Adventures In Journalism 2

As my birthday approaches I realize that it is going to fall on Discovery Day- the day that Columbus re-discovered” the Bahamas. I decided to do some re-discovery of myself. Yes I would go out and rediscover the girl in me, the fearless one who loved a wild party and could boogey down with the best of them. I think to myself a card and a hug just will not do this time around after all it is not everyday that your age falls off the calendar. That’s right, no longer a spring chicken I am now some thing of an autumn hen? Whatever! I love my life but birthdays only remind me of how old I am getting. While I am supposedly getting wiser, picking gray hairs from my chin is not a pastime I adore. So yes just for the heck of it I plan a girls’ night out, a kind of rebellious coming of age. For this night I bring along my younger unlined, non graying girlfriends- did I mention I am a sucker for punishment? I send out emails to three of my closest friends and a new one who I recently met. Then call them everyday for a week to remind them about our night out the following Friday.

Well as Friday approaches I decide to find some new duds at my favorite spot in the whole of Nassau- Sexy Thang on Robinson Road- trust me when I say whenever I have been out in the last couple of months I never fail to draw stares wearing some of the trendiest clothing and jewellery from that boutique- After finding what I am looking for I head home to rest so that I can prepare for my night out. My husband is babysitting and he is a little annoyed that I am leaving him behind on my birthday, but he loves me, so he will do anything for me to be happy-besides Direct TV is on and our fifteen year old is there for him to foist the baby off on while he watches basketball and ultimately falls asleep with his mouth wide open for my six year old to practice his free throws. My kids are all happy that it is my birthday and the six year old wants to come with me on my girls’ night out. Resting is out of the question as he plagues me with questions about where I am going etc. I look at the clock and it is almost time for me to meet my friends. I hurry to get ready.
My baby is wearing my makeup (in her hair) and my high heel shoes when I get out of the shower. She screams bloody murder as I extricate my earrings from her hair. My six year old son is running up and down playing pirate with my bra over his eyes muttering, “Walk di plunk mon” (too much Sponge Bob). My underwear is on his head. I breathe a sigh of relief as my fifteen year old bustles them through the door. Motherhood is no joke.

Finally I am fully dressed and as I apply face powder my phone rings. It is my Trinidadian friend Marielle. She is at the Shell Gas Station on Saunders Beach which is close to my house so I tell her to stay put and with a final look at myself and pecks to the cheeks of my little family I am off.
Marielle is dressed in a little black top. She looks good as do I- not bad for a Grande Dame I think conceitedly to myself primping in the rearview mirror. She hands me a bottle of some good red wine (my birthday gift) which I will polish off later. We arrive at the meeting spot and even though we are late by twenty minutes it’s just the two of us so we go inside and wait. Bodine my other intrepid partner in crime arrives next. She is rocking some serious heels and she has decided to wear a skirt and pastel spaghetti strap top, she looks good. After a couple more minutes it is apparent that the other two ladies are not going to make it to the girls’ night out so we decide to leave my car and once again I am a passenger in the “Bo-mobile” (Adventures in Journalism 1). We talk about our plans for this night and then we are off. The general consensus is dinner and then some serious club hopping with a little work mixed in Bodine is covering the Soca Party at the Old 601 night club.

We arrive at Johnny Canoe, one of the best “hang out with your friends” restaurants in the Bahamas. It is jam packed and we join a queue of persons waiting for tables. Initially I want to sit where the band is on the balcony but we opt to go inside and within minutes we are seated. Bodine whispers something to the Maitre D and does her run way walk all the way to our table. Marielle and I exchange grins then take in the ambience of the packed restaurant. As soon as we sit down our waitress presents us with our menus and the celebration begins in our mouths. Iced tea is my drink of choice and conch fritters dripping with a dip that is so delicious I want to lap it up off of the plate. Marielle and I decide to share because we want to leave space for the actual meal- Bodine orders Southern Fried Onions and I think to myself she had better not whisper anything to anyone tonight. The appetizer is barely on the table when the waitress once again appears with our orders. I am having pork chops with peas and rice and Cole slaw I do not care what the others are having I just want to eat. I push the conch fritters aside and dig into the succulent meat. I look up between bites and the other ladies are not being cute about eating either. I wonder aloud if I have gravy on my chin but they are too busy “chowing” down to answer. Yup, I think to myself ladies night out is on.




