Dancing Under the Flame Tree By zarah i. rose
For Millie, Ursa, Steve, Hasani and Sabrikah Copyright Š 2008 by zarah i. rose All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission by the author.
Livication! To all the women in the world, especially those in my world! Without you, I would not be able to breathe easy nor pray hard, raise my children nor cry for justice. I read once that feminism is the revolutionary concept that women are people. It was a joke, but I laughed because, women are not only people. Women are magicians who make their children smile when they cannot feed them. Women rise to do the laundry and pay the bills even when they are being physically and emotionally destroyed. We manifest stars when there is only a dim sky. What women do for the sake of their children is beyond the concept of what ordinary people do for one another. It is unimaginable to many men and only understood by the Universe, who gave her the gifts. Yet, maybe when the world again recognizes that women are people, the world will truly recognize God and there will again be peace‌ We are consumed with labels, classifications and hang ups that make our lives more difficult , and we persist at making them real. These are the fears and anguish that make invisible ro pes to bleed our dreams and strangle our visions. Yet, when we know that there are also totems of shoulders and hearts of faith that are holding us
steady and propelling us forward, we can be free. Free from any constraint, from any violence that has corrupted our existence and we can then be absorbed into a Universal Love. This Love has no limitations, has no categories and accepts all that is good. All else dissipates and becomes nothing more than the soil for new changing seeds, a sea of fostering revelations. Ashe!
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“Bush Gah Ear” In Kirwin Terrace of yesterday and Tutu who knew you Ginny gut an’ John’s Folly naw fool you On Johnnyhorn trail, ‘fore Combustus set sail… Women tongue never done Silk Cotton roots swing low in the sun Flames fall in Tan-Tan Flamboyant Gifts of Calabash carved for enjoyment Jasmine scent chase jumby dem Coconut limb stretch and bend ashy knees scratch, then Tamarind stew Monkey No-Climb, but in ah Genip we grew Under Bayleaf toil, blood in the soil… Gooseberry and rum, dem tings run Mother tree the same all over, eyes in back of her head … watch us as we climb and fall an never forget anyone name.
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Territory .08 This island got watah You just don’t see it. This has never been a desert ed I land there underneath Taino, Akan, Ibo sitting and longing for many years Wanting to bust and flow from in the seams beneath the cracks where a weed may grow below the shiny rims and stone walled palaces even calm and settled water can turn quickly into A flood
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Jasmine Jumby I catch the scent of the jasmine bush next to my clothesline There is peace here. The moon free in no haste At one a.m. trade winds sheer On the edge of the earth of the last green space left I revel in this moment on the outskirts of a little curved bay Then, my ears are filled with alarms going off We fighting to be “in ting.” Men not knowing what to say. I land overfilled to the brim in a pressure of more pavement Sun rise and the boat brings more in a pressure for more payment. The Western mind ways of order has smothered our original sense of time Sometimes I wonder if them don’t think an island can’t sink Overweight from its own history of hardness, ground food diet Now the pipe ah bust and sewage ah stink Mismanaged root systems. taken for granted we who want to walk like donkey and goat up the hill, in a pace with the sea tide. From one side to another Zig -zag No hurry--- straight line Why make trails for jumby to follow?
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SUGAR MILLED…………………. (CATHERINEBERG) Jan. 5th 2003 There is a place where in the sweat scented sugar milled moonlight possession takes some ones spirit into… another time with a great moaning of air and there is no reason for who is taken there except by rhythms drumming through the valley echoing from the circled stone where once the red blood fell as…labored peoples of the earth’s salt were stolen as if a possession and forced under steel stolen and still stolen…to suffer beyond unparalleled in one's contemporary understanding of pain ironically descendants of the thieves are moved into singing a strange song on goat skins " how ethnic" they feel all of a sudden only to fly away to their substance aboard a steel smoking bird who carried them there
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Forbidden Written with Jahshiyah Heaton What if Meshach was a womb an Abendigo had breasts? nurturing her youth the found Israelites What if Shadrach had a pussy? one with her prophesy written all ready rising from the flames untouched proclaiming HALALUAH ALMIGHTY HA HA HA Blasphemy you say? Bless she my soul his a version of the story became history... What if Moses lifted her dress, opened her legs and parted the red sea?
