Pariahs

written by Felicia York

They sat huddled together in corners where the draft nor The Undertakers would catch them. Hiding in the darkness, they wept; some out of fear but others out of habit. Their tears could not be heard in the witching hours of the night.

"We must catch them all and make them pay!" he bellowed in the dusk to his men. "They're, they're...writers!" He spat the brown chewed up tobacco on to the gravel. The men took their horses searching with their lamps and when they found one, they would stamp out the imagination from each and every one of them with their steel-toed boots.

His mother held him close as her voice trembled. "You be safe now, ya hear?" He grasped his notebook in between them close to his chest. The ink smear apparent on his left hand. "You are the best of us, " she finished as she let him go down underground with the rest of the outcasts. He would run and hide in the shadows of the city, pretending by day to be a banker or lawyer and feverishly writing at night. She held her chest, feeling the ripping apart from her youngest child.

They burst into the door not moments after he'd taken the back way. They knocked her down. "Where is he?" they demanded. "G-gone," she replied, the tears streaming down her face as the slight smirk dared not reveal itself. They threw open closets and tore through drawers searching for some clue. Dissatisfied, they left her in chaotic peace. In her hand was a note he'd written. He said it was the most important words he would ever write. She opened itand smiled. "Mama, I love you forever. Mama, I'm free."

my first love

written by wynsters the tigress

today, i want to talk about one my all time favorite authors: edgar allan poe. i discovered his work in the 7th grade, when my (very good looking) english teacher, whose vocabulary i wished to have and writing skills i yearned were mine, gave me a collection of his short stories. the first one that i read was 'the masque of the red death'. imagine how swiftly i fell in love with that story. a lover of language from the day i was born, his use of words to create imagery that was horrific, gory and painful completely enthralled my 7th grade mind. i read and re-read the story, looked up words that i had never previously seen and drank in his phrases -- hungry for complete understanding of what he was trying to convey to the reader. i felt grand in poe's description of the prince's masked ball, as if i too were one of his magnificent dames. i could nearly hear the sounds being played by his musicians and i shared in the nervousness of his guests every time the ebony clock announced that yet another hour had passed. i remember my heart skipping a beat when the strange guest first enters the hall -- dressed as the red death itself and i could already feel what was coming. it took me several readings (mind you, i was only 11!), but when i finally understood poe's message, it was an eye opener for me. there is no escaping our destinies, especially that which connects us all: death. at the end of each reading, i often found myself at odds. always an over thinker and an innate problem solver -- i couldn't fathom not being able to escape something like a disease...if the right precautions were taken. how could the red death just simply be allowed in by those who were so desperately trying to dodge it? eventually, i was introduced to the idea of symbolism and i had to learn to reshape some of my thoughts on destiny, and the way in which the universe works. every action leads to a reaction. the prince and his friends, in their arrogance, shut themselves off from the rest of the land when it was suffering the most. their lack of compassion would not go unpunished. it's a lesson that i learned well. that no matter our 'status' or 'class' in life, there are some things that affect us all equally -- more notably, death and disease. the way in which we deal with these matters is often just as important as the issues themselves. in thinking that we can control everything, as the prince and his revelers do in 'securing' themselves away in the castle, we instead create illusions that do not reflect the reality of a situation. [recently] i picked up an edgar allan poe reader that i remember i had bought at a garage sale, not too long ago, for about a dollar. it includes a genre of short stories by poe that i often forget that he dabbled in: humor. now, when we all think of edgar allan poe, i'm sure these words come to mind: dark, grim, horrific. but few know that he also wrote a series of humorous short stories -- that poke fun and are relatively lighter than his more famous work. this morning i read 'never bet the devil your head'. an interesting piece that is amusing right off the bat because of poe's obvious efforts at jamming a bit of moral advice down the reader's throat. our narrator is telling the story of his "poor" friend toby and his ultimate demise. the entire story is wrought with a single moral motif, explicitly stated by the narrator, contrary to what is typically poe's style. i will not bore you with the details of the plot, but i would definitely recommend reading this particular short story, as it shows the wide range of poe's writing skills. it made me laugh out loud in its absurdity. poe's ability to mock the idea of having an explicit moral agenda while still driving home a message is comparable to no contemporary author of my generation, which is the one sad thing about classics. they are truly beautiful in their scope and demonstrate an originality that can never truly be re-created or copied. sure, i'm read dozens of books from my time that are exceptional and truly unique, but what literary movement can i say that i witnessed firsthand? in short, edgar allan poe's work is something that i will always enjoy because it takes me back to a time when i first truly started to explore my intellectuality. his work reminds me of a time when i first started consciously thinking, and synthesizing the plethora of information that was the world around me. through his work, i can always revisit a time that hasn't been lost, but rather continues to serve as a guide for the direction that my thoughts and ideas take today.


