Get Hip and Get Your Necessary Dose of Gumbo YaYa!

January 5, 2009 –A New Year and new process to get the job done
On this new show in the New Year, we talk about upcoming events and setting goals for 2009.
Phyllis Coley, editor of Spectacular magazine and Ebony Noelle Golden creative director of Gumbo Yaya gives us a lot of new information to think about. Phyllis shares info on the upcoming Jan 31 celebration of Martin Luther King in Durham. Ebony tells us about the weekly sisterhood circles that she is guiding. Each of my guests use a process unique to them that I know you will find interesting and can be used as a guide to strengthen your own goals in 2009. Join the conversation and send me your goals that you have set for 2009.

Visit at www.richardbrownshow.com to listen to and download the podcast.

Visit Gumbo YaYa at www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com

October 27, 2008
Gumbo YaYa/ or this is why we speak in tongues travels~~~~south!


It is that time, again. Last year Gumbo YaYa/ or this is why we speak in tongues worked magic in NYC. Almost a year to date, I sent out this email to women for support of this so fresh and so necessary improvisational, sista-circle, healing, performance opportunity.

I am Ebony Golden currently living in Manhattan and working as an arts consultant and performer. Over the last year, I had the wonderful pleasure of working with a beautiful group of women who helped me think through what Womanist Performance Methodology and Practice is about. I had the opportunity to study with, learn from, and make trouble with some of the flyest sistas around. We honored ourselves. We were able to be honest. And we participated as we could. I would not have graduated without them.

I add these sistas to my infinitely growing family of sistas around the country. I am so blessed to work and dream with you all. Thank you Ayanna, Geneva, Joi, Cammile, Chelsea, RonAmber, Crystal, Tonya, Samantha, and everyone else who participated along with the rest of my family in DC, TX, GA, NC, IL CA, LA, and in other spaces. You hold me up, thank you.

It is time to begin the 2nd cycle of Gumbo YaYa! Through the generous funding and support of SpiritHouse-NC, North Carolina Humanities Council, Healing with CAARE the 2nd cycle will happen in Durham, NC.

I am dedicated to my healing, the healing of the women in my family and extended family, and the world. This is a process we are creating everywhere, let's continue to tap in together and see what shifts.

This process will have a few opportunities for performance, live and virtual, but mostly I am interested in articulating a poetics of womanist performance process and methodology that can be reproduced by us every where to heal ourselves and this world.

NEED

1- Intern interested in arts management, performance, grassroots activism, media relations, and social justice. Applicant must be flexible, a self-starter, and dependable. Applicant must be based in Durham-NC (or close by). Course credit and possible stipend available.

NEED

Women and girls to participate. If you know of a school, community center, or pre-existing program who might be interested in collaborating, let me know.

NEED

I need you to tell our story. A small group of sistas who are not afraid to undertake this work with me, whether they understand exactly where it is headed or not. Sistas who enjoy movement, music, writing, photography, people, good food, performing, making a fuss about us (black women), and who are not afraid to say we (black women) matter anywhere in this world.

NEEDS

1. sistas to perform several times during a 12-week period and beyond
2. videographer/ photographer/ editor
3. choreographer
4. stage manager
5. 'zine designer
6. web designer

NEEDS
1. voice recorders, tapes
2. gift cards (Target would be excellent)
3. performance space
4. video recorders, tapes, dvd
5. money, frequent flyer miles, train tickets, gas cards!!!

did I say money? oh, and money!

NEEDS

Your stories. Some of you are far away from me right now. But I would love to interview you about you and your healing process. Let's set up some time for phone interviews. I travel often, and maybe we can get together and talk.

Every one is invited to NC in March 09 to see a pivotal step in this journey. Can't wait.

Please take a look at the updated web site and leave poems, videos, letters, and words of encouragement on the Poetic Healing page.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions.

Cool Spirits and Calm Waters,

--
Ebony N. Golden, MFA, American University
Performance Studies MA, NYU
Gumbo Yaya/or this is why we speak in tongues
Creative Director
www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com

www.communityspeak.wordpress.com

2nd Annual Community Writing Intensive

support critical resistance in durham, nc

Women, Rock! and Politics Conference 2008
Institute for Women's Studies, UGA
Athens, Georgia

Everyone is welcome to this free conference. For information on local
accommodations, registration, and other details, go to http://www.uga.edu/iws/wrp08.html

Athens locals don't miss keynote performance by queer and feminist rock icon
Gretchen Phillips, 6pm Saturday
(http://www.queermusicheritage.us/aug2005.html) and after-conference party
with guest dj Melissa York.

