Today is All Saints Day, the morning after Halloween. I woke up inspired to write some poetry and below are drafts of the poems that resulted. I will eventually turn this into a chapbook, A File Ka for purchase.
(Feature art by James C. Lewis)
Orishanal NGLS
In vent the wor d
I’m bent in the whirl’d
of all saints
found bound
(k)not created
pounded puns into earthly locks
of sound
sun
fused into man/y kin
a bloody earth breathed
into life Amon/g
Re Kin
A Blue Into As/Terra/Knot
Blew halo bubble into helmet
Billie holi
Lalala day I met
a bronze mirror
in the back of my mind
a white garden/ia
pinned
to my right brain
I hang beads
bodies
on my neck
stamp crosses and diamonds
on my fabric
the double Xs mark me
the whys pressured into sound
draws my hug e
trunk into a place
for cover
I a dresser
people put their shame into
I save
the black ones bantus
for myself
Same Sun Soul
Each score placed
above my head
becomes a casket
for another song
I raise my hands
waiting for the sky to drop
an orange ball
to catch my at/tension
for some sense tense
a present tense of Just/Is
I just get
another bullet
Ali (Exalted)
A boxer of stings
A cock’s comb of floats
A bang of symbols against the head
rope a veil around my sight
the hem of power
the priest’s tasseled
tasered shawl
touch them
and receive a shock
with a gateway of gall
jelled in my stinger
catch these hands
breaking you open
into a collective
subconsciousness
because mama
said knock
knot you out
wama bama
I am
Who You Tryin’ To Be
Dada asks
Bob Marley?
No
A guitar body
A binding of wood
A strumming of blackness
A knotty halo crown
A mixed up genesis
A redemption in a song of praise
A seventh child of a seventh sun
A shapeshifter of sex
A weak force stirring up radiation
A knot knowing why I’m here
I got sense
in my letters spit out to the world
Micro Waves
Bucket body red come packing
A crown of light warms her oven
Negative particles move her behind forward and back
A deck of yellow digits swing around her logos
Nile rivers bubbling up, quickens into matter
A radiating queen follows the hor izon
Shining into every antennae of sight
A Black and White Affair
Dressed in my chalky final show
A phantom of top hat and suit
The photo umbrella hangs
above me like a satellite
ready to capture
my essence
How do you capture blackness?
Make an inverted body, I say
The paint palette is impressed
by the art
of my presence
the chosen logos
strung around by rockettes
dancing a can can
me a masked
nightmarish spirit
of cool
Africa/A Phile Ka
My spirit is a spirit of love
My spirit is a spell of liberty
My spirit is a speed of life
My spirit is a spy of Libra
My spirit is a spine of lava
My spirit is a Sheba of lavish
My spirit is a space of leaves
My spirit is a sapient of rubber
My spirit is a sophia of rabbits
My spirit is a specter of libations
My spirit is a spiral of flies
My spirit is a spark of folds
My spirit is a spear of verse
A Martian Letter
A horn will be
a helmet
A trumpet will be
my crown
The king’s sign
is on the mountaintop
Mother Earth Megaton Phone O
The seals of the world
are unsealing into haunts
last calls
come as blood
red barks
raising their voice
to a world
without
perfect pitch
and off key
I hold this world
as Atlas
trying to birth
Atlantis
as Scarecrow
knots of straw
a basket case spread
around my thoughts
is my voice strangled
estranged by sirens
in a field of popped horns
can we win like this?
without knowing
what that fever
in our brains
coming is?
Ra Hurt: Rubber Robber
Gone Sun
The joke
The yoke
The yoga
of it
All
I made the devil up
I doubled up
on souling my sol
crossing over
traded my old self for a new model
as I traveled with haunts on my path
learned the art
of hyperbolic parable
the guitar
the goo goo ga ga of tar
I sacrificed my time in a cemetery
I mastered my self
by stringing my self up
as giver and taker of sound
there’s no instant spell
the real story won’t excite you quickly enough
so I wear my black and red cape
if you want to believe the story that way
then fine
I’ll play along
with Ike Zimmerman
bursting with laughter
int the room
my carpenter
(C) 2018 Sherese Francis
All poems by Sherese Francis
Sherese Francis: Futuristically Ancient 