Blocked...

So I've come to the point where I have been a little blocked. I received a suggestion from a friend, and accomplished poet in his own right, to start reading more. I took this too heart. I have about 5 books that I have started and not finished, including a book of short stories I picked up last summer that is water-proof for pool reading. I've started to work my way through it, read about 3 of the stories, one of which was really good, and all that have different writing styles that have given me good ideas. What I'm also starting to realize is that I am a horrible poet. Poets know other poets, can quote them, are well versed in them, steal their ideas, try to write their poems, fail horribly, and become better poets because of it. So in addition to posting new poetry as a part of my 50 poems in a year challenge, I think I'm going to start doing some poetry analysis or just posting poems that I find that you might have heard of or might not have in an effort to make myself stay disciplined in my craft. That was a bit of a run on I think, but we'll call it poetic license. Anywho, this is more for myself to learn more about my fellow poets, lawyers know cases, doctors know studies, and I shall know poems.

#8: reaching Dreams or Reaching dreams

It must be hard,
not to be who you wish you were.
I strive instead,
to be better than I currently am.

#6: No Excuses

I am not gay.
I am not intimidated by you.
I do not have a pressing date to my wash clothes or hair.
My car is not in the shop.
To tell the truth, I just got an oil change, and my fluids topped off.
I do not have kids, so a babysitter isn't needed.
I will not be out of town.
I may or may not have a boyfriend, but that has nothing to do with my response.
Girls night out is on Thursday,
And yes, I drink or dance on occasion.
I do not have plans.
No one I know is having a birthday, marriage, baby shower, anniversary, or retirement
party this weekend.
There is nothing pressing for me to watch on TV.
I'm sure there is an important sporting event on,
But that's besides the point.
I like to go to movies, and dinner.
I really like concerts and plays.
I would probably be impressed with your taste in any of them.
I'm sure you have a job,
And a car.
You are probably comfortable in your skin,
And I know I'm comfortable in mine.
I just had my eyebrows done,
And I've looked good all week.
The weather's nice,
And I don't have to work early in the morning.
I have something to wear.
I actually just bought a new dress that would look good on me on Friday night.
I would love to go on a date,
But I simply do not wish to go with you.

#5: After 7 Years...

I've always asked the question
what was it that I did
to push you away.

I was demanding
I needed so much of you,
drove you to do more.

I expected you to do what you said,
and sometimes what I said,
or not say it at all.

I wanted you
on all fronts,
and in all ways.

And for 7 years I have wondered,
pondered,
contemplated.

Was I too demanding?
Did I expect too much?
Did I want what you couldn't give?

I simply demanded
for you to live
up to your own potential.

I expected you
to be accountable for your actions,
to love me enough to tell me the truth.

I wanted you
to be the best you,
to be happy with where you were.

And all these years,
I've blamed myself
for expecting what I wanted you to demand of yourself.

And while writing these words
I realize,
it was me.

It was you who was afraid to be successful.

It was I who pushed you away.

Bored so I was thinking...

So, as I sit I work waiting for my next presentation to start, I wonder what it is that GOD has in the works for me. You know how in the bible, at church during sermons, speaking with your elders, they all say that "GOD has a plan for your life," "everyone has a calling." Surely, my calling cannot be selling High School students on education. Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoy my job. I love hearing from students who are in the school, and are excited about their classes, and their teachers, and their internships, and about being successful in general. I love my teachers, who love their job. I love my boss, and my co-workers (well most of them anyway). I don't know if anyone I know has a job that suits them more than mine suit me. But for some reason I still feel like I'm treading water.

I could be doing more. I could be helping more people, or making more money. But my issue is that I don't know what the heck it is that I could be doing to get to that place. I really want to figure it out. I want to not only enjoy my job, but feel like it's the place where the Lord has wanted me to be all these years. I want to be challenged daily. This job is not challenging. It's cut and dry, I do the same thing everyday, and the only way it would change is that I would have more unchallenging responsibility.

What I do know is that I need to figure it out. I will though, eventually, before it's too late, I have faith in that. GOD has placed me on a path to find what he wants of me, and it might take me 2 years, or 20, but I'll get there.

Funny what enlightenment comes from bored thoughts.

Poem #2: Surrounded

I use to pride myself in being the dumbest one in my group. Wait, let me rephrase that. I like to surround myself with people who are smarter than me. Using their knowledge to increase the appearance of my own. A perennial perpetration of elevation, if you will. Trying, striving, wanting to be better, but falling short.