Conference Program

Friday, May 30, Edge Hall, Hugh Hodgson School of Music, UGA

5:00 Opening reception

5:30 Welcome and Introductions

6:00 Fred Maus “52 Girls” A talk on the women of the B52s

7:00 Latin-American Scenes
Lesley Feracho , “Contesting the Nation :Women and Rock in Latin America”
Patricia Vergara “Funkeiras: Transgressing the Place of the Poor, Black, and
Female in Rio de Janeiro”

SATURDAY, May 31, Tasty World, downtown Athens

12:00 Brunch Buffet

1:00 Girls Rock Camps Collective, “Creativity, Community and Confidence
through Rock & Roll: Girls Rock Camps”

2:15 Rocking the Margins
Matt Jones, "(Re)discovering the Music of Judee Sill"
Sarah Cozort, “Women in Experimental Music”

3:00 Break

3:15 Stella Pace, “Riot Grrrl Self-Esteem Now: A Multimedia Performance”

4:00 Hip/Hop Feminisms
Ebony Noelle Golden, “Sonic Soul: Erykah Badu's Performance Practice”
Sarah Young Ngoh, “Black Motherhood in Hip/Hop and R&B Music”
Marnie Binfield, “Women’s Contributions to ‘Conscious Rap’”

5:45 Break

6:00 Keynote Performance/Presentation Gretchen Phillips

9:00- After-party at Tasty World with special DJ Melissa York, of The Butchies
midnite



UGA to host second annual conference on Women, Rock! and Politics

Athens, Ga.—The Institute for Women’s Studies at the University of Georgia is
hosting its second annual conference, Women, Rock and Politics, from Friday,
May 30 to Saturday, May 31.

This year’s conference brings together a great range of talks, images, and
performances on topics ranging from Girls Rock Camps, to hip hop feminism, to
the riot grrrl movement, to women in rock in Latin America.

The conference will begin on Friday at 5:00 p.m. with a reception and
presentations in Edge Hall at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music on the
University of Georgia campus, followed by a talk on the women of the B-52s by
renowned music scholar Fred Maus (UVA). Saturday's presentations and
performances, including keynote performance by rock icon Gretchen Phillips,
and conference after-party with guest dj Melissa York, will be at Tasty World in
downtown Athens. For a full program please visit www.uga.edu/iws.

The conference is free and open to the public. Edge Hall is located in the Hugh
Hodgson School of Music, Third Floor, at 250 River Rd on the eastside of
campus. Tasty World is located at 312 East Broad Street in downtown Athens,
Ga. For more information contact the Institute for Women’s Studies at 706-
542-2846.




Molly Moreland Myers
Public Relations Coordinator
Institute for Women's Studies
University of Georgia
706-542-0066 (voice)
706-542-0049 (fax)
momolly@uga.edu

A Garden

If your life was a garden (it is! it is!) what would you grow?

variations on the same riff

you knew
when you placed that light inside me
when you licked this gold mine like you knew x marked the spot
when you stole my eyes
when you said rest here and waited three seasons
for peace to dwell in my pulse
when you measured my laughs in teaspoons of rain and breath
when you wrapped my hair in your skin
and carved an ankh on my lips
and softened the span of my hips
and charmed my neck roll
and said rest here and waited for the tides to subside in my step

you knew you knew
your face would be infinitely written on any future-brotha
your thumb print could never be washed from the inside of my left thigh
your scent would mingle in my every folicle
you knew
i would pass someone in a city you never visit and look twice and think its you
although you never visit

you knew
i would say hello hello twice like that
and wait for the sax in your voice to be revealed

hello hello

you knew how much i believe in god

and that even if i carved myself into some distant unthinkable corner of this earth
even if i went underground cause of some extraordinary revolutionary shit i got hooked up with

even if i forgot my own name cause my memory decided to swim away from me

i would never forget you

sista circle goes live!!!

You thought you were too far away to participate in a performance process going on in NYC, well you were wrong.Calling all sistas who got something to say about blackness, womanness and artistic process. For more information visit www.imanotaproject.wordpress.com.


Please answer the questions below in any form you choose: a poem, letter, story, list, sketch, dance, meal, outfit or what ever!

