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Bati o bati!

We are the Ones! Creative Agency and Activism for Women’s Rights in Liberia!

I lost the fire in my belly; the flame that gave me fire to light the torch to fight for women’s rights and gender equality. It is missing somewhere between what Stephanie Horton refers to as the “psychology of the ovary phenomenon” and the international accolades Liberia receives for electing the first female president in Africa. However, immersed in the fiery colors and sounds of the writers and artists in this issue over the past months, I re-experience the epiphany that loyalty is held only to truth. Feminism and creative presentation of intellectual thought have taught me that I must never lose sight of that heaviness in my spirit, an experience that usually follows the overwhelming entry of patriarchal tools in presumably safe and potential political spaces for gender equality.

The honour and humility that I feel working as guest editor for this women’s issue of Sea Breeze Journal is accompanied by a search for answers that allays the vacuum of who we are and how we make concrete our journey of reaching our full potential in a society that struggles against us. This struggle is clearly couched in a story I heard three years ago and will share with you:

Bati o bati! is a popular rallying call of politicians and those that want to be political, and is said to have originated from Southeastern Liberia. Contrary to popular belief, this call did not originate from a politician’s space, but was originally spoken within the context of gender division of labor. The picture is of a weary woman returning from the farm with the baby and all the other loads; her husband, walking behind her swinging a cutlass, is commonplace in most of our childhood memories. She gets near the town and she calls out for support, bati o bati! She has something heavy to put down—to lighten her spirit, to free her body.

It was one of the most intriguing pieces of information I have ever digested, and is symbolic of the power dynamics around authorship, ownership and storytelling. It is also connected to the mental and emotional “labor” we had to overcome to complete this issue. This labor required strength. Our spirit of collectivism has given us the right to call out bati o bati!  We have something heavy to put down! Simply stated, we are few; we are striving to tell the “truth” of our state, sadness and sole purpose of breaking the chains of patriarchy that hold us and our women and girls down – underground and in silence. In this issue, we bring our combined voices to the fore, pulling out our pain and aspirations into black, white and color, and sound.

This situation feeds into the emerging conversation in Liberia, the first African country to have an elected female president. Women leaders have multiple demands from patriarchal presumptions and societal expectations to bring a certain brand of leadership to the table. The perceived privilege of leadership is like the proverbial albatross around their necks. It is assumed by progressive women that once a woman has broken the glass ceiling and reached what is, in most cases, a man’s position, she will have a bias towards women’s issues and frame her problem-solving and decision-making in their interests. This is not always true; and without doing an in-depth interrogation of women in leadership and associated issues, I will state the obvious: that the fact that an individual is female does not guarantee a feminist, woman-centered perspective in their leadership style.

It has been suggested that President Sirleaf’s focus on Liberia’s problems is of a gender-neutral stance; and it is safe to say that her decision-making policies are tainted by neo-liberal and paternalistic tendencies influenced by the International Financial Institutions (IFIs). Conclusively, there is a marked dichotomy between these paradigms and feminism. Liberia is on the globalization “train” set in motion by Friedman, and has had visits from both Professor Sachs and the World Bank’s Wolfowitz since Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was elected to the presidency. The country has concluded its national development strategy – the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, the required commitment to do “extractive” business with the IFIs and their financial cohorts in other international organizations.

Our former Finance Minister, Antoinette Sayeh, was an international favorite – a former World Bank executive. Sayeh raised eyebrows during the Wolfowitz scandal in 2007 when she said, “So, we have seen visionary leadership, steadfast progress under Wolfowitz in terms of what the Bank does in countries like ours”. Sayeh has now returned to her home base of the WB and a high salaried position, where she worked for seventeen years prior to her appointment as Finance Minister. Our president enjoys similar accolades with a history of working for the IFIs. Considering that 85% of Liberia’s population lives below $1 dollar a day and the majority of the poor are women, our national development strategy appears far from the feminist agenda of participatory and pro-poor.

Poverty reduction strategies have become political with respect to whether the process is driven externally, or from within communities. Domestic stakeholders, working alongside external partners, are critical toward presenting a comprehensive country based strategy featuring macro-economic, social and institutional challenges to development. Liberia’s development indicators make the process of development decision-making susceptible to dominance by elites – the powerful global institutions or people with power in our communities. Illiteracy levels are at 75% and unemployment, an estimated 80%. The loss of power and influence by the poor shifts societal change to the domain of those who are not affected by poverty.