I have been deemed to have “potential.”

Is that meant to be a complement or an insult?

“She has great potential”

It’s like saying, “you could be good, but you’re not.” Potential is a hard word to live up to. All I think of when I hear that word is, that dream deferred. I am that raisin. I have that sun; I’ve birthed a stance of inequity. And inequity next to genius is stagnant. But the issue is that I can’t figure if that genius is mad, or hungry; knowing that an unfed understanding is a cancer rapidly expanding. Killing the cells of upward mobility, crippling them to the point where thirst for comprehension is left paraplegic.

So I limp.

Like Jacob touched by God.

My desires for betterment burn.

So I surround myself with better. I hope for a mob action of the mind. Wanting my arrested development to push me; urging my pride to be intact. Understanding that those around me are not smarter, but smart enough to keep me around. Hoping to no longer be strapped down with potential, but with released to realization.

Doing More...

I need to get back to writing. It's so funny how you get this degree, and then you get a job, and that degree tends to move down on the importance-meter. Not saying that I don't use tools that my classes taught me in my every day life, I do, but I'm not writing, I'm not reading, I'm not in a constant stream of education like I was in College. I miss it. I miss it so much I wish I could go back to school just to taste it. But what I'm beginning to realize is that I don't need school for that, I just need time and effort. So I'm challenging myself to create a poem a week, however wack it might be, just to get myself in the mood. What that gives me is around 50 poems. So lets get to work.

Bad Habits

I have a bad habit of freaking out at feelings. For as sensitive as I am, you would think that stuff like that wouldn't phase me, but alas you would be wrong. Now, I don't freak out in the sense that I get clingy or start imaging stuff that isn't there. I have a habit of deleting.

If I like you, and I don't feel adquately recipricated, I delete. If I feel that something is moving too fast, I delete. If I feeli that something is moving too slow I delete. I think that I have deleted the phone number of every male in my phones address book at least once, unless they are a very good friend of course.

Case and point:

I had a little crush on this attractive young teacher that I did a presentation for a while back. We excanged information, and talked a couple of times. He asked me out, but something happened and we got disconnected and he didn't call me back. I called him, he didn't really have a reason, so when I got off the phone I deleted his number. Now this is a guy I told my friends that I liked, and that I was interested in getting to know, and now his number is bye-bye. But the problem is not that I deleted his number, the problem is that I FORGOT that I deleted his number! I mean I didn't remember that I even had it in the first place after about a week. So I walk into his classroom, and he asks if I'm mad, and it took me a minute to even recall why I would be mad at him.

This has to be a defense mechanism gone wrong right?

A friend once told me that I need to be in a relationship, because I guy would love me. I'm a sports fan, I like video games, I love action movies, I'm low maintanace, I can cook. But the more guys that are interested in me, I notice that I prefer the ones where they are distant cause then I wont have any issues with getting too attached.

*sigh* I need to get over this though.

Resolution: Next guy's number I put in my phone I will not delete. Easier said than done.l

Life is a circle... And You Grow During Each Turn

It's so funny how the worst moments of your life have to happen so that the best can happen. And also how things are so much more dramatic when you are in the moment. Without divulging to much information I'll say this: revisiting the past is not always a bad idea. I had a relationship that I wanted for so many years to say I had "closed." I tried to get over it, move on, ignore old wounds... but I couldn't. However this past weekend I was able to move that unresolved issue from the "fail" pile to the "I'm good" pile.

Now, when this past issue was actually in the past, I was completely heart broken I couldn't understand the other side of the coin, but now that I have grown as a person, I can. And I understand that that particular situation was where I thought I wanted to be, but I didn't need to be there. In that moment, it was pure drama, now it's just a comedy of errors that had to happen for me to learn.

So now that the circle has been completed, I don't know what's gonna happen in the future. But what I do know is that I'm so happy and content that this could finally be the end, or a completely new beginning and I would be equally as cool.

I love the feeling of true growth, and I can't wait to take my next step, understanding that life is only plateaus; never-ending plateaus that get further and further apart... but the beauty of the scenery becomes more amazing as you catch your breath waiting for the next climb...

May be I like some White in my Chocolate

OK so...