Then send it to me at furiousflower@gmail.com along with a bio and picture or yourself and what you created.

Please note if you want your ideas to be kept private, just let me know and I will honor your wishes

So here is the assignment:

As the Gumbo Yaya Sistre transition into thinking about our personal narratives of healing and spirituality, I would like to extend this process around awareness, identification, and literary production to all the sistas who come in contact with this email.

-please complete the questionnaire below

then,

choose one of the following prompts and engage with it in your own way-

-a letter written to yourself as an infant

-a letter written to yourself as an elder

-an interview between you and a sista younger or older than you.

Questionnaire-

Please answer the following prompts-

-what does it mean to be a black woman to you? do you identify yourself as a black woman?

-what is black women’s art? is this important to identify? should art be universal?

-what does it mean to be an artist to you? do you identify yourself as an artist?

-what does womanism mean to you? do you identify yourself as womanist?

-if you could ask your mother one question about her journey as a black woman or artist, womanist, or spiritualist, what would you ask her?

-if you could ask your daughter or future daughter about her journey as a black woman or artist, womanst, or spiritualist, what would you ask her?

-is there anything that gets in the way of your process as a black woman artist womanist spiritualist?

-is there anything that supports your process as a black woman artist womanist spiritualist?

-what does an artistic process look like to/for you? do you have an artistic process?

-what comprises a womanist artistic process? is there such a process? should we (we being black women cultural producers) be concerned with this process?

Life and Peace,
Ebony Golden
furiousflower@gmail.com

Asanas for Megan Williams
i am trying to think about the intentional process of invisibility around the violence acted against Megan Williams. i am still trying to wrap my brain and my heart around this case and what our collective responses could be.

i am trying to think about how trauma stifles my ability to respond to acts of violence in my community and around the world. is it that my trauma stops me from acting when i see other black women traumatized? what do we do next? is it these historical traumas that some how shift my body back to a time when i could not say anything, or bear the same trauma my sista experienced, or worse? is choosing not to act against our historical or contemporary trauma a mechanism for keeping our safe, in some way?

i am trying to think about how i can take back my body from trauma. what does an embodied resistance look like? perhaps, it looks like a body, full of light, harnessing her strength, and refusing to be frozen by trauma. perhaps, it is a body who refuses to have her tongue tied by fear. maybe embodied resistance is a heart that refuses to stop beating, that refuses to have the love pressed out of it.

embodied resistance, could be black women free from heart disease, diabetes, womb disease, mental disease. embodied resistance could be black women freeing their bodies from food, cultural pressures, drugs, alcohol, social pressures... as i write this i am sure embodied resistance is all of these acts and more.

i am trying to think about how to process this trauma against our sista megan williams in an intimate, real, transformative way. i am looking to find a way for individuals to actively participate in a healing movement for Megan Williams no matter whereever they are. here is a call to action for anyone interested in sharing healing evergy with our sista. you don't have to march, protest, write a letter. you don't have to leave your dorm room, you warm living room, you can even do it on the train, at a stop light, on the bus.

i am asking for everyone who reads this post to dedicate one minute of yogic practice, meditation, or breath work to Megan Williams. if you are not a yoga person to do one or two stretches for her. if you are advanced do a head stand or full lotus position for her. take a moment or two out of your day to breath deeply, complete some fire breaths, or kemetic breaths for Megan Williams.

as you are doing this, think about her healing, send out some well wishes for her, her family and our collective healing.

our collective action will shift the energy around this case. we will not be immobilized by trauma.

our embodied resistance is movement is breath meditation is the quest for our collective health and well-being

here is a poem for encouragement

i am a daughter of ntozake
of june of audre of nikki
of sonia of gwendolyn of jayne
of asha of lucille of rhodessa of anna
of ruth of elizabeth of toi of marilyn
of nina of cassandra of ella of fannie
of rosa of nayo of bernice of anjail of aretha
of toni of sapphire of ai of betty of pearl of bertha
of of of of of ofoofffffof fofofff

our collective heat is a back bend that strenghthens our walk
our collective heat is a visualization that wraps us in warmth
our collective heat is a moon salutation that greets the night
our collective heat is slow and concentrated breath deep in the diaphragm
our collective heat is heat is heat supple and pulsing and balancing the universe

peace,
e
furiousflower@gmail.com

Calling Black Women for Ethnographic Performance Process

Calling Black Women for Ethnographic Performance Process

Greetings people,

It is that time. I have been in a bit of hibernation while I was cooking up a way to get you involved with a so fresh and so necessary improvisational, sista-circle, healing, performance opportunity.

