Ma (Grandmother)

Your cataracts blinded
you from seeing what
your son had
become. The torment
he inflicted on the
five women
in his
life.

Your big curly white hair,
wild and unruly, like your
spirit in the face of
late night screaming
matches.

The FBI are not after you,
mummy, he would say.
No-one is trying to steal
your identity.

My teenage
angst led only to
anger. Seeing you
as a burden.

I sit here, in wonder,
at the woman you
must have been.

What it took for you to
raise a house full of children,
a child yourself, a victim of
a bearded patriarch with a red
hot staff in his hand.

His death, leaving you with nine
mouths to feed, then their
premature deaths.
Rebellious entitled sons.

If only you lived another life.
I like to imagine your potential.
Then I remember that you
do. Through me.

Not for a second, do I forget
that my life started in
your womb.

Letter to my (broken) beloved

I knew you, from before
the moment you tottered

taking your first steps

toward your mama. 

I followed you, a 

bird perched on your 

shoulder, chirping

as you picked up

the scissors to cut your

hair yourself. Little 
hands trembling. 

I held you. By the 
arms, stopping you
pulling brows from
your face, only moments 
after your first fight 
with sweet Adele. 

I never left your side when

you immersed yourself in the

joyous pleasures of young 

adulthood. Waiting for you

to return home so I could stroke 

your hair, and wipe the expired 
mascara from beneath your eyes. 

Then, when you stumbled over

your own feet into your first 
true love I drew arcs over 

your head with my toes,
making a halo for you.You 
never needed to look up,

but I was always there. 

And I’ll be there - I am 
here - now that that love 
has morphed into nothing 
more than the withered root 
of an orchard still attached to

beautiful but

already dead blooms.

The Rose Garden

I stood naked on the 

ground, feet sinking into

the sponge of the dewy

grass. He met me there

and sprinkled the seeds

around me, in a loose circle.

We agreed to water it

together

The sun set on that 

summer and the roots

that sprouted began to 

spread. with each sun

set and rise millimeters

of green veins were

added. We learned that 

for the roses to flourish 

they would need support

so we added a metallic 

arch over my head - naked 

body still enduring seasonal

shifts

With autumn came the first

buds, the bloom glorious.

Tiny blushing drops eventually 

spread open, filling my nostrils with 

the scent of molasses. My thighs 

and hips were covered in dustings 

of nectar as he pruned, watered

and tended to the new born

sprouts

It continued this way - and 

by the seventh cycle the archway

was laden with the weight of 

roses so dense that a single

flower

would weigh down 

the cup of your palm

As the garden flourished, I kept

looking up in awe of the beauty 

that we nurtured, only rarely ever

taking note of the large and heavy vines

that entwined around my waist 

and breasts, coiled around my feet -

cramping  my calves and aching my

back

It was a byproduct of the beauty, 

a cost at which the garden came. 

In the winter I even took solace in

the tight green shelter - it offered

welcome protection from the frosty cold. 

I was safe.

But all this time, I failed to see that

as the roses grew so too did the jagged,

thick and sturdy thorns. Blinded by the

velvet plush petals, it took me by surprise

how the thorns stealthily grew so large

that they barely noticeably pierced their way 

through my rib cage, puncturing my lungs.

Making it

              impossible 

                               for me 

                                          to breathe.

A Feminist Becoming (A Sonnet)

I sat down on the classroom floor
and beneath the desk crossed my knees
Burly, he burst through the door
and sat down across from me
Moulah, I asked, is it possible for a man
to rape his wife
No, he replied, how could he when
he has complete ownership of her life

But he owns her not, she has full agency,
I pleaded to reason for him to realise
Despite, my cries he could not see
that a woman her own man maketh, is no guise
In that moment, I could not breathe or see - I became numb
even though, I now know, I did a feminist become

Mumbi (or Misskim)

She sat across from
me, her moon-lit face
glowing in the faint light
of a winter's day

A goddess incarnate. Made
even more radiant by the
fullness of her belly and the
second heart that beat
inside her

One could not mistake
her for feeble at her worst.
Divinity, she told me tales
about fate and choppers,
about love and kinship

Like an apparition from
the heart of the mountains
of Kenya, born
of a hundred generations of
strong, unbendable women,
she came to me as my saviour
and graced me with the
light touch of her
chi

She is woman
She is what
I strive to be

I kissed her feet

Beverly Hills, Chicago

The dry brown coughing beneath their feet,
(Only a while, for the handyman is on his way)
These people walk their golden gardens.
We say ourselves fortunate to be driving by today.

