Sunday, December 30, 2007

My Black Sister

This is an oooollllldddd piece that I wrote back in 05' and I just came across it in some net folder.

My Black Sister

Raising a new generation, haunted by an environment of uncertainty, we don’t know what it was that we lost, but now we’re indebted and covering all costs, all the morals we lost to the wind, that got scattered and didn’t return again, forgotten in the currents of the Middle Passage, but it was the under deck, in retrospect, our little lives they tried to salvage, our great souls they nurtured and fed what was taken away from us, we never submitted, never did they have our trust, broken still, but trying to mend, but alike particles disintegrate in their ends, the light that beams and transcends forth to this terrestrial plane, ripped us apart, losing identity gave us, their names, made us part of their New World games, this might look like 1750, but today it’s still the same. I saw this sister left behind on the cold concrete ground, clothes torn, spirit lynched, too crippled to find breath to make a sound, and now I help her to mend what my crooked brothers stole, deprived her of peace, love, robbed her of her soul. She gave into it because the situation was hopeless, she put up no fight, no resistance, and now she sounds so soul-less. Too many sisters I know who suffered the same fate…and they fall, Too many times that my sisters get this far…and they fall. Diabolic possession, terms and conditions, liberal livity or ignorant captivity, too many sisters make it here…and they fall.


-Arielle John
copyright 2005

Friday, December 28, 2007

Bible verse...

The Lord showed me this a few minutes ago while I was working on a piece...
Wisdom 7:15-16
"May God grant me to speak as he would wish
and conceive thoughts worthy of the gifts I have received,
since he is both guide to Wisdom and director of sages;
for we are in his hand, yes, ourselves and our sayings,
and all intellectual and all practical knowledge."

You'se a poet?


This one is for yuh
Truth seeker,
Soul speaker,
Peace teacher,
Especially for you
D Freedom preacher,
For you wisdom keeper,
I need you to think deeper…
No really…really deeper,
For you who bold enough to take a chance in this arena.
Being a
Re-vo-lu-tion-ary poet
In contemporary times,
Remember that you hold together a place
That has already been defined-
Clandestine presentation,
Coming from a blazing frustration,
Ah bursting implosion
Extending outwards.
Remember yuh original mission,
Ask God for clear vision,
So that in him
Yuh could only move forward.
You have to make sure that in yuhself, yuh always feel empowered,
So that other people could grab hope from you,
So understand this stage-
As the opportunity for change-
Starting right here, it begins with you.

Under d influence



Is now when everybody dun start to live a life for their own self,
No responsible adults and every thing in this world get
So impersonal
Everything commercial-ized,
Sell self an buy a false character to properly disguise- a suffocating soul,
But scripture pleads- be not conformed to this world,
So we hadda pull- our young people from the way of these influences,
The way they learn to grow up with out knowing who God is,
without knowing their own self,
Without a purpose in this life,
Vessels without direction, who don’t know the love of Christ,
I say it unregrettably, so might as well say it twice,
Yuh life could never know true meaning till you surrender it to Christ!
Cuz yuh talking about my generation, and the one coming up after, the fighters,
The unaccredited womb-survivors,
Be-cause-
They aborted the rest of meh siblings in the name of liberalism,
Drug us till we chupid with all this feminist poison.
Boys on- drugs and I mean boys, fellas now in standard three,
Seven year old girls, recalling lost virginities,
Schooled in reversed values and mixed-up priorities,
And the longer we ignore it, only ‘swells’ the majorities.
Alternatively, they attack us with musical manipulation,
The control panel for the way we think and the killer of natural wisdom
A prison- for our conscience, to influence our innate decisions,
Music is the only thing on earth that does not need your permission-
To enter your soul,
And so it’s able to control- your mind at leisure,
So that we value less doing what God wants,
And attach more value to pleasure.
Measure- what yuh hear on the radio to what you see on the streets,
We endorse lustful desire pasted on rhythms and the mental lashing of boom beats,
And God keeps- on trying to pull us away,
But the music always turned up so loud, that we never hear what he hadda say.
Like the ites, gold and green Christians, who say that they just being ‘conscious’,
What more consciousness you want, than the revelation of knowing Jesus?
From the t-shirts, the belts, to the jewelry, and the rest of d rasta merchandise,
Stop promoting Selassie I, and stand as ambassador for Christ.
The hip-hop crowd, and every-other-fella’s dream of becoming the next rap star,
And if we not following American fashion, then it probably evolved from passa passa.
The rock crowd, heavy metal, eventually becomes too heavy to bear,
So the music itself becomes like drugs, feeding your emotions what yuh want to hear.
Teenage girls- to bulimic, wrist cutters and closed-in calorie counters,
False and empty promises is all this world could ever offer-
To us-
So we hadda put trust in the right place,
Just fall under the influence of Christ, and he will give you the grace.
Because we faced with so many choices, so many voices to get our attention,
But silence all the noise of the world and listen to the voice of redemption.
I used to be of the world too, in spiritual schizophrenia,
But you could never be a faithful servant of more than one master,
Everybody have a time in life, to decide who they living for,
If you living for this temporary world, or if you living for the Lord.
God gives us the freedom to choose, either life or death,
Choose life, and live under the Saviour’s influence.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Greetings out of Afrika!


