Poem selected for publication by the Museum of African Diaspora

Greetings beautiful bringers of love and light,

Here is an update on my literary life...

My poem Funeral Dirge, which was originally published by Black Arts Quarterly was just accepted by the I've Known Rivers Project at the Museum of African Diaspora. I have included it below!The poem will be available to view at: http://www.iveknownrivers.org/ by the end of the month. Thank you for your wonderful encouragement as I continue to make and share poems.

light,
e!

oh, I will add this poem to my blog as well, both of them.www.myspace.com/mamashieroglyphics


funeral dirge
(for new orleans)

theory one:
you boiled over and belched out
your gumbo children like a calabash
that knows not its tipping point saturated
ecosphere skin and spice isthmus pumped
dry walled off and craving the sanctity
of your irrigated origin

your mothers steep
in plutonic filings olive oil
henna themselves speechless
burn myrrh on
watery altars

in this case
even tears are a blasphemous
azurite deity cantos
chanted backward
seasonless

these crescent mamas
once babies of pretty
haired octoroons
float up desiccated
intonations of absolute waterlessness

bone bare barren dust

theory two:
who raids your citys eurhythmy

ripples your throat
inundates the praline encrusted mouth

was it the insatiable thirst
of a swamp demon
prowling to feed her babies
on your tabasco and bourbon
marinated pulp

or the sins stewing in your bacchanal bayous
that rattle loose the heavens and leave you
a bleak and vegetation void canvas
theory three:
atone atone atone
the day soon arrives
when flashlights and fresh
jugged water are useless clutch
tight your faith
sincerely kiss your mamas tobacco lips
pumice the scales from your eyes
and view the foreshadowed destruction
martyrs have a different face now
amen