Happy Birthday to Me....

I haven't blogged in a really, really long time. Not because I do not have anything to say or because nothing's going on. I do have one excuse, I've been working to finalize my new poetry book which should be out in a month. Yay!! The other reason is that I've had many ups and downs over the past few months and while I normally feel comfortable with puking my guts on the page, right now I'm not there yet. I try to make sure each of my blogs have a "message" (cue Keenan Ivory Waynes in Don't Be a Menace... ) but this time, I'm not quite show what the "message" I want to convey is, or what nuance I want to focus on. So when I figure that out, I will let you know. For now, yesterday was my birthday and I wrote a poem about it so if you'd like to hear it, here it go!!

March 10th 1981


I cracked open the sky
'tween my motha's legs
She said I brought her
the most pain
2 days
49 hours
one month and 3 days overdue
Epidural failed
birth was slow and hard
But I came
a red wailing siren
chromosomes chained in poetry
Heart splintered,
weeping violins
I breathed
a thousand lifetimes of knowing
I've been an alien
conducting surgery
in space
A sacred whore in Kemet
in love with a king
A flower temple dancer
in India with henna kissed palms
A priestess of Yemaya rolling
cowrie shells into the ocean
An Inuit man diving Alaskan waters
fishing for freedom
A baby choking on shark teeth
thrown from a slave ship
If you cut me open
counted my earth rings
You would measure me
ten thousand seasons
Don't be fooled
by this soft smile
and vegetarian face
I am aged in light years
The only youth I carry
is in my tears
Babies born with every fistful
of heartache
Every joy splitting
me open
till I am meaty and tender
Recognize this birth
but know
I am sand
passing through
the fingers of time
The moon's song
rumbling a tide
A clock springing
forward into the lap
of eternity

-Shepsa