This was a beautiful Christmas Card that my friend Ryan from Zimbabwe designed and sent to me. He is an artist, but a businessman by profession...great with computer graphics, poetry, photography and painting. Artists have to eat I guess...


Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Images of my Christmas

This is baby Rihannah, in the Children's Ward at the hospital, she was just so adorable. She is in perfect health...her reason for being there? Her parents abandoned her...



This second baby is Beyonce (God have mercy on her parents for giving her that name). Another abandoned baby in the Children's Ward...











These two ladies are both matriarchs in my family. On the left is my grandmother, a woman whose fight I can still draw strength from.









Just some memories from Christmas this year...a Saviour is born to us this day!










Sunday, December 16, 2007

Pouring rain and the voices of children...

The children in my neighbourhood braved the pouring rain last Friday to go Caroling, it was incredibly warming, despite the less gentle December breezes. To think that the Messiah came as one of these, on a night just as cold...Jesus Christ the Light of the world.
It was beautiful...

Friday, December 14, 2007

Glory of Suns...




We were on the way to a dock yard in Chagauramus (sp?) about two fridays ago, when there was a beautiful sunset along the highway.






Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Overseer


Out from the Caucus Mountains
To Michelangelo’s palette
From European monarchies and
Mental brick walls as scarlet
As the blood flowing from the wounds of his side,
Brick walls standing tall to try to hide
A revelation of Truth,
To make the story suit- white preferences,
For never did they make references
To Afrikan culture,
But stand waiting in ambush like vultures,
Ready to devour any trace of his true genetics and heritage.
Manifested Destiny to secure white privilege,
Contamination of the truth and so I call it sacrilege,
Sacrifice of the lamb on de stone altar of social status,
Then white-washed with envy and used to degrade us,
Us with black faces coming from the dark continent,
Us labeled as the inferior, the incompetent,
Descendants of Ham but not from Abraham’s promise,
That by these black hands- Almighty couldn’t accomplish
-any greatness.
But the greatest man to ever walk this earth was coloured just like me,
Assumed the position of a slave, to save humanity,
And with eyes with flames of fire, and feet like burnished bronze,
(if yuh don’t believe me, check Chapter 1 Revelations)
He revealed himself to us and behold- the Messiah comes,
Let the whole world hear it in de language of d drums,
Black Royals in exile, the Chains have been broken,
Jesus Christ is the truth so let the truth be spoken.

*King of All Kings- jed that too controversial,
Jesus Christ is the truth so let the truth be spoken,
Lift the veil from yuh face and let your eyes be opened,
Christ is the truth so let the truth be spoken.
-Arielle John and Amilcar Sanatan
Copyright 2007


Chinese Tradition



I stood at the side of the dining room table,
Looking on in a covered confusion,
Back and forth
Back and forth
From table to kitchen
And her mind caught
Up in her thoughts,
So that she doesn’t notice me.
I stand out of her way
Because she is too old
To cause her the trouble
Of walking into me
As small as I am,
As short as she is
But I’m growing up too
And I can almost reach her hips,
Then I’d reach her waist
Just now.

But how- it is
That she cooked so much food this evening,
And mummy made me a sandwich for dinner?
With the mixed scents of fried rices and stewed meats,
Couldn’t restrain my curiosity from asking her,
“Granny, Who come’in?”
And I knew in her mind there was something
That she wanted to tell me,
But my mother’s eyes and her’s met,
My mother- disapprovingly
While watching her – “Nobody”
I persisted as only a child would-
“…So who de food for?”
Then my grandmother spoke up from behind a new guilt,
Buried in a silent pause-
“Mamee and Papee”
…and there was nothing more.

A stern eye meant that no more
Questions are to be asked,
So I got out of her way,
And moved so that she could pass.

Then they closed all the windows
Locked the two doors as was custom,
Took the house lights off,
And in confusion I watched them,
The food lay bare on the table,
With tall glass of juice on its right,
One candle in a bowl of water,
“What a strange thing to do” I thought,
“What a very strange night.”


-Arielle John

Copyright 2007