"Raspberry Lemonade," A Poetry Post

Sometimes when you take
two bitter bodies and
mix them despite the
crushings and bruisings of their
circumstances,
you can add in cooling water and
good sugar and
get something refreshing.

And sometimes,
you get a divorce.

Depends on the bodies you start with,
and their levels of bitterness,
and the quality of the sugar,
and where the water comes from.

-T. D. James-Moss

"Swollen," A Poetry Post

Hey Ma.
My foot is swollen.

I knew ten years ago
when I threw my
big black girl's hips around in them
two and three inch heels that
today,
around 3 p.m.,
my feet would be
swole.

I do not regret my sashay.
Rather,
I appreciate the delicious rebound
I experienced with
every click-clack step.

Yes,
I believe I
did that well.

My throat also sometimes swells.
I suppose I earned the ache with
all the noise I used to make.

Instead of listening or whispering I
yelled out my opinions
oh so often!

I do not regret my parleys.
Rather,
I appreciate the
sometimes ridiculous
youthful adrenaline I
indulged in.

And on my edgiest days,
my head aches.

There is no longer room for
endless runnings on,
late-night papers or
all night work sessions.

After thirteen hours,
it must be sleep.

And I'm okay with me,
while if it had been this way while I
was mid-sashay,
I might be bitter.

While,
if it had been like this in the midst of my
screaming out for change on
spoken word stages,
I might be livid.

While,
if it had been this way
while I was only focused on
being the world's storm,
I would feel guilty.

Today,
I am comfortable
addressing and
confessing my
frailties.

That is what makes me
more dangerous
than ever.

-T. D. James-Moss

"Redeem the Time," A Poetry Post

As we sit in expectation,

Let us be thankful for the day.
Let us remember the great moments,
That brought this grand event our way.

While we honor what has happened,

And we wait for what will be,
Let us all be grateful! Happy!
That this day, we lived to see.

Join me in our great excitement.
Let’s enjoy the time to come.
Be thrilled! Laugh, cry, hang on suspended!
Share that suspense with everyone.

And when the time shared here has ended,

Hold on to all you’ve seen here shine.
Go on to do big things in your life.
Enjoy the past, but redeem the time.

-T. D. James-Moss

"A Few Words about Builders and Legacies," A Poetry Post

It is hard to remember the man who first perceived the need for a road.

By the time his concept has been born into this world,

it has been dug and smoothed and

paved and planted and

wound and marked,

and it is hard to remember the relevance of the

man who first dreamed it.

It is equally as difficult to appreciate

the man who put the first

hole in the ground

for the first beam of the

Golden Gate Bridge.

I can imagine the perils he must have braved,

since in his time he

believed the grandiose ideas of some

visionary

who’d convinced him that if he

dug that hole,

eventually,

a beautiful thing would come out of it.

At the time,

I’m sure he was dirty and wet and

frustrated with being called a lunatic

for believing any man,

visionary or not,

could produce such a thing

in his lifetime.

Perhaps he needed the money,

like the many road workers and

bridge builders who

come into the process

uncertain of the investment of

sweat, tears and life required to

realize such a thing as a road

or a bridge when there is

no evidence of either.

None of that matters once you’re in!

Once you get a whiff of the aroma of that vision,

the effects are so consuming, enrapturing, endearing,

that a digger becomes a producer.

The same is true of the

man who surveyed the ground

on which the Twin Towers stood.

When we remember that they fell,

it is hard to also memorialize the fact that

they had been dreamed and built by

people who suffered ridicule that

far outweighed the

praise and glory granted to the

value of the buildings as they

existed in the minds of others.

It was the ingenuity that made them beautiful,

but all we can recall

is their function in the perpetuation of the world market,

their causal link to a war that we have yet to win

against an adversary that we have yet to soundly identify.

It is better to find inspiration in the men who laid the foundation,

not the men who mocked their development.

We have lost sight of the builders of our generations.

Those who paved for us inroads to existences we

never could have imagined;

those who planted the first beams of our brilliance;

who suffered the initial ridicules of standing behind

nobodies like us…

We were people who had done nothing remarkable.

We were people who had no great bearing on the

direction of our worlds.

We were people who started directionless.

It took the visionaries, the diggers,

the smoothers, the pavers,

the planters, the markers,

the surveyors, the thoughts,

the prayers, the promptings,

the afflictions and sometimes even the deaths of our

builders to fashion us into something useful.

It is important then that we not get too caught up in the

beauty of our end result.