That we may look at them, in their gardens where
The summer ripeness rots. But not raggedly.
Even the leaves fall down in lovelier patterns here.
And the refuse, the refuse is a neat brilliancy.

When they flow sweetly into their houses
With softness and slowness touched by that everlasting gold,
We know what they go to. To tea. But that does not mean
They will throw some little black dots into some water and add sugar and the juice of the
     cheapest lemons that are sold,

While downstairs that woman's vague phonograph bleats, "Knock me a kiss."
And the living all to be made again in the sweatingest physical manner
Tomorrow....Not that anybody is saying that these people have no trouble.
Merely that it is trouble with a gold-flecked beautiful banner.

Nobody is saying that these people do not ultimately cease to be. And
Sometimes their passings are even more painful than ours.
It is just that so often they live till their hair is white.
They make excellent corpses, among the expensive flowers....

Nobody is furious. Nobody hates these people.
At least, nobody driving by in this car.
It is only natural, however, that it should occur to us
How much more fortunate they are than we are.

It is only natural that we should look and look
At their wood and brick and stone
And think, while a breath of pine blows,
How different these are from our own.

We do not want them to have less.
But it is only natural that we should think we have not enough.
We drive on, we drive on.
When we speak to each other our voices are a little gruff.

-- Gwendolyn Brooks

Rhonda, age 15 emergency room

...Yeah, I been to juvee, what about it?
I was up at Spofford --they got legends
bout me--thought they wasn't gon git
rid a' me, but yo' I had to git de fuck up
outta dere, they had hoes that murder
people in that piece
and
I'm baaad and all but I ain't never
murdered nobody yet and I try not
to fuck up nobody too much less
they mama cain't recognize 'em

Last night, my man Ray-Ray, he 23
and built better than buster douglass
well anyway, we was over to his
crib and he was tryin to git on
for some
but he been locked up for 4 months
and I 'ont know that that nigga
been doin--shit, I know what
I was doin up in Spofford--
so when I tole him I was having my
menstruals, he decided to get plexed.
He smoked a blunt and wouldn't
take me home and den the nigga
went n' fell asleep.
I was like damn, here I am
at Ray-Ray's crib and I got
a motherfuckin curfew and a
math test tomorrow (I'm trying
to do good in school for probation
and dis lady who teach english
say I got potential --which I did
look up in the dictionary. It mean
I gots mad promise if my ass don't
end up in jail).

So I'm lookin for a pencil,
anything to write on which,
when I find it, is a paper towel
and thinkin that Ray-Ray ain't
helpin me none and he must
be a stupid nigga to boot cuz
he ain't got no paper and I
had to sharpen the pencil
wit a knife. I starts to think
about findin me a new man.

Me and my math problems
plexing each other to death,
when Big Mac come knockin.
He Ray-Ray's cousin
so I let him in. He say,
     where Ray-Ray? I'm like he sleeping, he blunted out-
     Ahhe say,you wanna watch a movie

I look at the napkin, crunch it
up, make a perfect 3 pointer and
follow Big Mac to the living room.
He put in the tape and turn off the
light. Then the movie come on
and at first I'm fixin to git up cuz
this ain't my kind of movie --girls
in all kinds of crazy positions suckin
white boys off, bitches lettin 'em
whip they ass and tie em up. That's
at first, cuz the next thing I know
I'm feelin crazy shit go through me:
     cunt juice drippin down
     my leg and I'm freakin
     myself out cuz i thought
     that shit only happen at
     Spofford. Cuz I'm imagi-
     nin I'm stompin all the
     white boys. Walkin up to
     em while dey whippin dem
     girls and I'm stickin .45s in
     dey backs---but that ain't all.
     I'm thinkin after I kill em,
     de ladies gon want to fuck
     me, and yeah, that's the part
     I'm trippin on, that I want them
     to fuck me and that Ray-Ray
     didn't never make me feel like
     the cuties in juvee.
And I look over at Big Mac to see
if he know yet by the look on my face that
I'm a fuckin homo. Cuz if he don't know yet
I want to fix my face before he guess.
And when I look at him I'm like
I know this nigga done lost his mind cuz
the bitch is sittin there with his dick
outta his pants and his hand movin all
fast n shit and he stop when he see me,
den he start talkin real deep bullshit
he say,
     Rhonda come here, Why don't you
     do me, Come on Rhonda do me,
     Ray-Ray ain't gonna mind, I ain't
     gonna tell him.