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Holy Mary Mother of God‌ Taboo Nursery Rhyme
Grace never saved face She pulled it off when she wore fine lace when Mary took him into her She rode until sunrise Soaked in His eyes. Then jumped off to fly. Magdalene style. Once she was sung on a drum from nowhere she became a rhythm of a nation
Hope fulfilled her hearts desire By crafted her rainbow pyre and grew it into an the fire Without missing a beat Faith, went into Heat She came out with goose bumps and asked for some tea.
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Earth Cry Why do I feel the rage of a thousand canyons Collapsing when shaking from the racing of my heart red for you why do you call out the demon of pain the faceless monster that carries me to destruction insecure shame because of your words only to make me quiver with your touch Why don’t you love me more Than I love you?
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The Levy (For Mama Nola) ‘05 I have Carried… With ox-like strength built Mass in shoulders ready, for the wounds brought by watching… The well seeming outer shell in a man, disintegrate quickly Witnessed weak ness within him and with quilted colors red purple green yellow Of bright regard Maintained grace in the butterfly like… painted on outstretched arms And lifted up to carry… Big, loud, sweating…men. Over the valley and clear to safety I, with twisted back braids and cheeks balmed in glow I, with the skirt I have carried… Broad men Across bent roads of insecurity And watched Wings tied in doubt the loss of his clarity, the loss of soul I, Still (w)hole(d) with areas of concern… Rocked in comfort for a vision of safe arrival Even Brought forth the life Of tomorrow
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Gave flesh to meaning through greens and milk Felt the amused grandeur of her beginning In stages of misunderstood foundations In ages of mis-used education I with my petite frame and under-privileged mass exploitations. And yet, you still refuse to believe my cries. Mock my warning of your own revelations See again the arched back breathing in balance firm, even, sane Here In the mass flood. I have been the levy unbroken Hold on.
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Skin I recall being so close to your skin that I felt I was in it and I couldn’t understand when you told me how you just couldn’t see yourself not being with a black woman but the time followed and we followed time… I recall watching you standing in the garden With the pickaxe hitting rocks and getting rid of snails Trying to eat the greens Watching you feel me watching you turned to face my direction The sun was descending and the spaces in between the golden rays were shadows that did not allow you to see me you squinted blindly But the last bits of light glinting the space you hit with the axe gave me a clear view through which I could see you How funny, I can see you in darkness but you cannot see me in light?
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Needs A poet Needs to be in love Or not. And needs to have a struggle to be in love with Or not. And needs to have love To write about to have to write about the struggle Or not. But when not She is not a poet She is not in love When she isn’t writing and when she is She is struggling to Be in love. Or not.
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The Hustle
Balancing like moko jumby on wooden legs began my journey Between nature and the constricts of the mean wall stability Everyone says is so good for me and my children. My legs splinter when being bound so tight Mothers before me were better than I never heard voices saying flee never leaned so far to be free there has to be somewhere I do not have to walk So high fall so hard Being close to the ground makes the dig easier Under the soles of my feet only soft brown earth instead of this concrete.
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Plea to Shango Should I blame my poverty on you, Grandfathers? you who disappeared before you could be men Ran eyes blue and made her pickney pretty Quadrilles and quadroon before I was born, Was it you who cursed my name? How do I explain your sins Grandfathers? Through love or through shame? Why have you continued to haunt the Nations? making them say your name ten thousand times Is it this that creates the sadness in my son's eyes? knowing he is threatened with the orders of unthinking minds You were under the white sheets fucking a young daughter Now your seed must perform great feats numbered for a clean slaughter On whom should I blame these wars and crime? Without a sign from you will there still be time? When will you go seek forgiveness Grandfathers? Haunts that need to go and rest‌ For the blood to be off of our hands at last!
