Liberated Muse Vol I: How I Freed My Soul is out. Edited by Khadijah Ali-Coleman. Of my three poems "Chakra Walking", "Purifying Rites by Water" and "A Migrant's Tune" that appear with the work of several artists and writers in the collection, here is:
Chakra Walking
This has a wood-scented flower-center bright like a
Peeping bird's eyes, awake
Also watery
From floating gas fumes of the bus
Station
Invading a space of always, ever, where like pure water
The mother goddess’
Pupils flow with a meadow-rust
Gaze
And split the day like egg-shells -- A grass-bride giving off stillness to my
Moldy brown hands
That keep tracing
A path, again and again
Stuck like a Greek mythical hero gone to slay
The Minotaur
When I tell this story to my friends
Disbelief and
Awkwardness take over
Because we know we walk chakras at homes, jobs and road stops
Just as we inhale unheroic opposition
Of fate, weather
Wood-scented flicker of other eyes to emerge from shackles.
This has a wood-scented flower-center bright like a
Peeping bird's eyes, awake
Also watery
From floating gas fumes of the bus
Station
Invading a space of always, ever, where like pure water
The mother goddess’
Pupils flow with a meadow-rust
Gaze
And split the day like egg-shells -- A grass-bride giving off stillness to my
Moldy brown hands
That keep tracing
A path, again and again
Stuck like a Greek mythical hero gone to slay
The Minotaur
When I tell this story to my friends
Disbelief and
Awkwardness take over
Because we know we walk chakras at homes, jobs and road stops
Just as we inhale unheroic opposition
Of fate, weather
Wood-scented flicker of other eyes to emerge from shackles.
***
See http://outskirtspress.com/webpage.php?ISBN=978-1-4327-2415-3 for more info on the book. The blurb says:
Contributing writers include: Tichaona Chinyelu, Nabina Das, Venus Jones, Farah Lawal, Omar Akbar, Anthony Spires, Amy Blondell, DJ Gaskin, Summayah Talibah, Maureen Mulima, Randy Gross, Margaux Delotte-Bennett, Serena Wills, and other notables. Visual art work by Turtel Onli, Marshetta Davis, Shan'ta Monroe and more.
Foreword by author Ananda Leeke.
Cover Art by Sharon Burton.