All of a sudden what is this I hear? goatskins pounding, whistles, bells and horns harmonizing? Dang! It’s a rush out. In the middle of the restaurant come costumed men and boys playing sweet junkanoo music as if they are on Bay Street. My ear drums and heart join in. The tourists love it and I am in my element. The waitresses form a line in front of the rushers and dance all through the restaurant. I smilingly ask the waitress for the cheque as we are all finished and ready to go shake our groove things.Bodine sees a friend and goes to say hello. All of a sudden I see the waitresses singing and dancing towards me. I think wow! Johnny Canoe has a little cabaret show going on here! They are all looking at me intently now and all of a sudden happy birthday is being sung to me in the most original manner ever. I am floored and I am literally grinning from ear to ear. I love this. They give me guava duff with one birthday candle on top and it is the best thing I have ever tasted in my entire life.

After we leave the restaurant we get a free pass into the Living Room in The Nassau Beach Hotel. We leave after a while because it’s not yet hopping. The Club happy people are just waking up I think to myself. We go on to Café Habana a quaint Cuban Restaurant downtown. We are greeted like celebrities by the owner who opens up the bar and gives us free tequila shots. Marielle a professional dancer mops up the floor with the competition and we leave them in our dust as we forward to the main event the soca party at the former 601 night club where we dance the night away.

Poetic Release

By: Nadine Thomas-Brown


“Poetic Release” is so much more than poets pontificating about topics no one cares about. It is drums beating while clever women garbed in Nubian finery chant “yard style” about lovemaking and life, It’s about feet tapping as handsome young men sporting the latest gear sing over Karaoke tracks to their current flames. It is about free styling to any given beat, it’s about releasing all of your pent up thoughts through dance, commentary, poetry, spoken word, songs, music picked out on keyboards, maracas, tambourines… To be a part of this experience you need no talent just time and some energy to “release”.

“Poetic Release” is the brainchild of two performers who prefer anonymity but whose love of the arts saturates every aspect of their lives. On finding that there are not many spoken word venues they have decided to jump in and contribute to the spoken word scene and in doing so, channel the energy of venues which were once hopping and are now on permanent hiatus. Venues such as Jitters and Caripelago where “SpeakEasy” hostess extraordinaire, Krissy Luv held court and later passed the torch to the Ruff Cutz Crew who continued to host SpeakEasy at the now closed “Chippies” (Cafe Habana).

Café Habana is a sexy little Cuban eatery whose atmosphere makes it conducive to manipulation thereby anointing it the perfect spot for performers to release pent up talents. Take last Saturday for instance when starting from seven pm Bay Street literally echoed with the plaintive wails of poets some of whom found that their singing voices grated on no nerve endings here in the Cafe. It seemed for one moment in time that all judgmental thoughts had ceased and even the most horrific voices were beautiful in their honesty and lack of self consciousness. The poetry was intense and the themes varied from love to loss and even a little politics was humorously thrown in. Then it was time to freestyle.
Everyone was given the opportunity of making up lyrics to incredible syncopated drumming with a touch of hip hop thrown in. The crowd went wild as the host for the evening threw down the gauntlet by going into some inspired rap about her floetry. The challenge was then taken up by a young woman with admitted issues. She captivated the audience by venting her anger about her living situation a point which everyone seemed able to relate to and their heads bobbed in agreement at her rhythmic rant. Rap Artist Mif,f represented his brand of
cool as his lady nodded dreamily, seeming to feel the weight of his loaded words as they fell on receptive, appreciative ears. Poet Eric Rose thanked the audience for the food, thanked god for his Nubian princess while Sean Munnings reminded the ladies that he was not made of stone and in the same breath asked his girl friend lovingly and with great heat, to “Charo him”…Rolinda Pierre starred in her own macabre poem utilizing some serious acting skills to conjure the psychopathic nature of a jilted persona in one poem, while seducing the room with a soon to be released love chant in another…

By ten o’clock “Poetic Release” had climaxed but patrons hung around anyway greeting friends and chatting about how fat they felt from the lyrical feasting that had taken place. Some gluttons for lyricism voiced regret that “Poetic Release” was such that it would only be held every two weeks but nevertheless they promised to be back for more.