He reach over and
touch my titty and me, ms. bad ass
all of a sudden cain't move
I'm frozen, I mean I couldn't move
     damn you cute
     girl, I wanna git my groove
     on wit you, I always...
The nigga
stop talkin then.
He all grunts and shit and I'm
imaginin I'm on another planet
tryin to think about the math test
and that lady-teacher I got
and I feel all that POTENTIAL
running the fuck away
cuz I won't claw this nigga to death
cuz I cain't even believe it's happenin
cuz he Ray-Ray's cousin and
cuz i ain't never felt no pain like this
so I don't feel it/ I /think/ bout/ this/
time/I/beat/this/bitch/ so /bad /she /lost/
6/ teeth/ and/ got /scars /to /this /day/
from/the box/ cutter/ I /slashed /cross
/her/face/

I guess he done cuz he start to say
somethin
     don't worry girl, I know you.......

And I don't hear the mothafucka
finish cuz I'm outta the room and
shakin Ray-Ray so hard he think
it's a earthquake in Bed-Stuy.
I make
that nigga
git up
and take
me home
in his mama's
raggedy-ass hoopty.

And I start cryin
when I see my projects
and commence to tellin
Ray-Ray everything.
First thing he do is say,
     hell naw, you my bitch,
     ah'm a take care of
     this shit.
Den he tell me to take a bath
an he gon call me after he settle
this shit.
Then he leave.
I let myself in and hope mama ain't wake.
She ain't.
I go to de bathroom,
flick de light on,
watch de roaches git
de fuck out my way,
and set the water to run.
I wuz gonna take a real
hot bath, but I
membered too
late we ain't got
no hot water right now.
So, I pullt the drain
and went to bed.
But all I'm thinkin
bout is my test
and my potential---
how ahm gon git it back--
so I find the damn book
and jist study and study and study
till round bout 7:30 when
I'm still wide awake and
fixin to go to the school.
For the first time I'm gon
make first period.
I'm steppin out the door and I see
Ray-Ray walkin up,
he look real mad.
I don't feel nothin but
good cuz I know I can
pass. He git closer and I
smell malt on him. He say,
     I see you like them clothes, bitch
and I'member right
then I ain't changed
he say it again,
     yeah, you like the fuck smell on them clothes.
I go "you crazy nigga,
I ain't like shit about yo cousin"
he like,
     you lyin cunt, Big tole me de
     whole story, He say you wanted to fuck him,
     He say you come over to him while he
     tryin to watch a movie and put
     your hand on his dick and
     He say he told you he wasn't gon'
     disrespect me like that but you kept
     touchin on him and I
     cain't blame the nigga
     for goin for his. I cain't believe you
     did that shit, Rhonda. You spose to
     be my girl and you go fuckin my cousin.

He got me backed up in
the corner in the lobby. People
see us and don't nobody say shit.
I don't say shit again cuz ahm in
shock and de only think I'm thinkin
is bout how
to figure x=y2
when he say
     You ain't got nothin to say, bitch
the way to solve x=y2 was
still runnin through my mind
when he hit me and I fell down
and I felt him kickin math answers
out my head.
I got sad cuz I wasn't gon' make
first period and my POTENTIAL
act like it ain't never comin back

-- letta simone-nefertari neely, When we were mud

A (Long Overdue) Love Letter to Queen Solange

Dear QUEEN Solange

Your art has come at a time in our collective global consciousness that is long overdue. Our parched hearts have been yearning for the recognition - for a seat at the table - that your gentle falsetto delivers. 

