I am a djinn.
I would rend the sky,
Bend lightning,
Shatter stars,
Bring floods to the desert,
Even blackout the day,
Any terrible thing you could imagine,
If only you would speak the words.
Tag: Black Literature
Held
I am jealous of the Sun, Who fils you with warmth. I am jealous of the Rain, Who touches you down to your bones I am jealous of the Wind, Who's fingers run through your hair, even now. I am jealous of the Earth, Who you trust to hold you up, when all else fails. I am jealous of the Eyes, Who have had the chance to behold you, for all your life. I am jealous of the Words, Who've never failed to make you laugh. I am jealous of the Lovers, who've you've allowed to open your eyes. I am none of these things. I am secret. Something that you can hold, That you can cherish, But you may never love, Out in the open.
The Void with The Voice
The Void with The Voice is a new project, I’m going to be writing and acting out. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been MIA lately. I’m trying a drastically different writing style than I’m used to and for that, I’m gonna need to put in under a new header. This doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop writing here just that a lot more of my stuff from both projects will feature on here too.
This is going to be a lot of fun. I’m interested to see how my readers react to such a different thing from me. Please go on this journey with me and join the Dark Denizens.
Hear me, please.
I want to speak to you in words you understand
Your language.
Let me find your frequency,
Hitting scan all day till you reply.
What combination of knobs and levers.
Will broadcast my soul directly into your airwaves
If I were to whisper in your ear would you hear me in your dreams?
Or am I just the black noise bouncing off the tin roof.
WHY WON'T YOU HEAR ME!?
Respectfully...
The Hubris of Desire
A vision that blots out the rarest pigment sunsets
Or mountain landscapes
Is there truly beauty in those things,
When apparitions of divinity walk along the Earth on two legs?
Does the moon but reflect the sun?
While their intellect out shines the rise of Helios.
There’s beauty in many found things
but perhaps in a muse that finds itself.
Can vibrant, Autumn leaves
or soft, downy snow
string words together that compel
writers desire to tear their hearts out in envy?
Will a zephyr or the avian song
bring chills with notes stagnate over millions of years
or the symphony composed
from a compassionate soul
who ne’er take life’s pleasures for granted.
Is it hubris to compare one
to both earthly and celestial wonders
maybe so
but I am ever so confident that I know the right of it.
For what could be held in such regard
But the vastness of beauty in a mortal vessel.
Downfall of Serenity
What is a stage but a pedestal
They belong to life
To freedom
An actor to the stage
And I just want to play the part that’s belongs to me
I want to surround them
To pull them into me and never let go.
That would satisfy only for a moment
A split second of selfish desire
It’d bring the whole thing down around me
Isolation and freedom in ruination
That I could have just one piece of them.
What would I do just to know.
Just to understand.
Just to know their name.
The Usual
They poured sunshine and flowers into a glass
Two cubes of memory to chill
A shot of anticipation
A chaser of catharsis
Just what I need to take the edge off
Sorry it’s a short one today but, there’s a lot going on and I will definitely have more material coming soon. Good luck, Readers
Black Culture Month Part 2
I actually did it. I followed through and wrote a part two. Now that probably isn’t surprising for you guys but, if I’m honest my drafts are an absolute mess. I’m going to jump right in with my next couple of pics.
This YouTube video made me consider what Blackness is as a concept. Maybe I was a bit ignorant when I considered only African Americans as Black. Black is British, French, and anywhere else our people are in the world. I was reluctant to count them amoung because many of them seemed to be reluctant to count themselves among us. Seperating ourselves and gatekeeping really ruins our collective power in the world.
Cynthia Erivo’s self-hate tweets were classist, discriminatory, and White Supremacist. I don’t want to go over the whole thing but, it started with people getting up in arms about a Black British Woman playing the part of arguably one Black Histories greastest heroes, Harriet Tubman. Sitting there watching the movie with my mother, Super Hero Harriet Tubman was terrible. Please don’t pay to watch that movie. I’m not saying pirate it but, if you happen to find it lying around… Watch the movie, that made me question everything I knew about Mrs. Tubman and not in a good way
Now this book took me on a wild, contemporary, contemplative ride in the most urban of fantasies. With bit of plot there was cojent comentary on something to do with race, economics, immigration, you name it, if it was about the social justice of our world today then this book spoke on it, and well.
N. K. Jemsin might become one of my favorite writers, weaving in ideas that make your brain itch in the best way. The characters she gave in We Are The City Now are of viewpoints I haven’t heard yet. From an ederly, lesbian native woman, to a Middle-aged Black ex-rapper, a plus-sized, Immigrant woman and a Black, Queer sex worker expierencing homelessness. These characters were interesting in not just who they are but, in the diversity of lived expierences. It was a breath of fresh air and gives me the idea that my characters should be more distinct. I want more diverse characters in all types of fiction, so everyone can be seen.
While I don’t agree with everything that MelinaPendulum brings up in her video, I think it’s important to think critically of the things we love and for me that’s Brigerton. She speaks on the diversity, colorism, and that scene. I hope Brigerton fixes some of the problems in their next season. MelinaPendulum is great her takes are whip smart and continue to be one of the many places I go to to hear other Black people speak on pop culture.
Training school for Negro Girls scoured my soul. It was stomach churning, wild ride. Multiple times I felt a despair and defeat that was a different flavor than the one I was used to. I had to put it down many times just to make it through this collection. If this is how it feels to be a Black Woman… Then I have learned a bit of humility.