For example, by the time the county development agenda setting process had covered districts in the Southeast of Liberia, no woman had contributed to the process, as the criteria required for these meetings was “community and district leaders”. It is clear that the idea of doing business as usual was more paramount than considering Liberia’s development context and power challenges within our society. Values on representation and agenda setting were farcical and superficial with respect to changing the way Liberians analyze their development challenges. As a result, gender and women’s rights became the “honourable” cross-cutting themes and all counties in Liberia had the exact development priorities: roads, schools and hospitals. Women’s issues are subsumed under “bigger and broader categories”.

President Sirleaf is the only African president who has publicly invited AFRICOM, the US Military Command for Africa, to set up shop in Liberia. The perceived role of the military in development may have been the possible drive for this blatant exposure of Liberians to further exploits by US military outfits – starting from World War I to present. Militarized developments affect women’s and girls’ security, and Liberia has an abysmal ongoing record of this from the West African peacekeeping force (ECOMOG) to members of the UN Mission in Liberia. The president has failed to recognize that although Liberia’s first US-Liberia bilateral agreement supported the US military interests, Liberia’s development situation remains dismal. The Air Navigation Agreement of 1939 stipulated that nationals and aircraft of the United States of America shall receive most favored-nation treatment in Liberia.  Pan American Airways started operations in Liberia during this time. By 1942, another bilateral agreement, the Defence Areas Agreement, was signed. It granted the US government the right to construct, control, operate, and defend the airport at the sole cost and expense of the latter and without charge to the Republic of Liberia.

These trends make interesting space for the feminist development practitioner to employ voyeuristic skills over the remaining period of President Sirleaf’s tenure, watching where a woman leader without feminist grounding leads us. How does she use the power given to her? Who does she share it with? Who sets the agenda? The invisible power brokers? Why do some women leaders run amok abusing power and only deafening silence follows? Why do male government ministers entrusted with women’s issues have a field day verbally attacking our bodies and we hear not a word from President Sirleaf? Stephanie Horton writes:

We are held captive by the psychology of the ovary phenomenon. Ovaries alone do not confer those “maternal” caring qualities we seem to yearn for. We have deified and elevated female leadership to sainthood in Liberia, even while the most horrific manifestations of sexual gender based violence (SGBV) continues unabated and intensifies. We have been led to believe that women will save us where men have failed. At the same time, there is the complex suggestion that women have to be tempered “iron”, presumably hard like men, and must shed those nurturing qualities associated with the feminine in order to operate within a male domain. It’s a brilliant political strategy and it works. Having women in power has silenced and intimidated vocal discourse. People now speak of a gender war, privileging women over men, girls over boys, when the central idea of the African women’s movement is equality – not female dominance. Another central tenet of African feminism is empowerment of the whole people against those philosophies, structures and institutions that bleed us dry and oppress, enslave and dehumanize us – whether culturally, economically or mentally – from within or without. What we see now are women who have simply assumed political roles with no transformative stance to distinguish them from the status quo other than the fact that they have ovaries. They have politicized the ovary. The ovary has become a political tool.

The opportunities to influence this situation may be running out and presents a difficult challenge to women in Liberia. Difficult, since the thought that women are a homogenous, amorphous lump, who should not voice public dissent under a woman president, stifles emerging criticism of President’s Sirleaf’s leadership with respect to women’s roles and participation.

As a woman, feminist and development practitioner in Liberia, the surpluses of these actions in our current context are commonplace and compelling. For example, only a few women are serving in the public sector at the national and county levels, including fourteen out of ninety-six parliamentarians, six out of eighteen cabinet ministers, and four out of fifteen superintendents (vice jury of the president of Liberia at county/provincial level). All County Development and County Education Officers are male. This trend makes interesting space for the feminist development practitioners to watch wasted years and the reinforcement of the status quo-male dominated development approaches.  The context is complex and conspicuous. Women are poorer than men and are thus more vulnerable to further exclusion, exploitation and abuse. The cultural environment which assigns gender based roles, also contributes to vulnerability for women and girls. Lack of skills and under-employment of Liberian women and girls exposes them to sexual violence, discrimination and survival sex. Additionally, the transitional justice process is marred by lack of political will on the part of the main stakeholders, including the state. A significant recommendation of the report relates to the ban of Liberia’s President Ellen Sirleaf and more than sixty other individuals, including warlords-turned-legislators and power-brokers, from running for public office for the next thirty years.

