In Search of a Song Volume 780

8/4/2019 In Search of a Song Volume 780

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Shawnta

Smith


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A Waterways ProjectPublication

Richard SpiegelBarbara Fisher

codirectorsThomas Perry

administrative assistant

Judith RosenbaumTeacher

Brooklyn College AcademyMadeline Lumachi

Principal

Richard OrganisciakSuperintendent

Alternative, Adult and Continuing EducationSchools & Programs

2000 Ten Penny Playerswith funding support from

the NY State Council on the Arts

ShawntaSmith


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Shawnta Smith, otherwise known as Ashes, hasbeen a poet and activist most of her life of sev-

enteen years. She resides in Brooklyn, New York,while attending Brooklyn College Academy HighSchool as a senior. Her most recent accomplish-ments and activities include participating in TheLiberation Program, at the nonprofit organization,Brotherhood/Sistersol, care organizer of a youth

network called Ya-Ya Network (Youth Activists Youth Allies), and earning her position as projectdirector of Young Womens Leadership Foundationin Brooklyn, a project of national non-profit YoungWomens Work Project (YWWP). Shawntas hob-bies include writing, yoga and intense breathingexercises, reading, studying alternative reli-gions and philosophies, oil painting, and perform-ing the spoken word. Her goals are to reach herhighest level of empowerment in order to shareher power with those of her black, of color, GLBT,woman communities alike.

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Enjambment I Am A Sentence

I wish I could kiss you.

The same way thatyou wish I could kiss you.

Your eyes stare into mine,So daringly,Audasticly

Deep.

My pretentious attitudeCannot withholdThe touch of your skinOn mine own.

Dance before me,And let me watch youWatch meWatch you.

Touch your lips

So that I canFeel them.

Stare deeper, and let3


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Me see you seeMy stare.

I touch myselfAnd wipe my tear.You do the same.You, understand?

I touch me.

I feel youTouch yourself.

Everyday I see yourNaked bodyAnd wish it werentMine; so then I could have it.

I only feel the hands ofOthersTouching you;While wishing they were mine.

I can kiss yourHand in myDreams,But never your lips.

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Ive never felt my lipsTouch your own.

I wish I could kiss you.

But when I try,I cry, I only feelThe hard glass before me.

It flattens my lipsAnd yours,As we stare in eachOthers audastic eyes.

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Green

When we made love, my body wept

from your hard, gentle touch.We moved to a rhythm of darkness in green lightat night.Over the sheets, nude in grace of purenesswe glided into each other passionately,intimately

I yearned for more of your green magic.Now it is my favorite colorGreen Dark Green; Forest Green; $#!& Green;Earth Green;Your green. The green that led me to the stateof ecstasy, confused with reality.

The Green that I loved and poured my heart into.The Green that held me tightly when weaknessovertook meThe Green that my tears dropped onThe Green that led me to jump at your nameThe Green of the eye color that made me cruelThe Green that lives on throughout my body

everlastingcausing and drying the tears of my body, as itwept.

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For You

Your picture doesnt

mean much to mecause your eyes areblank. They dontstare at me, but theylook, seemingly, tothe right on a tube

of toothpaste, thinkingof washing your teethlike the way I wouldlick em when I washungry for you.

I want to bite myselfso you can feel it thesame way I feel yourpain when your bodywas scorched by the firein my eyes.

Id slap you if you were real.

Only to understandthe notion of your intent

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to feel for me, anything.

And I want to %*@# you

exactly the way I was %*@#when you spit on meright up the @$$until Im done and yourbody bleedsand youre too weak to

spit on methe next day.

And I wasnt to hate youbecause you hate meenough to leave mealone in aworld without loveafter I

ended the life ofyou, painlesslyin your sleep.

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Capital Punishment

Its hard to love her when I envy her.

Its hard to see her gorgeous smilethen grow confused as whether to kiss or bite.Because it confuses me sometimes when herlaughter strikes me like the needles I feelin my legs when she rests upon them.Is it a cackling?

How can I love the smooth taste of her vibrantbody,then feel mocked by her touch?

How can I be joyous in her moments of

prosperityif she is left to sob in my momentof doubt, then failure?

Its hard.And at times, I wonder if thiscapital punishment

is the fault of hers or mine.

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A Sad Truth

Every black teenage female

Is average.

Every black teenage femaleWears her hair straightOccasionally with weave and make-upAnd wants to be white when she grows up.

Every black teenage femaleIs a wearer of tight pantsAnd owns a pair of Nike sneakersWhile praising Timmy H. and his preeminent DownCoats.

Every black teenage femaleSucks her teeth at her eldersWhile rotating her heard, snapping her fingers, andDisplaying rude comebacks.

Every black teenage female

Calls her male friends !%%#$ and her femaleFriends $#@!%Sometimes interchangeably.

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Every black teenage femaleIs pregnant before she leaves this categoryWith the one child having more than one father to

Choose from.

Every black teenage femaleLikes black boys with light skinAnd hazel eyes, and nice hair.

Every black teenage femaleHates her motherAnd would hate her father if she had one!

Every black teenage femaleWill read this poem and say, This aint me!

Thus.Every black teenage femaleIs a victim of self-hatred.

(By a black teenage femalewho contradicts this poem.

What about you?)

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It Hurts

Staring into his eyes

Making sure that hes still thereHere . . . with youFeeling his heat combine with your ownImagining what it could lead toHow it could end.

He touches you with his hand

GentlyWith a breeze of meaning against your faceUnbearable, you shriekQuivering against the hot breeze of this,This miscellaneous feeling

You touch him, you know himYou do not need words.A simple kiss combined with the voices of pas-sionLeaves you emptyYou waitYou wait

For days you wait; you wait to touch him, to knowHim againFor one day, your emptiness will be filled with his

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Own.Yet you do not need words.