I say all of this not to deter you but, so you know what you’re getting into. This is well written and the kind of art and writing I only hope I can achieve. This work echoes with emotion and a matter-of-factness that gets to heart of what Camille Acker is trying to say. I hope if you choose to check it out you’ll have as challenging a time as I had.
There are others I haven’t gotten to but, these are some of the ones that have impacted me the most. The Black voice is beautiful and poingnant. We’re seeing it in more places and finally seeing a finally see the diversity of opininions and that we are in no way a monolith.
I might go back into more depth into some of the things I covered here. I haven’t gotten to Malcom and Marie or Black Judas yet and I know those are gonna be bomb. Maybe that’s how I’ll finish everything out.
I don’t own any of these pictures. All images hold original copyright, no copyright infringement meant.
Black Culture Month Part 1
I love Black culture. I love BLACK CULTURE!!! Sorry I just had to say it again because I really do and I love being able to say this. I wanna scream it from the top of my lungs but, that is probably still frowned upon in most places.
Black History Month 2021 has been, without me realizing it, me going out of my way to absorb content by Black content creators. And it’s been a like a warm hug. I’ve read books, watched television, listened to podcasts and music… It really has been a beautiful month. I want to make a few recommendations if you want to live out the rest of BHM as I did. I hope you are enjoying, learning, and consuming a lot this month.
A Love/Hate Thing by Whitney D Grandison was a wonderful surprise. I wasn’t really in the mood for a Highschool romance when I picked it up but, as it got going I couldn’t put it down. Every chance the book could’ve gone with cliches and made characters props or dimensional they didn’t. Things took place over time so you could get neck-deep into the group’s struggles.
The book let me make judgments about the characters only to point the finger at me for making those snap judgments. A lot of the book is about the things we automatically think about others and how we don’t always know their pain. I’ve read a bunch of books since this and I just can’t get it out of my head. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna pick it up again and from me, that’s high praise because I rarely read anything multiple times.
Meet Me @ The Altar has kept me a float on the tough days at work. I love the crashing sounds that remind me of my youth but, also have a kind of hopefulness that was missing from that old school Pop punk scene. The band is made of three Black women and it sounds just like the early 2000’s version of Paramore but, with just a litte edge. The song “May the Odds Be in Your Favor” has definitely struck a cord with me and “Garden” sweeps me into a head rocking, feet stomping, angst but, in a good way. I just love seeing my people in a genre that just never felt like was for me, y’know?
One Night in Miami was beautifully acted and written. Just knowing it’s Regina Kings directorial debut has me floored because each scene grips me and holds my attention even with the play aesthetic. Aldis Hodge, Leslie Odom Jr., Kingsley Ben-Adir, and Eli Goree do an amazing job showing Jim Brown, Sam Cooke, Malcom X, and Cassius Clay at this point in their lives and ultimately their activism. Watching these actors stand not get swallowed up by the dialouge that could move mountains it was a treat.
Each man has a different viewpoint, and comes from a different place and throught talking (mostly arguing) they begin to see the Black struggle in different ways. Learning from eachother to become better leaders and clear the way for for others. It also shows just how much hasn’t changed from even before the Civil Rights Movement. These men were pioneers and it felt amazing to be a fly on that wall in that room.
Jim Brown’s first scene floored me watching him sit down with a man who sung his praises just for it to end in such a way… It was a cold shower of realization. Aldis Hodge played it perfectly to a letter and got me interested in man I didn’t honestly know that much about. The living man enjoys the film and I don’t want to ever know if this really happened or not. A great perhaps.
There’s a lot more I could say and there’s even more to talk about so I’ll leave this one here and I’m thinking about doing a part two so look out for that. So what else have you all been doing to educate, consume, and create this Black History Month? Checking my blog might be a start but, I hope you are keying into all the culture we have to offer. Good luck, Readers.
All images hold original copyright, no copyright infringement meant.
Uncomfortable
Over the weekend, I did something that made me feel uncomfortable. It scooped my stomach out because I thought it was the right move. I believed that sacrificing my comfort was worth it to make someone else happy. And the worst part is I don’t know if it did.
I wonder sometimes why we do the things we do. Like why do we roll over our gut feelings and instincts to try and make people happy? I mean is it cause it makes us happy? I believe that answer is no. I think the reason we do this is because we can’t stand the tension. I think our fear of even a bit of tension in our lives leads us to do self-destructive things.
I don’t mean things like punching walls or cutting ourselves. Even those are symptoms of a problem built up over time. I mean self-destructive like refusing to apologize or leaving a bad situation. We try so hard to keep that tension inside that it ruptures our insides when if we had released it much earlier it would have been much less a problem than we probably made it out to be.
Now I’m not saying to steamroll over someone else’s feelings but, maybe what you think is a big deal isn’t real. Maybe you should trust your relationships with those people you care about to bear that bit of tension. Maybe they’ll surprise you by understanding and the people who don’t weren’t worth all that much worry anyway. I know that’s easier said than done, throwing out your bad relationships but, I will tell you that they lift so much weight and anxiety from your shoulders.
So good luck out there, Readers, dealing with your uncomfortable feelings but, maybe you have a better way of dealing with them than I do. I knew this was probably going to be a lot for me going in and I just didn’t listen to myself. Hopefully, you all are better listeners. Has anything made you uncomfortable recently? Maybe comment on this blog, get that feeling out. It’s quiet over here no many people listening but, you and me.
Warren Dalton 
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