What does this mean for artists, writers, poets and social commentators? How does our body of knowledge and thought influence the political and social landscape of Liberia? This women’s issue of  SBJ contributes to that explanation. Although it is intended to expose the position and condition of Liberian women during this time when a contradictory stance of missed opportunity plagues Liberian women, it is also transformative in presenting our collective creativity, symbolic of a marriage of intellectual thought and agency – converting victims into advocates and fence-sitters into change-makers for a more equal society.

What is the lesson for President Sirleaf, who has an opportunity to shift from the patriarchal to understanding that leadership guided by feminist and women’s rights principles is participatory, open to learning, frank, transparent and compassionate; and brings sustainable development to all parts of the society by highlighting the power dimensions of poverty? The re-working of the legacy of Africa’s first female leader is imperative. The opportunity remains.

In all of this, we are awake by choice, while “we do this” despite the pain, juxtaposed irregularities and unequal power relations in the Liberian society. Our writers present a demand for a progressive shift from pain and hopelessness to the rise of the indomitable nature of the enigma called a Liberian woman. With our brothers who joined the labor, we present a collective commitment to improve the position and condition of Liberian women. Our creativity and anticipated social impact will only have value when it is reinforced by diverse feedback from our reading audience.

We proclaim, bati o bati!

Korto Williams
May 2010

Sister Gets the Saxophone

I am lined
with color.  the seat of my hand
a mother’s cradle
a wife
notes her place.
the willows moan
blue-black on a gray sky.
the red in me
wants to sing
on the curve of my hip
but
it’s locked
on the sheets
of the whore in the bedroom.

Apology

the scent of rose
clogs
like camphor,
preserving slips
in closets
you hit
and miss with iris,
carnation, en masse,
Pansy.
fussy lilies
hiss perfume
slowly
gardenia blossoms
stifle like smoke
in the air
as a Holiday sings
Sad tunes.
Red,
my mind
would prefer
tulips instead.

Hallway, at Eight

Your hat usually
hangs
facing north
on the birch wood stand with the silver hooks
at 8;
when almond roast fills
the air

Underneath our feet

sometimes comes
the occasional moan of beams from the old house and
talk of days,
of nights,
but not today.

Today,
around orange muffin
surprise scents
and window sheers,
you and your hat
sustain the foyer,
your feet (purposely I suppose)
perpendicular (and on) every
pretty crack in the over-priced Italian marble tile floor.

You turn
your hat
around
in your hands by the brim;
counterclockwise
then
the other way
till I’m hypnotized
and you are pressed down coils.

“You’re a little overdressed for breakfast, aren’t you?”,
I say out loud.

But even that
seems an inappropriate jest
when
you and your hat
are so solemn, like vows
Like whispered adoration on colored glass,
or dove-smoke gathered over cooling cups of tea
making penance to a sip.

In the foyer,
are
one thousand
recessed thoughts
written on tiny slips of paper
cut
from weighted reams
and
folded into quarters
Waiting like a rabbit
to be pulled out of a hat.

Every Now and Then You See the Cat

a large structure on a cluttered surface,
plump liberal, moved by a whole set of forces: dusty black tires,
my mother as a child.

The rose.

This rarely happens and when it does it is silent;
ONURA is a woman’s ceremony
a slow process.
I shake my head and she is in my arms
war bride in the early light of day

The soldiers are dying on this night in the harbor
The bodies of young girls,
(only ourselves)
In the middle of no romance
(only ourselves)
Hosea Donasano’s lover’s face is
sharing power
on the points of a compass

The charred wind of burnt savannah settles on my lips

A beetle finds pleasure in debris
greasy hands
Pow-wow pianissimo,

I will demonstrate
a disregarded will, a silver dog
fat brown arms,
sixty butterflies in all

Don’t I? (Or 20 Questions for Sid)

Well, don’t I?

Don’t I
look to you, and cook for you?
have fish-fry-fridays, and uptown filet mignon
like ruth chris-Sundays
finger-licking good you said,
get all shook for you

I keep a clean house, make a good home give good
head–gat damn!–you said, don’t stop!
Don’t I handle the bills?
Share the responsibilities, be your freak in the sheets and your lady in the street
don’t I spark your creativity when need be
don’t I pick up on your subtle vibes and demand nothing
don’t I
pick up after you, help raise the baby, raise the roof, raise a little hell now and then?

when you need it, don’t I
BRING it,
don’t I make you proud, like it loud, I’m unrestrained, I leave no doubt,
don’t I get the man you are
and need to be, don’t I listen patiently, and try to be
a better me, for you, for me

Don’t I try
to be a christian in my heart,
put up with your friends, your mama
the hours,
I lay wondering why
don’t I
make you happy after all this time, all this love
why don’t I make sense to you by now,

Don’t I need some
feed
back
some reciprocity in
kind, in word,
indeed,
in bed
don’t I deserve to be the only woman in your head
when you rest on your pillow
at night
don’t I hold you close unto our rib
and chase the demons
from your dream,

Don’t I make the grade,
make the cut,
get to
finish,
build you up,
stand behind,
find out last,
bite my tongue,
make you laugh,
keep your secrets,
watch your back
keep my peace,
keep it real like that,

Don’t I do it all for you Sid?
So
what made you go and do that thing you did?