I am Ebony Golden currently living in Manhattan and attending NYU. I call a few places home, most recently Durham, NC. While living in Durham I had the opportunity to study with and make trouble with some of the flyest sistas around. We made art with the people and shared it with the people. We healed ourselves everyday!

I would not be here at NYU right now if it wasn't for them. I am dedicating this process and this year at NYU to them: Mama Nia, Mama Asantewa, Mama Nayo, Mama Nana, Mama Jaki, Mama-Dr. Ahmad, Mama Pearl, Mama Dimples, Mama Theresa, Sista Kim Arrington, Sista Zachari, Sista Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Sista Jurina, Sista Alisha Gaines, Sista Serena, Sista Kriti, Sista Kai, Sista Shirlette, Sista Emily, Sista Kriti, Sista Kia/Mercedes, Sista Liz, Sista Amaris, Sista Namira, Sista Raina, Sista DeLana, Sista Nikki, Sista Alfreda, Sista Vikki, Sista Michelle, Sista Afyia, Sista Zelda, Sista Dannette, Sista Inga, Sista SimaFlower, Sista Paulette, Sista Manju

This process is in your honor along with my sistas from DC, TX, and in other spaces. You hold me up, thank you.

I am currently facilitating a performance project for Black women as a part of my Master's Thesis in Performance Studies based on black women's processes of healing from trauma, particularly historical and generational trauma. So how are your healing practices different from your mother's? How are they similar?

I am dedicated to my healing, the healing of the women in my family and extended family, and the world. This is a process we are creating everywhere, let's continue to tap in together and see what shifts.

This process that will have a few opportunities for performance, live and virtual, but mostly i am interested in articulating a poetics of womanist performance process and methodology that can be reproduced by us every where to heal ourselves and this world.

NEED
I need you to tell our story. A small group of sistas who are not afraid to undertake this work with me, whether they understand exactly where it is headed or not. Sistas who enjoy movement, music, writing, photography, people, good food, performing, making a fuss about us (black women), and who are not afraid to say we (black women) matter anywhere in this world.

NEEDS
1. 5-6 sistas to perform several times next semester
2. videographer/ photographer/ editor
3. choreographer
4. producer
5. stage manager
6. 'zine designer
7. web designer

NEEDS
1. voice recorders, tapes
2. gift cards (Target would be excellent)
3. performance space
4. video recorders, tapes, dvd
5. money, frequent flyer miles, train tickets, gas cards!!!

NEEDS

Your stories. Some of you are far away from me right now. But I would love to interview you about you and your healing process. Let's set up some time for phone interviews. I will be in TEXAS in December and NC in January so we can get together.

Every one is invited to NYC in May 08 to see a pivotal step in this journey. Can't wait.

oh and check out some of these sites to get an idea of what sistas are doing to inspire me: http://www.thatlittleblackbook.blogspot.com/, http://talitharise.blogspot.com/, http://bettertospeak.blogspot.com/, www.goldendharma.blogspot.com, http://atthekitchentable.blogspot.com/, http://brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com/, http://sweating-it.blogspot.com/,

Email me if you are interested!
Ebony Golden, MFA
Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative, Director
furiousflower@gmail.com

in the midst~~~~for fly ass me'shell ndegeocello

1.the grain of your voice rubbed against vinyl is prayeris a ridge (like a ridge in your bottom lip) where i oil up and tancause blackness is just a beginning and the edge is where i jump to life

2.you say i am the offspring of an obsolete machineso i guess me'shell i ain't got nothing to prove me standing here in all my black woman self all dripping with spirit and legacy and rips that healed and ripped and healed and warm hands say i aint got nothing to prove

3.you say capitalism is the new religion of the massesso i guess me'shell jesus gotta come back and set this shit straight cause we need a shift to let our people go we need a movement we can breathe through

4.you say perchance blindness is but dark thought overcome by the lightand the light is a burgeoning entity that sends eyelashes to the tops of cheeks it shocks the back of the throat as it rolls up the spine it doubletimes doubletimed breath my sweet jesus my jesus i heard that you could save me light travels the blood to the ankles and freezes freezes the walk the thought and the pulse

