“your gut instinct is not a liar, those initial feelings exist for a reason, sit on them if you need to, process whether your feelings are valid or just projections, but never dismiss your intuition when the signs are staring you in the face and your nervous system is agreeing.”
— iambrillyant
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My will is a whisper, your moan a method
I, your sin,
Committed between two holy mountains
And a valley of carnal angels
Niyi Osundare, Words Catch Fire
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05/24/2023
studying african poetry 💗
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If only... / Anonymous
If only
The heart had a lid
I would have opened it
and shown you my grief,
and you would have known
if I am
the one for you.
(translated from the Swahili by Jan Knappert)
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"I Anoint My Flesh (Tenth Day of Fast)" -- Wole Soyinka (b. 1934)
I anoint my flesh
Thought is hallowed in the lean
Oil of solitude
I call you forth, all, upon
Terraces of light. Let the dark
Withdraw
I anoint my voice
And let it sound hereafter
Or dissolve upon its lonely passage
In your void. Voices new
Shall rouse the echoes when
Evil shall again arise
I anoint my heart
Within its flame I lay
Spent ashes of your hate --
Let evil die.
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Cadraddii ammaan lehe
Carshigii jamaalkaan
U caleemo saaraye
I praise her.
I crown her with garlands.
- Maxamad Xaashi Dhamac ‘Gaariye’
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Music is
playing the chessboard
with no table
and still it kills.
The boys on the wall of the girls’ school
have been here before.
As if I’m smoke toying with a knife,
as if I’m a finger not sewing
a fleeting song.
They always kill me by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi
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“If I could write a letter to my country I would say I love you as you are,
Beyond the lines they've drawn, and the ruins on your ground
I would say, I'm sorry for the blood thats been shed
For the evil widespread
Give me time and I'm yours”
— Asli Hersi
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I am starting a junk journal about African and African American poetry and chants.
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“honor the friendships that allow you to pick up from where you last left off, regardless of how long it’s been since you connected. the friendships that survive hiatuses, silences and space. those are the connections that never die.”
— iambrillyant
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— Niyi Osundare, You Are
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Woe is the man
Who plants seed
And does not know
What he is growing
- FruitfulOdyssey (Book: Journey of Discernment)
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when I dance
he listens
to my waist beads
when I dance
he says it’s exhilarating,
he’s salivating
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New favorite poet just added to my growing list: Tchicaya U Tam'si (1931-1988), a Francophone author born in the Republic of Congo but resident for most of his life in Paris. Good Lord, what a genius he was.
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