Tag: Poetry

Lil BayBee TyGah

About three months ago, I rescued a kitten. I had seen it around my apartment building; sometimes running into the busy streets. I decided to take it in for my four year old niece, because she has been asking her parents for a furry companion. So much so, she created an imaginary companion called, Rufus the dog. Since that day I brought the kitten into my life, I’ve fallen in love with it. I call it Lil BayBee TyGah. My attachment has grown so, that I was inspired to write a poem which I plan to turn into a song for my future second album.

I’ve felt this before
even before I stole a kitten
from a village of cats

going back further
than my time in this
neighborhood

I wanted this even
as I didn’t wanna
wanna be patient.

You’re not mine anyways
You’re a gift
that I keep around.

That evening of sardines
with another one
older, but course enough
to see nonsense
hard enough to ignore
being hungry

The look it gave
knowing it was alone…

So yeah, I stole a kitten
from its family.

I cannot imagine anything
without you being by my side
like when you sense
the smell of me deeper
deeper than anything
anyone, anything!

Even as she is awful.
She ruined my room!
All my small treasures
ripped and bitten to pieces.
Tiny things now things
that cannot bring that back.

She is so beautifully kind
Like I hate it when she decides:

I will kiss you now
regardless!

Regardless!
I’ll kiss you right now!

I wanted this even as I don’t wanna
Wanna be patient.
The kitten isn’t mine anyways

She is a gift!

She looks up at me
Up sideways
With amazing eyes
Sideways
gateways of honesty
asking, but not really,
What is wrong?

Night Life

Night Life

I know I’ve been mostly posting about my podcast… I’m trying to change that, and write more poetry and stories. Unfortunately, the muse hasn’t been visiting me as often as I’d like, but the other night I was staring up at the moon, and it was so glorious that it inspired me to take this picture. I also wrote a short micro poem.

The boisterous winter windswept
it has its reasons, and I have mine
standing still to watch the Moon shape
itself in some many clouds, as the gravity
of everything spirals out all our debris in a dance.

When We See Each Other Episode 17: Medicine for Melancholy

When We See Each Other Episode 17: Medicine for Melancholy

On this episode of BTRtoday‘s When We See Each Other, I talked with poet and performance artist Stephen Jackman-Torkoff from the queer musical collective The Queer Songbook Orchestra. The Queer Songbook Orchestra is a 13-piece chamber pop ensemble based in Toronto that focuses on surfacing queer narratives in pop music. They released “Medicine for Melancholy” with Bonjay in November of last year. Check out the video for the track HERE.

It was a pleasure talking with Stephen, and they also read one of their poems, “Magic.” My favorite line was, “Be the flower you wish to grow in the world.” They also informed us on what exactly is miracle poop, lol. Listen to the interview HERE.

When We See Each Other is a bi-weekly podcast centering the work of Black, queer, trans, non-binary musician/artists, and also friend musicians I’ve known for some time. The pod gathers from a board range of genres, stretching from poetry to indie rock, pop, alternative, noise rock, hip hop, reggae, dance hall, metal, calypso, funk, etc. The show is sort of a mixed bag, where artists are interviewed on their creative process, and how identity influences their work.

Please rate and review this podcast at Apple podcast, Tune-In, anywhere you listen to podcast!

This podcast is produced by Stereoactive Media.

Portrait: Facial Recognition

A face in a square box, while my life has always been nonlinear in design to capture me in a pose. The lighting will have to render me in all essence that includes lines below my chin, possessing the means of my neck. My hair is wild and tightly coiled, a definition of my set ablaze heart. My forehead creased with question marks. My eyes as glorious as of a late afternoon’s sun glowing in the panorama. My ears piqued with sound, restless around my oval universe, seeking new varieties and variables. My nose broad and brimming my smile across my cheekful geometry. My thick layered cake lips blowing a kiss to the world.