I'm having this dilemma... I'm sitting next to this really cute guy, a college rep for another school, and he's completely not into me. Which actually isn't my problem. My problem is that he 's white. I don't know when I came to this place where it's cool with me to date outside my race. I mean I've done it before, but it was more of a conquest thing. I wanted to experience something different really, something else like that Sanaa Lathan movie. But now I find myself drawn to everyone, regardless of race, creed, or color. I guess this is a good thing, dispite what the movie depicts there's nothing wrong with a little Jungle Fever right?

I guess this is what Tracy Morgan meant by "post racial America." Thank you Tracy, and President Obama, cause even though you made others look at you in a different light, you also made me look at "the others" differently too. Not only did your election show change, but it also showed that it's not that weird for a white guy to vote for a black guy, so maybe it's not weird for a white guy to fall for a black girl. I have a dream of having this really attractive husband, with these really attractive kids, and that guy in my dreams was generally a Chocolate brotha, well maybe now he's more like Hot White Chocolate!

Obama Day

I will not be the only person blogging today. And I probably don't have the best perspective, or location, as I'm not in Washington D.C. like many of my friends, but I do have something to say. It's funny because you would think that as an African-American, I would have understood what this whole thing means. And, I understood it, but the gravity of the inauguration of our nations first African-American president.

No, it was not the "flub" of the oath, it was not the speech as amazing as it was, it was not the poem, which was also great. It was at the end, the benediction, when the Reverend Dr. Joseph Lowery stood at one of the largest pulpits in the world. When he began his speech by quoting something that we all know well, "Lift Every Voice and Sing," The Negro National Anthem.

As a child you learn the words to this anthem:

Lift every voice and sing,

'Til earth and heaven ring,

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;

Let our rejoicing rise

High as the listening skies,

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,

Let us march on 'til victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,

Bitter the chast'ning rod,

Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;

Yet with a steady beat,

Have not our weary feet

Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,

We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,

Out from the gloomy past,

'Til now we stand at last

Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,

God of our silent tears,

Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;

Thou who has by Thy might

Led us into the light,

Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,

Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;

Shadowed beneath Thy hand,

May we forever stand,

True to our God,

True to our native land.

And before it was just words. The beginnings of the song are true, we came from such a hard path, a path of stones, and blood, and tears, and dirt. And I know that I can thank GOD for what we have, and if none of this ever happened I would still be thankful and feel blessed because my people could be extinct like dinosaurs but he brought us through. But I found it so hard to imagine not being stagnant, I couldn't find that "rising sun." Not until Reverend Lowery spoke to me today.

Today was the first day that I cried during the course of President Obama's run to the White House. Not when he was elected and I hugged my Step-Mother as tears streamed down her face. Not on MLK day when it was stated by Jesse Jackson Sr. that we are now "in the final lap" of realizing his Martin's dream. But when the reverend, who co-founded the Southern Leadership Conference with Martin L. King spoke those words that we had reached our sun, that the new day had begun, the tears started streaming.

And as I sit here now reliving that feeling, that unmistakable feeling that that someday is here. When I can walk down the street and be seen as a stranger, and not a black girl. I can't wait to be inconspicuous, I can't wait to be just plain me... and for the first time in my life, in my mom's life, in my grandmother's life, I can say... realistically... that day could be tomorrow.

Whitman

I'm on this kick where I'm tired of reading "new" books, or should I say there are no new books worth reading, and unless I'm gonna start getting into biographies, which isn't exactly improbable, I decided to read books that everyone has read, or at least those that are part of the "Cannon" of American and British Literature. These include re-reading favorites like To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Great Gatsby, and reading things that I should have read long ago for the first time like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

So I started my literary journey by reading Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, and I can tell you that I'm impressed. Now I know from personal knowledge that Whitman was a very avid supporter of Abolition as well as Native American rights, so as a person I like him. And his ideas of the poet are amazing. I mean it really makes me feel like I'm just calling myself a word, not living up to the expectations that he has laid out for future generation of poet.

Now Whitman starts his book off with a long essay (meaning I haven't actually gotten to the poem yet). This essay is his feelings on the American Bard or poet. Now we must remember the importance of the poet to early America, the poet was the mouth piece of the New World (and the old for that matter). The poet was the press, the voice, the life line, the entertainment, the poet was IT.

According to Whitman the poet...

"He is no arguer... he is judgment."

"In the need of poems... he is the greatest forever and forever who contributes the greatest original practical examples. The cleanest expression is that which finds no sphere worthy of itself and makes one."

the poetry...

"The best singer is not the one who has the most lithe and powerful organ... the pleasure of poems is not in them that take the handsomest measure and smiles and sound."

