Word Conjurers

[shereads]

By random luck, I follow a link sent to me by an old friend, and find a poem that I can't stop reading. Devorah Major and Opal Palmer Adsia "sing" their poetry at jazz/soul music clubs as "The Daughters of Yam." There's one audio sample at the link; the sound is a sort of Caribbean/urban rap hybrid. Not pretty or polished, but raw and potent.

"Writing Love" made me think of you pornsters.


---------------

Writing Love

by devorah major


all i want to write is love poems

in this season of rotting flesh
and hollow bellies
in this year of hidden corpses
and shrapnel graveyards

all i want to write is love poems

to the one i don't know yet
the one i know will come
the one whose breath
will mix with mine

for the lips i will taste
for the hips i will encircle
for the sap i will share

all i want to write is love poems

about shining eyes
and sweat's perfume
about promises made and kept
about secrets and fears
shared and revealed

in this year of the buried city
this decade of the hunger crop
this century newly begun yet already
with thousands upon thousands
of limbs torn off eyes burnt out
hearts eviscerated

all i want to write is love poems

i don't want this job of
recording the children’s despair
the mothers’ grieving the fathers’
misery the sons’ brutalization
the planet's storms and fires

it is all too much for me
my eyes fill with salt
and become blurred
and only love poems
will make it better
will clear the way

but all around me
these others who i already love
in knowing and as strangers
are being murdered or enslaved
starved or tortured
imprisoned or forsaken
and the one who would shelter
the shuddering me in his arms
is absent and

the poems i want to write
evade me
until i am left
with this nothing but this howl
wedged between my teeth

all i want to write is love poems

about blue kissing my morning
lemons tart and fresh flavoring
my afternoons crescent moons
arching away from venus’ sparkle
in a star hungry sky

all i want to write
is love poems

all i want to write
is love



------------

http://www.daughtersofyam.com/doyhome.html

 

[shereads]

I like thiis one because it's dirty.

~ SR

--------------

CARIBBEAN PASSION

by OPAL PALMER ADSIA

i was schooled by ackee
scholar of passion
that turns the blood
a poisonous mauve
she told me one
night of purple skies

ackee is serious
about devotion
using her shirt tail
to fan the heat between her thighs


i know touch
felt it first in the sweat
that glistened on his face
my desire caught on his tongue

i sauntered the shores
my toes* touched by archival script
surrounded as i am
i can’t help but fondle myself

in the endless place
without seasons
there’s a fruit sweeter
than star-apple’s cum

ask sand
if she wearies
of waves wetting her body
swimming under her shirt

no ________ she shivers every time

 

[minsue]

the poems i want to write
evade me
until i am left
with this nothing but this howl
wedged between my teeth

YES! YES!! YES!!!

Perfection.

Thanks much for the link, Sher. I'm sure to spend much time there.

 

[shereads]

YES! YES!! YES!!!

Perfection.

Thanks much for the link, Sher. I'm sure to spend much time there.

I'm so glad you like it. I think I may have seen Devorah read "Writing Love" on a local TV station's morning news hour a few months ago. I tuned in when she was near the end of the poem and they broke for a commercial without giving her name again, but the refrain and her picture are both familiar. If they were in Miami, I'm sorry I missed them.

Don't miss the dirty poem, Min.

 

[minsue]

Don't miss the dirty poem, Min.

Of course not

 

[yui]

They're very, very powerful and such clear images. Wow.

 

[shereads]

They're very, very powerful and such clear images. Wow.

And am I the last person in the developed world to discover streaming radio? If you leave Daughters of Yam's page and go to Wire On Fire one of their CDs is playing right now.

 

[minsue]

And am I the last person in the developed world to discover streaming radio?

Probably. But that's why we love you so.

(I don't remember the last time I listened to Wait! Wait! or any of my other Saturday morning addictions on an actual radio. My local station has a streaming webcast, so I just listen while I fuck about online. )

 

[shereads]

Probably. But that's why we love you so.

(I don't remember the last time I listened to Wait! Wait! or any of my other Saturday morning addictions on an actual radio. My local station has a streaming webcast, so I just listen while I fuck about online. )

I don't have external speakers for the ibook and everything sounds tiny.

I can enjoy Car Talk even if I'm working or talking on the phone. Just hearing the brothers laugh cheers me up. I don't think a small laugh would be the same.

 

[TheEarl]

Brilliantly evocative poetry. You were lucky to find it.

The Earl

 

[LadyJeanne]

I don't have external speakers for the ibook and everything sounds tiny.

I can enjoy Car Talk even if I'm working or talking on the phone. Just hearing the brothers laugh cheers me up. I don't think a small laugh would be the same.

I adore Click and Clack. They make me wish I had an old Dodge Dart so I could call in and hear them laugh at me.

 

[shereads]

I adore Click and Clack. They make me wish I had an old Dodge Dart so I could call in and hear them laugh at me.

You're welcome to say you own my car. Last year I traded up from a 1990 Honda to a 1991 Honda. That should give them something to work with.

Whoever screens the callers for them contributes a lot to Car Talk. Yesterday they talked to "Martha from West Virginia" who was battling her conscience because the car dealer gave her the car, the keys and the title and forgot to ask for the $20,000.

The brothers' first comment was, "Your name isn't really Martha, is it. And you're not from West Virginia."

She said, "That's probably true."

 

[LadyJeanne]

You're welcome to say you own my car. Last year I traded up from a 1990 Honda to a 1991 Honda. That should give them something to work with.

Whoever screens the callers for them contributes a lot to Car Talk. Yesterday they talked to "Martha from West Virginia" who was battling her conscience because the car dealer gave her the car, the keys and the title and forgot to ask for the $20,000.

The brothers' first comment was, "Your name isn't really Martha, is it. And you're not from West Virginia."

She said, "That's probably true."

Classic. I'm sorry I missed it - I'll be they had a field day with that one.

 

[shereads]

Classic. I'm sorry I missed it - I'll be they had a field day with that one.

The poor woman. I'm afraid they talked her into doing the right thing.

 

[LadyJeanne]

The poor woman. I'm afraid they talked her into doing the right thing.

I'd expect no less - Tom and Ray are good people. I expect they'd eventually have hunted her down and squeezed every penny out of her...like when said salesman doesn't receive his expected commission.

My favorite callers are the ones who have a bet going with their spouse or in-laws, or both:

"My husband says it's my fault the car rolled into the lake because I forgot to turn the wheels properly when I parked. My brother-in-law insists it's because the boat I was towing was too heavy for the car and the ramp was wet. I think it's their fault for making me tow the damn thing to the lake in the first place in a Ford Pinto. I've got a new car riding on this..."

 

[Guest]

Lovely, sher
thank you for sharing them...the first, Writing Love, really made an impression.

 

[shereads]

Lovely, sher
thank you for sharing them...the first, Writing Love, really made an impression.

Damn. Are you sure you don't like the one with the sweaty thighs better? There's a bet on the books.

 

[DrFreud]

Powerful poems. Seems to me your location is right out of the first one, doesn't it?

DrF
p.s: i like the av. does this mean our usda porn inspector is back?

 

[matriarch]

The 'love' poem, really strikes at the heart...deep inside.

Thanks for sharing.

Mat

 

[shereads]

p.s: i like the av. does this mean our usda porn inspector is back?

Of course not. I wouldn't do that again. Squealing on friends for the government paid well, but it required too much stealth and SECRECY.



Damn.