each other

We inflict ourselves 

So bitter with pain the cards dealt

Darkness transmuted to Gothic art

Applying salve to a wounded heart

With rose colored glasses

Will our past ever forgive our mistakes

I close my eyes in agony 

And pray to awake in a place

Where eventually love conquers hate.