WOMAN

This is another poem written during The Power of Language workshop lead by Kayo Chingonyi, as part of the Acts of Rebellion event at October Gallery. And inspired by the image of Brittany Newsome, who climbed up a flagpole in South Carolina and pulled down the Confederate Flag, as she was being arrested.

Woman so brave

brings down the confederate flag

Woman so brave.

Like the carved statue

on the prow of a ship,

breast exposed

to the storm and the stones

That the centuries have seen

poured

over your blood and your race.

As white officers,

agents of hate

come punctual to your arrest

you remain entirely yourself

acrobat of the skies

free bird that

was dreamt by the slaves

Pendulum Dance

I wrote this poem during the Power of Language workshop , lead by poet Kayo Chingonyi , as part of the Acts of Rebellion event so beautifully organized by October Gallery Education

At school I was

Neither Blonde, nor blue eyed
and butter melted in my mouth.

Could not blend nor fit in

So I decided to be bad.

It caused me conflict

That pendulum dance

Between being very god

And very bad.

Spit, bite, curse, kick

“Such and angry little girl!”

Dishonored many

Of the Commandments.

No one would recognize me

On the first day of May

Bringing flowers to the Virgin

Writing notes to the almighty

Swearing to atone for my sins

Family tragedies guilty

Burdens on my shoulders

Or later crying my eyes out

In the middle of a party

Because boys danced

With...guess...

Blue eyed girls

Girls with tameable hair

Girls with sweet voices

With perfect smiles

Girls who didn’t swear

or smoked pot

In the dark.

And so I grew to learn and master

The Pendulum Dance

Unashamedly me...

Sometimes

In fact I’ve apologized all my life

Black among Whites

White among Blacks

Finally free

From The influence

Of macho seductive eyes

Fuck! I am who I am.

Red Shoes Back

Today I got my red shoes back

Walked bare feet across the park,

To let the sun into my roots.

Discard all that is

not made with love.

Make time to love the ones I love,

To practice love, to practice love.

Take none for granted

Be ever grateful.

Imagine those who have no homes

600 million people displaced;

Imagine the evening before

Abandoning your home

Bundles by the door, babies wrapped up

You are fleeing at dawn,

Imagine that, take none for granted

Today I got my red shoes back

I discard all that is not love.

THE HISTORY OF TEETH

For Mum

In the beginning, we have no teeth. We depend on our mother. We depend on her for nourishment; we depend on her for love and security.

Then at about age one we get our first set of teeth, ‘milk’ teeth’. At the same stage we start to exercise our will to move about the world, to investigate the space around us and our bodies. We chew all that we can find.

Then aged six, these temporary, rehearsal teeth start to fall in preparation for the big ones, the ones that are to remain with us for the rest of our lives. With them, we will be able to bite, chew, digest, and smile. By that same stage we are psychologically formed. Events, experiences that happen then will shape us for the rest of our lives. If they do not fall, the lucky ones will carry them until death sees them out.

In Garifuna the word for teeth and navel is the same: ‘nari’. What do Garifuna know about the connection between our teeth and our mother? Navel, because it is the symbol of Mother that we carry through life. Mother, because she represents our nourishment and security, the place where we are safe; the first, maternal smile.

At the beginning, before we see the light, we are curled up inside her belly. All that unites us to this world, the conduit through which we take our nourishment is the umbilical cord. Our gums are toothless and soft.

In dreams our teeth fall out when we are anxious. We grind our teeth when we sleep as if to chew, grind, and digest something too hard for waking life.

A dentist will see in our mouths the state of our body’s health; the first signs something is amiss. There are iridologists, reflexologists and there are dentists. The story of our lives is reflected in our mouths.

A good, bright, earnest smile will help us no end in the strife. Our teeth are our universe, like Mother they shape our lives.

And who hasn’t been bewitched by a set of perfect teeth, the sort that makes our jaw drop when the carrier opens his/her mouth?

Hollywood and publicists know all about that!

Poem For A Departed Mother- for Monica Mackenzie-

Mother, you left last autumn

And little by little winter came

Dragging its old man’s feet.

Days grew colder,

Shorter and darker

Without you being here.

And as with tears

I watered down my orphan’s grief

Your message came to me

“Don’t cry my child,

Don’t you see now I am free?”

I saw you clearly:

Your cheeks were pink

From so much playing with angels.

Your limbs agile and strong

Jumping from cloud to cloud

Reminded me of the child

That you and I and everyone once was.

You have taken to the sky

No longer bound by pain

Or loneliness, or strife.

You rise boundless;

You are one with the stars.

As we scatter the ashes

Of your body we so loved

Crocuses push the soil

Beneath our feet

Daffodils raise their

Proud heads in the sun

Announcing spring,

Resurrection and joy.

What can we do but thank you and

Honour you with our prayers and toil

Mother, beloved guardian

Of our tender days

Loving carer of all,

All six of us.