5.the star beneath your eye is a mantra is an unforgotten sutra an all night orgasmlike this audible memoir speaking all voices but just yours an evangalestic waltz in the higher chakras metronomic sonic swosh the star beneath your eye is a space where marriage can be savior and a whore a whore a whoreawhoreawhoreawhorenever got to open her p*s(y

6.post script

a black girl soon to swirl around in her mamas belly writes me'shell a love note and places it in her mamas dreams she does not know other girl babies are writing too together the me'shell love notes make a b.i.b.l.e. read it as a sonogram of your destiny

7.post script script

dear me'shell thank you for teaching me that obama and hillary aint as fly as shirley (chilsom that is) and that my skin is written in a rich musical register and that tears open a space for self-construction and that a bass guitar can ask a question as loud as a protest and that thewomanistheonlyavenueofdeliverance and that harriet (tubman that is) was wise to walk her children to canada

truly delivered,
ebony

8.in your silence you ask how can i be a guided missile meticulous in my craft a reserve of seeping energy a seducer of liberation a bringer of light a choir of hearts clapping hallelujahs in warm air

Cleromancy for June Jordan

Note: Cleromancy is a divination that uses 6 six-sided dice to invoke a poet or a poem. Out of millions of well chosen words, I chose these 36 to raise up the life of June Jordan for a limited edition Cleromancy set to be handcrafted at
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif


Die 1 Die 2 Die 3 Die 4 Die 5 Die 6

my name to save we blurred
own is editors us are with
quietly poetry who trouble ones tears
explosive 4 look publish been did
here the at this waiting not
wings people me now fight die

Order yours soon! Only six will be made!
love,
Alexis

haiku for sekou

lids dream bright pavement
now now now now now now now
grow push through ever

for sekou:

raised by jack-o-lanterns and parking tickets
dandelion eyelashes part the onyx birthstone

in weary time
sour soupy mouths form easy o’s like lake huron
lumbering towards the universal sound
the land of rocking chairs

when poets die
let their henna circle my body seven times and become a new mole

crimson neither stopwatch
nor discount metronome

when poets dielet them be carried through the streets on the lips of harmonics and
earlobes.


Kim Arrington is a singer/song writer/playwrite/poet and all around fly sista. google her and be inspired. www.kimarrington.com
please send your sekou poems to me and i will post them where ever i can.

ebony

for sekou, now!
Now!
for sekou sundiata

i know what is means to have miles davis in your skin
to speak like a weeping willow
to resist citizenship
to chew gum like a gourmet meal
now
i know how to harness a dream
right behind my belly button
and hold it there til it sprouts wings
bears fruit
blows across an ocean like a liberated spore
you asked me the question
is the american dream a dream or a program
and at that moment i knew you were a blessing in my wounds
a libretto for the revolution epic
a hinge for me to hold onto in times of extended prayer
now
i know why i love my daddy's black taffy laugh
and his eyes like an anthology of sunsets
and his one purple nail that speaks slow around his chin
a chin that drinks the moonlight
i know now sekou you drink the moonlight
let it fill your vaselined cheeks articulate your tongue reawaken your tonsils
you asked me
what is a dream with out education
you asked me what is a dream with out education
youaskedmewhatisadreamwithouteducation liberation resistance love light
youasked me me me mmeeeeeee
whatisadreamwithouteducation
maybe its gospel without mahalia
or hip hop without rakim
or jazz without john
or new orleans without the mississippi
or my grandma without the love of her life
or me without poetry
orororoororororor
you asked me
what is a dream without education
i say it aint it aint it aint a dream with out the technology of technicolor

may the spirits walk you gently down
and raise a song in your honor
may elegba grant you safe passage
asheooooo asheooooooooo ashe

in the name of the most high ~~~~~i sing

there is a way to articulate hallelujah
prayer sweated over hot rocks
spirit piercing alien vernaculars
multiplied throats hurling truth
truth hurling multiplied bodies

-ebony noelle golden

Radical Love Letters

If love is a radical force, then let your love flow.
Here are three radical love letter formats. To publish your own email a pdf or a jpg or both to brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com.

Letter to a (Newark) Jail

This is a love letter that I wrote for the four black lesbians in Newark, New Jersey who are serving jail time for defending themselves from a homophobic attacker. As a queer black woman from New Jersey who was raised to stand up for herself, I know that they could be me.
Use this as an example in your classroom/workshop/support group. For a pdf of this letter click here

If you'd like to send your letter directly to these sistas, please follow the instructions from FIERCE below:
You can also check out http://fiercenyc.org for more upcoming info.

