Flyye Sista - an ekphrastic poem

*Inspired by the above artwork (Ekphrasis)

Flyye Sista (Afro)

Check it - Flyye Sista is the name

While I've got your attention - check my mane

Review the hue of an African doo

Trace around my round mound of Blackness

Natural and proud since Jah begat this

Explore and adore the symmetry

Embrace the grace surrounding my Nubian face

Marvel at my pride displayed on the outside

No need for steamed heat to make my tight coils retreat

No desire for the chemical fire of lye or no-lye

No care to texturize my hair's natural flair

No weave to deceive

No shame of my mane

No denial of the pure elegance of my breed

I'm Flyye as am and I dare to look like me

Reminding all who encounter thee

I am beautiful by design is where the Creator and I agree

The world scolded me, told me my hair follicle is diabolical

Said I needed to "run a hot comb across my dome"

Said I needed to "relax and perm to meet society's terms"

Said I needed a "new doo before the job interview"

Said I needed to "blonde it up" like Beyoncé to make a man look my way

Said I needed to "conform to the norms of the West"

Said, "It's what's best"

I replied, Yes

If you are of European descent or mentally bent

Conditioned by an assimilation tradition

increasing my people's ignorance into perdition

Listen here

To be clear, I am my hair, unlike India.Arie

Because I too am Black, beautiful and bold, naturally

I too am well-rounded, a little rough around the edges, high and mighty

I am poised, regal, full-figured and thick

I am dark and lovely

I'm Flyye as am and I dare to look like me

Reminding all who encounter thee

I am beautiful by design is where the Creator and I agree

As a matter of fact, get like me

Unshackled

Free...

Tara S. Gause aka Poetic Goddess Tara Shenéa
© 2010. All Rights Reserved.

Resignation

Resignation

Ignorance isn't always bliss
especially - This
This trickery…
It hurts my heart
and at times
makes me cry
When I see their self-hatred
in the pupil of my eye
They who curse me
They who snicker and stare
They who spew unpleasantries
about my natural hair
- OUR natural hair
My textured tresses they share
Yet their shame is clear and evident
by their "chemical" assimilation
co-signing the label of
inferiority onto the Black Nation
And they are disgusted by me?
In ignorance they dwell
Deceived and lovin’ it
Trembling
too afraid to be themselves
Conditioned and ill (3x)
Group-think controls their minds
Twisted and confined
Mentally imprisoned
on how beauty is defined
Notice every other tribe
wear their hair
in its natural state with pride
Because they know
there is no shame
in God’s organic designs
Yet in these modern times
the dance and song
between the
Jiggaboos and the Wannabes
is newly crooned along
Dripping wet with bloody sweat
hoarse and coarse
they sing
and boorishly maintain
When in our mane
there is regal beauty
Our African follicles
exude originality in
their kink, coil, curl, and loc
It’s clear self-hatred has
their perception blocked
To emulate is to self-hate
To impersonate is to pretend
To assimilate is to conform
- to blend in
Back up and come again
Daughters of the Motherland
our Creator made no mistake
in our blueprint and construction
Halt this hatred and launch the loving
Renounce the disgrace of
-The straightened coils
-The weaved hair
-The fake nails
-The false lashes
-The phony eye color
- The bleached skin
When will the destruction
of self end?
Wandering unconsciously
Zombies
Living as frauds and hoaxes
The superlative beauty of the
original man is out of focus
Free your mind and
your hair will follow
Like Neo, choose the red pill
and swallow
Break free from the confines
within your minds
Embrace your unedited phyne
God’s ideal design
From Western society’s
perception of beauty
- Resign

 Waaaaakke Uuuuuuuppp!!! ~Dap from School Daze

Tara S. Gause aka Poetic Goddess Tara Shenéa
© 2010. All Rights Reserved

To read your own mind is to look at yourself and read your soul.
Hatred becomes love and that is the path I am working on. ~Richard Gere