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Plain people (For the Amish families whose children were murdered in their one room schoolhouse)
We stay up at night To listen to the parables in the wind inaudible in the daytime breeze Others are plagued with worry in light of a whole state (possibly bigger than Texas) overrun with affairs At every border adulterous lips stained in red shades not worn by wives A player strings his long legs around her sweet fleshy thighs Deeper moving than the burned crescen-doing notes awake at dawn to kiss her and flee Some of us begin then Counting the chicken eggs Tears in quiet For the lost, sweet, Jessica Gunned dead by the demon who entered her one room school house Defiling every moment after I stay up thinking how he fled so fast Final sin of suicide what a cowardly man. not alive long enough to suffer. Like us
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ABC’s of GENOCIDE (win why?) When you were small, I used to see you with your mother, always a clean white undershirt on your shiny self We. Your mother and I, used to chat about, our ups and downs, while you and my boy wobbled, on the sides of the dirt road by the blue bay, an learned to walk. Now you are bursting with a new handsome stride and sweat and the necessary vocals to become grown. Now you, never like being told how to navigate You already know how to walk. Weekend I see you, in the dance in shadows of black and white eight balls, mixes of hard and soft liquors for Intoxication in which you take advantage of the neglect concerning you; young, male and black Invisible you believe, but to me obvious and the only Important thing alive. Insecure hands shift, up and down with the music. Hidden anchors hold you to this street Innocent to the demons. I search my mind for ways to inoculate you against them. But, I didn’t birth you, and I don’t have the magic serum.
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it’s paved, the old dirt road. Progress it seems to some. In the lights flashing, my feeble attempts fall short. at the edge of the bar where your Infraction begins I’m your teacher now. I see you in school, you’re so smooth. In class you fly through your work… there is no challenge and it bores you. In the hall, I ask you, if you think drinking is good for you You say, “I been doing it.” I ask, if you know it’s going to stunt your growth. You say, “I done grown! I’m 15.”
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Wrap Up The wrap up of the News Hour "Today has yet the highest number of causalities in the war so far... 9 killed 25 Wounded..." "...and the Prime Minister issues a statement of deep regret for a bomb that killed 4 UN Peacekeepers..." How do you keep a straight face Newswoman? But then‌ How do I sit here to write this with no tears flooding the keys? The dry heat clogging the voices that no longer speak Has a monster Tainted the Sahara dust As it swirls the globe? Drugging the world Into a numbing sleep Very slowly‌ So we have, Lost the memory of our common womb
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Psychology of Jouvert With floats and feathers Wails and bells Bass and bacchanal It is easy to forget. With colors and rum And dances of fun Party can’t done It is easy to forget. With fry fish and laughter Sweets and firecracker Tramp in street allowed Every moment filled with sound It is easy to forget. When the sun fades and business in back is usual on this present day, Jouvert over‌ here come parade. When its over Some are again unable to tolerate the uneven way of this land. they want to castrate The past That placed us where we are today Ask, Are you one holding the blade Or one balancing on the edge?
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Jouvert of Psychology When you enter the crowd of the 3 o’clock boat Does your heart enter your throat? Having to sit next to the sweat Of a man that toils in sun and concrete mixer Traces of his ganja smoke elixir His scent. Can you be there? Without your mind passing a dirty thought? When you walk past the public school Only hearing the roaring laughter and the Chaos Challenged only by the rock and roll bar Serving sad spirits directly across the street. Do you note the lack of green space, or recreational equipment? Or do you choose to ignore it as an eye sore for lack of a saline solution. Are you one that makes investments in the estate of Plantations that have been renamed for marketability? With no intent to live in the neighborhood. Are you one wearing wealthy indiscretions? believing you know the way to better Determine the fate of those Word you can no longer say‌. out loud.
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Cocaine Murder The white boy slain So we murder our tree, to reprimand we Hundreds of years are exposed For an inspection of the core When the news reports the crime Does the soul of the boy come back to life? When the black boy is slain Does the news report the crime? Mother’s of the killers cry the bitter water Same as the mother’s of the dead. I walk through this sunny town of close regard wave to each car that pass We all know each other here. When the tree was slain did it bring justice? When the boys was jailed did it bring security? For the hundreds of those that have crossed paths On this spot on this frozen volcano now a stump to develop and construct more structures on. this corner where roots are exposed, having no privacy no hidden elixir. what is left inside all hollow and ugly. For the Mothers Does the stump come back to life?
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Standing Ground... If you really want to be here Know that where you are standing Has been a home you were not the first one standing here your claim through privilege and money does Not guarantee an ancestral approval. Nor does it pay your way in, because this isn’t Disneyland and there are no strings attached to my head. You may feel comfortable in your aesthetic perfection Feng shui furniture arrangement Inside concrete and tile with every entertainment satisfying your leisurely needs it never occurs to you, the measure of greed it has taken for you to attain this level of detachment. No length of charity Or therapy Will rid you of the looming presence Of our mourning trees sparse now Who stand in their scattered communion Recalling the family you sacrificed. For a seasonal paradise.