Copyright © Alfreda Amah-Clarke

I Emancipate

Hanging by my jagged will,
I got it
slam bang in my face.

Collecting the scanty vestiges
of my womanhood,
and the pieces of my dress,

I fled.

Forced submission
had made me a shell.
But it forced me to other things too.

Seeing those soulless eyes glaze over again,
recalling my pitiful moans that brought no mercy,
sheer terror pulsating through my veins,
darting frantically among our jaded offsprings,

I fled. Fast.

Not to nurse my wounds
in silent tears and cower in fear
as I was taught to do.

I fled.

To the police, to the law.
Our neighbors said, African women cover
their men, but I put my husband’s butt outside.
Well, I said, through swollen lips, “Been seeing that butt for years,
about time you did too”.

Dilemma

My man took up with a young thing,
iron tay-tay, Lorma butt,
waist like a snake with fire between her legs.
Me here with my sagging
behind, broken veined stomach,
slipper tay-tay, and drooping waist.
He soon started throwing the “D” word around.
After twenty years,
he had now started talking about incompatibility.
Then I knew the spoon had reached my mouth.
My girlfriend counseled,
“It will blow over soon, just a harmless affair”.
I don’t think so, my man don’t know who he is anymore.
You know the other night, he said,
“Even King David had a sixteen year old warming him on his death bed”.
So, in the dead of the night,
I sit by my side of our bed and think,
“kill one or both?”

In the Cause for Women Suffrage . . . the Struggle Continues

We fight for equality, but
the fight is no longer the same
as when we first began. Now,
we fight not only for the right
to work outside the home, to
vote and ascend to political
prominence. We fight not only
for the right to be heard, to be
treated as equals and not as
possessions. We fight not only
to give the girl child a life in this
man’s world. We fight not only

to abolish FGM, to penalize the
hellish crimes of rape and
floggings at the hands of our men.
NO! We also fight for the right
to change our sex and copulate
with each other. We fight for
the right to legally trade our bodies,
we vigorously champion the
cause of vain displays of flesh,

clothing vulgarity in vogue,
and claiming indecency a
right. We fight to legalize

murder and condemn terrorism,
in one breath. We fight to
topple God-ordained headship

and install a demonic Jezebelic
reign. We fight to wear the
pants and be the man.

We then spawn a strange breed, one
with a perverted identity, that thinks
it quite natural to spit in our bemused faces.

Liberian Mob Justice
You’ve seen those billboards all around town,
the ones that say report crimes
to the police, don’t take the law in your
own hands? You’ve seen those ones?
Well, they are not working.
The mob dispenses justice these days
like lightning. They’ve become
a regular fast-track court, no backlog of
cases.

You run somebody over? You had better run
fast. Those self-appointed sheriffs will burn
you and your vehicle straight to kingdom come.

Now, did you shoot somebody like that
police guy did? You are sorry? Well, too late.
They’ll cremate you, naija style.

The mob even has criminals running to the police.
You get caught pick pocketing, hightail it to
the nearest police depot,
else you be in a box with no space.
I heard plunderers of state coffers
might have a worse fate.

Then, we have these dirty fifty-year olds,
pushing their digits in the vaginas of lil’ two
and three year olds. Ha, the law’s strong
but the mobs don’t wait for that.

So, the big shots come on the air and say,
“Liberians, stop mob violence, we are a
civilized nation”. Outwardly, they are
properly incensed. Mob justice?
What is Liberia coming to?
But inside, they are gleeful. Rape my
three-year old? I would have fed his
depraved penis to the dogs! What the hell
was that S.O.B. thinking anyway?

Pregnant Male

I watched him
shuffle along the
dirt path, his
trailing cuffs gathering
dust, hoisting his
ample belly as he
ambled along, rolling
unevenly from side to side.

I observed him
struggle in full
gestation, his rotund
middle heaving with
his feeble exertions,
breathing heavily,
sweating buckets,
laboring under a
childless pregnancy.

