Missing Rifle / Missing Woman (for Harriet Tubman)

sky readers / moon believers
before the sunrise prayers
Wisdom Born Mamas sew star, sun, earth, heart shaped
patterns on
quilts to warm babies
and free souls
hearing from the wind when to hang ’em
high on the clothes line
Before rooster crow / before master know
patterns on quilts mapped out which way to go
to wade in the water
Missing Rifle / Missing Woman.

**Dedicated to the courage of Harriet Tubman and the slaves and quakers that made quilts and hung them to slyly map the way to freedom**

from the poetry book, Pocket Honey, Wind & Hips

 

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22:30 A.D.

If you could talk to one person from the past/present for one hour, who would it be?

I would take just one hour with you, Dad.

.03 minutes
and memorize your knuckles
and count the pace between your jokes
look at the stance of your earlobes

.18 minutes
allow the electricity to race through my veins as we touch hands
and allow my eyes to connect your pores that capture your
favorite after shave
attach the scent of your breath

.32 minutes
have you explain.
ask you the really tough questions
in this softly short period of time
tell you why I chose this place. next to this tree. I love silver dollar trees.

.45 minutes
answer more. give me more detail. this is when you’ll see yourself. and know I am so much of your explosive hustle.

.58 minutes
and then I’d let you see me cry for the first time ever. for two straight minutes. until your eyes that are mine meet again.

 

then there is life…

I honestly don’t know where to start…

do I begin with –

my change in plans for grad school (just changing paths)

that I finished my next novel

that I have truly and sincerely fallen back in love with theatre

that my oldest is in her final year of high school and we are finalizing her college choices

due to school, I miss creative writing as much as I thought I would.

I love blogging. This is my way of staying in touch with the keyboard.

This is talking to words.

I know I haven’t touched base with you all in awhile, but

then there is life.

 

a new career, for the 3rd time; the first year

In between speaking engagements or during the interim of writing projects, I picked up side jobs to keep me financially ahead instead of becoming creatively stifled due to trying to maintain or “stay afloat”. After I wrote my play, “Hope’s Return”, I was introduced to the Atlanta theatre world and re-connected with previous theatre buddies. With this, I was invited on several occasions to apply to teaching positions in the theatre capacity.

After years of executive retail store management, I had NO interest in working with a theatre company and devoting my nights and weekends. And after experience with non-profit organizations, I had NO interest in working for a community/neighborhood theatre and contributing countless loads of money to guarantee a successful and professional looking production. Now, I have done both of these positions before and at that time in my life they were incredibly rewarding and I thoroughly enjoyed them. However, that time has come and gone. I have both of those t-shirts folded somewhere in my closet.

A few years ago, I began substitute teaching for public schools. I quickly learned, after several assignments, I was great with pre-k to 4th grade. I didn’t have the language or patience for any grade above 4th grade. I joyfully worked a full school year as a sub, even so that towards the end of the year, I was requested by teachers and principals more than I had to seek assignments. The following school year came and the only thing I wanted to change was to be stable as a long term substitute with two or three schools. I saw a posting for a long term substitute for a school that had three campuses. I thought that this would surely keep me busy and it is exactly what I had prayed for. I applied and got the position.

I started my six week assignment for a 4th grade English Language Arts (ELA) teacher going on maternity leave. I loved the environment of teachers I was around everyday! And as luck would have it, a fellow 4th grade ELA teacher had resigned and would be leaving around the same time my assignment would be over. Administration asked me if I was interested in becoming part of the team as a full-time ELA teacher, I accepted.

So there I was, I had entered a new career (outside of my artistry), for the 3rd time. A job that concluded between 3:30 and 4pm and was conveniently close to my home. And the best part, I was able to impose the magnitude of words in the young minds of brown kids 5 days of week. I was able to share my passion of sentence structure and reading on some impressionable minds.  What I had never taken into account were the behavioral curves and obstacles that reared its’ ugly head every day.

When We Arrived presents: broke is a fixed state a poem by Brad Walrond

i am broken reborn
broke is a fixed state

they tell me my wounds are lessons in healing

i cry because
it sure does not feel like it
i cry because
i am ever a wound in progress
a wound with a past tense
a slim jagged future in sight

this scar is a ruse
and i cry in ink because my tattoos
are all i have left to prove
i was here

BIO

“The voice is where the magic begins. It is with this sound that the spell is spoken and sent across the universe.” ~ Brad Walrond

Poet, writer, performer and activist Brad Walrond was born in Brooklyn New York to first generation Caribbean parents from Barbados. Brad began writing and performing at the age of 24 when he was asked to participate in a theatrical production curated by the legendary entertainer and activist Harry Belafonte.

