A ghazal

Nikāḥu’l-Mut‘ah, Nikah el Mut'a (Arabic: نكاح المتعة, also Nikah Mut‘ah literally, marriage for pleasure)


honeymoon period brief shard before clouds and rain
preparing for eternity not for clouds and rain

air rising from shallow embers of fires whistle warm
sky breaking into one million blues pours clouds and rain

wrote this out of anger or despair burnished lead thoughts
heavy feet shuffle with pride mi amor clouds and rain

rich passionate love espresso i have to offer
must i settle for these few coins the poor clouds and rain

sun burnt copper her blood thus ran her henna soft wine
eshq bleeding gold pissing tears she foreswore clouds and rain

kiss your face with spring winds why renege this bridal veil
wilts into a burial shroud comes more clouds and rain

ground smoky pearls into dust to season dry miso
soup satisfies not absalom abhors clouds and rain

© 2007 C'BS ALife

Watt's Prophets

A lot of people know about the Last Poets yet their contemporaries are not as well known. I am speaking about the just as fresh Watt's Prophets.. If you don't know about them you need to up your game.

Peace

I know we have the internet now yet...

........try writing with a pen or pencil every once in a while. Practice your script writing. Learn calligraphy. Make sure you don't loose the notion to place a writing instrument to paper. I like those chubby Phd pens that are easy on the grip. Get back to the organic notion of writing.

Blue Black Poetry Collective

Peace
Blue Black Poetry Collective was a poetry crew I ran with in the early 90's. It was in my 'I don't know if I want to go back to college phase'. So I was around alot of people who were in college who were juggling the same idea. It was at first just a workshop group. We got together 1/week. We would share some poetry and offer concise comments for revisions. From that point it started to grow though into something else. We were hungry so we started to bring food. Visitors started wanting to come by to hear us. Individuals in the group started to specialize in certain areas. We had black feminism, proto-afrofuturistic poetry, black psychedelica, post-colonial commentary, etc. It was truly an interesting time.

In the end what we transformed into a poetry performance group and KILLED it around the New Haven county for a couple of summers. It was funny cause we definitely didn't plan it to be that way. We brought poetry and theatre together. We wanted to have an engaging way to perform poetry that kept the audience involved. So we had poems as conversations, poems coming from the back of the room, from the audience itself, etc. This was during the time that slam poetry was coming into its own yet we were doing something different that hearkened back to more like the Black Arts Movement.

We are each in a different spot nowadays. I would hazard to say that I am the only one who is still actively pursuing the craft even though I was away from it for a while. I will say this though. I am sure that moment in time transformed all of our lives in some way. Shout out to the BBPC.

Where I'm at

Crunch time.

It's the eve before the next issue of Originalthoughtmag.com so I'm working like a worker ant to make sure that it is ill. It is also coming up on the debut of Eboni Joy Asiatic's From 85 to Civilized so I want to make sure that Asiatic Light Publishing get her the appropriat shine (in fact look for an interview with her in the latest issue coming out on November 15th). Also, btw, sales for Daybreaker have been good. It's a good 'mini-commercial' also in terms of setting up the environment for my next major piece coming in December, "A Year in the Making: 4 Seasons of Poetry". I've also been getting the camp together to work on my 'Afrofuturistic' body of poetry. The 'grand experiment' will commence in February and I'm looking to have out the project in March.

After that folks THEN I will get back into the spoken word circuit and think about doing a CD (maybe that will be part of the Afrofuturist project).

Buy me a cup of Shou Wu Chih

Peace,
You may have noticed the little icon up top in my byline. It's Shou Wu Chih, a Chinese Herbal tonic. If you like my writing you can contribute to buying me some cups of Shou Wu Chih by donating a few bucks my way.

Peace

Poet of the Week-Muhammad Iqbal

He is Pakistan's national treasure. The great Poet Iqbal. He is to Pakistan as Shakespeare is to the English world. He was a poet, philosopher, and politician. To read more about his history you can check here.

To me, in the poetic realm he was influencial because he spoke of aligning the Self to the great will which he refered to as Allah. It definitely had elements of man as God because his writings reflected the notion that the universe bowed to the the will of Self. That is what is attractive to me. He illuminated my world view through the work of poetry and imbuded my 'atheism' with an element of sacredness.

His works are numerable Here is one of his poems

Selfhood can demolish the magic of this world; (from Baal-i-Jibreel)

Selfhood can demolish the magic of this world;
But our belief in The One is not comprehended by all.

Have a seer's eye, and light will dawn on thee;
As a river and its waves cannot remain apart.

The light of God and knowledge are not in rivalry,
But so the pulpit believes, afraid of Hallaj's rope.

Contentment is the shield for the pure and the noble
A shield in slavery, and a shield in power.

In the East the soul looks in vain for light;
In the West the light is a faded cloud of dust.

The fakirs who could shatter the power and pelf of kings
No longer tread this earth, in climes far or near.

The spirit of this age is brimful with negations,
And drained to the fast drop is the power of faith.

Muted is Europe's lament on its crumbling pageant,
Muted by the delirious beats, the clangour of its music.

A sleepy ripple awaits, to swell into a wave
A wave that will swallow up monsters of the sea.


What is slavery but a loss of the sense of beauty?
What the free call beautiful, is beautiful indeed.

The present belongs to him who explores, in their depths,
The fathomless seas of time, to find the future's pearl.

The alchemist of the West has turned stone into glass
But my alchemy has transmuted glass into flint

Pharaohs of today have stalked me in vain;
But I fear not; I am blessed with Moses' wand.

The flame that can set afire a dark, sunless wood,
Will not be throttled by a straw afloat in the wind.

Love is self-awareness; love is self-knowledge;
Love cares not for the palaces and the power of kings.

I will not wonder if I reach even the moon and the stars,
For I have hitched my wagon to the star. of all stars.

First among the wise, last of the Prophets,
Who gave a speck of dust the brightness of the Mount.

He is the first and last in the eyes of love;
He is the Word of God. He is the Word of God.


To view some more of his poetry check here