Farther Back

I was on my way, searching through my Documents and Folders, to do something special with one of my projects (or at least hoping to), when I happened to click on this file. I forgave myself for the goofy bio I'd written after reading the two poems below it, and thinking, I wrote that? I like when that happens.

Haiku—Untitled

My ink bleeds through your

paper as I tattoo your

flesh with my kisses

Love, Unrequited: A Yearning

I see you in my reveries,

your topaz-hued skin, your eyes

a combination of evasion and curiosity.

I hear your voice

resonant with the rhythm of my passion.

You, silver-tongued and pragmatic,

flipped my world outside-in

(and I like it that way).

Your memory etched its home in the pages of my life

and I cannot uninvite you.

I need your company;

I want to feel the richness of your flesh alive against mine,

I want to slow dance to the sound of your voice

I want to finish your sentences

and pick up your thoughts;

I want to write you poetry

and give it to you at the mic.

I want your originality to accent my creativity

so that together

we can make sense of this world,

and make the best of our time in it.

I miss your kiss—

though I've never felt it before,

but I imagine it to be tender, yet burning

with the pain of want—

each time like it's the last time,

and I can't stop staring at you,

cocky, yet humble;

forever endeared to my memory.

JGH, 2004-05

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Digging through the past

As usual, I'm filing my thoughts away, reading and re-reading some of them as if they will recapture a moment long past. I thought I'd post something from a few years back. Hopefully I haven't posted this one already (man, my memory has gotten ter-ri-ble!).

The Running Man

He did the Running Man well

I couldn't tell

if he saw Me when he looked in my eyes

or only whom he wanted me to belie

My melancholic kisses

distanced him from his pain

a vortex in a fractured love triangle

I was cozy in his refrain

Lowered my guard

when he let me in through the back door

though we both knew he was unfit to love

I still wanted more

He hastily backed away

as if he heard my tacit plea to stay

The lemon menthol aftertaste

from his kiss

made me forget

he isn't mine to have

or keep

my loneliness seeps

in fitful tears

when I remember

he might not go far

but he won't be here.

JGH 2007

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Magnetic Poetry

imagine

wild rainbows

singing live

remember

wanting

to swim under

night cloud

and walk through 

purple light

no more

silly love

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Living or just alive?

I had high hopes for 2008, so many hopes. The year is still in its prime, but hope is one of my friends who don't call anymore. Maybe if something actually happens I'll be pleasantly surprised. If not, it's just another Oh well.

But I did write something new.

Ceiling fans

we are in a room
that's not ours
living someone else's life
we've been moving in circles
going nowhere
anchored in place
the slight whir smothered
by sounds of other things
that actually
move
faux wood blades
determinedly propelling
but never lifting off
instead kept warm
by blankets of dust
and a pillowcase
of stale recycled air

JGH 2008

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I Had a Dream

So, call me crazy, and you might be telling the truth. But I've had this idea germinating for a while, and I have to believe it has merit. Just listen for a bit, and maybe you'll be believer, too.

Most people and most things have to hit rock bottom before they get better. Of course, the other consequence of hitting bottom is never standing again. But this is an optimistic view, and it's got wings. Let's fly together.

Two particular elements of what might be called "Black Culture" currently face a national crisis. It might sound melodramatic, but these are two art forms which have had indisputable influence within the community and beyond it for centuries. I'm talking about music and literature, and specifically about what is now called Hip Hop and the genre known as Street Lit. The paradigm is concurrent for Hip Hop (Lit); as the market grows, the mentality narrows, until it becomes a caricature of itself. It sounds harmless, and people may argue that at least 'black teens are reading' and at least 'they are making money legally'. But I beg to differ. So much, in fact, that my knees are kinda ashy.

This is a topic that I feel obligated to treat with kid gloves, because it may make me sound fuddy-duddy and like one of those back in the day types who mumble about how nothing's any good anymore. While it isn't, in the most obvious sense, that doesn't mean we're doomed. This, too, shall pass. But right now, we are in a crisis, and based on the popularity of music about lip gloss and Superman and books glorifying--if not glamorizing--street life, the hands of those who know better are handcuffed and tied. You can't tell the covers of CDs from the covers of the books; the books themselves read like hottest singles in rotation. None of it is saying anything worth listening. And it's all repetitive drivel.

Anticipating the response I'd get to that, I know, I don't have to listen or read. And worry not, because I don't. I refuse. But I refuse to give up hope.

Why is it such a big deal, you ask? Well, mainstream America has a time-tested pattern of pigeon-holing brown people. Not only pigeon-holing artists, actors, singers, rappers, and writers, but the everyday people who live here too. The way we allow ourselves to be portrayed in the media--hell, the way we sometimes portray ourselves--is giving the rest of the world license to believe we are all like that. I'm nervous about saying "Black Culture" in the first place, because it cannot be defined anymore than it can be confined. However, when the biggest sellers in film, music and "literature" are only movies and stories (and plays!!!) with cardboard box characters and mindless lyrics about sex, drugs, guns, and gettin' dat money, these hot-sellers eclipse the other folks and their talent. It also means--if you'll step out of context with me--that I can walk into a bar or lounge, and some guy who is not ::ahem:: my color, looks at me thinking I'm easy enough to spread 'em because everywhere you look the girls who look like me are all doing it. Sound far fetched? It just hasn't happened to you yet. The artists with something to say have to fight harder to stay on the shelves and in the box office (I know, I've expanded from music and books, but it's all related, with rappers acting and such). And sometimes the best comes in last.