Shortly thereafter Brad discovered a thriving community of artists, writers and performers at the Sunday Tea Party at Frank’s Lounge in Brooklyn. The Tea Party was an instrumental incubator as Brad honed his craft soon becoming one of the foremost writers and performers of the Black Arts Movement of ‘90s. It was at the Tea Party and other venues like the Brooklyn Moon Café, the Nuyorican Poets Café and numerous venues in and around NYC that Brad had the pleasure of sharing the stage with renowned writers, poets and artists including Abiodun Oyewole of the Last Poets, legendary actress/writer Ruby Dee, Erykah Badu, Saul Williams, Jessica Care Moore, Mos Def, Liza Jesse Peterson, Universes (Then: Mildred Ruiz, Stephen Sapp, Flaco Navaja and Lemon Anderson) and Craig “muMs” Grant.

Brad’s creative voice is rooted in an activist tradition. While pursuing his creative path Brad also served as Assistant to the National Program Director of Pathways to Teaching Careers and as Director of Education at FACES—the historic non-profit in Harlem New York first to respond to the HIV pandemic targeting at-risk populations of color.

Brad received his BA at the City College of New York and received a full scholarship to pursue is doctoral studies in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University. Brad’s battle with major depression upended his studies and he chose to pursue an alternate career in the culinary arts. Brad has had the privilege to cook at some of the finest world-class kitchens in New York City.

For nearly a decade, due to a demanding work schedule, and a persistent depression Brad became disconnected from his creative voice. Fortunately with what he attributes to much prayer, perseverance and professional medical care Brad has found his way back to the rich echoes of his creative voice.

The voice is to a poet what point of view is to a visual artist. It is your signature footprint on the creative landscape. Brad has returned with fervor to his prodigious creative terrain and is claiming his rightful place in it. He has been missed. He is more then just a poet or a speaker of words; he is a weaver of spells and bringer of passion and light.

www.bradwalrond.com

22:30 A.D.

If you could talk to one person from the past/present for one hour, who would it be?

I would take just one hour with you, Dad.

.03 minutes
and memorize your knuckles
and count the pace between your jokes
look at the stance of your earlobes

.18 minutes
allow the electricity to race through my veins as we touch hands
and allow my eyes to connect your pores that capture your
favorite after shave
attach the scent of your breath

.32 minutes
have you explain.
ask you the really tough questions
in this softly short period of time
tell you why I chose this place. next to this tree. I love silver dollar trees.

.45 minutes
answer more. give me more detail. this is when you’ll see yourself. and know I am so much of your explosive hustle.

.58 minutes
and then I’d let you see me cry for the first time ever. for two straight minutes. until your eyes that are mine meet again.

 

13:30 A.D.

Blame it on the trees if you thought
I’d continue to campaign for his dreams
and live off his land of fear verbed chatter.

Cause he’s not what he should be after all these seasons
of corn
and collards
and courvoisier
point the finger at the sidewalk leaves
and stormed cracked branches
that allow me to conceive a
Soloman like thirst for honesty.

Blame it on the trees
the bare December influenced branches that carries
everybody’s voiceless intentions
to a generation searching for a
Messiah.

 

no rhyming tonite

The rally in his mouth no longer
moves me
His ante dotes no longer describe / how I feel
the flavor in his analogies offend me
cause he’s naked and happy,
I’m fully clothed and ready for another love war

I no longer desire the rhythm of his walk,
the gutsy bass of his laughter.
Our relationship is no longer melodic.

No more poetry.
We need to talk.

from the book, “Pocket Honey, Wind & Hips” – nikki skies

waking up

“I can’t be a writer as a career.”
-then you won’t

“No one will understand my words.”
-then we won’t

“What the world doesn’t need is another writer!”
-then you won’t be one

Everyone doesn’t wake up with the notion to be a writer. A poet. A playwright. A novelist. But if you did,  follow that feeling with a sincere belief there is reasoning behind it and seek it.

Where ever you go, there you are so you might as well be happy.

A Poem

It’s a poem if the words can live without you.

If the allegory can make blinding light shine from tombs
awaken memories
breathe them back to – reality.

It’s a poem if,
there are possibilities for similies linking people
universally
from fallen walls to picket signs
drawing scents of lemons
shake hands of farm girls to vegetarians
likening poetry to biblical days
with your comrades
logging different chapters
forcing the community for just one night
to look
directly into the sun
That’s a poem.

from the poetry book, Pocket Honey, Wind & Hips