It is so clear from your older albums that you look to the greats - Nina, Diana, Zora, your sister Beyonce - for inspiration. But YOU queen solange are a great. Showing a depth of wokeness that is sorely lacking in our world as it exists today, in western media and as a South African in my society, and I can only imagine how deeply in the USA. 

I've listened to your album on repeat for almost two months now daily. And each time there is something new giving me goosebumps. Whether it be the unique backdrop of the piano in Weary or your pleading voice like sweet molasses in Scales claiming and longing for the world to be kind  - each and every time the chords of our souls are strung and resound in our psyche. 

Oh Queen Solange if only you knew the redemption your album has brought. Visually, aesthetically, musically and consciously. RISE is a nightly lullaby and a morning invocation. Every time I stumble I hear the 3 second intermission and your gentle assertion telling me to walk in my ways so I can wake up and rise. 

My queen. I want to thank you. From thee deepest darkest angriest chambers of my heart for the healing you album he brought me and my tribe. The tribe of black women who have long been trampled over, the Mules of society as mama Zora calls us, the tribe of women who have no voice and feel like they have no place in the world. Your hypnotic voice tells us to be leery of the place in the world we have. Reminds us of our bodies -  of our temples - that have for so long absorbed the harshest circumstances of existence and of our glory. 

Our GLORY. 

PRAISE GOD. We belong. 

Even if it is only for the fleeting moment where we are in unison with you. 

My queen if I may? The layers you peel back ever so gently while seated at the table ring with truth so universal it's remarkable. You've liberated us from the metal clouds for just a moment by sharing your humanness, your realness with us. 

The queen mother who birthed you (miss Tina Lawson) speaks with the wisdom of the strongest and highest caliber human being. Bless her. And while she has always taken pride in being black I come from a place where we have not had that privilege. The white oppressors of apartheid have ingrained in us that being black is being less than. And it's effects are seen today in a generation that self-loathes so deeply and tries to live up to a standard of whiteness that is unattainable.  Your words of self love are absorbed so deeply by this very generation. So deeply because we need love like the love you share so desperately. 

Your father reminds us of the context of black men and how much violence they are faced with and allows us compassion for the experiences that turn black men rock hard. Their love does indeed go. And they have a lot to be a man about. And it is that type of toxic masculinity that is killing them. Killing our men. 

But what you've shared with us not only redeems us but also makes us laugh. Laugh when we literally think about the ones who don't wanna do the dishes but just wanna eat the food. And laughter is so important in this war we are fighting. The war to exist freely and equally. 

Dear queen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the gift you have given us. 

We love you. 

From another, 

Indo Afrikan queen.  

X 

Can't Find It? Cliteracy In (Heterosexual) Relationships

Cliteracy - Juicy word isn't it?

I suspect just the title will give this blog more hits than any I have ever written. But this is no sensationalist click bait. This is an important issue inherent to our lives as womxn. Inherent to our sexuality, identity, and often most intimate relationships. 

I'm going to ask a very personal and intimate question now. Be prepared for a range of emotions to come up that may not be expecting to feel. Take a deep breath. Relax.

Could you ask yourself this question and answer it honestly?

How many men have you been with who are CLITERATE?

What do I mean by cliterate, let's see:

"Cliterate. (Adj. clit-uh-rit) A person able to locate, stimulate and successfully bring a womxn to orgasm using their clitoris, either in conjunction with or without penetration, but with no help from said womxn themselves."

Surprisingly, or rather not so surprisingly, almost every friend I have asked who has a clit, has told me that they have encountered a disappointing number of cis-het men who are cliterate. 

I don't know about you, but for me this brings up a flurry of emotions. Mainly because from the time we hit adolescence, and sometimes even earlier, we are bombarded with images and messages on how to satisfy a man by taking any phallic shaped thing and jerking it, rubbing it, sucking on it, or grinding on it. It's everywhere, in movies, in ads, in magazines. There is no shortage on articles in Cosmo on how to give a mind blowing blow job, how to learn to swallow and let's not even talk about deep throating - the number of porn stars giving ordinary womxn YouTube tutorials is RIDICULOUS. We've seen them all. And honestly, to say the least, it hurts my feelings, that men have not done the same. 