For more information about “Poetic Release” at Café Habana: email vibestress@yahoo.com

Adventures In Journalism

Adventures In Journalism part 1
By: Nadine Thomas Brown

How many prostitutes are there in Nassau? Where do they parade their wares? Do they have conventions, unions, vacations? Is there a retirement plan for elderly prostitutes? Do they have Pimps? Are clear heels the new call girl uniform? Why do they do it? These are just some of the questions I considered asking some of these independent “entrepreneurial young ladies of the night” if I found them. As it turned out the only thing I did learn is that their intrinsic radars- which seem to be able to detect intrepid ambitious journalists from miles away- enables them to either blend into the gritty streets which they have been rumored to traffic or simply disappear at the drop of a hat.

It is ten pm and my friend Bodine and I are on the prowl for prostitutes. This is my first time (tongue in cheek) so I pack my charm, my wit and my carefree spirit in with my camera and tape recorder and strap myself into my friend’s passenger seat in preparation for our search. Our friend Robert is attending classes till 10:30 and will not be joining us as planned. I am a little disappointed because I feel that with a guy in the car we would probably get the ladies to approach the car more readily- go figure! Still we are both starved for adventure and the night awaits us.Tw minutes into our search the phone rings and it is Bodine’s pesky (according to her) little sister. She needs a ride home. We are on the Cable Beach Strip and she needs a ride all the way across town into the Eastern District. Bodine and I consult and decide that we have more than enough time to find prostitutes.After all they are ladies of the “night”. We take the scenic route and soon Bodine’s sister and her two friends are ensconced in the back seat eavesdropping as we gossip about everyone we know. I think the people in the backseat can sense that we are both showing off just a little bit (ok we are showing off a lot,) but we feel we are entitled; after all we had not invited them along. Meanwhile, Bodine is valiantly trying not to go off on her sister for not first asking her about playing taxi to her friends.

It is 10: 45 pm, we are finally on our way (again) after making stops at the dressmaker (my friend is very annoyed and her claws are showing) and finally dropping her sister and her friends off. By this time we are both starving so we head down to Oaksfield looking for food. Kentucky is still open so we join the queue and place our orders. The woman who takes our order still manages to mix them up but we just say thanks and leave thanking God for small mercies. We realize that we are running short on gas so we pull into a service station. I see my friend Andre’ Chapelle and we chat for a while. He checks the oil and the coolant for us and we tell him about the mission that we are on. He tells us of the most likely place that we will find prostitutes and warns us to take off all our jewellery, and to keep the doors and windows locked. We show him the baseball bat and my friend’s high heels which could seriously hurt someone if applied to the right spot. Hopefully we won’t run into this type of trouble I pray silently. I am so not about the drama tonight, I think to myself.