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Reef Bay Waterfall ST. JOHN VI 2008
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Shattered You came flying in and threw some jagged edges unto me Willingly I fell flying freely on a high note then swerved, until I hit another corner this time I was fine, changing channels with no remote only some bushes in the way cushioned my blow walked away with few bruises passing clouds never stay I’ll be ok You gone
Speaking of Time You halt me Make me stop What I was doing To get wrapped in the time bubble That too quickly blows away Then bursts close to the sun When the sky is upon us and the night becomes Too quickly Taken away Are the hours Together Our blood races To join Though my mind knows It will only be our breathe that rhymes Speaking of Time‌
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Machete Man Your mother, she once tell us... Once when we were standing together in the bright lime yard gazing at the hot pink papayas ready for harvest Ripe This tree was lording over the rows of sorrel while she said, laughing in a teasing voice... Once, when you were brown muscles in arm standing humble engaged in honoring the blooming green majesty surrounding you cool breeze in each breath machete in hand, hard yellow gloves. Had your black rubber boots on all covered in dirt from the brown and red clay earth our garden you were tending... Once, when I was standing in my high heels dressed from a long day of work pink dress smiling...sunset fine, looking on adoring the perfectly pink papayas from your tree I've never tasted any others that compare. Your mother she said, eyeing the both of us, summing us up. “You know dis girl, she nah wan no machete man. She need more den a yahd man." You and I just watched each other laughing, knowing‌ How wrong she was.
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Some say words…
Some say my words mean a lot to them today what is a word but, some ink from a pen, a dot in a screen it’s not even as much as the gift of breathing in the object of my affection fast and slow with no direction a word can't beat the long touch of your hand moving on my wind page a string in my band what word can really change your heart to loving mine what is a word without a sure sign I crept for the ache of not having you and sang for the sake of making the do for do inside I know a word is all I got it’s so funny, the thought cus I could do without every single word out your mouth as long as I could love you and your word would be good without a doubt
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Mental Illness When after three years I saw your twin brother The one who shared your egg but split My heart did flip flops When in his eyes, I saw you again. but still not you. Back then, I always saw the peace in your gaze. His was always on fire, and trouble followed him. Your mother chose favorites, putting him in private school, while you stayed in public. She misjudged and even though he was the golden boy, he was cunning, and lacked your integrity. When you turned to philosophy of the stars and dew, measuring the weather with your eyes Sometimes I would be there to seek with you and revel in what we knew, and stretch for more… I tell myself now, I am grown. able to wear purple gowns and smile with people I don’t like. Because I should try to get along now. It was not long enough ago to forget how divine the natural you and me, was. You left me now to only compare each failing suitor Not one ever since stepped in so gracefully, unwavering in the deepness Though our fate relinquished itself to the demons of destruction and your illness Stole you, too faraway…..For even me to reach
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Limbs
so now that I have laid down my arms swinging flying branches easily taken in a strong wind bent my whole force for you opened my inside and readied my blood cells for your presence moved my whole moon to wax planted my feet firmly and birthed into a tall tree took the shaking of rooting deep soul out loud bearing all the branches even the raw green ones even the rough gray ones even my renewal sap‌ running down long limbs... even the juice only I make all given to you so freely for your thirst when necessary and always when the rain came... now, that I have done this its raining now. and you are not rushing to my broad arms for cover... you are not breathing in the soft smell of me inside our quick shades... Please tell me How do I walk away with no limbs ?
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Mirrors A home doesn’t need a whole lot of mirrors just enough for us to glance and go Though we need many reflections to help us live and grow My house is your home with many reflections enough to glance and grow each one a chance to see my intentions most good and a few to throw away in the fertile soil of mistakes I want to let go I could stare all day at your reflection hoping for a chance to love you and make forever come, real slow
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Angel Another one of my brothers a walk in smooth skin midnight in smile of warm wide has been taken hostage inside a small glass bottle where his intellect is muddled into forgotten facts of acts he does not remember and will not admit have occurred my sister wants so much to save him, to find the cure from drowning in his own spirit, now so blurred the one doing a masked “pleased to be here massa� dance in an effort for freedom Playing the fool cane rum make it easier and continues to warm his belly from A pain once hidden in high cheekbones apparent as they seem to sink deeply in a blur of drink once so striking now so dull his beauty so hard to tell
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Blen What if‌
the sun blended me into
a shapeless being of golden joy and you were the thick space I would
make myself into
when it became night cooling me in a hold
molding my sides and ups and downs into a relief of what was also
Your most sacred intention
Then‌
would we meet once again?
