Bone of his rib...

It might be of a greater comfort if I took my idealisms to heart, rather than this reality that start-ed some time ago between us. Too many prayers did my shuddering voice utter, the orations that made my very soul stammer, still can I love another… Why should I bother with men at all? Yet they say it was the womb-man who caused them to fall, all over a disagreement written across a rib. A contract to prove that we might never find peace, until every single grudge is released, but we keep- our half of the covenant...

-Arielle John

Copyright 2007

Colonial Girl's School

I remembered this poem while I was talking to a younger sister of mine with a situation she was facing in my old school. It seemed only too relevant...

Colonial Girls School

Borrowed images

willed our skins pale

muffled our laughter

lowered our voices

let out our hems

dekinked our hair

denied our sex in gym tunics and bloomers

harnessed our voices to madrigals

and genteel airs

yoked our minds to declensions in Latin

and the language of Shakespeare

Told us nothing about our selves

There was nothing at all

How those pale northern eyes and

aristocratic whispers once erased us

How our loudness, our laughter

debased us.

There was nothing left of ourselves

Nothing about us at all

Studying: History: Ancient and Modern

Kings and Queens of England

Steppes of Russia

Wheatfields of Canada

There was nothing of our landscape there

Nothing about us at all

Marcus Garvey turned twice in his grave.

'Thirty- eight was a beacon. A flame.

They were talking of desegregationIn Little Rock, Arkansas, Lumumba

and the Congo. To us mumbo-jumbo.

We had read Vachel Lindsay's

vision of the jungle.

Feeling nothing about ourselves

There was nothing about us at all

Months, years, a childhood memorising

Latin declensions(For our language
--'bad talking'--
detentions)

Finding nothing about us there

Nothing about us at all

So, friend of my childhood years

One day we'll talk about

How the mirror broke

Who kissed us awake

Who let Anansi from his bag

For isn't it strange how

northern eyes

in the brighter world before us now

Pale?

- Olive Senior

Hug

A little tighter and our souls could make contact,
Whoever lets go first would always be the one that-
Tries to be more careful,
Since both of us are too fearful of what could happen
If dreams attained fruition,
Being a pair geared by a similar mission,
So this hug is all that can cushion-
Reality’s blow.
Because though
We’re free to choose the way we can go,
Human longing begs yes,
But Marx’s opium pleads no
So
I am somehow always the one to first loosen my grip,
Though you embrace me up to this minute, because
I
still
hold
You
in
thought.

So we remain caught- between yearning and wanting,
And this hug goes on for seconds and counting…
…you inhale…once…and again,
Yes this hug does mean something…

-Arielle John

copyright 2005

No reclaim

In the days when Men were not afraid to cry...

Lead us not into temptation but deliver his mind from frustration felt even now.
Long-term memoirs of how often we fall short of perfection, and how we get caught when we change our direction, with road signs remaining pointed at us… but within my disgust-
I find fragments of forgiveness so I mould them into a chrysalis, to encase his wounded soul.
I extract the iridescent nectar from his tears, and combine it with the wisdom of his seventeen years, and I turn them back to alchemy’s gold.
Emotions control- all that makes us vulnerable, like shaolin blades it makes pain inevitable, and karma makes the cycle go round.
Though some things remain regrettable, and my double-dosage of pain means that his must be trebled, I replace his lamentations with a crown.
May the birds still announce his footsteps when he walks, may nature in consolation return him all he has lost, and let him divorce- himself from the past.
For presently life presents a new morning, he hears, sees and feels it, for it quenches his longing- because I believe... I see to his heart.

Copyright 2007

ABC's

First dey used to call us ‘third world’, but now is ‘developing countries’
Capitalism doh end without revolution, so until then it will jus accommodate the centuries,
So let we get past de euphemisms, to put down something substantial,
Dissecting our local reality but without becoming partial
Because we gargle- with acid to numb our tongues,
So that we could see all that happenin, but wouldn’t dare make a sound- about it.
Cuz sometimes the opposition put yuh in a position where you yuhself might begin to doubt it-
That this ‘third world’ label already branded into yuh flesh, and they make sure to have it heavily mentally impressed,
But only if yuh choose to accept it-
Don’t.
Get respect from them? We won’t.
At least… not yet.
Instead we get enough problems to give us a new alphabet
To teach our children-
So from the time they reach age 5, we should teach them that
A is for AIDS coming from
B for biological warfare
C for corruption, consumerism and cancer,
D for drug trade,(a.k.a. America’s welfare.)
E for exploitation and environmental damage
F is for famine, free market forces, free trade and financial drainage.
G is for globalization, global warming and godlessness
H is for homosexual legislation, hedonism and a chronic air of hopelessness,
I is for indigenous peoples, the sufferers from day one.
Whose culture has been totally dissolved to house empty western tradition.
J is for justice being denied,
K is for kidnapping circles,
L is for the legalization of abortion,
M is for the music that funnels- rebelliousness to our young people. Like a needle,
N is the New Age nonsense, able to pierce people’s minds so easily, neglecting to hear the word of God, and so cling on to everything earthly.
O is for the oilfields formed by the fossilized bodies of dead black African slaves,
P is for population control and the silent witness borne by their graves,
Q is for the questions, all the right questions that still not being asked,
R is for a racism that when elections surface, slowly becomes unmasked.
S is for sexual vice, fully promoted by the media,
T is for terrorists who call others terrorists, but doh see themselves in de mirror.
U is for the ugly scars, left on this nation’s history,
V for vendetta on Palestinian soil, victims of provoked anarchy.
W is for words of wisdom now holding no weight on our human consciousness,
X is for the times that we cross out God and replace him with our self-centeredness.
Y is for the years before anything in this place could get done,
And Z is for the Zen mentality, this country’s most potent poison.
So while the thousands obey the herd instinct,
Only dead fish does go with the flow,
Cuz all the darkness in the world,
Could never stifle the light of one single flambeau.
So know,
That it still have a fight worth fightin for,
Learn
How to use silent weapons, in the quietest of wars.

UHURU

- Arielle John

Copyright Ó 2007