Tag: legacy

Malcolm At 99

·

Photo taken from the FB post of Dr. Beatrice A. King (Be A. King). She is pictured with Dr. Ilyasah Shabazz.

Malcolm at 99

when he was alive during

the Little Rock Nine

when he 6 left daughters

to his 1 beloved wife,

all under the age of nine

makes me wonder

how all did not

fall asunder

when your father

had a voice like thunder

when everyone depended

on him to be pillar?

One who has lost her father,

whose voice was also thunder

whose life was torn asunder

when family and friends

forget that children

are alive and remain.

I, too, shared with my father

In the world he created,

thought the world of him

and in his wake… Is the comfort of memory.

Being able to see him in dreams,

and in the face of my brothers,

hear his timbre

in the voice of my loves

I am aware that I am not alone.

Malcolm at 99…

and Black men deserve

to grow old,

And sage—

To impart so

All is not lost

And calculations before

Risk can be taught.

He is still father.

He is still leader.

He is still guide.

Malcolm at 99

stepped out of this coil

and into the expensive eternity

From which all is

and where all begins

To be granted and given

Illumination and immortality

Through speech

as sacred text

Then the storm inevitably comes.

He is still

pointing

our

way

home.

-JBHarris, 5.2024

Written in 5/19/2024– the 99th birthday of Malcolm Little, shared to the world as MALCOLM X (also el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz).

This year, his birthday is on Pentecost Sunday.

Mothers On Mothers Day

·

MAMA. The maker and destroyers of destinies and worlds. -JBHarris

Mothers On Mother’s Day

If I tell you happy Mother’s Day,

it means I see you sis.

It means I see you

doing is best you can

as long as you can,

and sometimes you do the can

even when you don’t know

where the rest will come from.

When I tell you

Happy Mother’s Day,

that means I believe in you,

that I want the best for you,

know that there is no one quite like you.

If I tell you Happy Mother’s Day,

that means I see all

you will become,

all that you’ve had to overcome,

even when no one

would come to you

when you needed them.

Even in those darkest times,

when you wish

the love of a mother was yours —

you can share mine.

When you didn’t see

your way clear,

when the world gave you

dark when all you needed

was light —

and you persisted.

Through rain and sleet and snow, thunderbolts

lightning crashes,

and its flashes,

taking everything from you.

And you persisted.

As godmother,

as foster mother,

Adopted mother

Bonus moms

as a sister from another mister—

You are the being essential as

part of a village.

Seeing the children in your world

as those who could never leave it,

leaving your love in their bones.

You see, no mother works alone.

You are needed and necessary,

And necessary to be needed.

And in the need,

in the try,

you still manage

to wipe tears from your own eyes, to

plant trees that you may never feel the shade from.

But all eat the fruit thereof.

Fighting wars that were yours never to be won.

Through stress,

Strife, causalities,

The skies burning—

Or falling!—

And the 10,000 falling

By your right side

And stride forward.

Through grief and loss, you still are called mother.

The repairing,

Generational curse breaking

through the apprehension,

even through sometimes

active addiction,

someone called you: MAMA.

Through trauma, you showed up…

And even through that

As the children who survived

and remain forgive you

when you couldn’t do anything…but give up.

Happy Mother’s Day

is complicated

because that’s the title

even if you die—

no one will ever take away.

Or replace.

-JBHarris, Mother’s Day 2024

30 Days Of Jaye – Day 30: Love Letter To Lost Work

·

The old texts say

It is appointed unto man

Once l to die

and then the judgment.

what happens to writers

who leave the world

And in the contents therein

with their mouth full.

Their desks full of papers

And pens

And post-its….

Of jump drives, and

Missing chairs,and

Desks never cleaned out.

What happens to the work when the worker is gone?

When that writer

finally drifts away,

and moved to

Avalon or Valhalla

or Nirvana

or wherever it is

writers get to rest.

Our only regret

is that we had

Only one life to write

all the lives in us down.

In the quiet mind

Of the poet,

there is a graveyard

they forgot to write down.

Novels unfinished.

Thoughts and essays

That they never managed

To submit…

calls, answered from editors or fans.

Scripts that never materialized.

Yet it we could leave

One word for those

who endured our lives

as both person

and immortal vessels

filled with language

it would be this:

Remember.

Remember

how we tried to put

everything

into everything

Ran and out of time.

Remember that we loved

As this truly as we could

and our heart was broken

1000 times…

Remember we tried

to put fire into paper

and try not to burn ourselves.

Remember sometimes tears

Became the water you pull from,

In many a well.