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Concrete Madness
There isn’t one day that goes by without you coming to my mind I think how I wanted to see you Making baskets and planting Sorrell in your garden Climbing Gather Mango and coconuts even sour sop kisses I don’t know why you chose to steel your heart from joy and live in concrete madness I think it was the devil and not you anyway.
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Hands On
On my neck sometimes stressed roll or press your hands are best though nothing is true what you say an when I study you I always pay Though‌ I accept your offer with no delay knowing your hands will find their way I would have liked to see If you could have used your heart As well as you used your hands When touching me.
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Force Field I will wait patient for my Beginning with you Again and the zigzag of your being buzzing back and forth does not bother me but it does make me become dizzy. When my gaze is beaming So wide and so far………………………………………………………………………… watching you Waiting. Beginning with you Again Where it is not so easy to be unaware of the wind ………………………………….. Zooming in my ears nostrils singing with coolness My eyes rising past you seeking ways……………………………………………………………… Wanting to zap you up into my Force field;;;;;;;;;
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Stain A piece of you has worn off on me and no matter how hard I try to clean it off A trace is all ways there I can’t always tell If I like it If I enjoy the comfort of its jagged edges and worn in thin spot almost about to become a real tear Something keeps it from giving itself up something remains intact and not so noticeable Yet, when the breeze passes too close through it, only that piece is cooler on my skin I remember I need to fix it and I wished I could have saved it from getting that stain It was just, as I remember I think a quick spill that the wind flew and splattered that ended up on me..
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Wall Shadows
After I had, in wall shadows, traveled to the storied landscape Of our Mother Land tacked on the white wall pressed clean and flat unlike its real self I take the seed an plant it in the small red clay pot Outside in the full moon With the same water we drink from our cup Still cool from the fridge The symmetry I see saw us in is so sweet it catches my soft side shy If I stay in the current moment and never travel Anywhere else I ask. Will That Be? All right?
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Honey I have a honey who likes to be in my tea To wake me gentle just to soothe me Yet my mouth yearns for your talk sweet To make me mental and my walk weak I got soft touch for morning after Yet all I want is your mocking laughter There rising in all the splendor Ass up and you still on the pander What more can you handle? My honey will rub my feet Give me kisses when we out in the street I stray to see your coolness of beat Hangin on your arm I’m your candy sweet For a few nights a week at least From my daylight I get my real conversations He loves all of my newest revelations I leave his ample time To hold on for hours in your silence and rude boy exclamations Soon one day my ocean will be full an I won’t need no more of your salt to make me sea.
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Man power Hierarchies are necessary for the feeble in mind they create endless paper trails and waste vast amounts of time They suck creativity from the very earth that feed them and only consume wealth to promote fear and greed in men So when we want to work on building a community May we also start to abolish the hierarchies. The status quo the needless games, the schedule that no one likes but makes everybody sick , tame and lame May we work with out watching clocks but for the reaching of a goal may we change within ourselves to find more peace in our souls Is there not a better system than one thought up by oppressors, is there not a closer circle to draw upon and protect us. Why does the mother have no right to speak, when they send her son to die? Why the endless histories and mysteries of thieving men who lie? I will always be a dreamer, a lover of utopic scenes. I will always be a lover, and a doer of good deeds So what if I am a coward and want nothing of these schemes A pyramid was not meant to rise just one man to the sky within the trilogy of trilogies everyone has the right to fly Now here we are, with the cell and the chip, the modem and the switch instead of flogging and branding we have been labeled by the satellites instead of noose and chain we are controlled by the modern appetite For faster and more, for richer kill poor, when hierarchy rules we will all have to die When Mama is in charge everyone gets the same amount of tries.