Copyright © 2009 Charlina Daitouah Smith

GOLDEN LOTUSES
At 8
The knife carves deeply
As drums sound out the piercing
Cry
And life-force and pleasure
Diminish in some ritual ploy
Her sanctity destroyed
Foretelling years of pain and anguish
Dictated by culture’s erotic reinvention
Anatomical birthright
Mutilated
In whose idea of beauty

At 4
The cloths woven and
Wrapped tightly
Repeatedly
Disfigure the foundation
On which she stands
Golden lotuses in three to five inches, perfumed
Placed in petite, flowered
Silk covers
Tiny feet
Sanctioned to ensure marriage
Stand as erotic reinvention
Ritualistically disguised

Two women
Maturing in pain
Spirits strong
80 years old teetering in tiny footsteps
50 years old feeling hollow
Retelling their stories
Recounting their lives

. . . And who dares to speak
Labeling their hurt
A necessary tradition
Having never experienced this hurt?

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
My daughter, Musu, has forgotten
our custom
of respect.
See,
how she stands akimbo
talking to elders
expressing her new individuality:
Necessary in this new culture,
refusing traditional dress
for jeans, body-gloved
and blouses so low.
Her bosom peaks out.
Her ears stay glued to ear
phones listening to lyrics
that degrade and belittle
her very own person.

And do you know what she tells me
when I mention her attitude?
She says, “How can you judge me when
you too have sought to be
different? Applying that lightening cream
to your beautiful black skin,
fading the person I once knew.”
Image that,
my own Musu.
Imagine that . . .

CROWNHILL
for Gram

I say yah:
We were extended families
Conversations passed from house to house
The yard at Carey Street welcomed
Groups—children came
Feet skipped, between hopscotch, I die
Pedaled up and down Dunbar yard
Who could ride the fastest?

Knocked ground in nah foh, kor
Hands clapped in ring
Tagged— you’re it
Mixed hibiscus petals, leaves
Sucked the sweetness, vying with mission ants
Play cook we called it then

Come Saturdays, we devoured
Fufu balls swimming in soup
flavored deliciously,
parched ground pea soup

Some sucked bones
Drawing the nectar hidden in
Tiny wells
Peeled oranges spirally
Milking the sweet Liberian essence

And Gram would gather us
Younger folk
Seated on settees, hassocks
Rattan chairs squeaking
The stories called, “once upon a time . . .
Time . . .”
And spider would dangle in our midst
Liberian mascot invincible
A true griot she was, Gram
Would concoct mixtures, leaves, roots
Giving a thorough cleansing

It was just yesteryear
When we would run
From cultural icons, men painted blue
Scratching chopiyahs on the ground
And anticipated the catchy tune,
“Sani claw we are . . . oh we are, we are . . .”
Men weaving rhythmically to tin pan drumming

And little boys would ride tires
Palms propelling the path
Some masters of metal rims
Careening corners with thin metal rods

We would gather, a few in the yard, chunking plum
Guavas, ripe fruit falling to ground

Visitors would come and go
Some sat transfixed
Bottom in rattan chairs
Others sprawled casually in the favorite
Hammock looking out
Mouth juggling between “I says and hmm’s”
The piazza offered the best views

Crownhill, oh Crownhill evokes such memories
Etched ever so deeply
They’ve long become part of our souls.

Poems from the new collection, With Love. New York: Poetic Moves Publishing, 2010.

Copyright © rharmon 2010

R / B (Are, Be)
let’s be metal rebirthed, be the sound of day in breaking, bodies in mend
let’s be electric, the kind of currents both sea-deep & star-flung, be heat
let’s absorb the heat, be all colors, the sound of world in forming, slippery speech &
constant invention, the ability to make room from corners.

let’s be echoes, be glint, be sly, mirrored & looking, soundwaves and masquerades.
let’s be new, pay homage to erasure in noting its weight, be wing
let’s craft new ways of speaking from the pauses in the concrete, watch the way in
which roots are undeterred by that which is manmade, be chameleons of form &
warmth
let’s be breakbeats when the sun was amazed at their freshness, be spacetalk when all
anyone knew was Earth.

let’s be a forgetting & a remembrance simultaneously, be a contradiction that struts
its strange nature across borders dissolving of name & claim. weeping willow
reaching willow.
let’s be – an acceptance rather than a resignation, a clever pushing into occupancy
where only vacancy was thought to exist
let’s be code & key & gentle thrillings, reverb of millennia, existence drummed to
cacophony of continuance.

words&worlds in waiting then in static cling, the weightlessness of everything
let’s shout our truth, then whisper it. give room for both careful listening & sideways
glances, for agreements & thatwhichwillnotleavethehead
let’s be mental, then corporeal, then ethereal. ephemera of the wishbone strung
through space & tethered.
then freed.

let’s be free.

by now let us be free. if it means a leap from rooftop let it be so. for no longer is the
ground construed as solid.
yes, let us be shapeshifters, inhabiting settings culled into being by the pin of dream.
let’s be space, then corner, then sky. let’s be failings, calculated recoverings, and
clutched successes. let’s be varied.
we are varied.
let’s be.

