bass slinking along
a panther in the filigree
wild black treeline
out of place like a
brushstroke gone awry
against a somber blue canvas
boom ba boom boom boom
“looks like another love TKO”
I’m not making any promises, but I’m going to attempt to keep up with NaPoWriMo this year. I’ll be writing a poem a day however, I refuse to post one everyday. I think that’s overload. So I’ll do what I can. In other news… today marks the day my biggest source of inspiration came into my life. It’s my anniversary! What better way to kick off National Poetry Month than to share a poem I wrote in honor of the man that keeps me wanting to write poetry.
I hope you make time to read and write some poetry this month, and don’t forget to thank whoever or whatever it is that inspires you to keep doing whatever it is that you do.
-Umm Qamar
The Letters
“…tell your supervisor you’re leaving early today
and I’m going to pay for the rest of your day …” -Tony! Toni! Tone!
A year ago today
Marks the day they became
“Impossible us”
She with legs sealed shut and heart wide open
He in High Pursuit
“Do you know what today is?”
Mother Father Friend said,
He’s all wrong for you
Nothing more than good
Conversation. Piercing like
First time penetration His creed
All wrong he’s coming on too strong
Plundering through barbed wire
fenses trailing Issey Miyake scent
Yellow kite tails catching.
“It’s our anniversary, anniversary…”
Something about a caged bird
The free just can’t appreciate
Scratches in the track our music
Don’t make sense we make
Vinyl record love
Fuck autotunes
He had a throwback style
Would throwback any man
That ever thought they could
She spoke of limitations like deal breakers
And then the letter came
Proving that roses could be born of concrete
And hearts built of brick
Love could be pieced together from leftovers
Can pervade through hard times.
Six years ago today
A moon was born
A year ago today
Trembling hands penned sureties
Two troubled paths eclipsed,
“Do you know what today is?”
Up at the white thread
I seek clarity.
My thoughts on trial do me no justice
Any other time of day.
Only now while the angels
Make their rounds,
I begin to gather the pieces
Delegate the reasons.
Just how smart is this brown-skin girl?
Whose legacy of soft-spoken cunning
Precedes her.
A way with men
She likes projects,
Something broken needing repair
So that I can get in between
Inside his snow globe
Heart. Where I twirl angrily swirling
She sees compassion
Flakes of obvious selfish guile
I see self-preservation.
Up from a dream. A familial place
Nested at the feet of blue green velveteen hills
A mother attached-
A white thread of light
Anything worthwhile is blue.
Patiently kneeling, ankles obtuse
Hands just so
She’ll be guided in this Hour
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of. -Benjamin Franklin
Thank you Mr. Franklin, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Since undertaking some new responsibilities in my life, (a.k.a. a new job, a.k.a now I can pay more bills) I find my myself yearning for more hours in the days and for more minutes in the hours. I fully understand the complaints of those writers who try to balance practicing their craft with putting food on the table. I guess I should try to look at it from a more creative positive viewpoint; now I have more fodder to give my poems life. I digress…
The true reason for this post was to share a link to a poem of mine that has been published by the lovely ladies of The Blue Hour Magazine. Please be sure to head over to their site and show all of the wonderful poets, writers, and artists some love! I’ll be back to posting poems and random ramblings soon enough. I just wanted to thank all my followers and even those of you who just happened to fly by and “like” a few of my posts. I love you guys and wish you well.
-Umm Qamar
Google Images
Writers. They are those eclectic creatures everyone wants to be. According to most Johnny Depp portrayals of authors, we drink excessively, smoke endless cigarettes, experiment with mind-altering drugs, and then prop ourselves up in front of a typewriter and expect miracles to fall onto the page.
If that description doesn’t sound familiar to you then you don’t know jack about writers. No seriously, writers are actually hardworking, sane individuals. Not unlike other human beings we sometimes get caught up in the throes of depression. I can attest to this from experience, not just as a writer, but simply as a human being.
Depression, whether it’s clinical or self-diagnosed affects people from many different walks of life. Unfortunately we live in a society or rather in a world that is very conducive to this disease. Being a creative individual may actually expose you to more of the stress that causes depression. Creative types spend a considerable amount of time noticing and analyzing the nuances of the environment we live in. We notice and are inspired by the little details that most people miss. A lot of times it is these same details that cause us to feel pain and to harbor a foreboding sense of hopelessness. As an artist you respond to these feeling by creating something which expresses your thoughts and emotions. So does this mean that one can only produce something meaningful when one is battling bouts of depression?
Of course not. You see I thought yesterday was going to be one of those days. You know the type of day wherein you wake up cursing the sun for having the audacity to shine while you are trying to wallow in your misery. Yeah, one of those days. I knew what the cause of my discontent was, but I still found myself fighting back tears. I continued with my morning routine because as you know- kids don’t give a damn how your emotional health is. They want their breakfast and it had better be good. So I made a decision. I was going to fake it until I made it. Following the advice of my grandmother I said aloud, “Devil you are a liar!” I asked God to remove the storm clouds from above my heads and from under my eyes. Then I just let go.