Eyes WIDE open‌ I’s Wide open
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Strength Ssss See that spinach vine? It growin straight up into the air, by sheer will. Without even a true backbone t0 speak uf Yet still accomplishing so much climb‌ Without losing any grace What so ever. How much I would like to be like that vine Free to climb and be so useful and juicy all at the same time.
All clichĂŠs mind Even collectively
apply
Freedom is a state of
we come in our own time
Might not even be during this life Some conditions are broken by intuitive signs Stop or fly by Keep me on the inside Store me in your most underneath spot So I can be with you always.
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Artist Unknown (photo taken at House of Blues in New Orleans)
Crucian Tree_____________ In October I got lost inside your September plum tree You were inside complaining of the heat I was there for a good while A layer of perishing plums under my feet Each step spraying yellow sticky juice on my toes An air of green and sun Danced in an out the leaves some hanging with spiders flying freely an woodlice trails leading all the places I wished I could reach.
Though you were just too tall and cool to see In the very middle of her trunk A perfect seat I almost sat down Then felt like a child ‌..wanting too much too eat. You were just too tall and cool to really see the beauty in this September plum tree.
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Swing I only use a pen to rap since hearing the cicadas clap by the lake we held a heart shaped pose of the kindest reverence your wet caring limbs danced with my bend then in a gut swing sheered me open bark skin easy to peel forget what anyone says we escape our worldly duties as long as the sky is dark a tall cover of ancestor trees and the moon silhouette blankets we stars safe in the gut swing silver in the sunrise we part, head to the mountains go to be elders again leave our child selves in pine as the dew wakes us a new dawn arrives
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Succumbing blue In the colder months I had prayed for tears Received joy... released blame decreased shame became the same fruit and provision full now branches bare readying for sunlight thinning weight off heavy sound by the way I found in this dry wind I don't see you around after our cool blue moons we made so red entwined as vines nourishing rich full, sweetsalt our stalks when pulled away by drought your roots clinging to an earth unable to reach my water body now this lone blade I am warmed by welcoming light all the depth I had sought from your future vision eye still mind fear of the free I found in tall tree with the sun dripping tangerine calypso heat into ripe heavens as dreamed balances of rain so cool and comfortable even hill to climb green my raw young root though, in the recollection of our heat has half of my feet retreating succumbing blue running hard to grow fire once again‌
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Belly Just trying to bring the strength out my belly to move my hands to write these words to rise my chest to breath in and out knowing your long fingers will not be grasping my shoulders in the thud of bones and muscle fixes of our midnite mixes is just... too much. shattering all past beliefs of known passion with new waves of mountainous water its soul, my blood organs reunited with their maker it is all I can bear each consonant breath heavy asthmatic and final... so final. Belly ache.
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Drop back in school the first few days 6th Grade hiding her emotions isn’t easy since her face is only two shades lighter brown than the hair on her head drops on her cheeks the hot rising of her unpolluted throat when made to answer the question revealing brilliance softly, she goes muttering the right answer I notice though, Under her low eyes how, she searches for ways to be wrong.
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10,000 Years My son says, he doesn’t believe me “the sun can not do that to our eyes!” So I point in the book to the pictures of bodies in right angles ancient yoga the chakras in alignment the details of the eye exercises changing blue irises to brown rising with the sun the ari ankha, a morning prayer 10,000 years ago when Khemet was the center of earth and how he came from there as a melanin story. He looks at me and with wisdom he says “well it doesn’t matter in 10,000 years we won’t have eyes anyway.”
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Rainbow Nation I need to surround my words with color fill my eyes with inspiration Sing my voice in rainbows At the conception of gold I need to feel the flow of the current And begin each day with no idea Of where I will go I need to be in the wind of the cloud Who took shape through a vision Of the most superb liberation I need to be riding on the ray of moonlight Instead of gazing in a reflection of metallic screen I don’t need to be seen I need to be running with my feet touching rocks And sand And diving into the sea of contentment And peace Where I will be able to draw breath from the very pores of my sweet lungs I need to be dancing in the rhythm of the nation Bass and beat Neck and feet forward Dramatic pose in motion Ages ago there was this for me
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Out of War (Discharged) You remembered the poem, I wrote you so long ago my tears leading the syllables You were going so far away I feared your thick arms would never calm me again.