I was watching the movie Talk to Me a few nights ago, and Dewey Hughes' character said something poignant. He told Vernell that he learned everything from watching the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and watching the show taught him that there was a world beyond the projects he'd grown up in. That's what media is supposed to do. And I'm afraid What's Hot Now is doing just the opposite. It's not taking us to new worlds, but giving us a tour of the same old. I don't fit into the worlds these "artists" are creating; I just can't relate, and I won't pander to their mentality by pretending I do. My guess is that there are thousands like me out there whose skin flips inside out when they're at the music shelves and reading bestseller lists, people who want more. I hope they, like me, are not ashamed of saying so.

I'm not ashamed because I have hope. This madness will end soon. I am not a fortune teller, so I can't say when it will end, but that I know it will. Everything gets worse before it gets better. There are people out there working on their masterpieces, and there are publishers and music execs who likewise, are looking for those masterpieces. So I hope that when my fellow writer friends (and myself) come out with fresh new stories about multi-dimensional people, and rappers/singers who can can make you use your head while you're noddin' it drop their CD, that all of us who know what's good will be in line to buy. Soon the New Day, y'all. Soon!

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I just got my license renewed today

OK, so the flow's been kinda regular, and that might be an understatement. Besides, I feel like I'm always saying that.

There's been a lot of activity up there--I wish I could say so much for the rest of me. I feel kind of sluggish.. But we're not here to talk about me. I've just finished a new poem, and thought I'd share it.




Know At All
She knows my face but not my eyes
I say I’m fine all the time
And she can’t discern the lie
Because she doesn’t hear me at night
That’s how I know
She sleeps harder than she believes
Even her mind can deceive
Love grows but doesn’t know
When a smile is a show
And she reacts to the scene
While I stand behind the screen
Not listening
She’s not listening to me
She wouldn’t understand the real thing
And fears what she doesn’t know
So I put on a show and
She doesn’t know that
She doesn’t know me

But don’t say anything
Say anything but that
Don’t say anything
Say anything but that

Strangers with the same face
What she sees as a waste
Happens to be my saving grace
She tries to pick me apart but can’t reach me
She can’t teach me
Anything
I haven’t learned on my own
This struggle is my own
This struggle is how I’ve grown
And she’s just like me
But doesn’t even like me
And I sometimes don’t like me
When I don’t like her
At all
We’re perfect because we are flawed
She can’t see
What she doesn’t want to know
And she can’t see what I choose
Not to show
And she may know who I am
But she really doesn’t
Know me at all

But don’t say anything
Say anything but that
Don’t say anything
Say anything but that
So I won’t say anything
Anything at all

JGH 2008

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The Other One

Ok, so I wasn't going to add this one for the time being. If at all. But I thought about it some, and after a strike through here and a changed metaphor there, I decided I've been too neglectful to indulge in such a luxury as teasing.


This one's called Morning Breath

3 AM
My pulse like hot glass
in ice water
still can't believe
the dead weight
lying across my shoulder
and the steady snore
in my left ear
are yours

Too scared that
you're just my pillow
again
arm half-numb and
eyelids bobbing
like debris
in the Wissahickon
I lay and watch
you dream

It's nearly dawn
and I leave you
with a soft agony
longing for the morning
I can awaken and inhale
your first breath
of the day
we spend together.

JGH 2008

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A haiku (New)

Excuse me for being so flaky...it's been a rather dry season.

It hasn't, comparatively speaking. I am slowly adjusting to the renewal (I'm trying to whisper so as not to scare off my muse) of my creativity.

Plus, it's summer, so I'm off (shout out to all the teachers!!!! Woot!), and well, there are no excuses to grasp. So, here's one of two poems I just wrote.

Intoxicating

If I could each day
imbibethe taste of your lips
rum would never do

JGH 2008

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Route One

It's been so long I've forgotten the nifty little code I added to break up my posts. Bear with me while I figure this out. I'm a tech moron, so this may take a while to figure out.

Still got the Funks, but it yields productivity at a time when I most need to purge. So may the Funk be with you.

Untitled
That two roads
to destinies
parallel
should intersect
so often
proves
they are meant
to travel
as one.

JGH 2008

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(Second) First Post

Well, hello, and Happy New Year.

Can't really say the year's off to a fabulous start. Beyond life's necessities--well, most of them--being met, there isn't much to brag about. But that's another post for another blog (as in, not this one).

