In Gaza or My Li'l House

By Linda M. Deane and Brian Franklin

Blind Date

My Black
and my Caribbean
walk into a room
and the air is
still

My Black breaks the silence first
and says: "Wassup, where you from, fam?"
to root itself in the present
where it has made a home for itself
in places meant to be its hell

The True, True Mudda Sally.  Illustration Copyright © 2023 by Akaila Armstrong.

Love in the Time of Circular Chants 

Chant A Psalm A Day… Chant A Psalm A Day…
Chant A Psalm A Day…
An undulating Steel Pulse hosanna

That’s how a Chewa man— 
his ebony courting hands, soft-pressing 
vinyl onto record player, evoked 
a bell and bass reggae of rejoicing 

He trusted me to break the word, crack
each segment open until the mystery expired.
Not so this morning.  He stared bewildered
at the board, the back at me.  “I never t’ought
dat word could be so small.  F…i…x,”
he mused.  “Dis word so small.”

How could his daily toil of hammer,
saw and nails; an old lady’s reckoning
of last month’s window
against the patching of a roof this week—
how could her life of sacrifice
and his of labour, sweat and boiling sun
be totalled up in this small word?

Chorus

Saturday night, it was Saturday night

Saturday night, last Saturday night

VS 1

Down through de alley playing piece o’ romey

Risking my coppers at a boy salary

Cards hard can’t win a lil trally

Gamble out muh grandmother light bill money

Brek like a bottle muh pocket empty

Would like to check a fete but aint had no currency

So I slide Clyde home to granny old house

Then remember she does sell she lil pudding and souse

No kites up in the air this year
No singing angels’ majestic climb
No raging bulls
No dancing round-kite
Square-kite
Box-kite
Not a bat-kite in the blue sky

Little ones
Distracted by a different story 
Backs turned to this ascension 
Too busy
Plugged into their PlayStations
YouTube fingers google walking portable brains