With every distraction finally out of the way we make our way to Dowdeswell Street. This is the place to find prostitutes I have been told. I glance at my watch and it is 11:15pm. They should be out in full force I think to myself. I feel my journalistic juices beginning to churn. I am very excited. We spot three shadowy figures lounging
in the vicinity of Joy fm and my friend alerts me to the presence of our targets. I do a dance of joy in my head while trying to appear nonchalant. My friend indicates to one of the prostitutes that we’d like to speak with her.
On the off chance that she confuses us for “Sisters of Sappho” (lesbians) out for a thrill ride we quickly identify ourselves as journalists and explain our objective. We are greeted with an incredulous look and an accented ‘me not down with that right now’. My friend convinces the prostitute to stay and chat while I clumsily fumble for my tape recorder (a stupid move). Crickets chirp loudly in the ensuing silence as both Bodine and the prostitute wait for my thought provoking questions but my tape recorder is stuck. I finally win my tug of war with it only to see the hooker making a break for it looking like a vampire who has just caught sight of a cross. I try to convince her that I am not an undercover cop trying to entrap her but it is too late and she looks as if she is about to become boisterous. Fearing confrontation we flee. I am extremely angry at myself for blowing it but we have a list and a theoretical map outlining the most likely prostitute ridden corners so we move on.
Now this is the unbelievable part. Aside from the first three hookers we found we can not locate any more prostitutes in any of the other locations we try. We joke to each other that either business is extremely good or the prostitutes have all gone on vacation or found God. Our sails a bit crumpled, we decide to try one last spot- a local night club on West Bay Street. The women that we see entering the property all look like interview prospects so at the risk of offending any innocent parties who are present( and catching a beat down) . we decide to call it a night, grab a few drinks at a friends bar and retire from the tiring, pointless pastime of prostitute hunting, at least for this night.

The Spider's Lair

Poetry Show Review
By Janice Mather, The Tribune (Nassau, Bahamas)

For lovers of lyrics and fans of thoughtful rhythms, A Life Supreme proved to be the most satisfying poetry event of the season. Visiting artist Larry Knight, and his smooth spoken word works, many of which came from his CD, also entitled A Life Supreme, lived up to every bit of promise the album had suggested.

Knight’s delivery – confident, impassioned, and powerful – was flawless, from the first note of The Myth of Tomorrow to the final poem, which evoked an encouraging message of spreading wings preparing to take powerful flight. Mirrors Beauty Therapy and Spa, where the show was held Sunday night, may seem like an unlikely venue for the summer’s first solid show. But, with a commanding voice that needed no microphone, and words that demanded – and received – complete silence from listeners, Knight transformed an ordinary room into the wide crossroads of an old Southern road, painting word-pictures of a piano-playing, soul-singing queen – and of hose and dog-controlled civil rights uprisings, and lynched black boys “slung from southern trees/rhythmically swinging/like macabre metronomes.”

Before Knight took to the stage on Sunday evening, home-grown poets set the pace in an open-mic segment with a level of quality that would have suggested that performers had been scheduled. Bodine Johnson, a comedian-style poet, got the audience grinning with rhymes about a hypocritical church deacon whose sins find him out, while Nadine Thomas-Brown bent genre boundaries, straddling poetry and reggae with rhythmic chat. Carlton Watson mused on the shoddy state of “black love”, then spanned the globe with world-commentary poetry that questioned why Rwanda’s genocide has been largely forgotten while 9/11 remains pre-eminent in many minds.

Then the lights dipped, and, from the back of the room, a sonorous song reminiscent of old spirituals began the performance. Taking listeners whirling through the American South, Knight used words to pay homage to musical greats Nina Simone and Miles Davis and to evoke painful pictures of activism and Civil Rights struggles. Interspersing spoken lyrics with bouts of song, he tackled the haunting lines of Strange Fruit, which bitterly describes lynching, then later teased listeners with just a few lines of Eyes on the Prize.

Between power-packed spoken – and sung – word spat out with a fervour often only seen in the Sunday morning performances of many a Baptist preacher, Knight also spoke of love, and of growing up in Louisiana, assuring audiences that while his work is strongly grounded in the US South, his themes are no stranger to the Bahamian shores, or to anywhere.

Speaking about the poem On Being Black in America, he told the audience “The title could be erased and it could be applicable in the Bahamas... Because I’ve been here for two weeks and I’ve seen a lot of stuff . . .”

Knight, who said in an earlier interview that he expected his material to be applicable to Bahamian audiences despite its very Black-American content, wove local references into Chaos in E Minor, a powerful rant that contrasts classics like John Coltrane and Nina Simone with the contemporary “roar of an audience as they sit/ waiting, with guts churning, hearts racing, palms sweating/ for announcer to sing ‘ladies and gentlemen, we proudly present for your listening enjoyment this evening, the one, the only/ Brittany Spears.” The original version then describes a young, undiscovered black girl, in contrast, singing somewhere in a house in Jacksonville; for the Nassau audience, it was aptly – and successfully – adapted to “a young girl in Fox Hill stands in a bathroom and sings heavenly into a hairbrush”. As well as describing classic Black American musicians, Knight broke out with a recollection of “Ray Munnings making Nassau a little bit funkier, singing ‘Nassau’s got rhythm, Nassau’s got soul!’”