(the garment restricts;
We adjust.)

CAUTION: [BURIED POWER]
my shadow glanced at me sideways, thinking.
i said “do not be afraid to ask,” she nodded, knelt, pushed misgivings out of
her hands and on to the table before her.
i waited.
she sighed, that decade-old sigh, the same expelling of air done by our mothers
and our mothers’ mothers’ and she said, alas,
“can there be poetry in the machine?”

i considered
if there was resonance, internal spark, to these wires at which we daily paw,
if maybe they think the body will soon be irrelevant, too soft for a mechanized
world,
they say car parts are more reliable. but there was something unspoken in the
question, too,
something of the symmetry in computer chips, or how what is essential is not
always seen.
if there is poetry in the machine, it is at the very center, buried, able to emerge
only at the machine’s combustion, waiting as swallowed words wait, as cut bark
waits to fall again to earth, as the mother waits at the county court, early,
waiting.

[IN THA NITE]
can we talk about life,
how it drips apathetic sometimes from nights of

deepest hue,
how sometimes the well of Being cannot wrap

itself around the need of Everyone
can we talk about life,
how long tracts of Needing & Strife
do not dissolve in one night of dancemusic
can we talk about grace,
how it is not a feeling springing up only in

strands of triumph but also in the
arc of uncertainty,
how our small human selves seek to condense

waves into water droplets,
what use there is in uphill battles,
pain that takes shape in letter form.
can we talk about life,
this indecipherable creature whole centuries in

forming,
in glimpsing. can we talk about
talking. or maybe we do that too much already,
talking. human breath. can we talk about
can —
can we talk about breath that is not

preplanned,
all the
Everything.
i do not seek to define myself in opposition.
there is Also
Recognition.
. . .

“It was everything, once.”

Truff ;

Those of us who write from the margins, make the margins into text, white
space now black,
The margins into space, space into form,
How do you represent a person? Must it be in flowery descriptions whole
paragraphs to utter?
How do you circumscribe a glimpse? I was not in the footnotes and so I put
my foot in the notes;
Does space have a color does the color mean something do you notice white
space but not black space do you straddle the line
Are you a trespasser bordercrosser do you have documentation for these
movements into which you shift your person?

There is a woman in the margins but I was told she must be white
There is a black figure in the margins, a shape in the suggestion of a body, a
gender I can not easily decipher and so perhaps they do not exist
This categorization is clean
You were unanticipated, baby; go home
Here you cannot be hosted
You got some glare on you, some light reflected in this space and I do not
think they can see you

They were unanticipated.

I want to redeem you from the lines determined to determine you
I want to at least bring you back into the space they hurled you out of, saw you
shrieking confused and wanting, saw you holding on to that space until they
pulled back your fingers singularly, snarling; What makes you think you deserve
this space?
While the audience was distracted by the glow of whiteness, one of us
sweeping the floor from behind, one of us disembodied voice a rollicking roll,
announcing her entrance – Mrs. X – and the audience was distracted, and
they did not notice the quiet struggle of Black being swept from the stage
definitively, a new protocol for performance, this stage home to something that
can easily be recognized,

They forgot about the bodies nestled between worlds.

Put black body back
Let black body be

I want to know what happens in the moments between skin
Breathe in the space between male and female,
Between Black and Black
How do you walk this line: in heels
barefoot
muddy
flat footed
as if merely standing
with sway
with swagger,
under the mask of night?
How do you sing when History is wedged between the folds of the throat,
Hold your head high when weighed with dust-marks of the judging gaze?

Say there is not space within the text,
say you crawl out of it, say you curl within the margins, say the space is
unoccupied, say the space becomes you – you who were too wide to rest simply
within letters stark in contrast
But do you exist if no one recognizes you – who among us is searching for the
unseen?

I can’t do this t’ing
The Black body surfacing from spaces in-between
I slip tr’u
The Black body afloat on the sliver of a hope to be recognized

How to

be?

