April 3rd- La Belle Femme

La Belle Femme

In my middle school
a young long haired girl
stood erect
banging on a wooden desk
pink palms slapped surfaces
like belts that
embrace a tired mule's back
the shrill
vibrated through her uvula
beating
ear drums sore
she moved
her evil desk aside
an explosive breeze
bounced off her chest
She jumped up
blocking the eerie silence
of eyes with red palms
that soil grey square tiles,
a bleeding rose on fierce
white sand
 body
shivering, swaying,
she picked soft hairless
spiders from her permeable pores
The only way to flee
was to let eyes
see webs wrapped around
brown epi-dermis
baby spiders crack from shells
in her skin.




La Belle Femme. I wrote this poem last year when I had started taking French, hence the title. The poem is actually about a friend from middle school who went "crazy" one day while we were all just listening to a class lecture. She was a simply beautiful young lady who seemed to have no problem at all. I was genuinely scared by her attitude but also worried about her. How could you see spiders chasing you in the afternoon? I don't know if she ever solved that problem but I hope she did.

So What Happened?/ Poem for April 2nd

Hello all,

I know, I said I would be posting a poem a day for the month of April but I was caught up in so many things that I could not even have the time/internet access to fulfill this promise. I had to attend various conferences. For one,  I listened to smart intellectual African women speak. For the other, I had to present my own work and also listen to more smart African women and men speak. I would have to talk about that experience later but for now, here are the five other poems I should have posted.

 For April 2nd, I offer you "The Murder of Poetry." Why am I trying to murder poetry? I am not quiet sure. I started taking poetry classes hoping it would be easy but it wasn't at all. I was actually tired of writing short stories and thought it would be simpler to write poems. I had difficulty being "poetical" because I wanted so badly to sound like Shakespeare but had never lived in the middle ages. The result of the struggle...Rachel murdering poetry. Poetry is powerful because it is sometimes unconventional and moves people in so many different ways. It is wise then for me not to think about murdering poetry... right?


Murder of Poetry

I tried to stab it in the heart
piercing, penetrating the sharp
knife through its essence.
I held it down with my legs
Firm
but it lay there in the silence staring at me
it starred through the  hole of the gun
but didn't cringe as I shivered to shoot
Brave
it sat up cleaning itself of the dirty lines
I swung a punch to the left
and straight towards its stomach
but it stood up in its full bloom
Victorious
it offered me the hand I
stepped o,
the eye I wanted to shut
the passion I wanted to dissolve
I offered death to poetry
but it gave me life

A Poem A Day..Apoem/April

Happy New Month!!

I am so excited about April since it is the month that brings a lot of coolness and sun. My mission for this month is to upload a poem for each day. Unfortunately, I don't have 30 poems stacked under my bed but I will be writing them. I'll start with this one. I wrote it for a poetry workshop and thought it would be a great way to start. I honestly don't recall what I was thinking about when writing this poem. Aha! I lie, I had a crush on this guy and wanted to write about him without giving him too much attention. His name is not Zaan. Zaan is a pseudonym. Well it didn't go any further if you're wondering about the crush but I'm glad he inspired such a poem.

Zaan

The sound of his name

reminds me of

the palm-nut fruit

falling from the narrow arms

of the palm tree.

The small red berry ,

filled with red hot oil

heals the wounds

of a porcupine.

The moon bleeds

from the cuts of

the sun rays

as the stars suck

the icy blood

from the dead sun.

The grass pierces  

through the black soul

as the  swaying wind tosses out an egg,

and the vultures wail for their loss.

He is not a warrior

rolling in the dirt of the forest,

guarding the iroko tree with his feet,

thick as the blood that cools

the nerves of the brain.

He is an owl without a tongue,

using his wings to whisper to the moon.

A tiger stripped off his black spots

rolling in the ink of the zebras.

He is the wind without water

A desert without sand.

In Honor of Women Who Give Life...