I've just decided that if I were to classify my life as a music genre, it would be a hybrid of funk and blues. I've got the funky blues. I know what I mean, but I really don't feel like explaining it. I'm in what I endearingly refer to as a "funk" right now, so I apologize in advance for my 'tude.

But The Funks is, at the least, a productive time. I have written four poems in the past two months, which is impressive considering my years-long Battle with Da Block.

Type rest of the post here

Here is a little something I baked a few minutes ago.

Love music
Loving you is like
playing a smudged CD; the
melody is my
favorite, yet I wonder
when I'll hear more than verse one.

JGH 2008

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Fresh ink

Welcome (back)! I should probably be telling myself that, since I log on less frequently than my reader(s). But as it were, life is a non-stop train ride. I sure am glad I beat that hell of a cold bug. Three weeks of mucus and feeling like my head was stuck inside a balloon was not my idea of a good time.

I really have nothing (prepared) to post. I think I'm only writing at this moment because it's a diversion from what I am *supposed* to be doing, which is my work. Procrastination shows no favoritism, however, and when I feel the urge to avoid doing something, I step on my will power and let procrastination run the show.

Don't let me fool you. I actually have two poems I've been stirring in my head for at least a month. It would be delightful for them to squeeze out of my clogged head and onto a piece of paper. I hate being verbally constipated, especially when I see the words I want to join together on the lines at the tips of my eyelashes. But soon as I look down to uncap my pen, the words drop into my utterly useless short term memory bank (it's full of holes from years of wear).



Anyway, I'm newly inked and loving it (this is #3). What amazes me about myself--and should we all not be amazed at ourselves once in a while?--is the paradoxical reasoning I live by. Yours truly is terrrrrified of needles. I hate them and I've been known to become completely pallid at the sight of a needle. And hey, I'll cop to it: I cried like a brat this summer when I got my wisdom teeth pulled. Not just because the grinding sounds as Dentist Man dislodged my precious toofs from my skull nauseated me, but also because he'd stuck me with at least 10 needles during the procedure. Yet I've gotten three tattoos and a nose piercing (twice--it closed the first time...long story) without a second thought. But when do I ever make sense?

The part of me that shirks at a flu shot but will watch someone thread a needle and stud through my nose is the same part that will look at the simplest of questions with sheer befuddlement but absentmindedly (and correctly) answer the hardest question given.

But alas (did I just say 'alas'?), it is my destiny to tackle the most difficult feats while lacking the simplest of life's pleasures, and I reluctantly accept that. For example, men 20 years my senior and boys 15 years my junior fall in love with me everyday, but things don't work out so well with the ones in my age group. I can write a 25 page short story (I can?), but writing lesson plans gives me heart palpitations. I am fairly clairvoyant about certain situations, which I sometimes see happen before they do, but does it stop me from doing what I know (at the moment I'm doing it) I shouldn't do? I hear more and more often, "You're making things harder than they have to be." Well, how can it all be so simple?

This was all complete and utter drivel, brought to you by too much coffee and four helpings of procrastination. Now, back to work.

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What a midday nap can do

I don't know how many people I've told this, but I do know this is the first time I have said it here: I love--I am in love with words. Words stay with me like emotions. Without them I don't know how I would function. I don't talk a lot (most of the time, no really, I don't like to hear myself talk) but I think a lot. Sometimes too much. Sometimes too much about the wrong things.

It baffles me when people say they don't like to read. It's like saying you don't like music. Good writing is music. Good writing is the elevator into a genius' imagination. It inspires and encourages ideas like nothing else, including life itself, can. Right now I am reading Toni Morrison's Sula, and while her work is sometimes challenging, to be frank, there is beauty in her writing I just indulge in like dark chocolate (so yummy!). Reading this book gave me two ideas, one I'll get to in a minute, and one I hope to develop more with this blog of mine. Actually the second idea is one I've had for a while, but this book is calling me to get busy.



But without further ado, I have a new work in progress, which is as yet untitled...Look now, the ink is still fresh. I fell asleep after reading and woke up with this etched in my brain:

Untitled
I yearned for you to the marrow of my bones
learned the lines of your skin
and imagined your hair in my fingertips.
I craved the taste of your teeth in my mouth
swam in the black of your irises
and understood the curve in your lips was
not a smirk but pure pain.

Your voice was a raspy lullaby
no other man could ever sing

In pen, I traced you beside
the paper doll that was me
hoping forever would outlast the hell of
being without you.
It was not my song I wrote on your skin--
it was yours--
Don't
stop
singing
to
me.

I have sung all the songs there are
even with different notes
There aren't any new songs
but yours.

No one ever sung lyrics
so plain
so dark
so chilling
so sweet
no song ever pierced my marrow
like yours.

Though we don't speak anymore
your song still haunts me
the chill in my bones
tells me when you are near
because I am your song--
no one else sings it better.

And no matter that you tore me up
shredded my woman doll
I always return to the beginning
where there aren't any new songs--
just you, because
I have sung all the songs
all the songs
I have sung all the songs there are.

JGH 2007

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