"To speak in literature with the perfect rectitude and insouciance of the movements of animals and the unimpeachableness of the sentiment of trees in the woods and grass by the roadside is the flawless triumph of the art."

Now these are not only keys to good poetry, but keys to good living. According to Whitman, to live a good life is to be a poet. Purely a poet, you are then in touch with your emotions and those of your fellow man, and no poet is above another, because ever pure man or woman is poet, lives poet, and understands poetry.

After all, "it is also not consistent with the reality of the soul to admit that there is anything in the known universe more divine than men and women."

Powerful. I admit that I am only about halfway through this essay and I'm taking my time, trying to pick my way through it, gather meaning, learn. After completion I plan on re-reading of course, and finding some more Whitman, as this is my first pilgrimage into the "classic poets." But his hope and optimism for society is something that definitely uplifts the spirit. Now do I think that his ideas of the poet as the savior of man are grand and over the top? At times yes, but I love them because it gives me something to strive for as the poet, Ving Rhames once said something like "it is not the person in the art, but the art in the person that makes acting powerful." I think this is the same for Whitman and his poet.

Amish

So, I'm watching TV and this commercial comes on where they are showing these guys with beards and overalls cutting wood. Then this guy comes on TV, talking about these wooden cabinets and Amish craftsmanship, and says that if you pay the low low price of 129.99 you can get a roll away fire place that your room is missing. And just to sweeten the deal the heater is free!

Please tell me why the Amish are advertising on TV... they don't have electricity... oh and did I mention that the heater is ELECTRIC!!! How you gonna make a product that you can't use, like people pushing drugs. But what really angers me is the fact that "due to high demand" they are limiting it to two heaters per household. Seriously Amish, who are you to tell me what the hell I can do with my electricity or the "crafty" wooden cabnitted heater that I purchase for your low low price. And my Grandpa Le Roy got one... those Amish convinced the 70-something to get a heater, and it doesn't even heat well! I guess you can just leave it to the Amish to create an electrical item that doesn't work well. I just have one question... where are the Quakers when you need em'? Now those are some religious fanatics you can depend on! Well except for that whole Nixon thing.

JustListen...

What happened to that music that made you groove... you know when you could sit back in your car and ride; those summertime songs that you listen to on Lake Shore Drive, or on your way to the Circle. I want those songs, I want that feeling, I want to not have a care in the world, or for the music to make me think I don't have a care in the world. I miss Smokey Robinson and Bill Withers... well maybe I don't miss them, cause I never had them, I just wish our generation had an alternative to T Pain, and Usher sometimes. The radio tires me out now, I'm tired of thump-thump music as my Grandfather called it. I want to sit and cruse, live in the music, have it take me somewhere, not think about it, just get lost in the lyrics. It makes me think of that question that Barry Gordy asked his focus group in the Temptations TV movie. He said "if you were down to your last dollar, would you buy this record or a sandwich?" I wish music made me hungry again.

As Heritage Streams Through Saxophones and Hi-hats I Contemplate the Breaks

My dad listens to jazz, he really listens, appreciates all the instruments,
nods his head in agreement while the notes play,
grooves with the sharps and flats.
He listens to his jazz, as boom's and bip's re-verb,
Like I read verb from the masters,
study their word choice and tone,
those tones speak to him.
It took me years to discover what it was in his jazz that acceded to my fathers mood.

Those songs that go on too long,
pauses too pregnant with forced emphasis,
like those poems I never finished.
The ones too poetic to mean anything,
phrases phrased to rhyme for rhyme,
a series of
one,
word,
lines,
that stream of words that run on unchecked by comma or semicolon simply to comply with the act of insurrection that all poems should be because poets are rebellious
It's those songs he rejected, skiped over,
didn't mention in his monthly "you should hear."

As I sit and listen to his music, I mean really listen,
I hear those C's, D's, and E flats.
I note the notes that fall, and the ones that don't,
realizing that what my father nods in agreement to,
is how the lines
break.

The Morning After (or November 5th)

In bed

- satisfied

- and exhausted

I lay,

with smile

completely unable

- and unknowing

of how to voice

new thoughts

New answers that went

- unquestioned

In the

days

weeks

months

Before this morning.

Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes

Is there an attack? Maybe one on our possitive Black role models? I think it might be so. Just one day after Chicago's own Bernie Mac passes away, so does singer/song-writer Isaac Hayes. It might not seem like much, just a commedian, just a dude who wrote some songs. But that was one less drug dealer, one less thief, one more notch on the belts of African-Americans, and one more dream for our youth. I don't really understand. I'm not saying that I wish death on anyone, but why is it that the 50 cent's of the world always seem to survive... they always seem to get away clean. I know that it's all written, that Bernie and Isaac had their name in the book way before I understood the entity that is God. I also understand that they died of natural causes, they weren't doing what they shouldn't have been doing. No affairs, no car crash, just working out, or trying to get better. These things I know. What I don't know is what we are going to do when I'm upset about these things, and my younger sister isn't. She doesn't know music past Miley Sirus, and Alicia Keys. She doesn't understand what it means to win a Grammy and an Oscar for music that you did not sample but actually composed; and, although she's seen the Bernie Mac show, and heard of The Original Kings of Comedy, she doesn't know what it meant to Black chicago for Bernie to get a HBO comedy special, or to be on one of the first seasons of Def Comedy Jam. To me it ment a lot. And I want to thank Isaac and Bernie for their contributions. For those who didn't appreciate you before you died, and for those who appreciate you even more now, I want to say thank you. Rest In Peace.

The Waiting Game

I'm waiting for a lot of things... for love, for my life to really start, for a real job. But I guess I'm just like a lot of people, I hate to wait. I often wonder what the big deal is with waiting, and why we are such an instant gratification society. We are always trying to go faster. As soon as we learn to walk, we run, and when that gets tiring we learn how to ride a bike, and that's all good until we can drive. We are always trying to get away from something rapidly, and to something new even quicker.

But sometimes I wish that I could slow down. But T-mobile, student loans, and eating, really doesn't allow that to happen.

My greatest wish? For one of those remotes that Adam Sandler had in Click. But it would have only one button... Pause. And I would definitely take a nap.

Growing Up

So exactly when is it that a person "grows up"? I have been asking myself this question for years in relation to graduating from college and living up to my "potential" as a productive member of society, but I never really thought of it in a literal sense until today.

We often ask kids, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" And we get a wide range of responses from doctor, to astronaut, and often inanimate objects and animals that seem cool at the time (like that one commercial on T.V. when the kid said he wanted to be a duck... how cute!). My mother once told me that when I was asked that question as a child my first response was "I want to be God," a statement that is rather ambitious for a 3 year old. I don't know what was going on in my toddler brain that put that unreachable goal falsely in my grasp, but I often wonder, if it was simply to make people feel better.

Maybe growing up is not all it's cracked up to be, maybe it is more than just an age, or a salary, or paying for your own things. I know plenty of kids who make their own money, but can't drive a car, are they grown? Is it simply the ability to take care of yourself? Most would say yes, well what about an unemployed 30 something mooching off of parents, would you call him grown?
I think that adulthood is a state of mind, not a state of "I'm grown, I do what I want." Because as Dennis Quaid's dad in The Rookie says "At some point you have to stop doing what you want to do, and start doing what you are meant to do." Basically adults don't get to do what they want, unless they lucked up on the part of fate that allows that sort of thing. To this day I operate my life by my 3 year old wishes, I try to do what makes others feel better, or by weighing how my decisions effect other people. Does this mean that I'm grown now? Is compassion and consideration the mecca that we are all trying to reach? Is the pinnacle when our decisions make us and everyone else around us happy? If this is the turning point then there are some people who are 50, 60, and 70 year old kids. People who walk around doing what is best for them and not thinking of the consequences of their actions.

This being the case, when do you become too old to grow up? How many times have you heard "well that is just how they are," or "you better get use to it," or "you can't teach an old dog new tricks." When will people realize that being a better person is not a trick? It's not something you do just to save face or to keep up appearances; that not being bad, is not improving, it is simply covering your tracks.

But the scary thing is that it seems the more that we "grow up," the less responsibility we take for mistakes and problems. Do you remember when it was embarrassing to get caught doing something wrong? Yes that cookie tasted good, but if your mom walked in to find your hand in the cookie jar it hurt, not only because she slapped your hand, but because of the look of disappointment in her eyes. We have lost that innocence today ladies and gentlemen. We have lost the ability to blush and feel bad for doing something bad, and to feel good for doing something good.

I for one would not be apposed to living in a world run by 3 year olds. We would all be a bunch of furry animals with red juice stains and an extended nap time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, sharing would be a bitch, but at least we could look forward to snack-time and learning how to grow up at a decent age, like say... maybe 18.