In the Moment /The Breaking of Glass
FROM Workshop: You’re All Write!
Piece # 1
In the moments of their final breaths
My minds eye try to envision what my eyes witness
An act so heinous and cruel
Like sharp and jagged edges of broken glass piecing my heart and cutting into every fiber of my being
The stench of rotten garbage permeate my nostrils
I watch helplessly at the hatred oozing comfortably
As you self-righteously cut off the air supply of another human being
With no sense of regret or remorse
Bitter gun flavored metallic gumdrops fill my throat
I feel the life of my people draining from my soul
The deafening sound of shattering glass has once again drowned out the pleads to live, to breathe, to be.
UPTOWN BABY
Carla Cherry and JP Howard, From Writer’s Bloom Poetry Workshop
Cotton Club.
Small’s Paradise on a Saturday night
but like Big Ma and Mamma said,
girl, get your butt moving
for church at
Abyssinian Baptist
Convent Avenue Baptist
St. James Presbyterian
Reverend Ike.
Minisink House
Harlem Writers Guild
The Negro Ensemble Company
Grace Giles Dance
Black Liberation Bookstore
Harlem School of the Arts
Wells
Sylvia’s
Sherman’s Barbecue
22 West
Copeland’s and Reliable’s.
Lenox Terrace
Esplanade Gardens
The Rucker
Mount Morris Park
Marcus Garvey Park
St. Nicholas Park
Double dutch
Jump ropes/sneakers/jellies smacking concrete
Old men sitting on stoops and benches
Young men on the corner
Played straight and box at the local numbers runner for Grandma
Mamas and grandmas looking out of the windows at their babies
Throwing down little bags of change for a run to the store and you better come right back
If you were good, you could use Mama’s change to buy yourself some
Green apple Jolly Ranchers
Pixie sticks
Bubble gum
Candy cigarettes with sugar smoke
Fun dip
Lemon heads
Now-and-laters
In the summer kids were running out front to Mr. Softee when he played his song.
On the dinner table there were collard greens
Rice and peas
Fried chicken
Macaroni and cheese and candied yams
Fried rice and chicken wing special from the Chinese take out on the corner
Sugar Hill Gang
Hip hop you don’t stop
We sang along with
Prince
The Jackson Five
Michael Jackson
Freddie Jackson
songs always on loop
Boom boxes
Eight tracks
Cassette tapes
A pencil in the middle when the tape fell out
45s
Blowing dust off the needle before it hits the groove
Cardboard on the sidewalk
Spinning on your head
City College
Striver’s Row
Sugar Hill
Brownstones
Studio Museum of Harlem
The Schomburg
Red Rooster
Lenox Saphire
The Cecil
The 1/2/3/4/5/6/D/C/B/A train taking us uptown baby, uptown
BREAKING THE[IR] GLASS
Authored by L
As I breathe into wakefulness
my eyes open and slow walk 'round the room
seeking to answer the question
where am I?
Calming lavender scented relief washes over me
as I realize I'm home in my bed
Out the window I glimpse a sunny day
with puffy clouds dotted across a baby blue sky
I breathe thanks
stretch my hands towards the heavens
and rise
Morning rituals aside
thoughts of a warm cup of green tea
and wheat toast slathered with mulberry jam and butter
make my stomach rumble
and propel my feet towards the kitchen
Enjoying my fast's break
with furrowed brow, a line from a tv show floods my mind
creating a new experience of wonder
"do thorns of a rose exist to draw blood from humans,
because the nutrients in human blood benefit the rose"
"Creepy" was my thought
when i first heard it said
Creepy is my thought
when i think of it now
Creepiness aside
is it true?
and how different are the thorns of a rose
than the thorns of a human
Thorns
like broken glass
used by humans to draw blood
to feed us in this existence.
I'M BREAKING THE GLASS
By Francina Smith
And for soul, and the Blues, and the rhythms that trekked along the passage in order for me too
break the glass.
I’m breaking the glass loud enough to honor Harriet. Parting the Red Sea that tried to box me in
because I’m outside the Pyramids.
I’m breaking the glass bold like miss Angela tightening my fist but untwisting the bondage of my
eyes because knowledge was free all along,
I’m breaking the glass using anything by any means necessary like Miss Betty’s strength that
carried Malcom and the girls.
Uncovering Toni’s tales of truth with my bluest eyes, while the sweetest humming bird lulls me
with Miss Simone’s art that broke the glass, I will superseded them.
I’m painting on the broken glass without the mask, no longer hidden in the shadows, thank
Mother/Father GOD for Paul Lawerence Dunbar
And for soul, and the Blues, and the rhythms that trekked along the passage in order for me too
break the glass.
I’m bound to think it’s hereditary, magical in very sense that even the Ruby Dee Davis’ of the
world could get her pearls once she broke the glass.
Even Spike had Mo’ Betta blues, he couldn’t do the right thing by looking through the glass- He
broke it.
The glass was colored for Hattie McDaniels in white, Hollywood the existence of the Native Son
was more like Step’n Fetchit. She shattered the glass and came back with Oscar’s gold.
Audacious and ambitious.
Black Bold and Beautiful
Intelligent and limitless
Powerful beyond measure without the glass,
And while some may say the glass filters like.
Never forget that you are the light.
So break the got damn glass and shine beautiful NEGUS shine!