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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Mic check

I often post my poetry on this site. What I post is by no means the definitive works of Janae from PA. But my work is representative of who I am and I am proud to share it here. I am especially proud that I have begun what will hopefully be a monthly performance of my work at a local open mic, which has already ended my annual spoken word run. I read a few poems last Friday, and among them were two I'd posted here. However, as I often make it known, my work is never finished but always in progress. Before my performance I did some heavy editing of this poem, originally posted last November:

Cover to Cover

i was
wrapped in rainbows
for one hundred years of solitude
listening to krapp's last tape
and waiting
for a streetcar named desire
to take me to
the blackboard jungle
where things fall apart
and i learned that
a tree grows in brooklyn
where
the souls of black folk
are walking with the wind

i was
wounded in the house of a friend
tumbling
in a catch-22
with an invisible man
who had the bluest eye
and white teeth
carrying a bag of bones
he took me to
the learning tree
where we sat
and spoke of mice and men

i was
getting mother’s body
when i met a black boy whose
breath, eyes, memory
stole the heart of a woman
and then let her
drop
into a ring of endless light
before leaving Atlanta
with the prisoner's wife
whose only song in ordinary time
was your blues ain’t like mine

i was
eating the grapes of wrath
in Eden with
the woman warrior
we treasured
the moments, the minutes, the hours
before breakfast
with the dutchman and the slave
and while their eyes were watching god
she told them
“we are the ones we have been waiting for
i know this much is true.”

JGH 2007

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They must not know

There are places where you can sit down for two hours:

The coffee shop.

The bookstore.

Your couch.

Dinner.

The movies.

A play.

The park.

An open mic.

However…. the one place you should NEVER EVER, EVER be seated for two hours is a concert. Especially not a BEYONCE concert!!!

My girlfriend and I bought—ahem, splurged—on tickets to see Sasha perform at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City last night. We practiced twerkin it, droppin down low and sweepin the flo’ wit’ it and all the bootylicious moves we could do so we could tear it up at the show. We were READY.

Now, if my memory serves me well, I’ve been to at least eight concerts, from Janet Jackson to Fiona Apple, and not once did I sit down for the entire show. But when Bee came out on the stage, the crowd in floor seats went crazy, while the dorks in the elevated seats, well, stayed seated. It was like being at a funny movie where you’re the only one laughing. There were four people in my whole section who were making noise, clapping and singing along. Not a soul was moving, save a few here and there who never sat down. But there were three of us in my row who could no longer stand it, and by the time Bee did “Baby Boy” with these fooooiiinnne brothas sans shirts, we were out of our seats. (That dutty wine does it every time, nahmsayin?) We were gyrating and singing and hooting and hollering, when I heard a faint whine underneath the drum. “Sit down!!” Ignoring it, I continued dancing and singing. Then Bee broke into a rendition of “Murder She Wrote,” and I forgot where I was. But my jam was again interrupted with an even louder, “Sit DOWN!!” This time, my friend heard it, and she turned around. “This is a concert, so why don’t YOU stand up??”

Pause.

At least, I thought I was at a concert. .. I don’t even sit down when I’m at home watching music videos, so why would I sit down at a live show? WHY???? Is that not the whole point of going to a concert, the reason musicians go on tour--so fans can go crazy, sing all the lyrics, do all the dance moves, wear t-shirts and carry posters?? The concert is the venue where you let it all out, scream til’ you’re too hoarse to talk and dance til’ your feet are too sore to walk the next day.

But I’m not hoarse, and my feet don’t hurt at all. I really behaved more than I should have yesterday. It all started with my uncharacteristic decision to follow the rules and leave my camera behind, which I regretted immediately. And for the record, had I been in Philly, I wouldn’t have sat down. But, as a guest in the shanty town that is Atlantic City, I behaved myself. However, what made me even angrier—and I hate to take it there, but it’s what happened—was that when the white girl in the row in front of us stood up and danced for several songs after we were asked to sit down, they said nothing to her (the party poopers were also white). So I made up my mind that when Bee did “Check on It” and “Get me Bodied,” I WOULD NOT SIT DOWN. And I didn’t. Thankfully, the lifeless people behind us left by then, and I was able to wind it back without being yelled at.

My friend and I were not the only ones upset at the crowd’s lameness that night. Beyonce was not happy. In fact, I think her feelings were hurt. She performed her heart out for a sleeping audience. She stopped the show at least three times to say that she wasn’t used to such a quiet crowd. “I’ve never done a show where people were so quiet. I’m not used to this, y’all,” she said in her H-town drawl. I was embarrassed to be in that crowd. By her final song (“Irreplaceable”) she commanded everyone to get out their seats. There shouldn’t have been a warm seat in that audience, and she shouldn’t have had to go there, but clearly, some people don’t get out enough to know any better. So Bee, you probably won't ever read this, but if you do, know that you had four fans in the back who were showing you all the love we could.

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