We wrote to live.

We wrote to stay.

And for this great cause

Did we not throw

it all away!

if we could leave

But one love letter

What to you will

find in our wake,

Is tried to correct

every mistake.

to bring back those

who were lost

at the cause of war

Or famine

or evil…

to make the good

Loud and present, and

the fear understood.

We tried to put everything right

to organize

so you can fight!

we did our work

so you could do yours too:

because now our time is come

And this is all we have

to give back to you.

Our only regret

Is we had one life

to write everyone else’s

-JBHarris, 4.2024

30 Days Of Jaye – Day 29: When I Am An Ancestor

·

I will be in the everywhere.

When I am

an ancestor,

when the weight of age

and body

are no longer

my trouble over these waters,

I will be in trees

and leaves

and grasses.

I will be thunder and storm.

I will be the truth

that is picked over

during dinners my hands

prepared and in the eyes

of my family,

and those we have heard of me saw me prepare.

I will be in the stares

of grandchildren,

creaking on the stairs

of old houses that

my feet once tread upon.

I will be cloud

and rain,

My truth,

will come from

their mouth

And I will be in dishes

Over glasses and

In the rumbling of laughter —

I will call

And I will be

called an answer.

-JBHarris, 2.12.2024

30 Days Of Jaye – Day 28: Daddy, I’m Okay

·

This will be in the upcoming work dedicated to my father, DADDY, I’M OKAY.

When I’m tired,

my mother tells

me to stop wiping

and holding my face

like my daddy did

when he was tired.

I think that,

even in those

neurons and synapses

That is my father,

reaching from the beyond

into me to let me know

that he still wants

to take care of me.

I want him so bad,

“Daddy, I’m okay.”

I know with you

being so far away,and

you being into the mystery, and

me eight years from

the point from

where your heart beat

For the last time,

I still want to say:

“Daddy, I’m okay.”

I won’t lie and say

There aren’t days

Where I ache for

your voice and

Rely on your grit—

It is impossible not to miss you.

There are days

I struggle to remember

all you were,

all that you are,

and what you meant to me.

In this world of grief and strife

it sometimes makes memory

so hazy,

that I have to struggle

to remember your voice.

I have now crossed

a threshold in this life,

I have been without you

more than I had you.

I understand if God be for me,

I will have more years

in front of me,

and that holds

the unique paradox

that I might forget you.

And yet Daddy, I’m okay.

I’m okay because

for whatever reason

you fit to give me

rock —and to speak to it,

to demand

I’m not let go of it!

That you endowed

this pretty Black girl

who is now

a strong Black woman

with enough in her

in 17 summers

to summon

when the storms of life rage!

Daddy, I’m okay.

I’m gonna be okay

until it’s okay

speak okay

Until a way is made!

And Daddy, I’m okay…

You can rest now.

I am reminded

there is no time limit

on how long

A father will

love his daughter—

even from million miles away.

I take solace that even on my dying day,

I’ll still be your babygirl.

Daddy… Immabe OK.

-JBHarris, 4.2024

30 Days Of Jaye – Day 27: Light. Heat. Smoke.

·

He said

My mouth was slick,

And I was always

Poppin my shit!

You think that

Him knowing me

As long as

he knew

Himself would prepare

Him for me to

Always come

Ace High,

No chaser —

Hot.

Smooth.

And…

Thick!

Full-bodied

And smooth

…like he likes

All desirable things

He believes

Belong to him.

He brave enough

To say I, too, belong

To him—

Who am I

To argue when

…he be right?

-JBH, 9.3.2023

30 Days Of Jaye – Day 26: How You Fireproof A Black Girl

·

How to fireproof a Black girl in 10 easy steps:

1.) Believe in yourself when even it seems all is lost. You have more within you than they can ever be a cost. Do not abandon you because you is what you have and you is what you will leave with.

2.) Remember all the mammies are dead. You were never supposed to be one, and everything in you has come from victory.

3.) Peace is where you are, peace is what you deserve, and peace is what you fight for: peace of mind, peace of heart, and never a piece of a man.

4.) You have the right to love, and be loved and be loved who you want. You have the determination in your own self to arrest those who bring you no rest! You have to understand love is what brought you into this world, and it is LOVE that holds this place together, as we float through this universe of countless fascinations!

5.) You have the right to flip all this shit over!

6.) You have the right to feel, to be treasured, to be adored, and never fucked. Unless, that’s what you like.

7.) You have the right to cut your hair. Grow your hair! Dye it! Roll it! Frame it!