A Gift For Radical Existence

My Black Joy is witnessing my nieces and nephews, my niblings, be alive. Thriving as the future, and me watch them and celebrate enough that their teenage, young adulthood makes them embarrass of my shout-out. Like, yeah aunty, yeah uncle, I hear you. Black joy is watching them cut up. Is that the phrase? Am I getting it wrong? When you are so right with your mashups, and your new language for something as old in its expression. Black Love is being a witness to their parent’s’ commitment, my siblings, which brought and nurtured the young in this world when Blackness is seen as dangerous.

Today and always
I am forever seeing you
out at large, a gift.

I Wanted to Lookup at The Moon

The weather exists outside your own intentions. The rain comes with its clouds regardless of your want to lookup at the moon, to receive and see its splendid aura. Especially at a time where I have to lookout for threat rather than beauty. The beauty in the sounds of joyous glee. The beauty in seeing the miraculousness of things of living a life. When I watch for the next killing, the next mourning in a hashtag. Am I next? Am I next if I step outside and demand my space as a human being? Will I be next because my fight/flight/freeze mode is at a vigilance, so my actions are seen as a danger, while you have been so dangerous to me!

Ignited moon gaze
ricocheting in waves of
Us, Oh the glory

BLACK

We’re at the same juncture where Black people are met with the same struggle, one which seems to never end. We’re still fighting for our lives to matter. We still can’t breathe as the knees of oppression bends into our necks, killing us. We’ve peacefully marched, we’ve walked with our anger boiling beneath our rich and beautiful skin, but yet this ugly history of us being beaten down, being hosed down still continues today. A reflection of us standing up against the fences, the faces of an established denial of my place in the world, where I dream as much as you do. I wish to sing my troubles. But it is the same tune. What else is there for us to say out loud, write down and shout, We shall over come… Should I tell the next generation it’s up to them now, to carry this anger, this despair, this anxiety of living outside, while I can’t even escape it myself? My life is ordinary like the songs of any bird-call voicing an incandescent sound, but because of the hatred of my existence I am martyred for my race, for my color: Black!

Black is the beauty
of the night forever and ever
Black is what brings light

To Get Through the Current and Stand on Slippery Rocks

To survive is gonna mean more than just
weathering today as you scrape together
leftovers and create a spontaneous meal to
feed the hunger inside our hearts. It will mean
a new way of breathing, as your lungs can no
longer take the pressure of the air of the past.
It would mean your kidneys cannot renew your
blood like it use to. It would mean your heart
can no longer function as simply a tool but a
bearer of all that is alive and living. The air
which trees transport will be differently
received, reciprocated as we wear a mask
now. I am terrified as I am piqued with
curiosity of where does this passage take us.

Platonic Love

In real life, I can count my friends on one hand
and tell you stories of us being together, like it
was yesterday, we did that thing which was so
funny to us, or we went through a rough patch
where we disagreed with each other, but some
how found ourselves back to laughing like old
times sake, and wondering when we’d meet up
again. Like a current, there’s a sweet love
running deep of many years and it shows, with
this responsibility of a connection. Intimacies
at the level where you say, you tell each other
the hard truth which needs to be heard. You
show up even while it’s heavy to be there
because this is your friend, your family.

Weekend Blood

Remembering the weekend blood pulsate
throughout my body, throbbing excitement
an emancipation from the hard work week.
Friday, meant you celebrated however you are
in whichever minuscule way of greeting how
labor felt and won a time to rest in jubilation.
The energy in the streets whether when
it’s frigidly cold, you yet emerge in fire
the electric, electric of being free for two days.
It still meant working these chores around
your home, as Sunday signified the blues
return of another Monday. You were free to be
as you became and can imagine leaving
this frenzy of just two days.

Isolation

On Saturday, I participated in a virtual writing Salon, and it was very enlightening and inspiring. It definitely was thoughtful food for the soul, and I can’t wait for next month’s Salon. We were given writing prompts, and one of them was to write a Haibun, a prose/haiku poem. Here, I make my attempt, as I write about social distancing, and the mental toll it has on us.