Your day has comeHe needs youYou want himNo words exchangeJust lustJust passion

His skin is hard as it scratches against yoursYou love the painYou love that he loves your softnessThe mist of pleasure takes over youYou want to burstYou want to hold back

As you both lie with curiosityHe stops, he pausesAn enormous feeling, object, unexplainableYou scream voices of passionHe touches you, he knows youHe enters you

It hurts but you love itYou resist while he penetratesYou do not need words

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Confusion, yearningEmbarrassment, burningCuriously look into his eyes

Is he still there, is he still hereWith me?Does he really know me? Is it true?

It gets larger. It hurts moreYou are ashamed, I am ashamedI look at him with silent passionate voices.He doesnt look backHe doesnt look backAnd then, then, he stops, pauses

He yells, he shrieks of voices of reliefNot of passion

He fills me, but not my emptinessWe do not need words; we do not have wordsFor I am still emptyYet full of his pleasure.

I was wrongHe opened and entered me

Yet, I was wrong.

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Relations

Between two people there must lie

a relationship.One that each will recognize as validenough to continue the road of constancy.

He and I relate.I like it that way.

I appreciate our looks and glances thatwe each know mean nothing but, Hello.

When we see each other,we understand that we are in love.That when his hand presses against my

waist it means, Youre mine, to him.As he kisses my lips,we realize that our juices belongto each other and the softness or the hardnessis sensual enough to be sexy.

And when his pager says, 115,he knows that its just mewanting to say Hi, or, Goodnight, or Comeover,

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andI love you.

We both remember thatme being a lesbian doesnt make me love himanyless, and his religion and music doesnt makehim question me any more.

We both realize that our relationship can nevercome to an end . . . only change.

Yet our love will always be there.So will our glances

And if one of us were to diewe eachknow that itis okay tocryand lick our lips once in a while in remembrance3of our two person relationship, everlasting.

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Hunger

Standing in the center of worlds

not sure of which to turn toHer body balanced in the parallelof directions . . . She stands.

Each way her brown, wide, curious eyes levelsitselfinto the alternate reality, wondering whether to

stopin, while residing in the world she sees as truthin her sleep.

Finding her path is her greatest goal, figuringthatit lies in the subversions of alternate realitiesThrough the people that receive her and thearms stretchedout before her.

Afraid to look within herself,of the answers she may find, is a twitchingbody of empty mentality, against no one, no onebutthose who remind her of where she stands.

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My Brother

Brown eyes stare at a reflection

of deep black skin, pink lips, natural flowingAfrican hair, of strength, persistence, and ability.A large hand penetrates the skin of maturity witha razor in the other, shaving a mustache toangle.

Brown eyes stare at a reflection

confused with reality misguided and unsureAsking itself to look deeper for an answer toan unknown question of existence

A question of religion, color, women, and money.The four elements of this eighteen year olds life,yearningFor the ability to find the fifth.

Poetry through rap music/hip hop he criesAngrily towards a world who purposely madehiman outcast

Passively my brother tolerates a reality ofmysticismin search for himself through his silent reflection.

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How To See

When a butterfly clasps its wings

and a tyrant goes out to playor the New Yorker seems agitated,I will stop loving you.

As soon as the beggar receives,and the Rastaman marries a white woman

or the river runs dryis when Ill think of you again.

So wait until the moon burns redand the black skinned woman is empoweredor the hands of many unite

before you see yourself as whole.

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Tick Tock

I hear the echoes of my past

Sounding like a faucetOf a steaming hot waterScreaming like an ice cold tea potFilled with boiling blood.

My head throbs now and forever

At the thought of the presence ofMy thoughts that haunt me nowAnd hereafter. It beats likeThe heart of an Olympian in herSleep.

Slowly, slowly, slowly it provokes me.Shouting viciously the water of my pastThe freezing, hot water that flowsThrough my veins and into my headThat sings the song of an alarmClock in the night.

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White Teeth

In the bus on my way to the dentist

I sit and stare at the trees of sweeturbanity. The finger that travels and exploresthe nostril of a pale, white, Italian, grocery storeowner startles my hand clenched in the otherbelow me;giving it a feeling of not belonging.

Entering the bus, I look up to my left to see astrong, thick caramel brown-skinned womansliding her MetroCard gold through a silver slotwhich extracts a beep, beep, beepsimultaneously in my

ears. She sits behind me and I feel her.Her energy of vulnerability pulsates in my veinscomparing to the orgasm of weakness in myunclenched hand.I hear her cries as she uses her tool of touch torummage through her bronze colored, eighties

style, highcurled, relaxed hair. I smell her anticipation ashereyes target my scalp and its naturally thick,

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shiny and brittle unprocessed locks residingatop.

A close friend, I presume, sits beside her.-- It gives her warmth and composure.They speak of hair and nails for twenty minutestoo long using words like nice, and soft, andpretty;a melodic song it plays in my ears.

The song of depression, isolationThe cries of self-hate and mutilationThe plea for love and acceptance

They passionately summoned each otherIntimately they made love with their words.Licking my teeth, I look down ahead of merealizing my hand is tired.

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Not Ambidextrous

Pressure your mind young man

to feel the irony bloodscreaming through your veinslike those surrounded by silvermetallic boundaries at night, byan enemy seen as a protector.

Love your kind young maneveryday of your life in orderTo see yourself as beautifuland worthy to be loved by oneas intensely strongas you.

Never fall behind young manbut strive to your highestpotential unreached.And stand upright when you getthere in pride, with one handreading below, not ambidextrous.

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In Search of a SongVolume 780

A Waterways Project Publication1999-2000

In Search of a Song Volume 780

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Transcript of In Search of a Song Volume 780