The Black body occupying space.

My fact is your fiction.

The Black body brave.

Copyright © Miatta Kawinzi

He Came Back

The black she wore
the tears she shed
the hair she lost
the grief she bore
in the midst
of songs they sang
and the cane juice they drank
and the palmbutter they ate
in honor of the dead
was soon forgotten
when pain ripped
and tore her back and sides
and the new one,
his spitting image, came forth
with a triumphant cry of life.

Ma Massa

I

She has carried her share
of life’s burdens.
Her breasts, flat on chest,
are not those seen in Playboy.
When she opens and reties her lappa
her wrinkled, stretch-marked stomach,
seen fleetingly, says she has done her duty.
Her face bears few signs of aging.
People simply say, “she is tight.”

She works hard,
fries kalla and doughnuts at five a.m.,
gets children off to school.
Eight of them have survived
through God’s grace and country medicine.
She sends her wards off.
One carries a big basin of kalla and doughnuts
that weight down his small head.
Another pushes a wheelbarrow
loaded with assorted dukahfleh.

Ma Massa follows them
with a train of helpers toting
pigs’ feet, salted meat, smoke fish,
boney,bitter balls, peppers,
small packets of macaroni and bene seeds,
the odds and ends that bring dividends.
She won’t forget the out-dated newspapers
and cement-coated wrappers,
the toddler holding on securely to her lappa.

II

At the market when business is slow,
her friends scratch and plait each other’s hair,
the finishing touch, a debonair look,
that defies sidewalk salons,
prevents costly dents in pockets.

They exchange news, good or bad,
sing each other’s joys,
wail each other’s sorrow.
They cook their rice and soup
and feed and change their young,
sweat it out in the sun
calculate the day’s intake.

III

The sound of chopping wood resounds.
Gray smoke lazily slinks out
Ma Massa’s country kitchen.
The smell of burnt palm oil
captures noses, dances around
the nearby houses.

Evening, brightened by the kitchen fire,
unveils mouths smeared with palm oil
and bulging with rice,
fingers crawling round greasy pan
in search of last rice grains.

Ma Massa’s face
is tired but serene,
speechless among
the screaming,
happy,
angry,
sleepy
children’s voices.

Bountiful Womb

She could not
get enough to eat
yet she kept on
having babies
and they kept on dying
before the age of two
and after ten babies
she had none
and she kept on
having babies.

Yard Boy

Tattered hat
in scraggy hands,
he sizes up the house
slips into the gate
and asks, “Ma there?”

Eyes lock onto ours,
he weeps a tale.
“No work. No house.
No food ma.”
He kneels, begs,
quotes verses from the Bible.

Rooted, we stare–
ma, cook, wash-boy, nurse.
He asks about the yard-boy.
Ma hands him a scythe.

Grasping ma’s knees,
he weeps “Ga bless, Ga Bless.”

Corns

Sis Julia dreams that one day she will
own a large hut made of concrete.
Nails will hold her roof down, not stones.
Her house won’t flirt with fire,
run away with floods,
fight wars with wind.

She dreams that her children
will wear shoes, the best hand-me-downs,
will go to school, won’t be last in class,
won’t be sent home for school fees.

Julia dreams that
she will no longer count pennies,
she will have babies in hospital,
will wear gold rings on soft fingers.

In her floating, cloudy dreams,
she touches ground often,
feels its hardness, feel the corns
under her bare feet.

Poems from, BEYOND DREAMS: THE RITUAL DANCER. Monrovia: Sabanoh Press, 1989.

Copyright © Althea Romeo Mark

Clear Rivercess Bassa to my Kwii Dialect

Black and red we tumble in bed
Like palm nuts beat in a mortar

The clouds chased away
By the bright starlit night
Shining through the unfinished thatch roof

Nyeezwo sweet Bassa ma with your puckered lips
Like the wild honey of Nimba County
Seductively swaying voluptuous hips
Aphrodite has nothing on you

Your breasts are like two young roes
From the Song of Solomon
Black and comely you are indeed
Your smile ivory
The choicest of products the Charlies used to bring

Help me sweet Bassa ma
I am smitten
Your hair like full grain corn plaited in exquisite design
Is tied around my neck
Leading me to the creek
Where the Jinas have laid their net for me

You laugh with deep intention
Wise like the old cotton tree you whisper secrets
I stomp my feet to the beat of the drums
There is no escaping the night rhythm
Soft like dumboy you kiss me with palm wine
Anointing me with your delicious sweat
Until the birds chirp their morning greeting

And you sing to me in Bassa

On the Road to Ganta

On the road to Ganta I met a girl
One fine young Kpelle girl
With all the sass of a Kru woman

I speak to her say, “Ko Mein?”
The girl slap my face
I not even know why

I say, “but whattin you do that one for?
The girl answer, “You nah know?”
I say, “I know I will ask?”

