Thursday, 8 February 2018

Gamba Adisa

Gamba Adisa


When you were born,
They did not know your path
Or what you would shout from podiums
Or write in hard books
On love
And war
And civil rights.

They just held you.

And we did not understand then
When you uttered your cry
Your fight for Life
And Colour
And Sex

We just listened

And you held us
In your inked hands
And taught us slowly
Around your Kitchen Table



By NLMcD

Footnote:

Late in life, Audre Lorde was given the African name Gamba Adisa, meaning "Warrior: She Who Makes Her Meaning Clear". It is a name that applies to her whole life. Her struggle against oppression on many fronts was expressed with a force and clarity that made her a respected voice for women, African Americans, and the Gay and Lesbian community.

In 1968, she accepted a teaching position at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi where the violence that greeted the civil rights movement was close at hand every night. This period cemented the bond between her artistic talents and her dedication to the struggle against injustice.

Lorde went on to provide avenues of expression to future generations of writers by co-foundingthe Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.

Ending

Ending

Liquid gold summer’s lees
Percolating through dappled trees; burning leaves.



By NLMcD

Cleave

Cleave



Sharp splitting sounds fight from the butcher’s door
as bloody hatchets cleave
through unyielding gore

And I of seven smell the red, thick in the air
and cleave to you strongly
to spare me there

But I’m naive you say, as you drive a wedge
Cleaving me away
With a honed tongues edge

Now receiving this mortuary I grieve
and cleave for another
Weaving through knees
looking for your sleeve



By NLMcD


Amber

Amber


I smelt my past on you
Whiskey breath,
beatings and flint eyes

That scent awoke forgotten times
when malt lies washed over me,
pulping written neverminds

And all my sheafs of faded script
bloated amber fat inside
and bore the record of those times

Soon my salty eyes
spoke those words to you,
no longer hidden crimes

And through that murky brine
You swam and blotted
All those lost denials



By NLMcD

Our Garden

Our Garden


Tended by gestures,
love grew for us from the fertile dark
drawn out of nothing

We readied ourselves to
extend soft palpable hands
to the rising summer

But warmth sorrowed to cold
and blunted our digits
blackening those feral fingers

Yet our lot flowered sickly
in the insipid light
wan from the thinning soil

And blooms that repeated in consideration
curled brown and turned paper mâché
then fell towards the hard ground



By NLMcD