Rather,

we must vigorously pursue a full understanding of the

dirt in our past,

and how that dirt relates to the

porcelain and polish of now.

Only then can we reproduce greatness.

There must be some recognition,

some circumscription,

some re-visitation

of the builders’ legacies. 

"A Coffee Talk," A Poetry Post

One cup of coffee
bridged
seventy years between us.

I admit I
took the
first three long sips.

I then leaned over and
inclined my head to
nestle my vision
under your faraway gaze.

I watched you fade away
to the edge that
women go to:
eyes glossed over,
breath quieted,
nerves shaking...

I waited to see if you would go over.

When you came back,
I was almost shocked.

Then I realized who was holding the cup.

With seventy years between us
and a body gone fresh from a
long three weeks,
we sat there at a bedside table,
looking.

Nobody hollered,
nobody shivered,
nobody said a word,
but we both knew what the other was saying.

It was this hardness--
your hardness--
that let me offer the coffee.

It was this resemblance
that let us both drink it.

-T. D. James-Moss

"The Tree's Wisdom," A Poetry Post

Stretch out a little since the
sky and its air are so
wide.

Grab you some sunshine.

When your contemporaries crowd you and
reach their hands into your
sunlight,
reach higher.

Challenge your stature.

When you are whipped back and forth by
the elements of life,
bend left, right or down.

When it gets real heavy,
get down on the ground.

And if you break,
hold on.

With your roots in tact,
your broken places will live,
and your shards will reknit.

Serve your community.
Let the weary find rest in your arms.
Let the hungry find food in your hands.
Let the frightened find refuge in your habitation.

Be sure to
adjust to life's seasons.

When men come in to take your bounty,
cutting away at your foundation,
remember your creator and his handiwork.

It will take more than a man's mere intentions
to cut you down.

Produce fruits worthy of your beauty and
in accordance with your purpose.

Offer the world your roughness and your sap,
your stability and your flexibility.

Be terrifying and enlightening.

Enjoy the strength and legacy that
come with age.

And definitely,
be found doing what
you were made to do.

When you are gone,
the air won't be the same
without you.

-T. D. James-Moss

"Words for a Dying Uncle," A Poetry Post

You were the first of us to believe
that a ghetto girl could be a princess.

It was unusual for a
black boy born on
Prince Street to keep
so clean; and,

it was laughable to others that a
man would choose
cosmetics and catering over
sports and womanizing
in the 60s.

These are the behaviors that
separated you from your peers;
and,
these were the avenues to your
pursuit of beauty.

Don't think I can overlook the
regalization of black faces during a
time of racial degradation sir.

To some,
you were the equivalent of a
gay man playing
dollhouse with
living black barbies, but
to others!

To others you were a
window into ballrooms and
parties and flash photography.

You put the black girl on one of
few pedestals available to her by
moisturizing her wooly hair and
puckering her thick, smart mouth into
something fashionable.

The gowns and the food and the music,
the gowns and the food and music
transformed unwed mothers and
corner-store-runners and
babysitters into
more than duck and cover or
under-the-cover girls.

Catwalks inspired field women to
cocoa butter up their
mahogany brown legs and
wear the slit on the
thick black woman's thigh.

Family recipes made
silent women talk.

"Mmm," they would say.
"What did you put in this and
how can I be this
magnificent?"

Little yard weddings became
soirees fit for queens and kings,
ornamented with chafing dishes full of
delicacies black families had
never seen.

And the bride,
"My GOD!" they would say.
"Who mounted her
coils like that?"

"Hmm," some quiet colored girl would say.

"That little black man in the back
cooking up that food
did that. You must know him?!"

Now that you're dying,
nobody's saying anything.

Perhaps they are afraid to see you
outside of the designer suits they were
so enchanted with,
the remarkable shades that
nobody else was wearing.

Maybe they can't imagine you
laying here like you are,
not saying anything,
not being the life of the party,
not dillydallying around the girls' hair.

It is HARD FOR THEM TO SEE
the primary judge of their food's value
unable to eat at all.

But I see you
just the way you were the
first time you put this
pretty girl's great big hips into a
dress...

A pretty girl that
hadn't yet digested the
concept of maintenance.

You are the same,
just unable to provide for yourself
the glamour you created
for others.

Let me then provide you with the reasonable foods,
the appropriate wardrobe.

I will dress you again in your best suit.

I will spray on the eau de toilette.

