Take a look at my life
I might be different from you
But I still live the same everyday life that you do
I too was born with the need for connection
It’s so hard
When I was a baby everybody wanted to hold me
Now they say I am a danger to society
I’m no different I’m just like you
I bet we feel the same pain
Been through the same struggles
Struggle from bondage
Struggle to break through
Lost of connection
Looking for our roots
And reaching for the truth
Let me ask you a question
Do you have a dream?
Well I do….
I sit back close my eyes paint a picture in my mind
Time after time
Dominicana soy porque canto esta cancion
Fernandito Villalona el idolo de Quisqueya
El nino mimado. Querido. El mayimbe.
La historia de mi Quisqueya
Tainos muertos Carribe’s muertos
A la merced de Europeos
Libertadores
Juan Pablo Duarte, Francisco del Rosario Sanchez, Ramon Matias Mella
Politicos corruptos
Genocidio
Dominicano. Haitiano. Mujer. Nina.
Por racismo, sexismo, y oposicion
Con sus manos manchadas de sangre te presento
Al Dicatador Rafael Leonidas Trujillo
Acesinado
Porque lo que se hace aqui, se paga aqui!
Gracias a las hermanas Mirabales
“En el tiempo de las Mariposas”
Soy Dominicana
Dominicana Soy porque soy humilde
Porque soy dulce y a la vez escandaloza
Esto me lo enseno mi historia Quisqueyana
Esto me lo enseno mi dulce Mama:
Dominicana soy y lo llevo entre mis venas
Corriendo como los rios
Que baja con fluidez
Con calma y proteccion
A la vez peligroso
Dominicana Soy
Y siempre sere
Porque aunque no sea cantante o bailarin
Cuando hablo hay un ritmo
Un son que mueve nuestras bocas
Y hace que nuestra lengua baile
Oye, y que loque
Teaime esa Mamajuana!
A pota to
ven vamo a baila…
un perico ripiao
tambora guira accordion
un perico ripiao
gaga Haitiano, Palo Dominicano
un perico ripiao
tainos los palos
africando Tamboriando
Palo Dominicano…. Palo Dominicano… Palo Dominicano (repeats)
Dominicana Soy
Y seguire cantando!
untitled
We can go and find the pieces we left along the way
Retell the story and take the things that make us tattered and torn,
tattered and worn
And suture us together again
Weave ourselves into beings that know we need mending,
Remember all the things we pushed aside
Find the hidden answers and shake the dust out
Call silenced things by their names, as we dig up our skeletons
and watch them turn human again
I’ll trace back to when we were outlined with night
And the stars lit our eyes
And the only us seen was eyes and teeth, eyes and teeth
I took one little star that lit your eyes, put it in mine, and left the rest of us out there
Us creatures of the night only allowing ourselves a mere outline,
I’ll bear witness to our brokenness
and maybe we’ll get closer to God’s reflection this way
Knowing we’re a patchwork in need of a trimming cause our edges are frayed,
Reaching the Promised Land, only to find we left pieces of our essence
along the way, I’ll ask the almighty for a needle and a thread
We are, a bunch of tiny things, in need of putting together
As we dig up our skeletons and watch them turn human again
CATCHIN MY BREATH
I remember the smell of school on the first day.
The old brick building next to the church.
The way the wooden floors smelled.
The way the pencils smelled.
The books.
I’m the only one out of my seven brothers and sisters
who hasn’t been to jail.
But you don’t have to go to jail to be in bondage
To experience imprisonment.
I’ve had shackles on my feet, been on lockdown
A long long time
and I didn’t even know it.
Always been somethin holding me down
I just knew somethin was holdin me down.
No can’t won’t don’t don’t say that!
It wasn’t mine…..
this mandatory life sentence passed from generation to generation
The prison goes way back
I was locked up by the time I was seven,
Forty six years old
when I finally got out.
My family is from Springfield
The North End
The Projects
Down South
Brownwood Georgia
My family is from Chaos
And I am accustomed to their ways
They are funny
Mean
There
And Missing
Strict
And loving
They called me Skinny Minny
I can still smell the blackberries in the woods goin up the trail
near the West Street Park
And the pissy smell in the elevator of my projects
And the smell in the sandbox in front of my building
The Chaos is still all around me, pulling.
The silence is trying to weigh me down
I’m catchin my breath
I’m catchin my breath
I’ve caught my breath
Finally, I will learn to drive
I plan to own my own house
I will write a book
And / I will / be the first in my family / to go to college
The world is frozen
and time has come full circle
It doesn't seem to matter
what day
what country
what people
Freedom must be held inside us
and protected fiercely
private and sacred as a stone
which comes from forever and before
which belongs to no one, and each of us
No, not the stone
but the gaps and sparks between the molecules
that make the stone
In these spaces, something resides
so elusive that no one can take it away
Liquid and vapor
never still
passing
from one to another
like a smile.
Is she
Is she
Is she a warrior? Was there a struggle?
Is there evidence
of a struggle?
evidence
like phone phobia
and dark-room PTSD….