A Jew, a white among whites, can deny that he is a Jew, declaring himself a man among men. The Black cannot deny that he is black nor claim for himself an abstract, colorless humanity; he is Black. Thus he is driven to authenticity: insulted, enslaved, he raises himself up. He picks up the word "Black" ["Negro"] that they had thrown at him like a stone, He asserts his blackness, facing the White man, with pride. ~Jean-Paul Sartre

Where There is Love

Where There is Love

There is love in the playful push on a playground swing

And love is left within the smell of a lilac after the bumblebee’s sting

There is love in the swirl of pigmented leaves falling from an Autumn gust

Love in savory ink gushing from a fountain pen tip into a writer’s cup

Love is warm from the yolk-like sun peeping over the pink and lavender vista

And love is exuded in the voice of youth who gives respect in saying Mrs. and Mr.

There is love in the caress of the fingers around the neck of the Jazz Bass

Know love is within the strike of the Queen on a Chess board who kills for her mate

There is love in the chins of the black-chinned hummingbirds hovering in Nawlins trees

A little bit of love sits on the tip of the curve of a rainbow piercing the Caspian Sea

There is love in the cadence of the first hello and the hardest goodbye

Love is in the pupil of a soulmate recognizing its counterpart in another’s eye

Love is sketched onto each snowflake right before it hits your exposed tongue

And love is licked through the lips of a Pomeranian bitch cleaning her newborn young

There is love shimmering in dew painted upon the water lilies in Monet’s art

Love is felt in the rhythm and torque of valves ebbing and flowing in this heart

There is love given at night as crickets serenade constellations and shooting stars

Some love is within the scaled tail of a beaver slapping a pond to signal threats near or far

There is love in the kink and the coil of an African hair follicle strand

Believe love was in the first caress of Eve’s face from Adam’s hand

Love is poetically interwoven into the lyrics of this very love psalm

And immortal love divine expressed on the hill Golgotha with the outstretching of His arms

Tara S. Gause aka Poetic Goddess Tara Shenéa
© 2010. All Rights Reserved

RACISM KILLS (For Omar Thornton)

RACISM KILLS

Racists encamp all around me. Daily I endure the stings of their hatred

All I desire is a fair chance as a man but I am ignored and abhorred

Cuz my shade means to degrade to those whose hearts are impure

I am smashed between a rock and given a hard place. Unwarranted mistreatment

Suffocates my soul and mangles my mind state. As flesh I’ve done my best to stay strong

Mine eyes now reveal that I am ill from infection of their contagious hate

Keep the faith they told me, report their evils, document and note their taunts

I gave them what they want, yet there is no record because I handed it over to devils

Left with no choice, I brandished 2 burners and a shotgun to help the deaf hear my voice

Let my light of ammo shine into the darkened hearts of 5 plus who ridiculed me just because

So much blood, yet it fails in contrast to my tears of despair spilled on a beer plantation near Hartford

R.I.P. Omar Thornton

Tara S. Gause aka Poetic Goddess Tara Shenéa
© 2010. All Rights Reserved

Note: Readers, please understand that when I wrote this piece, I am in NO WAY condoning such awful behavior. This situation should have NEVER been handled in such a manner. It is cowardly, weak and not a positive action as a solution. He is no hero and should not be viewed as one. No one has the right to take another's life, I don't care for what reason they may feel justified in doing so. I wrote the piece from the perspective of someone who could do such a thing. How pressure can build up in someone and explode negatively. I wrote it from someone who feels hopeless in their situation and environment. I read over 20 articles about the story before writing and saw that he claimed racism on other jobs as well. He lived, not only worked, in an area saturated with "acceptable racism" - Racial mistreatment that is perceived as normal and accepted as so. I take it he wasn't strong enough mentally to leave this position, as he had left others, only to acquire another position to endure and experience more of the same. Hopelessness is the theme of the piece. Not being a hero or murdering as a way to fight back. This act was the result of the breaking point in one’s life when they “throw their hands up.”