“I know the fourth verse too,” Knight laughed, to approving whoops and claps from the audience.

“[I wanted] just to connect with the audience and to let them know that no matter where the piece was written, it’s still applicable wherever it’s being performed,” explained Knight, after the show. “It was just to give the audience the opportunity connect, and establish that link.”

Even without tangibly reaching out to Bahamians with familiar names, his content and strong delivery guaranteed that the audience would relate. If the applause was anything to judge by, the audience was pleased with the power-packed performance that combined fury at the past, passion for positive fights, Miles Davis-style ear play, lyrical story time, and old-style spirituals with new-time commentary. Only one question remained after the show: when next?

That remains to be seen. But, says Knight, “Definitely, I will be back.” And, if word spreads, it’s likely that next time will be another well-attended treat for ears, heart, and mind.

Published Wednesday, June 20, 2005 by The Tribune

SEX

Nadine Thomas-Brown 



Black man feed me with your words
eat me with your eyes
give unto me the recipe of love
we created
bind me up tightly in the security of your manliness
stroke my imagination with your thoughtful intercourse
lick the sweetness from my overheated ripeness
turn me every which way but loose
place me in a position of mutual love and consensual submission
unclothe my aching loins and turn me into fertile ground
teach me the purpose of my womanliness
Seduce me, revere me, extol all of
my virtues or lack thereof
play my libido like a finely tuned piano
and try to match my sensuous motions.
Black man i will follow if you lead or
lead if you will follow
just free your mind of all inhibitions
and let me come with you
to a better place,
a place filled with potent sensations,
passion filled vibrations, mental elations
and us intertwined
bodies and minds combined and satisfied.

Re A life supreme

Larry Knight if you read this your show was dynamic.

some o' dem

D.espicable, detestable,distasteful baby makers
making pregnant young minds, with false promises
broken cherries and unwanted foetuses.
completing the cycle that started seventeen moons old, with their despicable, detestable,distasteful daddies.

U.ndying webs, mythic labyrinths of foul untruths.
oh what a tangled web we weave...
hunks of lying meat, trappers of the female soul
kings of the world,rulers of hearth and home.

M.asculine ineptitude in matters of emotion and commitment
masters of our discontent, the "big stick" policy rules your every waking breath.

B.rothers defending each other...
the stench of your abandonment pollutes generations
and interrupts progress.

commentary on iraq

By: Nadine Thomas-Brown


The desert blooms
as bombs fall over Baghdad
Macabre red blooms
which gives off the fetid smell of
Burning flesh.

The skies are beautiful
as rockets light up the oppressed night
over Baghdad.
explosions of blood red, white and blue

The city is alive tonight
as fleeing parents huddle
their children ever closer
avoiding falling pamphlets
and U.N. aid.


A dictator is on the run tonight
running for his life
so he can run again to run his people’s life.
Bet he has the runs.

Soldiers are dying tonight as fat politicians
talk bullshit from the safety of their offices
aint life a bitch?

Most Embarrassing Moments As Told By Women

Gaffe, blunder, faux pas, boo boo.. These are just some of the names that we assign to life's little embarrassing moments. We have all belched or let loose some wind at some inopportune moment. These are the defining moments in our lives when we wish to God we could vanish into oblivion.

The first embarrassing moment that I had was at 5 when I wet myself on a class trip. Of course like many of us, it was not to be the last time that I was totally humiliated. The following stories are from women who have recovered from these awkward moments and can now laugh about them. These are true stories and the names have been changed to protect the deeply embarrassed.