She ask me, “Whattin are you?”
I answer, “I Liberian man”
She say, “yaw not treat us good, dah why”

Essential

Lovelier than the stars and the moon
I am struck by your beauty,
Bedazzled
Every move you make
Reminding me
I am a man
A hopeless slave
Nailed to your cross

Wise in the ways of the heart
O my sweet darling
Make me your essential
Allow me to taste your lips
Now and forever more

Copyright © Nuah Padmore 2010

Morning Bath

Sleep deserts me like steam escaping a closed pot
My pillow whispers that I return to the Land of Lies
Yet I sluggishly stretch to awaken my flagging limbs
While my brain is still screaming that I rise

Nature’s artists are already on guard
“ Ku-ku-lee-o-ku”, sings Auhn-tee’s red and black cock
Awakening all of Paynesville, Jacobtown
From atop his favorite mountain of rocks

It’s mid-July, the height of the rainy season
And so cool as if I’m at Mount Nimba’s peak
Even my sagging breasts are now aroused
And my skin’s a fine sandpaper sheet

A pail of water is on the fire hearth
Drawn by Cece who’s still sturdy though kind of old
Seventy plus but still moves with a youthful strut
And rises before dawn so I don’t catch a cold

Soon I throw my lappa on a pawpaw tree branch
Then Mesurado’s zephyr hugs me like a new boyfriend
Perched naked on a stone like some juju man’s god
I wish this part of my day would never end

Mourning the Patriarch
More ancient than the cotton tree
Providing a canopy of coolness
To Hanty pa’s rusted, corrugated shack
Grateful for the break from the scorching heat
Women from all over the Kru Coast
Ritually pass snuff and bottles of
Gin, Cane Juice, Roots
Sneezing- wailing
Swigging – wailing
Shaking – wailing
All mourning
Bereaved

The saddened, bruised flowers of the Hibiscus plants
Demarcating the lush green mat
From the broad tabella field
Detach their pistils and curtsy to the ground.
The potted Praying Hands rebels
Refuses to proclaim Amen
Yes it will be like the other pagan plants
Just for this week
Rotted Pawpaws cling to their branches in reverence
Knowing the Ground, too must kowtow, starve, suffer
Mourn

The brown plump Roaches making their nightly pilgrimage
Flying
Hoping the flickering garage lights were the gates of heaven
Where they would fly forever
Singing Halleluiah Joy
Will walk till he’s one with the earth
Even the Wall Geckos
Unable to shed their scaly whites
Like their no-legged cousins
And wear the color of the dead
Black
Vow to remain in the walls
In the dark.
Grieve

Rifted Friendship

My entire being is clogged
With clouds of regret
Knowing the stony path
Leading to you has dissipated
Piecing kernels smashed into tiny bits
Is an easier task
Time has flown
And the tale has ended
Without hero or villain
As days turn into Piccasa sets
And the bond we once had
Shrivels, distorts, eventually decays
Like aging fruit
I pray only the fondest
Of memories stay
To massage the rigidity
Of your heart

Deserted (16)
A smile ‘tween 2 friends
Sparks emotions denied
Alone in the world
To belong I do strive
Just feel so darn lost
Like a blind bird that flies
No motherly talk
My body’s a surprise
How could she do this
I oft ask myself why
Should have aborted
Just to make sure I died
But chose to desert
Blaming so many lies
Yet prance around town
Like a woman who’s kind
Forget her I must
Yes I just have to try
Fight thru this harsh world
But can no longer hide
Anguish that fills  me
With demons I can’t fight
Have to forgive her
But to save my own life . . .

The Beauty of Scars
Dark, ugly, calloused, scars
Grace the stunning vista
Of my smooth cocoa skin
And adorn the contours
Of my gallivanting soul
Yet I’ll continue
To frolic carelessly
On the mountainous rocks
Of the falls of Kpatawee

And though love thieves
Continue to contuse and abuse
My chest remains unlocked
Since sores and welts are brief
Whilst by taking life by the leash
I create lovely, ceaseless memories
As I still live, love, lose, bruise
I pray more scars will appear
Proclaiming, Healing is Near

Copyright © Joyetta Senyennoh Satiah