Earthquake

I never thought I could love San Francisco because of the weather.

Sporadic earthquakes and 300 days of fogs that suffocate the sunshine right out of smile

I thought I would always resent it for this.

While preparing to board an outgoing plane for the third time since I met you,

I realized that this was not the case.

 

It is never the weather that makes a city.

Rarely the events,

sometimes the history,

but always, always, the people.

I fell in love with San Francisco round late 2011

immediately following what my friends deemed “the end of the world”

but could more accurately be described as a tremor.

 

Still…

I liked the way it moved me.

I like the idea that something outside of my peripheral could shake me.

I like the night we met,

I like the fact that I was facing the entrance of café

and didn’t even see you come in.

I love how mundane that night could have been

but still…

I liked the way it moved me.

 

Some days when you text me,

I find myself sitting in my doorway for comfort.

This is where you wait when you're waiting for an earthquake.

 

I gotta be honest,

I dream of your last name.

El Henson

Wake up with your first trembled

against my lips

reverberating…

like a song.

Like a flower’s vibration just before bloom,

like the earth trembling before it opens.

It shakes my whole body.

There are rumors,

of the next largest earthquake in San Francisco since 1906

and I am positive

you will have something to do with that.

April 5/30 Luka workshop 5

She slipped into a coma
felt nothing.
Not the fire on her tongue or the water flowing through  her fingertips.
Perhaps a panini could awaken her senses
her dog stole it from the table 10 min. ago

1.past
2.emotion
3.element
4.food
5.animal

April 4/30 Luka workshop 5

I meditate on the same things.
There are mentors  att my door.
It takes a village to raise a child
I will no longer be in birthing pains after 10 years wrapped in one.
Where do I belong?

4.action
3.character
2.quote
5.future
1.place

April 3/30 Like workshop 3

My tongue is the home of many flames.
I have clamped dow  tbis furnace.
The fire man sits at my feet searching for an entrance,
claiming, " storms don't last always."
all ofbthis is bound to change.

[the structure of this and the last is a five line structure.
1.place
2.quote
3.character
4.action
5.future

April 2/30 Luka Workshop 1

Kemet is no longer a village
but judgement day is still today
Tehuti sits on my tongue and reports to Ma'at
I fear this judgement.
pray I'll release the shackles tomorrow

April 1/30 "Your very thoughts are poetry"

 Kemet is the thing that most inspires me. I like talking about my mother. She truly is a wonderful woman. I don't talk about her enough. I don't raise her high enough. I should write a poem about her. I have always wanted to write a poem about her and she has always wanted me to but I sacrifice thing I truly want to write about for the sake of slam. It's just stopped working for me.  That was a really good exercise. It felt good to get everything out without having to create a story. Stories are what get people in trouble What makes us embellish, makes us tell the things we shouldn't. I have Tehuti writing in hieroglyphics on my tongue, only I can translate. I have things to say that are pre-dynastic. I am the only vessel by which to say these things may be reintroduced. How dare I latch the stone of my jaw on Tehuti like a tombstone.