At the moment we are receiving mail at Human Rights Watch for the four women, until they have a permanent address in prison. Their names are Terrain Dandridge, Patreese Johnson, Venice Brown, and Renata Hill.

Please address all letters: Newark 4
care of JESSICA STERN
350 Fifth Avenue, 34th floor
New York, NY 10118-3299

We have also started an email group to put community members in touch with one another and to send updates.
Please accept our invitation, or ask to join.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/justice4newark4/


AND
Hi, everyone. I hope we can start a letter-writing campaign to
Governor Spitzer. Here's a template we can use, but it will be much
more powerful if we all send different letters, so please add to or
change this letter to express your own feelings about this case.

*** If you want to e-mail the governor, you should do that here:
http://161.11.121.121/govemail

*** If you'd rather call the office of the governor, here's the
number: (518) 474-8390

*** Or you might want to print your letter and mail it to:

The Honorable Eliot Spitzer
Governor of New York
State Capitol
Albany, NY 12224


Dear Governor Spitzer:

In the summer of 2006, seven young women from New Jersey, Venice
Brown, Khamysha Coates, Terrain Dandridge, Lania Daniels, Renata
Hill, Patreese Johnson, and Chenese Loyal, were spending some of
their leisure time in New York City's West Village when Dwayne
Buckle, a man selling DVDs on the street, sexually propositioned
Patreese Johnson. Refusing to take no for an answer, he followed the
young women down the street, insulting them and yelling threats. He
spat in Renata's face and threw his lit cigarette at her, then he
yanked another's hair, pulling her towards him, and then he began
strangling Renata. A fight broke out, during which Patreese Johnson,
4 feet 11 inches tall and 95 pounds, produced a small knife from her
bag to stop Buckle from choking her friend.

Two male onlookers, one of whom had a knife, ran over to physically
deal with Buckle in order to help the women. Buckle, who ended up
hospitalized for five days with stomach and liver lacerations,
initially reported on at least two occasions that the men���not the
women���had attacked him. What's more, Patreese's knife was never
tested for DNA, the men who beat Buckle were never questioned by
police, and the whole incident was documented on surveillance video.
Yet the women ended up on trial for attempted murder, throughout
which the judge, Edward J. McLaughlin, ridiculed and expressed open
contempt for the women in front of the jury. As a result, four of the
women ended up being convicted and sentenced in June 2007 to jail
terms ranging from 3 1/2 to 11 years.

It is difficult to justify these women being brought to trial for
anything, much less murder, and almost impossible to credibly explain
the sentences brought down on them. This letter is to ask you to
consider clemency for these women, who have been in jail for over a
year despite having committed no crime. Thank you for your
consideration of this matter.

Sincerely,

The Philosophical Love Letter: This letter was created by Marquetta Dupree about how a certain understanding of love can change the ways we experience life. What is love to you? How is love a social force that can respond to poverty, violence and pain? For a pdf of this letter click here
Love letter to the world:
This letter is by Diedra and states her love-learned vision for here relationship to the earth.
For a pdf of this letter click here

(poem about how much I want you)

dedicated to and presented for the attendees of the SONG and QEJ "Building A Queer Left" Pre-Forum Meeting at the United States Social Forum
and the girl on the Atlanta-Hartsfield Jackson Airport Photo Mural

i can't lie to you
atlanta done laid me down
heat painted pavement to stay

taught me
that to be alien
was to be here
so to be queer
must be hip hop
(beat beaten but beaming still)

atlanta taught me
music could war
and if drop-kicked hope
landed and landed
in Bankhead
it would bounce

atlanta remains
a city brazen enough
to kill me and keep moving
but I would STILL tattoo OutKast lyrics on my grave

what I am trying to tell you is
love is a sin
that at best trains me up
in the everyday art of not being a slave

but this is how much i want you

i would cringe into asphalt
fuck the compromise of sidewalks
if it meant you could stand in the middle and sing

i would shelter
the highest pedestrian deathrate
if it made the craziest among us
more likely immortal

would drawl down secrets
melt your sneakers
and name every pathway after what I can't afford

if it meant you would
never forget me

i would be the place
spread open
divided
for the queer and fly to multiply

because this is how much i want you
and you're here

welcome home.