"...i'm a brooklyn [girl], i may take some gettin' used to..."

Caterpillar Love

written by Felicia York

I watch you there
in your silent reverie
waiting for you to notice

these are the moments that
we make

here in the evening

when the world is sleeping
my heart beats for these

your hand in mine
your eyes
the salt of your skin
the taste of your lips

my legs intertwined with yours
our breaths breathed at the same time

in the cocoon of our love
wrapped in comfort

in the silence
our own language
we speak.

Sisterhood: The Redemption

Written by Nefertiti N.

This is the final installment of a trilogy of short poems that began with Sisterhood: The Love, then Sisterhood: The Pain, and now Sisterhood: The Redemption.


The cathartic release of pain
Our sisterhood stands to gain
Invisible tears run down our faces
Our vulnerability a sign of strength
A desire for true sisterhood
A mutual recognition
Of a need to connect
Our words…a cocoon
Of honesty and love
Of struggle and pain
And our sisterhood remains.

Sighted

Written By Kwesi D.

No amount of uproar could stop the inevitable; not even the most gargantuan of sacrifices could halt the sweeping change. And the priestess, the most revered of her set, could neither intercede with the ancestors, nor contemplate what she had seen after emerging from the pathway between the two worlds. It was already written. She sat flat on the ground trembling and muttering, while her apprentices chanted low incantations and dabbed sweat from her brow. There was no explanation she could satisfy the elders with now. It was laid plainly before her like roasted meat on a banana leaf: The daughters of their nation, all changed somehow; with demeanors not like any of the women she had known. They seemed to be in another dimension, at some future time, wearing peculiar garments and speaking in tongues. Still, her powers only afforded her the ability to watch them through her diminishing portal, moving about them in the shadows.














Their aspirations bring them floating to me in slow-motion, defenseless metals as they are to my massive magnet. And every year it is the same. Alas, this is my second function, my unintended purpose; to be a canvas, to be laid out and sacrificed to their ambitiousness, their furious need to be counted deep from inside the aluminum. Blood drains down my walls in every color. Declarations they spew on me of what they are and could possibly be. Proclamations they paint on me in this perilous outside studio, where blinking lights could bring an even quicker end to our quick nighttime association; our brief exchange. We build some sort of hope together and I complete our contract with my wide, wide morning display. The rising beams will finally reach me and their names will shine with a magnificence that cannot be matched.

Photography by Ian N'Kosi Joseph. Words by Kwesi D. © 2009.

http://takealookseefineartgallery.blogspot.com/

(s)ex files

written by Felicia York

001
kiss me til my lips are raw
and i won't care
you hold me close
lust mingled with sweat
overflowing
desire
binds us in rhythmic flow
i am your mermai
swimming in the ocean of your love
you steer the ship
i rock the boat
we dive deep until all that is left
is wetness

002

he puts me to sleep to dream
with lullabies of the ong
i sing when my body is wrapped in his
he rocks me
soothes me
takes me high
brings me low
and i land softly on pillows
of satisfaction