My Poetry
Her Unspoken Eulogy
"Do heroes carve chalk outlines on dead exteriors. . ."
The Jezebel, The Mammy, & The Bullhead.
"The earth rejoices at the birth of another black queen. . ."
1932
"It's 2017, but it feels a lot like 1932. . ."
On the 6th Day
"I asked God if my soul was worth saving anymore. . ."
Southside with You
"When your man comes home from the trap. . ."
Shoot
"She says, that’s how they made love. . ."
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Her Unspoken Eulogoy
by Tymmarah Anderson & Daniel Johnson
Do heroes carve chalk outlines on dead exteriors
carved into my interior
the weight of his body
the weight of these protestors
weighing on my conscience
on my countenance
four hours fade
you dont know what i experienced
you dont how it feels
They told her her body smell like tear gas and fire smoke
That's why nobody up above wants to love it
She heard her favorite outfit was yellow masking tape.
And that She smell like black boy blood.
She sways over the rivers her offspring were once floating in.
and she smells of black guts
like she bathed in Black Death
like the sun and moon have been digging into her back searching for black boys.
They told her she smell like black boy blood
They told her She smell like black boy blood
Black boys bleed on the pavement
Black boys see AKs before the 8th grade
Black boys be as dark as night time
That's why their dreams go unheard
Blacks boys rather sleep than live cause only in a dream is a black boys idea a reality.
For 9 hours
But black boys don't take naps them black boys be sleep forever
Cause bullets take lives.
These halos become new hats
These faces on t shirts become clothing brands.
And this happens on her play ground
Call her Baltimore
They Call her Ferguson.
She got pistols for limbs,
a heart flamed in anger,
watch the char of metal pelts burn her skin
everytime a black boy is shot.
She cries black boy blood.
She sweats black boy blood.
She waddles on slave ground
pregnant with premature black corpses,
birthing babies that are dead before they are born.
dressed in gun powder and flesh,
she only knows the sound of death.
dressed in caution tape and white supremacy
she only knows the sound of broken futures.
And broken futures sound like gun shots,
Like police sirens,
Like another black life surrendered
Her back be so worn out cause for the past 300 years she been raped by this constitution
That thing be so one sided
It promised her life liberty for all but
It forgot to mention that if your skin...be as dark as a broken promise
Then that constitution doesn't constitute to you that girl been lied to
American has been a dead beat.
Uncle Sam is a coward
And if he comes to you to comfort you
Let him know she's not comfortable with that red white and blue cover up he hides behind
That constitution been thrown up and washed down with black boy blood.
Cause mass incarceration just taste better.
And Ferguson ain't tasted freedom
Cause she rather have a dead black boy bubbling in her dirt.
She rather be dressed in black body than the justice we offer
The law clashes with her bullet bred soul
so she wears it on her feet like shoes
Like the bodies she tramples over.
​
But Baltimore got her problems too
But if all she feels is silence
If all she hears is the reoccurring songs of sirens then....
How can you blame her.
Mothers give birth to tombstones on her soul
Her body be a grave yard
the tombstones are born with no father because the cops shot them all
Where badges and blue uniforms are worn to cover up their insecurities but exposes everything else
Her soul….be in denial.
Dreams cascade down streams like the Nile….river...that she say black boy blood runs to
She saw God.
She say God was a black woman
But she was confused
it's no reason...
Why suddenly guns and drugs become the only paper route
White America sold the natives out
and she gotta wait until the winter time before its safer out
Baltimore ain't on her on.
Baltimore ain't by her self
Baltimore ain't even Baltimore no more
And Ferguson ain't Ferguson unless her heart be in flames.
Unless her land is all war.
unless a black body is hanging from the sky.
Look at that black body hanging from the sky
Them black bodies hanging from her sky.
Like fallen stars
and She wears them like jewelry.
Like artifacts.
There is a grace in the way she walks
when her soul is full.
And aint nothing like black blood to wash it all down.
Ferguson thirsty for black blood.
She already got our grave made for us in the pits of her stomach
Hope them bullets embrace us before a book does.
Her arms never tired of shooting
Never tired of a fallen black body.
When she looks in the mirror she sees a demon playing hide and seek with her image
The cops treat the soles of their shoes better than the soul God gave her
and it feels like it's 1964 again
Like her trees grew nooses instead of leaves
That swing sets are made of rope
That only pull tighter the more we try to fight back
Baltimore..