Charmaine's Story: I was in a packed church one night when I realized that I would have to get to the bathroom rather quickly. Now I had no qualms about getting up from the back of the church to walk all the way to the front where everyone could see how cute I looked in my new dress fresh from New York. I could hear the cryptic remarks and feel the disapproving looks as I sauntered through the aisle. Getting up and moving about was not allowed while the pastor was giving his fire and brimstone sermons. However I did not care. , Those jealous cows I thought smugly, adding just a little more swing to my hips as I passed each sneering member. Well, I got to the bathroom unscathed by the venomous, disapproving looks that were thrown at me especially from the female members of the congregation. Nevertheless on my way pass the pulpit, I tried to avoid the pastor's steely, bloodshot gaze. After about thirty minutes of prepping myself for my re-emergence as a gorgeous butterfly amidst those common moths, I started back to my seat.

As I passed the first pew I heard a titter but ignored it. I was too high on my cloud of self esteem to care. As I continued down the line of pews the tittering grew till I could ignore them no longer. What is happening here? I thought to myself. Did I miss some joke that the pastor had regurgitated as he so often did? All of a sudden I realized that everyone was looking at me. They were pointing, and yes, laughing with their mouths opened wide. Others just stared in amazement. Horror of horrors thought to myself what could the matter be? Well it seemed that in my haste to make an entry I had not adjusted my clothing properly therefore the hem at the back of my dress was tucked snugly into the waist of my stockings and my very revealing underwear-which I always wear to enhance my inner goddess- was on display for all seventy five members of my church to see. Embarrassed is not the word I would use to describe my feelings on that day. I guess I had gotten all the attention I thought I deserved. To this day I still believe I was taught a divine lesson and from now on I will pay more attention to God's word and less to myself- that is whenever I find a new church.



Lorraine's Story: I had spent weeks upon weeks telling my friends about this handsome guy with whom I was always flirting. The brother was fine. He was ripped and cut in all the right places and he had no problem flirting back with this sister. My friends and I always ate dinner at a certain Cafe' every weekend. We would catch up on all the juicy gossip of the week that had gone. He too frequented the Cafe'-this is where he first caught my eyes. Every time he was there He was always accompanied by some very pretty girls. So the fact that he saw me any at all was very flattering. I mean some of these girls were Calendar material. One day he invited me on a date and I told every one of my friends about this date with the 'man of my dreams. That night he came to my house not a minute after the time we had planned to meet and he had a single red rose. I almost died. I knew I was in love. However I was a little taken aback when he said he had changed our plans and wanted to take me to his apartment instead. He explained that it would be more intimate and he wanted to focus all of his attention on me. I did not even give it a second thought. I was his, hook line and sinker. Needless to say we ended up being intimate and the only thing left for him to do- I thought- was to propose to me and swear his undying love. Of course the next day when we congregated in our usual spot at the cafe', all my friends were treated to a blow by blow description of my night out with my 'Mr. Right I made sure to embellish all the details to make my friends drool with envy. 'He is in love with me, I said smugly. 'He told me so I said conspiratorially.

I suddenly realized that my friends were not really listening to me but instead were watching the entrance to the Cafe' while trying not to look at me. I turned curiously to see what had so engrossed them. What I saw was totally incomprehensible.

Wrapped around a calendar type babe was my man of the past night. He was kissing the playboy bunny-esque creature like there was no tomorrow and there had been no yesterday -with me that is. I wanted to crawl into myself and die. He looked in my direction briefly, our eyes locked and he did not even blink. My friends looked on sympathetically. I was frozen in disbelief. When I recovered from the shock I bravely took my things and made a quick getaway. The Moral of this story is simple. Know what you are getting into before making assumptions. Also keep some of your secrets secret. I probably would have been less embarrassed if I had not gone about spilling every detail to my friends.





Lorna's Story: My very immature boyfriend embarrassed me so badly that I finally worked up the courage to dump him. I was in nursing school and he in College when I decided to pay him a visit. Now the college he attended was very strict with its rules regarding women visiting the dorms. All female visitors had to leave by 9pm on week days. So it was that I was stretched out in my boyfriend's bed at ten thirty on a weekday enjoying his 'ambiance. Suddenly there was a loud pounding on the door and the deep male voice of the warden rang out in the night. How was I to know that they checked to see whether females stayed on the dorms, I had never stayed that late before.