I could not let it go without making a comment. March, a month that celebrates women for their various achievements and talents. Today, I want to celebrate two people who mean so much to me. (I will exclude my mother from this list since I would like to say more about her on Mother's Day)

First award goes to my grandmother, my father's mother, who taught me how to cook. I grew up with this old but really talented chef that cared so much about life. She had a little garden in our backyard where she grew anything she could lay her hands on. She started with peppers then moved on to yams and then tomatoes and on and on and on. She would always ask me to help her water the plants after I came home from school. I always saw it as a bother: I would rather run around or sleep under a table. (weird child, I know). Looking back now, my grandmother presented me with the warmest part of life, which is the ability to give something else life. She is the reason why I write so many stories and poems. She is one of the reasons why I miss Ghana most of the time. She is probably the only reason why I care so much about other people and act more mature than my age.

The second award goes to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. You haven't heard of her? well then you are missing out on a really good literature I had the opportunity to meet her ealier this month at the Aspen Institute and I took a selfie but that is besides the point. Because of Adichie, I went back writing and I am really happy about that. (I switched from my creative writing concentration to literature and  creative writing is never the same when things like that happen)

. I am grateful that she is a woman who writes creatively. I appreciate it even more that she has inspired my research topic for graduate school. Reading her works not only makes me feel relaxed but also allows me to be confident in whatever I want to say (well, about literature). Relevance, yes that's the word, she allows me to brings relevance to my education. I was blessed to meet her earlier this month at the

All Things Work Together for Good?

Today has been a very lovely day. It has also left me shaking my head a few times and I thought I would share because ...

I started out my day as I usually would. I had not woken up early enough for school and I was running late. I refused to be late today though because I had been late so many times. I left my house exactly at 9 am  hoping to get the 9:06 am bus  but the bus didn't arrive until 9:11 am. I walked into the bus, feeling up my jacket for my metro card but it was not there. So I looked in my backpack but it was not there either.

"Can I please get a ride?"
"What?"
"I can't  find my metro-card. Can I get a ride?"
"No"
"Please I can't find my metro card"
"You need to get some change from the store."
"Can I please get a ride?"
"No"

So I walked out. Not at all embarrassed because it wasn't the first time a bus driver had done this to me. I had learned how to handle New York City Bus drivers. I turned around and checked my pockets again and voila!. It was there all this time but the bus wasn't. It had already reached its next stop and I was determined to get on that bus. I would be in school on time and I would make the bus driver feel little bad. Nothing more. I run like I had never run before. The last time I run this much was probably in high school. I didn't make it in time to catch the bus but there was still hope. I continued to the next stop. Green Light! no no no.

Fortunately, I made it on the bus. I didn't care to let the bus driver know that I had found the card. But I had heard a sweet voice(aka The Holy Spirit), saying this would be the most difficult part of the day. Boy was I glad it was over.

Like magic my day did gradually get better. I was coughing profusely after this marathon and right before I got off the bus, the girl who I was sitting next to offered me some vix. It is the first time anyone (stranger) has ever given me anything on the bus. I was truly grateful.

When I got to school, I tutored such a lovely student. He was a music major who played the saxophone. All the while, on the bus, I had been thinking about how to spread the word and ways not to be awkward about it. I asked the student how music major was going and he said something about God giving him a great opportunity. There is that great feeling when someone knows the God that you know.

My day got way better when I recieved some funds I needed to attend a conference. I had asked for this way back in February but some Angels had moved heaven and earth to make sure I got it.

Thank You.. He does..to those that love Him and are called according to His purpose.  Romans 8:28

Looking to Determination

A picture speaks words that cannot be written concisely.

 

Poetry Blues

La Lune

The only moon I see tonight
is hidden behind tall
bricks of clay.
The air flows like
turqoiuse water of fiji,
like the moon
it fades from my sight
but it watches over me like a dream.



Untitled

The moon enters
 the water
fills it with
ink
from the sky
the earth waits


The moon

The moon sits
white in the sky,
like a stain on
a green table cloth
like the lace of a Ghanaian bride,
Like a fire
burning.