Cannibal
i don’t blame
the wide hipped
women
for eating their men
i don’t blame
them for frying them
flour and lard
salt pepper paprika in
black skillets
grease popping sizzling
with the rhythms they miss
i don’t blame them for making
meals of the men
who’ve gone missing
the lost ones dry humping
a beer bottle’s bottom
the wayward ones
caught in the fishnets of a
mistress
the dead ones
cradled in a casket’s palm
i don’t blame the
wide hipped women
for serving their men on sundays
in southern fried pies
cuz everybody gotta eat somehow,
everybody
The Declassified Files of the Sorority of
Chemically Straightened Heads
The following is to be read carefully, then burned by curling iron.
| I. By the time you are seven you will believe that you are ugly because your hair is bad. This begins the initiation; you will know. II. Soon after, you will be plucked; stolen from a random Saturday, carted to a nearby salon. And there will be mirrors, stools, and tools scissors with curls still attached irons peeking from miniature stoves, mud colored gels, lucid creams, toothless combs, sticky sprays, helmets of heat, bubble-filled basins, plastic rods, greasy clips and brushes with more hairon them than heads III. The foul smelling cream is God. You will fear it, bow to its’ magic and lye become enslaved to its ability to press your strands into submission make stubborn spirals flat after minutes of menacing. | IV. Surrounding you are the grim lipped gossips, the women who share the blister sick knowing that the more sizzle, pop, and pain the longer lasting the style V. Black hair is Ritual. Sorority. A hazing that hurts. An induction into a sisterhood where follicles are pressure cooked to maintain the status quo. VI. Perhaps we should blame the women who raised us. The lipsticked sadists who stuff our self-esteem in corsets; shape our worth with brow pencil; teach us we are only our hair. |
Sirius Black Speaks About His Time In Azkaban Prison
(a sestina)
prison has a way of turning time
inward. it’s an irreversible magic
eating away the edges
of a sane man’s will.
there’s no warming a cold that crawls
inside linen. lingers as if invited.
sometimes I’d succumb to dysfunction. invite
it to imaginary tea. ask if it’d wear tomorrow’s time.
but my sentence was stubborn. a crawling
creepy thing capable of unraveling the magic
of a phoenix feather. will
sorcery to a suicidal edge.
Azkaban stands on the crooked edge
of silence. the predator invited
to a festival of prey. a cinder block’s last will
& testament. a clock bewitched to ignore the time.
my innocence was my last bit of magic.
a reminder I still had courage enough to crawl.
escape begins with crawling.
unsteady steps edging
from impossible to maybe then magic.
beware the man with nothing to lose; he invites
madness to dinner to pass the time.
I was that man. holding my wits in my hands, hoping a will
to live hadn’t abandoned me. prison will
melt away memory. hold the heart hostage. watch seconds crawl
by. There were times
when my smile would toe the edge
of a Dementor’s kiss. when laughter would invite
itself inside the core of magic
memories are warm elixirs. a magic
the cloaks and cold could never will
away. when I was falling face first into darkness, I invited
Moody’s wisdom in for a chat. His pragmatism crawled
through my misery, pushed doubt from the edge.
Prongs appeared when I needed to invoke a joke a time
or two. We were mischief managed, invited friendship and magic
a map of footprints, time, and will.
I am the crawl, the memory, and the edge.
An excerpt from Dr. Djinn’s Odd Scholars a forthcoming YA Historical Fantasy
“Professor Bartholomew Blue: Master Teacher. Elite Conjurer. Ghoul Gatherer. Traveler,” she gasped in her best Jamaican accent. Her lips slipped into a smirk.
He pulled her into a bone crushing embrace. “Wha Gwan?”
She grimaced as he helped her to her feet. “Ok, I suppose,” she smoothed her suit jacket. “That was a helluva demon. Where’d you find it, 18th century?”
“1776.” He cracked his knuckles and rolled his head from side to side.
“You went home didn’t you? To Kingston.” She crawled toward the ocean and submerged her throbbing hands in saltwater.
“Had to, been too long.” He plod back to the Obeah and climbed aboard.
Her eyelids fluttered as the salt worked its magic. After the pain subsided, she stumbled back to shore. “The more irredeemable the soul, the better the fuel.”
He wiped his brow with the edge of his cape. “Makes sense, all things considered. Wicked energy is potent. Who knew the souls of dead slave owners could propel us through the Time Stitch?”
Her eyes settled on a metallic net stuffed with glowing jars on deck. She rubbed her chin. “Lemme guess, a graveyard dig?”
He threw his shoulder into the hull, pushing the vessel back into the sea. “Best dig in recent memory, Marvellus,” he said in a strained voice.” A cluster of slave masters and their descendants. Found ‘em in Ocho Rios on a hill beside a waterfall.”
“How many?” She raised an eyebrow.
“One hundred fifteen,” he grinned.
“Who was the one we just subdued?” She glanced at the freshly sealed jar dangling from a belt loop on his hip.
“Thomas Thistlewood,” he paused. “A rapist and a mad man.”
“Weren’t they all?”
In a flash, he moored the boat to a newly conjured dock of wood and bone and tossed the bulky net over one of his muscular shoulders. She stared at the jar where the demon glowed from inside. Now and again, a small bolt of electricity would flash as gooey translucent droplets bubbled to its surface. Then, out of nowhere, a tiny handprint appeared, ghostlike. She blinked as the jar thumped against his coal black thigh.
“I never understood why you kept the Soul Jars so close to your person. Drop them all in the net. It’s much safer—”
“There’s this saying about enemies,” he whirled around to face her. “I think you’ve heard it.” He winked, pat the jar with one of his large, dark hands, and trudged ahead with his cumbersome treasure.
© 2018 All rights reserved.