Like teaching her 3 year old to dress in under 2 minutes
Just in case…
Evidence of a warrior battle won, this evidence carefully folded and hidden in stories told
a hundred times
to a daughter’s obsessed ears
a daughter’s adventure-thirsty ears
Bloodthirsty ears
Ears transfixed, and morbidly fascinated by the hiding
By the dark apartment, by the hand over her mouth and the knocks on the door
The identity papers and train stations,
By truck rides in the middle of the night, and the baby hidden in an oven,
and drugged to sleep, so she wouldn’t cry out
so many stories of people who nearly got caught, just barely escaped, didn’t make it,
never came back, risked their life for another, lost, and then found each other.
Or never did.
Is it the fine line, the fine line, the fine, fine line.
Is this about the fine line between living to tell it, or not?
Evidence of a warrior-battle won, this evidence carefully folded and hidden in stories told
a hundred times
After she learned to remain silent,
carefully look only at her feet, ask and answer no questions
My mother still stuck her tongue out at the Nazis
In her six year old act of silent resistance.
Does that make her a warrior? Or is it simply the living that she did,
how she made her life,
woke up each morning, made plans,
changed them, and kept going…
This is the gift my mother gave me.
How to keep going in the face of the horror
how to see the madness
how to not back away
how to stare it down.
She gave me the gift of knowing that each of us
must answer
some very basic questions
in the privacy of our own souls.
Anger is a Black God...The Father...
who with heart torn...broken;
hears the interminable cries
of prodigal sons and daughters.
Descendants of lost souls...long lost dark souls.
Souls abandoned to drift...aimlessly floating...
Many to be drowned beneath the turbulent waves
Or remain suspended in the Middle...
Of time's mournful Passage...,
Seeking the prophetic, yet remote, shore
Of Martin's dream..."The promised Land".
Yes!...Anger is a Black God...
As He walks amidst the stifled screams
of still darker souls...souls imprisoned;
locked behind the cold inhumane steel jaws,
waiting to be slowly consumed within...
Deep within the voracious, impenitent bellies
of beastly...concrete slave-ships.
Where silent and solitary tears, burn faces black.
And...anguished black hearts, grieving
The distant hopes, and fleeting dreams,
of a regal nation...once proud, strong and righteous,
beat to the rhythm of Marley's "Redemption Song".
Yes!...anger is a Black God...
Who sees, feels, and hears the voice
of "Able"...his chosen,
while shackled and chained,
to chemical rock formations,
crying out from the blood soiled streets
of a so-called "Free Land".
Where the "Cain" raised crops...
of greed, pleasure, and violence are harvested,
to the prevalent chant of "twin" un-spirituals...
"I'm Not My Brother's Keeper and...I'm Just Doing Me".
So...should you be moved to ask the question that is so plain to see.
Yes...anger is a Black God...a God that is Black like me.
Woven within "Greed's" scarlet web
Of corruption, schemes and misinformation
The delicately balanced fabric of life,
Fades into the dark shadow of death.
Suffering, anger and chaos,
The common threads that bind the masses
Becomes the "rallying cry" of the deprived
As "prison plantations" rise and flourish
In decadence from state to state
"corporate vampires" clad
in "Media's" deceptive cloak
cower behind poison "Ivy League"
covered walls of "Gated Communities"
Feasting like fiends, they gorge themselves
On the flesh and blood of the poor
In their gluttonly for wealth and power
They regurgitate their bile in madness
Creating bitter conflicts between brother and sister
Dividing and conquering countries and souls
They destroy the innocent and perfect Mother Earth
Trapped within "corporate castles"
They revel in their false sense of security
God smells your fear...
through the barrel of a gun
pow! pow! pow!
your brothers body lay on the ground.
Blood soaked rock...
running on Judas feet
like red ink drips on a page of "his"-story
circle of time find you hiding again
as Abel's blood runs deep in the streets.
As hells sweet poison
like acid flows through your veins,
yes! yes! yes!
demonic reality detaches you into Nod.
Hell's acrid fumes rising
to linger outside Edens Gate
in the wilderness of time
like Cain you await your dark fate.
As tears of anquish....
flow from your souls twisted face,
and shadows devour your screams.
your conscience reminds you.
that the heart's a cavernous place,
where nightmares steal your dreams.
Lord grant me a heart
of love that transcends
the sphere of this earthly plain.
So I may share of myself
with the children of men
devoid of personal gain.
Oh! to love my neighbor
as I love myself,
at times may seem hard to do.
Yet! at the heart of this,
more than anything else,
is the substance of my loving You.
Victorious shall be
the song we will sing.
Redemption for mankind is gained
as we share in the light
of love shown by Him,
when on Calvary Gods Lamb was slain.
Enduring my stripes
on that old rugged cross
You showed me what "Agape Love" meant.
That there's no greater love
ever given without cost
than You giving Your life for Your friends.
This day...today
I like a phoenix...rise
from the ashes
of the riotous ruins of living.
I soar above the rising smoke
of shattered dreams,
to breathe the breath
of life anew.
Each day....today
with clear mind and eyes,
I see the promise
of new horizons.
Hope, faith and charity
leads the way.
With God the wind
beneath my wings.