I warned you of sacrificing your soul for this sin. You went round the world
You saw all the starving babies and their mothers wrapped in dry old words of men’s feeble fears ordering everyone to “Hide and die!” You say you went to prove yourself worthy of this strength you could not name
The one I knew you had already
missions of something stronger pulled you the piper that calls so many. Finally, you escape those barren commands To fly back here
to the sea of your birth To wrap your self around me once more So I can swim in your thick grin and ancient eyes of brown rivers straighter then ever
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and you can share with me your Grandmother’s homemade gauvaberry tart, a way for you to
Lick my stained fingers
and lift the magenta sweetness from my deepest senses I am amazed
your soul was not lost to heat your reservoir was not emptied your heart not blown into shrapnel I am so thankful.
You remind me that men can be strong and still live. Here is your new poem to remember of me kissing your lips that once were dried by desert heat of hearing your laughter, once silenced in war
of knowing that you can now remember being born at the base of the mountain of the moon, and must live on. Because‌ You done proving yourself.
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Tongue and Cheek In the windy day leaves shaking With no broad worry Each laugh Is a famous moment of joy and you return the favor to me only for the moment of course an I bring all of me into this kiss Even if it is just tongue and cheek for you I would be quite happy with just kissing you for all times Even as the storm sends you in an opposite direction I would be fine to just be the coolness on your neck or even the air touching your lips I bring All of me into this kiss Even if it is just a tongue and cheek For you
Dancing Under the Flame Tree
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See Here You want to know the mirror and feel the shine on your face from me You want to be in the midst of this sky and wonder what this rain could bring crops of crocheted cords, ribbons of care harvests of laughter, soil of comfort In the very least, you must know the difference between being friends and being life partners is much like the difference between painting a picture of the sea or swimming in it. are your hands turning blue or are you merely getting wet?
zarah i. rose
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A View The one The window to my journey The feather of my heart The drum to my song, The wind that moves on What force it plays What cause to make you stray What cost to make you stay What my soul needs today Some place out there Some thing whispers in your ear Some one loves love Some one loves you...
Dancing Under the Flame Tree
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Untitled In between 7 bones and my heart are The now invisible graces of your fingertips And later down the leg Was the mark of your young tongue Being newly wet Waiting, for the season to begin.
zarah i. rose
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Rewind So you back in town An you find me in the same place you leave me So you think When you make your plans I fit in nicely To be the Waiting one Grooved in the spot you carved in the earth For me… Feeling as though my groove is the deepest Maybe… Then comes many other grooves You get distracted by…even if My sounds much stronger My bass pumpin harder My flow much quicker But baby, I can’t keep up fast enough filling the holes you leave cuz you keep on carving new ones.
Dancing Under the Flame Tree
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Isis prayer Unless there will be no more of this… Fixing and battle being the foundation of earth with no good shield strange a feeling of walls daggers of mouth to school by Now, I cannot feel my water enough because where are you to soften my rocks Build my spine out of drought Lord… what about the sea in me? Where does she go by day? What will become of her now that the life has been bleached out? My sun companion spilling aggression forth A heated run off ……………………………….......................... brought by decades of filling her up with waste no longer does she grow inside inner forests of coral circulation cut off by congested values in moral less manners be my guide, Osiris help me to know where my running on empty passion is not forsaken in this change of life… Bring my birth
zarah i. rose
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Watering flowers in high heels Breaking beads shortens neck laces Bound I am planting an impossible garden There is no soft warmed earth an no salty rain falling Around My throat only the trail of honey From your mouth that Found It’s way though my aluminum shield ate through my country, and since I was in my high heels Knocked me straight Down To the ground.
Dancing Under the Flame Tree
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arms length My arms have been through waters of turmoil and concern wringing and bringing born again digging in your land. Your hands have been inside my waters been in middle lake of rising tide been up with motion and long dusted thread weaving dire road given to oceans of mixed redseas and bluemoons been stained purplerain in attempts to recreate the sweet of its own juice when in your arms in that time long ago have I known how it feels to be a world unto myself.
zarah i. rose
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About the Author Zarah Indica Rose A hope for humanity and love for Mother Earth are two strong forces in why she writes. Zarah called “Love City” St. John, Virgin Islands her home for 20 years after following her father there, after he followed his father there and currently is based in Atlanta, GA. She has two children Hasani and Sabrikah, who consistently shape her life in the direction of the highest good. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Cultural Studies and Literature.