After you have gone on,
I will continue to bring into our blackness
the beauty that you lived to reveal.

I will remember to live out the
onlookers' standard reply to
EVERYTHING related to you.

"My God," they will say.
"How did she do that?"

And someone will say,
"That's Harry's niece,
one of Nussie's girls come home
from the city.
You must know her?!"

-T. D. James-Moss

"A Lesson from the Dying," A Poetry Post

For most of your life you command your own pace.

When you age,

your pace is assisted.

You may plan and attend lavish parties,

and be the belle or the beau of the ball.

When you age,

you don't get that attention

at all.

You may gather a wardrobe that 

cascades across halls and falls 

off its racks with suits and hats and 

heels and chemises and belts.

It's just as well.

You may never wear them.

Collect all your favorite records and movies;

you may never hear them. 

What you will remember 

when the embers of life start to fade

is the family you made.

Whether or not you were good to your daughter and

fair to your son.

Whether or not your marriage

could have been saved.

Whether or not you were honest and just 

or a scoundrel.

What you could do for your children

before your mind betrays you and makes you a

child again. 

Thus you should live like a titan in its simplest sense,

avoiding the drivel of daily ridiculousness and 

focusing in on the kin;

binding together the legacy of your best self in thick cords;

getting forgiveness for your wrongs;

and standing firmly and resolutely on your rights. 

Give the family you love more days than nights.

And then when you leave them,

resigned forever to a world where you no longer see them,

they will see you shining in their lives

like an eternal sun.

-T. D. James-Moss

"Colors," A Poetry Post

I thank my God for showing me

the colors of suffering,

for it was in the blues of financial strain

that I learned to pray for rain and wait 

for change. 

I thank my God for the yellows of illness,

the nauseous uncertainty of pills and ointments,

the inhale no exhale stillness of lingo,

the brightness of invasive diagnoses.

I learned to pray for rain and wait for change.

I thank my God for the greens of failure,

the availability of plenty in my emptiness,

the obvious greatness of those who were better,

the disappointing awareness of my own incompetencies.

It was there I prayed for rain and waited for change.

For the reds of frustration,

the orange-y bitter bits,

the indigo extremes of depression...

For the mute entrancing violet of stasis I 

thank my God. 

I prayed for rain and waited for change.

It was there 

I found 

my gold. 

-T. D. James-Moss 

"The Possibles," A Poetry Post

Here in the kitchen with my
goblet of orange juice,
I realize that it could have been a
glass of Chardonnay or a
fifth of whisky or a
shot of bourbon had
circumstances been different.

At work where I create universes
I remember that I could have been a
temptress on a street corner or a
loan shark on the boulevard or the
Queen Pin of some underground
criminal organization.

Home where I'm a housewife I'm a-
ware of the short distance between the
state of my humanity and
who I easily could be if
the two steps to the left became the
path to my today.

I do not presume that we
(you yourself and me)
are equal,
or perhaps we are,
but I do not presume that I am
eons better than you are if
you are drinking and hiding your bottles or
swapping your sex partners
every three days.

I believe that
had I taken one more step
to the left,
I could be you and
be a worse you
and meet you on the street and
curse you.

We do not remain apart from
deeds that ruin hearts
through denial.

We remain divine by knowing
possibles.

When I see you doing your whatevers,
I don't judge too swiftly
since your faults are
oh so near me.

It is by the grace of God that
you don't find me splayed, undone and
clinging to some precipice.

Promise you that if you think
restraint is my attempt to place you
on a level underneath me,
it's because you don't believe me
when I say that you could be ME.

There are just two steps here right for
you to change your entire life and
leave your bottles and your men to
start your life over again if
that is what you're thinking.

Then perhaps you'll write a ditty too
for people who think that they know you
when in truth they do not have a clue
about your groundedness.

It's not the feeling of a queen that
keeps me sane and even-keeled.
It's knowing what I could have been
that lets me know the way you feel.

-T. D. James-Moss

"A Southern Man's Wife," A Poetry Post

I'm a Southern man's wife.

I throw my chicken grease
on the edge of my property.

I'm wearing my husband's t-shirt,
cause it don't matter WHAT
you think of my clothes.

In two minutes I'mma
bring out the rice pot from
last night and
dump the water in this
hole.

This is my land.
Seems to me I can
dump whatever I want
on it.

And if you watching me
out yo' window,
what 'chu doin' watchin me while I'm
dumping my food trash?

Don't you know I'mma
Southern man's wife?