Baltimore.
Ferguson.
With her 1964 breeze,
every time the sun passes by
another black body falls from her sky,
and you never saw it coming,
Ferguson
Ferguson
Don't get comfortable,
Cause they ain't comfortable until we breathing death,
Until Ferguson and Baltimore is soaked in Black Death.
Until they outta ammo.
Then they'll stop.
But we won't.
On the 6th Day
by Tymmarah Anderson
I asked God if my soul was worth saving anymore,
if he saw me bite from the tree of life,
if he could forgive my deceit.
He tells me that when he sent me my Adam,
I wasn’t supposed to make an idol out of him.
That I had forgotten how Adam got there in the first place.
On the 6th Day, God made you, Adam.
and from his ribs I was crafted into his phantom.
When his heart would beatbox,
mine would dance.
Like when your stomach somersaults and shakes and shutters,
and the only thing you know about him is that his hat looks a lot like a halo.
and his eyes look like stars
and you stutter each word you say to him like your vowels and consonants forgot how to kiss.
Even when the sun went down,
I was his shadow who found enough light in his eyes to stay.
But God never answered my question --
If my soul was worth saving anymore.
And not long after God rested did Adam find a new love.
While I was bowing to his golden feet,
he was picturing the taste of lust on his tongue,
and he saw the tree of life,
how her beauty was like sunset.
And even though God had forbid such power,
there was not enough loyalty bubbling in his soul.
and he’d forgot how to listen to his heart.
and he’d forgot that his heart was me.
and his ribs were me.
and his body was me.
So he bit into the apple.
And because I was his phantom,
I bit it too.
And suddenly our eyes didn’t make love anymore
and we forgot we gave birth to it.
And there was not enough holy water to wash away our sins.
Not even if our lungs were filled with the same water Jesus turned to wine could we save ourselves.
So I was left to find my own heart's song stuck between a flat and a sharp.
Left fisted, fire-eyed scowled in my own demons.
But I still asked again.
God, is my soul worth saving anymore?
And he finally replies that when I gave all of myself to you, Adam,
there was no soul left for him to count.
The Jezebel, The Mammy, & The Bullhead
by Tymmarah Anderson
The earth rejoices at the birth of another black queen.
Another bearer of magic and all that is holy.
As she crawls out of the belly of her mother,
They ask her, “what kind of black girl do you want to be when you grow up?
One
The Jezebel
They say she treats sex like the food she eats.
Three times a day,
A tight schedule,
They say the only thing black women are good for.
They say her light does not shine unless the lights are off.
Unless the lights go off.
They say daddy issues got her bent like pipes overflowing with a need to be wanted.
Her hypersexual body has been tattooed to ashtrays and drinking glasses for years.
But, did you forget her history?
The way she was ravaged like weeds in cotton pallets.
The way her body was exploited by whips,
You treat sex like a prophecy.
You say it like you’re scared.
Like the curves of a black woman calls you personally.
Like her body was not sculpted to mimic all that is good.
Like that isn’t how you were created.
Two
The Mammy.
They say she’s traded her limbs for a set of pot and pans.
They say she cooks, cleans, repeats; takes care of your kids and hers.
They say her perfume smells like baked goods.
That her reason for living is within the four walls of a kitchen.
Her face has been tattooed to syrup bottles and pancake mix for years
But, did you forget her history?
The way she’d slave over the kitchen top at her master’s request
Took care of your kids and hers, and his, and theirs.
Taught them what it meant to be human although she was never treated like one.
Made a feast from leaves and cattle.
You call it soul food.
She calls it survival.
The only way America eats.
​
Three
The Bullhead.
They say her sass is bigger than her hips.
They say she nags longer than her weave,
yells louder than her smack.
They say her head is too strong for her skin color.
Anger has been tattooed to her personality like infinity signs for years.
But, did you forget her history?
The way anger was whipped into her flesh.
The way hate seeped out of her wounds like mold.
They molded her this way.
Yet her love is uncharacterized
Yet she still breaks her walls of rage to comfort you.
To nurture this world.
Her touch brings you glory.
And you forget that they call her Bullhead,
Mammy, Jezebel.
We call her Angel, Caretaker, Worthy.
And as she grows older, she learns to answer their question. What kind of black girl do you want to be when you grow up?’