I had no idea where to hide as the box of a room contained only a single bed and a closet which resembled a coffin turned on the short end. To say I was frightened was putting it mildly. He would be in serious trouble if I was discovered. I could not allow this to happen. I threw a trembling glance at him. He seemed as if he was about to lose his lunch. To this day I have no idea how I got into the closet. I only recall the scent of smelly gym socks and the overpowering scent of Kentucky Fried Chicken don't ask. I must have stayed squeezed in the closet for at least five minutes trembling like a fat girl in a room full of cannibals.

When all of a sudden there was a loud chorus of laughter. I peeped through the crack and discovered that the tiny room was filled with every male on the dorm. It took a few minutes for me to realize that I was the butt of my stupid boyfriend's prank. He laughed the loudest and longest. He had called everyone to show them his girlfriend stuffed into the coffin-like closet with one of her nurse's shoe sticking out for the world to see. I can now laugh at the absurdity of the situation but at the time I was livid. He became my ex-boyfriend very soon after that incident. I see him now and again with new girlfriends and I really hope that he has grown up somewhat since that moronic prank.



[Email your responses about this and other articles by this writer to: alainebrown@msn.com]

Minus Love- Ode to Bodine

when he condescends to grace her with his presence
she melts like wax under a hot lamp
he has burnt her a million times
and she has never become immune
to the third degree burns he leaves like footprints around her heart.
Yet like a moth, she cannot resist the undeniable charm of his flame, the onesided attraction that binds and winds, hypnotizes
and pulls her slithering like a snake;
-belly to the ground, face in the dirt-
to her loss of rightness, of self,
of sanity...

miscarriage

VIEWING ME AS
HOSTILE TERRITORY
MY ANGEL FLED
IN A SEA OF RED
AND ALL I HAVE TO
REMIND ME THAT SHE EXISTED

IS A SMALL RECTANGULAR BOX
WITH TWO HORIZONTAL LINES.

Hypothetical

I want to come over to your place
touch your face
play with the long silky dreads flowing down your back.

I want to hold your hands
and listen to the musical intonation
of your indrawn, withheld, exhaled breath.
I want to watch the interplay of sunlight on your skin and note
the differences in our skin tones

I want to look into your eyes as we find a rhythm all our own
and set the night on fire.

Yes

I want to bathe you in sweat
then bathe you in exotic oils

I want to listen to your music as you serenade me
with love songs.
Then we will eat, have fine wine and fine conversation.

You'll say you love me
I'll say I want you
then we'll end the day
the way we started it
in each other's arms.

Ghetto Life

Ghetto Life

By Nadine Thomas- Brown

Remember the days when chicken was a treat
when wi lived in a tenement pon nine union street
and di rats and di roaches
and di sound of gunshots
at night?

Remember di night dem seh rolling calf
(mi look back now and mi haffi laugh)
set Mr. Stapleton fowl coop pon fire?
roast chicken fi weeks…
remember di move ‘pon di back of di truck?
wid wi few belongings most a dem bruk up…
belongings few, but wi did have each other
fatherless but wi had wi mother
who always managed somehow to keep hunger at bay.

then the concrete jungle where male lions prowl
wid metallic paws that spit fire under the sun’s high beam,
and the night wi see di man under the tree
hands clutched ‘round the submachine
and the whores getting beat up outside our bedroom wall

remember the days we used to walk to school
and walk back home in the hot afternoon
and pray she dinner did done cook
cause hunger was a teacher and welfare was not happening.

and the longing and the praying and the hoping and the doubting
and the hunger for a better way of life( a pipe dream)
cause daddy got kicked to the curb, licked to the curb or just
sitting on the curb doin’ nothing.