He is not concerned with your
judgements regarding
what goes on in
HIS YARD.

He say if he come out here in his
boxers,
and you standing on yo' porch
watching us,
then you deserve an eyeful of
whatever you see, honey.

That's why I'm out here,
dumping my food trash,
so I can get back to the kitchen and
fry my man some more chicken.

I knew when I got married what I
was getting into.

I'm sure you had NO IDEA
when you moved here,
who or what you'd see
creeping down the stairs
with a frying pan at
4 p.m. in the daylight.

But you live 'deya,
and I live here.

So it really
ain't
no issue
to be
discussed.

-T. D. James-Moss

"Coffee with Nana," A Poetry Post

When I was fifteen,

my Nana and I would

drink coffee late nights while

I did Calculus. 

Calculus was my Moby Dick and

Nana was my muse; after all,

what else could one do but suffer through

difficulties in order to be

victorious?

It was she who was the first picture of 

victory in our family.

A survivor of two World Wars and a

depression,

a businesswoman,

a mother,

a scorned woman whose 

once young husband 

returned from the war shell-shocked and 

rocked in so many ways.

A peacemaker who tried to soothe the ills 

of the family's hustlers and 

unfit mothers.

At the end of the day

she would have had to 

sit down and have 

coffee.

And me, three generations later,

the daughter of two parents who

could not agree,

the sister of brothers and sisters who

had three fathers and

four mothers among them, 

the peer of hundreds of children who were

counted out on the corridor that

politicians and moviemakers named

SHAME...

Here I was,

alive. 

I can't tell you!

How did I thrive

in the absence of my mother and father?

Why...

how did I thrive knowing

my family was strewn all over the

east coast, never knowing who they were?

Why...

how did I thrive knowing that

people were labeling me

empty and needy and laden with poverty?

How did I survive that?

Surely God has granted me favor.

Surely God has blessed me to live through it.

Surely God has taught my hands to war, yet

I say it has something to do with 

Nana and I having

coffee 

late in the night

while I cried over

Mathematics I did 

not understand. 

She could have told me to 

turn out the light and

go to bed and 

try tomorrow.

She could have told me to

take it easy and

find something else I was good at.

She could have

consoled me and told me,

"Don't worry, pretty girl,

you don't need Math to make it in this world," but

she didn't!

She fixed me a cup of coffee and a

slice of cake and she

sat there,

all night,

looking at Math she 

never understood until

one day

I just

got it.  

Together we learned how to suffer well.

She, with her lifetime of experience in suffering.

Me at fifteen struggling to find my real self.

We sitting, at the table, with coffees.

And that is why you know me now.

By God's grace,

that is why you know me now.

-T. D. James-Moss

"A Slam Lesson," A Poetry Post

I am the only me.
Not a cheap copy.
Not a joke to be told to a
Ridiculous audience of
Non-listeners.
Not an afterthought to
Be had in your boredom but
Only me.

I believe I can be me
or be something somewhat better
without apology.

I can do all else with or without your
permitting me.

I do not feel obligated to
do what you ask.
I feel liberated.
I feel uplifted.
I feel justified.

I choose to be all that and this,
not the thats that you have defined or the
little mees that you have imagined and
boxed into your little imagination.

I needs not be anything you
even think you know.

I needs just be
me.

-T. D. James-Moss

"Questions," A Poetry Post

It's in times like these that life affords us many questions:

As to whether it is better to live or to die or to
go screaming or go gently or be
happy or be mourning or be
holy or be heathen or be
angry or be grateful or be
steadfast or be broken or be
piecemeal or be stable or be
hollowed or be graceful or be
anything but obviously
busted in an ana-
chrony-
istic sort of
timed out,
flustered,
pressured kind of
state of somewhat being.

To believe that we can bring ourselves some peace in trying to be
brilliant or be dullard or to
think that we can make ourselves more
settled if we're
subject or we're super or to
hope that we can make ourselves sure footing
if we pray-pray-pray is sort of
silly.

When the sun goes down we all are
human.
And we hurt.
And we wonder.
And we cry.
And we falter.
And we hurry.
And we disappoint.

We sometimes feel
awkward.

It is what it is.

I too must face with eyes wide open
questions,
questions that I cannot answer,
questions that I do not understand to even
ponder.

I hope that when I find myself peering
as you may be,
that someone can remind me of my frailties.

I hope that when I'm wondering,
the shadow of your resilience reminds me
to be still.

-T. D. James-Moss