And she answers, The kind that doesn't have stereotypes nused around my neck.
The kind that’s unnameable,
The kind you wish you were,
The kind that rocks.
Southside with You
by Tymmarah Anderson
When your man comes home from the trap,
When he comes back shattered
And you are the glue,
When he comes back with heavy pockets
and fingernails down to the skin,
You got to rinse him down first.
You got to have the backwood and dope shaved
and drowned, waiting for the day his pores
smell legal again like before the streets
chewed out his body and spit him
soulless and without consequence into smoking sunshine.
​
You got to buff down the drughouse blues
​
​
from potent skin, bathe away the gun powder
from ankle and wrist, soak the blood of a trader free
from his hair, scrub death and addiction
from the scarred and the gentle,
the love and the hate,
the dented and the indifferent.
you got to laser his heart
the affection he will never feel, take arms and hand
and hand and fingers and cleanse slow with humanity,
and when he leaves out again the next morning
you wait at the door with a bucket and scrub
to rinse him tender and
back moral again.
1932
by Tymmarah Anderson
It's 2017,
But it feels a lot like 1932.
The way the wind blows,
The smell of a fallen black body.
Each day,
A reminder that our souls are gasping for peace.
Monday.
There is beauty in the birth of a black soul,
It’s capacity on earth,
The way the sun and moon rejoice at it’s presence.
The way the mother marvels at her masterpiece.
She tucks her black boy into her arms,
she is sure this one is all snake skin and rubber and bulletproof.
she is sure this one will make it.
Tuesday.
That black boy grew a target on his forehead
and his mother been tryna get it off for weeks.
She scrubs like she scrubs blood puddles off her doorstep.
like she scrubs slave blood off her doorstep.
Not knowing, that the only time that target goes away
is when a bullet hole is there to cover it up.
America has given birth to another dead soul.
She knows it's a matter of time before
the ground will be ready to swallow him whole.
Wednesday.
Her son screams and the sky echoes the sound of a fallen black boy.
And all of a sudden it’s 1932 again.
There is a bitter taste in the wind
and the ground feels like bodies.
Like rope and bodies.
And no one budges,
because this blood bath is too common.
And trees grow faces like angels,
so the kids feel heavenly when they are hanging from their branches.
Thursday.
Mothers go out the next morning to pick the fruit off the trees,
but never by themselves cause a black body is too heavy to pick alone.
This fruit can’t be eaten,
This fruit not suppose to grow here.
Friday.
Black bodies ain’t safe here.
In 1932, in 2017
They go to sleep hoping that sleep is forever,
cause it’s peaceful that way.
When you’re afraid to have a child whose pigment mimics the night sky,
you can only wonder if the sun is coming back to protect them.
The graves are flooding.
Its 2017 again,
and the graves are still flooding.
Saturday.
America is the recipe for secret genocide.
Another black body has fallen from the night sky.
We can’t remember their names,
just the way the rope sat so comfortably around their neck,
the way the bullets didn’t resist.
There are too many to count anymore.
Sunday.
There is beauty in the birth of a black soul.
But not in it’s death.
There is never beauty in a black souls death.
Not even on a holy day.
There is beauty in the birth of a black soul.
But when the birth of a black soul equals their death in the same instant,
where's the beauty in all of it?
Shoot
by Tymmarah Anderson
She says, that’s how they made love.
Lock the door, plug the holes, seep into their bed sheets hands locked and smoke
until the only thing visible in the room is the tip of the cigarette.
Now cigarettes are the only thing Grandma can remember him by.
I watched Grandpa kill himself with tobacco fingertips and nicotined-ammo.
Mama found him weightless and anchored in his bathwater like babies.
Everyone pretends they don’t know what killed him.
I watched grandpa slide the ammo between his fingers,
shove it into his mouth, and smoke it until his lungs shot.
They lived with us for almost a year and never cared that my lungs could shoot too. That my hair and my clothes rot like the deepest part of the ashtray.
A year later, Mama couldn’t figure out why I hated going to Grandma’s.
On Mother’s day, she makes me go.
I hug Grandma and can’t tell the difference between her perfume and cigarette smoke.
She asks why I don’t come over anymore,
I don’t tell her it’s because her house smells like soot.
She says she’s going to quit.
As soon as she can.
Now, he is legally blind, widowed, and still sucking on the tip of the fuse.