And as we bow our heads

With sadness and respect,

A feather drops from heaven;

We know that you are with us

Always, oh yes, we know!

WOMAN FRUIT

Woman fruit
Your pretty hennaed feet
Dangle from a Fig Tree,
After the ransacking 
Of the bud of your womb.
The war of sexuality
The sexuality of war
No one talks about
But is worth bearing in mind.
Fruit Woman
Red flower
Appeared one morning
Hanging from the Banyan Tree
Woman fruit
Red flower
Immortal as the Fig Tree

@PZG

MANATI

The presence of the Manatee moves me, 

a tear drop shifts
I weep not for me only, 
but for the spirit lost, 
all that which we are destroying.
The Carnival drum, 
all of my land's rhythms 
so mine, awaken sleepy, 
aching roots, 
heal new and ancient wounds 
with the shudder the rump.

Sunday morning reflection in the middle of a Pilates class // Reflexión matutina de domingo en medio de una clase de Pilates:

Love is an act of Will

Will is an act of Love

The centre of my Will

Is in the core of my body

So it sprouts like a young tree

In the middle of my belly button

El Amor es un acto de Voluntad

La Voluntad es un acto de Amor

El corazón de mi Voluntad

Está en el centro de mi cuerpo

Y  surge como árbol joven

En el medio de mi ombligo

OPINIONS

Opinionated, “she is opinionated” read a teacher’s report, at Art College. I had barely spent one year in London, my accent, my wildness and my ‘opinions’ were still intact, unrefined.

Now, over thirty years later, my accent is softer, my opinions are just as strong and getting stronger with time in spite of my ‘spiritual training’. I cannot help having opinions in the face of the world I see. And I still find it incomprehensible why having ‘opinions’ is such an unacceptable thing. 
One conclusion I have come to is that if you are going to have opinions you better be outstanding and voice them forcefully or you'll be trodden on in a country where the colonial past is engraved in its citizens DNA. Just like our colonised past is engraved in ours.

So I write to affirm my rebelliousness. I write not to pick fights. I write because all I have is life experiences.

I am told sometimes, by well intentioned friends I need to leave the past behind; I should not read the news; I should ditch all so many hurtful things, vanish their sting from my heart.

I listen, then I think, do I want to be a smiling zombie, touching lightly the surface of life?

If I forget my experiences what is the point of having lived? chaotically, madly, nonsensically if you wish, but that’s what I have done; all that which is not me, but part of me.

Am I to not look, pretend that I don’t know that 'everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned’ as prophetic Yeats said so accurately? Am I supposed not to see world order needs changing, but the existing alternatives are worse than what we have?

Since early in life I was taught to ignore my feelings, to perform, then I became a bad performer as I could not connect with my emotions. I allowed things to be done to me, feeling that I do not feel what I feel.

This, and many more reasons that I will speak of in time, is why I write.

@Paloma Zozaya Gorostiza

POEM FOR JOHANA - 2010

There is a poem in my head for you,

From a long way back.

I remember you Johana

in your little cane house

and your four children

playing in the mud.

Pretty, the colour of honey

Woman/child

The contraband between your breasts

And your smile giving us light.

Johana in your bicycle

bringing me breakfast

of fried plantains and rum.

Friend jumping for joy

in the puddles of your yard

on seeing me arrive

When you, he, I, all

Were healthier, prettier, better.

In a world where one is worth

What the last cent,

I know I counted on you.

Johana always to my rescue;

That day for the escape

you lend me your sandals,

another day you came to fetch me

in a cab.

My only friend Johana.

The horror of your instant death

an afternoon of  Easter Saturday

Pa! Pa!...papapapapapa!

Pa! Pa! Papapapapapapa!

I Heard from my house

Nine millimetre discharge

 resounded in the distance

and at that moment someone fell

How to imagine it was you,

 with your pretty face, oh Johana!

I miss you, your memory smarts in the distance.

I see your mother sitting

In a corner of the market,

Her round figure

And her skin darker than yours of honey.

Her effervescent smile and her red mouth today faded,

Nodding off over her basket

from exhaustion, from sorrow

from so much frying fish       

Oh! From so much burying corpses.

your father, her mother

And now the unthinkable, you, Johana.

From the other side of the ocean

I am sending you this homage

I hope that you will receive it

There where there is no money,

drugs or semiautomatics.

And I ask myself

I don’t dare...

Johana, did we all kill you?

@Paloma Zozaya Gorostiza

PAUSE 2012

Today the cords just want to be cords and the beads, beads.

A pause in time; fingers basking in the autumn sun like lazy nursing sharks...

No cutting, knotting, weaving, typing, thinking.

Oh but the mind she never stops. She somersaults, works out a knot.

Frets over what she owes to be and she is not

I push my lazy little fingers into action.

Cut, knot, weave, type...think

All one should be and one is not.