Isolation

Alone in my room, there I am sitting on the unmade bed. With my phone in hand, I scroll through what seems to be the universe of information. Like satellites, thoughts scattered across social caves. I watch cat videos, even as I observe my own. Each thing she does is more spectacular, so I document and label it. I watch the latest dance craze, that makes me young enough in my heart to want to share in the spirit of a challenge. I just watch, and watch, lurching in between rooms where you collect your loneliness and project it through the screen. A quiet longing, a hunger for connection, for touch, for community, for communal sharing. Because, we are social beings. Alone is it’s own force of meditation. You become use to listening to your river of thoughts. You time travel and revisit moments only to reflect them back as what you should of, could of. Alone becomes a sequenced pattern you follow. But this “alone” is different, as I wake up every day worrying about, well, will I make it to the other side? The other side everyone is dreaming, desiring? As the first thing you’d do when it’s over? Many say they’ll flock to shows, swarming them to capacity. To never again take for granted this freedom. In the meantime, you hang on by hanging out through a screen of online get togethers. Let’s meet again a week from today, even as we can’t tell how long this will last. Who knows for sure? Tomorrow you might be stricken.

Set apart on this
journey to the other side
where we laugh and dance

 

 

Concatenation

While out at sea, we said goodbye to another day
as the now bronze gold sun meets mountainsides
reflecting a journey in its open waves, calmly
lapping ripples across the wide blue ocean’s surface.

If I could walk on water
I would tell you about
leaving the sun nearing evening
of all the mountains climbing stratosphere
shapes of the sky reaching the earth.

No, I am not religious, unless you consider
my praxis, which orbits around the faith in forming
a collecting of words, rhythm in a rhyme and a space
of sounds coming together.

I am practicing with enormous spirit to call it a worship
of a denomination – a place where miracles occur
and faith in each other’s real participation of reciprocity happens.

I’m calling it now as I write to you.
I’m calling it now as I sing to you.

To manifest in songs of celebration.
To manifest in words of praise.
Let them persevere to comfort our days.

Pink Moon

Tonight there is going to be a pink full moon. In preparation, these past couple nights the moon has been showing itself off with greatness. If you can, look up tonight.

Pink Moon

When I look up at you
amazed by your intensity
to vibrate and shine so unforgivingly
you are ineradicable for all whom
experience your many days and times away.
Quietly as your body moves around the earth
as I look up at you, slowly ruminating
breathing deeply for the root of purpose
the reason for having this life and what it
means; speaking becomes a form of silence
or a champion of howls like a werewolf
as you silhouette through the trees and
escape from the rooftops and high rise stories
Glorifying the sky with your magnitude.

Devastation

It was the warmest winter
It only snowed one day and it wasn’t a blizzard
like in past years. I guess climate change is
real but it won’t be really real until levees are
broken, diseases, viruses chases anyone and
everyone and the salvation of human life is on
the wealthy suffering from the same plaque.
Suddenly, the crisis is actual after all the dead
black and brown people surface with their
bodies to the rim of existence. Suddenly, we’re
all in it together when there’s no place to flee to.
Suddenly, we’re all human and needing the same
care in order to survive. Suddenly sudden isn’t
an after thought but proactive measures.

‪Lil BayBee TyGah: An Ode to my Cat

I have felt this before
a companion love, one
which makes you step out
yourself and have to care
for more than just you.

Remembering how it all began
hitherto, I stole a kitten
from a village of cats
because I wanted this
even as I didn’t wanna
be patient and see it through.

She is not mine anyways.

She is a spontaneous gift
who leaps across the floor
to the window where her gaze
of squirrels searching for acorns
gatherings of sparrows are a captivating display.

There is a game she likes to play where she
believes I’m chasing her and before she scurries away
she grunts what I assume is a tiny laugh of see
you can’t catch me, later.