Remember when the gas station fire claimed plenty friends
and police fire crush plenty ends
and the growing up little by little everytime acid put an innocent soldier six feet under

den the night mi bredda show me a gun
and the night mi start mi own gang
(black spiders) forever cause badness was the lick of the day
remembering the blood guts and gore
and knowing what I know about ghetto lore
I can’t believe how far I am from the ghetto

den di growing up den di starting over
den di looking back pon how far mi come
how some a dem never mek it dis far
how some a dem still stuck in wars
and some in limbo……..

Hell mi can’t believe mi get ‘way from the ghetto.

Killing him cleverly

She
could
not
kill him
with words
he was much too clever
neither could she kill him
with conventional murder weapons,
so she resolved to kill him slowly-by acceptable means-
burgers and fries and other saturated fats,and she never
forgot to add an extra spoon of sugar to everything he ate and
an extra dose of mayonnaise to his potato salad. At nights she cried fat tears of joy at his impending demise and like the Mona
Lisa, she had an ever present knowing smile. For what jury
could convict her, This good wife, this paragon of good
works, who was slowly, lovingly, deliberately feeding her life long love-her husband- to death?

Isha

I am a Complex woman


To know me is to look into my dark recesses

And understand my midnight.
To understand me is to stand in the freezing rain
And question why the earth moves on it's axis.
To move me is to relate to me in terms of the struggles of my people
To walk a mile in my shoes is to walk side by side with death, kiss him on the mouth and emerge from the slumber into the light of a beautiful day.


I am a complex woman.

I plant the rice in the hot swamps of China,
I am a masked warrior in Afghanistan
I have run with my children for our lives in the remote regions of Kuwaiti, South Africa, Serbia, and Croatia.....
I have survived plagues, starvation, rape and murder
I am unstoppable.


I am a complex woman

I stand with my man
I fall with my man
I raise my children and yours
I give and give unconscious of reciprocation
I forgive but never forget
I hate with purity, judge with impunity
and i never stop loving for a second
For i Isha am multi-faceted a priceless diamond
of unfathomable depth.

Do not try to solve my mystery
Just know that this complex woman's heart
is anything but complex.

Echoes

Crawl into my skin
see where I am coming from,
an individual
not a statistic.

Crawl inna mi skin
si weh mi a come from
a long time mi a travel
da road yah.

mashe sew po mwen
whe kote mwen soti

admire my tenacity
first free from slavery still struggling.

Gatear dentro mi piel
Mire de donde yo vengo

Different countries, common goals
woven together in a web of humanity
Alike but different. Nothin' nuh wrong wid dat.

Mi a add to yuh culture
Mi nah tek nothing from it

Di Junkanoo beat inna mi blood
Junkanoo, Bachanal, Festival, Carnival
all off the same slave ship.
Focus
and
crawl inna mi skin
mashe soo po mwen

gatear dentro mi piel

Crawl into my skin.>

Horny as hell

I want to wrap someone in my warm velvety love mitten
and stroke them till they purr
squeeze the juices of their love
into my honey place as we
combust and squeal with the irony
of absent love.
Only very present lust exists here
and the aromas of
satiated bodies.

I like this

oooO Gangsta Girlz
( /
By: Nadine Thomas-Brown
In the spider's lair
aint no need for gentility
bring your worst niggas it will be welcomed here
we are girls without bombo claawt fear
we send rapists bleeding to the docks
better not say where you've been nigger you'll catch another beat down
you're just too fucking low down

park your cars on the east side when you
see us on the west side
young girlz with attitude behaving rude
we are packing… semi autos, desert eagles, and glock nines
better not let me catch you eyeing me nigger.

don't want none of the white stuff
too smart for that.
Got to keep this cranium clear for the day job
so screw what you've heard
it aint nothing but a word.

mama understand this emptiness is a factor
gotta do what I do to make myself matter
trying to survive pon my own
leave me alone
no matter what you say don't need your advice
screw the noise.

gonna learn to click in the magazine
yeah, get mean about the green.
Niggas on the block look away when we pass
look anywhere else to avoid our ass
cause when the Black Spiders come passing through
maximum respect from the avenue
maximum respect from the avenue
maximum respect from the avenue

Nadine Thomas-Brown