Spoken Word

Spoken Word

Sunday, March 19, 2017

23 Jazz Riff



23 Jazz Riff

Nimble fingers pace,

across 23 bars,

like Emanon on base,

plucking jazz from the mitochondrial dust,

of nameless stars,

half identical by descent, in  F sharp,

swung in recombinant syncopation,

groove to an ancestral tune,

played in residual replication,

This DNA gyrase two step,

jibes because of a dance,

down the big boss line of generations,

glides across our mother tongue

dips and slides,

as Afro-rican as

Johnny Blas

as mambo as

latin jazz,

survives, like Irish trad,

gyrates the hips,

like a congo drum,

its heart beats, so give it some,

what beautiful music made are we,

composed of a genome,

mixed and sampled on a keyboard of 23,

segments of a chromosome,

in perfect harmony ~victori

For Eric Garner...



My heart is broken,
Its time to grieve,
fight back the tears,   I'm choking,
I can't breathe,
I can't believe,
this been going down,
since Emmett Till,
whether it was Georgia's Sam Hose
or Los Angeles's Latasha Harlins,

Will it ever end?
every black mother knows,
Lady Justice ain't no friend,
She's lynching still.


July 13, 2013 Victori ©

Sun Loving



Being photo bombed by the sun,
No strength to spurn it's advances,
Every California girls dream to be the one,
It's radiant beam romances,
ravages, then remisses,
sends a flower to in its ray,
warmly caresses, and sun kisses,
makes me feel it's Valentine's Day,
Left in the radiance of euphoric bliss,
romanced and de-flowered,
feeling the exuberance in this,
joy, makes me strong and empowered.


Victori ©

Sunday, March 5, 2017

All Be Free! (The poem)




We left there on the run,
in the moonlight,
as his body swung,
from a tree,
in plain sight,
his skin hung,
like bark from a hickory,
charred now into unfamiliarity,
We left there on the run,
We didn't look behind us,
We avoided the sun,
We didn't have a compass,
We left there on the run,
Not a second to kill,
Only ourselves to save,
with hounds at our heels,
An escaping slave,
On the run,
We saw their intention,
in the way that he hung,
meant to scare us into retention,
but without the effect,
for which they'd longed,
hoping they wouldn't detect,
that we had gone,
We left there on the run,
between thicket to thicket,
from the swamp, where we'd begun,
No sound only crickets,
with just rags, and welps on our back,

No tickets,

No tags,

No gun,

No time to wonder what we'd become,
freedom was on the horizon,
concepts we could only fathom,
until we left there on the run,
We moved swiftly from slavery to War,
To Reconstruction,
Like returning through the No return door,
into the Great Migration,
We left there on the run,
Fleeing into self-determination,
leaving the shared Southern crop,
on the Plantation,
Letting the hoe, the plow, and sickle drop,
And running to Northern discrimination,
Peonage,
And mass incarcerations,
We left there on the run,
Singing, we shall overcome,
S o m e d a y,
With either a pencil, a pen, or a gun,
Until they killed our leaders,

One by one,

Gone our eloquent speakers,

Our chosen sons,

Our chiefs,

We wanted to run,

We stopped for grief,

and dropped our gunny sack,
Only once, to nap
and fill our lungs with crack,
Our chosen exile,
Government subsidized,
And ready to sell,
Government supplied,
cash crop needing slaves to bale,
We waxed foul,
They caught us trapped,
in Public housing,
Disenfranchised,
and herded to jail,
by the dozens, 
Labeled criminal element,
Even when we wasn't.
Patter roller come,
Kill our sons without flinching,
Claim they had a gun,
Just another lynching,
We left there on the run,
Degree in hand,
We moved from intern,
to self made man,
to doctorate, to resident,
from uneducated to learned,

To President,

And now we've come,

To where we'll be,

We'll march, but we won't run,

No more until every man

Is free


victori--©


That One



I am that one,
The one who will love you til the end,
I am that one,
The one who remains your one true friend,
I am that one,
The one with courage under fire,
I am that one,
The one with the resolve of McGuyver,
I am that one.
The one who will still be going strong,
Yes, I am that one 
The one who is a survivor,
I won't beg you to stay,
I'm not that one,
I won't cry you a song,
If you got to go away,
Then just hang up the phone,
I am not being mean,
We just weren't meant to be,
And it remains to be seen,
What's heaven sent for me,
I am not that one,
To make your life a living hell,
But I am that one,
The one who will watch you go,
And wish you well.
And when all is said and done,
At the end of the day,
I am always that one, 
The one who got away.

victori-- © Mar 2, 2012