She is a gift of 5:00am affection
as she licks my hands with her gravel tongue
and purrs and kneads the blankets until done.

Even as she is awful

she ruined my room!
All my small treasures
ripped and bitten to pieces.
Tiny immeasurable things now
that cannot be brought back

she is still beautifully kind.

Like when she decides:
I will kiss you now regardless!

I’ll kiss you right now!

Symbiosis

To be a black, non-binary, queer, immigrant is
to live many lives, as you see the world through a
multitude of lenses, encompassing a myriad of
lived experiences. The world is no longer fixed
in a box of a pair but an ever evolving
continuum of galaxies. Burning bright with
other ways of being. Burning bright with a
desire to live. Burning bright to explode as to
be seen and loved. Some days I resent
visibility, as countless of us didn’t make it, into
and out of, having to learn how to live through
this system of one or the other. But then I
won’t be there to feel their glorious splendor
as they shine so royal.

Rona Trip

At some point you have to re-up, and tomorrow I have to go outside for groceries and I’m really afraid. I feel like I’ll die if I step outside, like I will immediately have the virus. I know a lot of this is anxiety, but how careful can you be? I wrote about it of course. Hoping everyone is safe.

Rona Trip

Tomorrow, I’ll venture out of my home for
essentials. Normally this chore would just be a
labor of crowded spaces where you contort
your body to grab a bag of rice, cans of
beans, oil, meat, pasta sauce with spaghetti.
Now sharing any space leaves you wondering
scared how much feet did you leave between.
You feel like you would die if you step outside
greeting Spring’s air in the first place. Getting
close to another never felt more dangerous.
Social distancing is our Winter when we wish
and wonder about Summer as our time to
mingle free of layers, of separation, the time
when we shared apart.

Every Poem is an Existential Crisis

My younger brother has been visiting me in my dreams and it is both relieving and terrifying. I find relief knowing that he is still around but the fear present is a real terror. The experience has left me wondering if the reason he’s showed up is to warn me about something. He died unexpectedly, so did my mother, and they both have a presence in the dreams. My brother’s much more so. I wish I could translate my dreams.

Every Poem is an Existential Crisis

I wish I could translate my dreams from my
dreamscape, then maybe the fear won’t be as
transfix. Where lying still, I hear myself cry out
while in dual state: in the dream and waking
up from it: the terror that leads to worry about
impending doom once you’re aroused. Dreams
are important. They are messages missed
which you reflect on in meditative states.
Dreams are an experience into the other-side
of what you were exposed to in reality. Another
language to learn, another power to discover
and possess. While I know the imminent is
true, that dying is inevitable, I wonder how
much of my dreams are a harbinger of what I
already know but not quite recognized.

Soft

This was a hard one. It took days to realize what I wanted to say, and in the form of a sonnet. I still didn’t follow the rules, but I’m slowly getting there.

Soft

As gentle as an embrace, tender as in the
tenor of a song. Delicate as the eagerness of
blooming flowers. We can reciprocate care
especially in times of extreme social isolation.
We always had it in us to express comfort in
this place where living has made you tough
and reject the gift of closeness. As so much
separates us, there are offerings of solicitude.
As mutual aid is the buoy for our times.
Leveling a compassion we seek. As wanting to
trust while staring back an abyss becomes a
meandering of the past where you can no
longer live. Tomorrow it maybe will be different,
but today I dance with songs of embrace, with all the flowers.

 

Strange

As a way of maintaining my mental health during this scary time, I wrote another reaction poem about the virus. I was attempting to write a sonnet but it ended up being free verse. Next time, as I really want to write something outside of my comfort zone.

Strange

Afraid to touch an extended hand
a reach for some sameness, while touch can
be a compassion, a sense for being in a sea of
unknowns. How to navigate through the dark?
How do you survive the sickness from touch
too close to where comfort becomes lost?
You wash your hands so much they peel
new information of an already coarse design