Depression, humph! Ain’t nobody got time for that!
Let me make this story short. Since I homeschool my son I’m in complete control of his schedule. I decided to switch things up and go to the park before we started any of his school work. Let me tell you how prayer works honey. As soon as I stepped outside of my door, it hit me. The warm sun greeted me while the breeze flirted with my hemline. We were experiencing unseasonably warm weather. It was as if God was saying, “Look boo, I got your back.” It was then that I realized just how ungrateful I had been. To think I was going to allow myself to be overcome by darkness. All I had to do was make a conscious decision to be happy. Allah took care of the rest.
When we arrived at the park I sat down and wrote. I wrote about how grateful I was to be worshipping a God that not only hears your prayers, but who answers them in ways that our minds can’t even conceive. I was able to concentrate on projects that I had long since brushed to the side. More importantly, I laughed and played with my son. He never had the slightest inclination that mommy had woken up feeling like doggy-doo that morning.
Do you battle with depression? How does it affect your creativity? Let’s talk about it in the comment section.
Here are some links on writers and depression
http://www.elizabethmoon.com/writing-depression.html
http://narrowpathstohigherplaces.com/writing-in-and-through-depression/
http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/archive/1989/12/styron198912
tender black buttons
dark nights- rising
life and pleasure given and
taken from these
pain and suffrage
guided you
across turbulent seas
molded by a fingertip,
not to be marred by too eager teeth
nor pierced to aesthetically please
but these
raisins in the sun
dimpled supernovae
exploding across the vast sea of my breast
Erected
by the undulations of your tongue,
These feed nations
seduce men
but they say I
am just a woman
objectified, less
*Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Opiate Susmission
The sun-rays my silhouette humbled,
Casting reverent shadows on Turkish artistry.
Here because you denied – the sun,
The moon, the stars primitive artistry. This
Life is lonely, and then you sacrifice your blessings
That is Grace.
I watched
Her footprints soft-spoken, unaware
Of her power from which I was conceived.
Bear no witness to my deeds. I
Listened to their stories,
They washed their hands of me
That was love.
My knees kiss this consecrated ground
Redemption beading on my forehead,
Wreaking havoc, it is the storm before the calm.
High on opiate submission
And waiting for the pouring forth,
Now I know why they lean.
The weight of confession cannot stand alone.
Faith tastes like complacency
Come again?
I never learned how to swim
But I tread deep waters
Because I knew how to pray.
Ya Sheikh!
That is servility.
Inner Critic- (n) a parasitic entity that feeds off of creative beings.
What you know about it?
I’ve been trying to make an upgrade from a wanna-be poet/writer/artist-type chick to an individual that actually is successful in one of these mediums. I would be able to do this if it wasn’t for this inner critic chick junking up my flow and throwing major shade by making comments like this:
“”Who do you think you are anyways, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, freaking John Keats?”
AND
“Seriously, my great-great-great-grandmother could’ve written better poetry than that and she was a slave (i.e. she couldn’t read or write due to her unfortunate circumstances).”
OR
“Girl you know you can’t draw worth a damn.”
AND
“Paint by number isn’t art.”
So you see what I have to put up with.
I’ve tried all the logical solutions to shut her up. I’ve done the whole free writing, write-just-for- the-sake-of-writing for ten minutes and don’t worry about grammar or about punctuation or about making sense thing. I ended up editing my results because they weren’t profound enough (ά la Jack Kerouac). As for my art practices, I keep an art journal. I rarely work in it for fear of messing up that expensive ass watercolor paper. I mean really, how can I ever live up to my full potential if this chick is forever in my ear telling me I’m not good enough? Oh and don’t get me started on referring to the internet for support. I’ll get on the web and snoop around for inspiration from fellow artists/writers. What usually happens is I’ll stumble across a blog or website of someone whose work I really dig. After about five to ten minutes of enjoying the fruits of their labor, I’m reeling into a self-imposed pity party. “Boo-hoo, I’ll never be as good as such and such. Please pass me the lotion infused Kleenex,” I whine aloud to no one in particular. Actually you know who is present and nodding, “I told you so.” I hate her.
Since none of the conventional methods of quieting my inner critic work, I have to take drastic measures. I have to kill this bitch. I invite you to murder yours as well. We can all go down in history together as the coldest, baddest, inner critic murdering gangsters to ever do it. Here’s the plan. Pick up you pen, pencil, crayon, or use your fingers if you’re like me and cannot afford such fancy instruments and stab her ass. Poke her, slash her, Lorena Bobbitt her, and get her out of your life.
*Trust me you’ll be a better artist for it.
Oh you just don’t know
*You may need your critic for revising, so you probably shouldn’t murder her. Maybe you can just stuff her into a closet or something until you’re ready for her.
The signifier failed to signify.
20 resting souls
In a world where:
“Things like this don’t happen,”
not here.
The words, the words
are better dead;
As they are inadequate,
for drying tears.