There is an il-cliteracy problem. To gauge the exent of it I have asked a number of my female friends about their sexual experiences with cis-het men and with women. Almost all of them have answered similarly. Here is the upshot (Get ready!): 

1. Out of many womxn who've fucked many men, almost all said that most men were not cliterate. Only one or two, at most three could bring them to orgasm using their clitoris.
2. Out of these a few more men they were kind of good at oral the rest were okay with handwork. 
3. None of them brought the womxn to clitoral orgasm during penetration by using their hands.
4. Of the womxn who fuck womxn, their is almost a 100% satisfaction rate. Like one friend said "Honestly though if you want a proper oral sex session - women". Preach sister! 
5. Almost all of the men they have fucked, cliterate and non-cliterate, expected the womxn to give them oral sex, and often bring them to orgasm. 
6. Of the womxn who are in serious relationships, there is some consensus that if their partner brings them to orgasm using their hands or mouth, it is inconsistent and feels like a fluke. 

Not so surprisingly I can tell you that womxn on the other hand, have no difficulty locating the clitoris and bringing their partners (and themselves) to orgasm time and time again. 

So what's the deal. Why are men so bad at cliteracy? Wait, wait, let me rephrase: why are men so USELESS at clit-work? 

Well, it must be because the whole world revolves around them and their dicks. No I mean it. Men think they can just show up with their penises and its game over.  Sex revolves around penetration and once you've been penetrated and have gotten a good pounding they think that's it. 

Second - porn. I don't think I need to say more but clits don't exist in porn err go they don't exist in the real world. 

Third - excuses. "Ah my jaw is cramping" "Ah, I keep losing the spot" "You keep saying left then right, then left, where is it". Mother fucker, don't you think my jaw cramps when I have to shove your fat dick down my throat? 

Fourth - men have issues with womxn pointing them in the right direction during sex. Often they call women "bossy" when womxn make their needs heard. 

Five -  A fundamental misunderstanding. Men think that clit play is a nice "extra". They don't understand that it is inherent to sex, as inherent as penetration. Imagine what they'd feel like if they could only dip their tips, then stop after 90 seconds. For a womxn that's what sex is like with a cis-het man. You stop at your peak if you aren't going to take the responsibility to finish it yourself.  

Six - this is really an extension of five. Men have not grasped the problem. They are completely unaware of our level of dissatisfaction... Where they are aware of it, have not taken it seriously. For some reason it doesn't seem to matter to them whether or not a womxn is satisfied as long as their dick has graced her vagina. 

To put it bluntly, men have no incentive to learn how to play with a clitoris. This is a sad and unfortunate realisation. And come to think of it we haven't even touched on the case of the man who gets offended (CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?) at the prospect of a woman needing clitoral stimulation. I remember one guy calling an orgasm during penetration reached through clitoral stimulation "fake". As if the true test of masculinity is what a dick can achieve by itself.... This all brings me to my next point - we need a cliteracy revolution. 

Someone needs to sit these  idiots  men down and tell them that they need to learn about pushing buttons. But more than that they need to centralise the experience of their womxn partner. Without this centrality sex is going to be a game thats eternally in favour of the man. It is true that a happy sex life is not about keeping score about whose had more orgasms, and even though women do come by stimulating themselves it is actually necessary and political that they too could enjoy the experience of being stimulated by their partner.  So many men are keen to showcase their dick-tricks like making their partner squirt and that's all good and well but if only the same zeal could be put into the clitoris and the female orgasm. 

Deep down I'd like to believe that men have the capacity to recognise and value the importance of a consenting and satisfied sexual partner. And if they did, then they'd be willing to learn. So, if what we say isn't heard then men, here is a link to a video by a fellow man man-splaining to you how a clitoris works.

Like MLK, I have a dream, and that dream is for womxn to find sexual partners who can eat them out while they just lie there. Just like MLK's dream, mine too is for now going to be unrealised.


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