Slap it, flip it, and reverse it just like Missy Elliott told us to! You have the right to be and change just when and where you want to! You have the right to wear red nail polish now Black girl! With stiletto tip nails and shoes if you see fit!

8.) You have the right to your story—even to rewrite!—and always give the edits to He has sent you to do a great work.

9.) You belong to you. Your life is a gift, and you are needed here. Don’t die with any dream in you.

10.) You have the right to live your life as big as you want as you want as free as you want and who can stop you but you?

If you get confused, sometimes the matches get too close to go back to step one.

-JBHarris, 4.26.2024

30 Days Of Jaye – Day 23: Suvivorship

·

Fun fact: the name Zachary is from Zachariah which means the Lord remembers.

Note: This is my first husband’s real first name and I never took his. He is remarried to another woman, has children with her, and makes no attempt to have a relationship with his children. As you read this work, with this backstory, it will make more sense.

He left us on

Constructed wings

Of wax to wain

Leaving us to watch

To see

the sea

Welcome him.

There is no love lost

When the man you loved

No longer exists—

If he ever had.

The name

The Lord remembers

Corresponds to

The same Icarus

Who left me with

The daughters

Held in body

And heart.

The same one

Who now has

Made his tribe

Complete with the

Sons be craved

So that his line

And its curses

Might not die

With him.

Tied to you by time

As my ancestors were

The language and land

Foreign because I

Never was supposed

To be here alone.

To rage, rage against the

Dying of the light!

I swallowed the salt water

For my children to breathe.

Pressing –

Swimming –

Towards the Son

With the

These two

Cleaving to me

To make their

Mother a mermaid

to bring them to

Dry land

To make the milk and honey.

My fins are feet

and feet are fins

The traversing between

The world given

And the world that is.

And taught my daughters to swim.

Their father is Icarus.

Their mother is Yemoja.

The death he wanted

Was his own —

And he can watch

from the bottom of the sea.

-JBHarris, 4.2024

30 Days Of Jaye – Day 19: The Mammy Of A Burning House

·

America is a plantation:

It just depends on where you sit.

And from where you sit,

It is the speed at which

they will give you bullshit.

The fact there are

Skinwalkers among

the safe places and

Spaces of Black people

should be a not shock to you.

Because —

You know —

They lied and betrayed Jesus too.

Understand that

Skinwalkers have always

Been among us!

Ever since Massa

Found one’ah us

Willing to betray

all that he is,

All that she was

in order to get a little bit more

Of where they got theirs from—

understanding all that they have is stolen.

You worship the oppression

and wonder why your life

is in ruin—

at the same time

Want protection from

who rescued from your

Own doin’!

You have to understand

that there is no room

For you at the inn!

That you have found yourself

Among thieves and robbers

and the same time

you wanna clobber us

For all that we have garnered

and say that we are lazy!

Have you been so far

From your mother’s table

From your father’s arms

You no longer recognize

I am you?

because I recognize that you are me.

And in that same breath

In the same life’s brevity,

I understand the same documents

That you worship?

They will hang you with.

They will use your blood

to keep the flag red, white and blue.

Red for the Blood shed

Here, there, and everywhere abroad.

White for ten same

Colored people who

Stole it and erased

All others,

Chaining the remaining as

If we had no mother,

Treaties as broken

As the husks of cicadas.

When you are

Hallowed out

Wiped and rubbed clean

Of blackness and its cause eternal

Blue is what you succumb

And remain

Once they hang you!

It is not my job to make you comfortable—

But to remind you of

All that is within you

That your rescue has

Always been in the room

But you continue

To your doom

but you must understand

because White father has

told you that black is bad .

And yet —

When the house burns down

You realize that we

are all you ever had!

But at the same time,

I had you your broom

Back to you!

there is no one willing

to stay here with you!

The plantations are burning!

Massa is dead!

And we have long time

before we go to bed,

so we have to keep going.

You sweet ‘round this porch

because this is what you wanted!

What you have worked for!

To be the best one

Outta all of us

And I say—

By that game you’ve won.

So, gone head and sit down some.

Rest a spell!

You gon need it for the

War yet to be won.

Because trust and believe

They’ll put your

Black ass at the end

Of a gun!

understand that you

Cannon fodder for

The cause of whiteness

because you have decided

To sacrifice all of yourself—

For all that they are!

And when the house burns down

Stay in there!

Because there is no more room

and we can’t share the air.

You have to understand

that you did this to you,

So sweep around that

front door like Massa

Told you to!

I will not be a mammy of a burning house.

-JBHarris, 4.17.24