a Note on Time (meeting me2)

She left this morning.
conveniently smooth like tap water /
Promises taped to her right palm for her to befriend the wild with food

She just wanted to be great.
Capsize time and defend her sister and brother
Look her father in the eye with familiar
Write down her Grandmother’s genius words
Learn the earth at the expense of her Grandfather’s back

She came. / throttled tone with soprano cheeks
shy girl
social as corners
barely

Intimately speaking is how she preferred things
but stories pierced her earlobes
diamonds to shine / hoops to dangle
pages to escape poverty

Like you / she survived through chances
stand offs against never and silence
She left this morning
after a cup of coffee
but prepared these words for you.

best of both worlds

My mother taught me how to make a living.
My father showed me how to create a life to live.
She was deemed responsible.
He was deemed selfish.
… I want to be selfishly responsible from here on out.

single white woman raising a little black boy

Actually, I think they both already left
but still there for the little black boy
with fair skin.
Whose hair and lips tell the world who his daddy is

I hope someone is there to hold her
when her sons eyes go to a place she won’t be able to reach.
a depth she can’t fathom one humanly possible to survive
cause, she’s gonna’ leave the father.
he works sporadically
nothing reminiscent of her father
who bought home the steak and potatoes
he says / it kills his spirit
and she don’t understand that.
call him lazy.
they yell through the walls
she’s gonna’ leave
and live life as a single white woman raising a little black boy

he’ll / only believe the world stares at him
cause he looks exotic for so long
then he’ll feel cornered
and she’ll beat at the walls and tell him he’s free
until she’s blue in the face,
literally.
with coruscate eyes
he’ll look at her and tell her
something is killing his spirit
…she just don’t understand that
but she’ll dare not call him lazy or leave his side
so she yell at the walls

I hope someone is there to hold her
when her sons eyes go to a place she won’t be able to reach.

passion

We need passion for life
We need passion like ancestral sweat on jungle spring African violets
We need passion like the quieting of an infant’s cries for his mother’s nipples
like the drying desire to drink
let us do what we do best
Create.
detach from the world and all it has to offer
like the fall of sky tall pine trees
like a Muslim nauseous at the smell of swine
let us get away from here!
Like we did the first time
let us hungrily read Genesis to Revelation
and discover one another
let me be imperfect
not what the music and magazine say
but who I am this very second
the extent of me and you in divine disguise
the scent of me in heat for some passion
Like a 4th of July dog scratching against the screen door
We need passion for life.
We need passion like surrendering in a rain shower,
like the uncontrollable moans of a multiple orgasm
let me get this out!
let me get this out!
like the vulgar urges of bulimia
let me get this out!
I yearn this
I yearn this like Thursday evening paychecks
want me
want me like the smell of your mother’s kitchen on Sunday
protect me
protect me like a father holding his child’s hand
let us discover God together
We need passion
Like the heaving chest of a woman giving birth
Like the finger sore of BB strumming the blues
Like a poem with a thousand metaphors
Let us make love over and over and again
We need passion like, like, like…right now.

Get a Poetic Recap before the finale tonight!

Get a poetic recap to the hit drama, “REBEL” before the season 1 finale airs tonight!  Make sure you check your local listings and TUNE IN this edge of your seat finale.

Here you can find all things “REBEL” including the four poems I wrote for, “Rebel Yell”:

Almost a Lamentation
Bang Bang
Reverse Opinions
Score Board

20 Reasons We Love “REBEL”

Being a woman is not a story, we cannot be placed as non-fiction on your shelf
It is a movement
a dance
an expansion of bones.
being a Woman is a lesson in astronomy.
cooking chili is a recipe and then it is done
being a Woman is not a story.
We are not dialogue to be used in moving a plot forward
We are more than fixtures in the home after work and school
We hold more than bedtime consultation sessions
We are not chili to be written as a recipe and then close the book once the dish is done.

And this is what “Rebel” is about

1. 1. 1. She is beautiful hairstyles and more
      2. She has impeccable taste in good looking men and more
      3. She is fearlessly learning the tango in predominately male environments
      4. in a home life with a father and brother to the military to the police force
      5. She is showing the peculiar walk of being African American in America
      6. the tightrope performance of being a Woman with self determination
      7. She speaks the language where

   “Im ok”, means terrified
   “And I’m good”, means I’m paralyzed
   but She makes it look like manicured oak trees on an antebellum tour

   8. She’s a mixture of Big Mama with a Ph.D. in Street Knowledge
   9. demanding that profit in death precedes her brother, not with or after

2.          /his slain will not be in vain / this can’t be another Emmett Till / another                        Medgar Evers / another Oscar Grant
3. we now know when we refuse to be silent
   10. we shut down freeways! block bucks that drench downtown power
   we raise bail money for the forgotten
   we move our stories from the page to the stage
   from minors to the big leagues
   we make everyone Say Her Name
   We tittie to mouth our babies at the pews on Sunday and at tea time on Monday
5. We hold writers accountable to tell our truths / color our beauty, litter her with life

   11.  And they show Her allowance in letting Her body being pleased
   12.  Her occasional leisure in blowing trees to the wind

   being a Woman is not a story that is non-fiction and simply closed.

8. This show insists we talk about
   13. care for the elderly
   14. the vulnerability of our Veterans
   15. homophobia
   16. when children become the parents
   17. when being black is stronger than blue
   18. when being black is stronger than making green
   when right is stronger than wrong
   19. when persistence forces police lieutenants to make night calls
   knocking on doors like parental phone calls after 9pm / humbling
   20. We love Rebel because she fights like            the race of stretch marks across once raised wombs
   She fights like lightening stripes, thunder bolts and tiger claws
   She is full of mistakes but not abandoned from perfection.

   If you haven’t seen “Rebel” you DO WANT TO BINGE WATCH the series before the finale on Tuesday.  The finale is an edge of the seat 60 minute ride! Go to BET.com for episode information.

SHE CHRONICLES: Dawn Edwards “Clarity in the 40’s”

When I approached 40, I had mixed emotions; I believed at that point I would then be officially a “Grown Woman” and all that 40 entails… like gray hair popping up uninvited, being considered “middle age” by folks in their 20’s & 30’s, your body acting all funny style and feeling some kind of strange way for no apparent reason, aches and pains that come out the blue… just a bunch of random nonsense as far as I was concerned!

And now that I’m 43, you know what I discovered? It’s All True!! Smh! All that goodness and more comes along with being a Woman in your 40’s!

But it’s not all bad mind you. The 40’s do bring about certain gifts that just aren’t apparent til later in life, because the reality is that some insights only become clear once you’ve lived a little and had a variety of life experiences to compare and contrast… and if you’re open, these experiences will definitely unlock and make it possible for you to extract some wisdom from them. As Women, we must trust in our inner strengths and the tools that we were born with and have cultivated over time, and just relax and allow the Universe to work through us.

Rebel, tomorrow

Tomorrow, this show I write for airs… yep!  Tune in to BET and watch the first episode of, “Rebel“.  The ending poem recited by the lead actor entitled, Allegiance, was written by yours truly 🙂

Join the REBELution!

Hi All,

I got a call last June that this new television, Rebel, needed another writer. The lead character parlays as a poet in her pasttime and they needed someone to write all the poetry for the series and the lead actor.  I TOOK THE GIG!  Make sure you tune in!  All the poetry was written by yours truly 🙂

I’ve Been Writing

I’ve been writing.
writers write. writers read.