Autumn Love

Autumn Love

By Ieisha McIntyre

The multi-colored leaves of fall

Reveal the true nature of our love.

Every once green thing

Changing color by degrees.

Every once green thing

Heightened and in metamorphosis.

We are not evergreen.

These words of yours

Change the summer of our love

To fall.

We should be conifer rich,

And without enemy.

Our love was the trunk of our being.

We were joined walnut.

Not maple, able to be wiped out by a foreign moth.

We are so in need of the other that we cannot produce.

But here we are in the autumn of our love,

Transfixed by the hurt,

Transformed to golden, red, azure quivering in the subtle breeze,

Frightened of the words,

We know that winter kills.

Let us speak of springtime when we first met.

When your fingers met mine and we knew.

Let us turn our thoughts to the breaching of the cold crisp air

By the warmth of sunlight.

Let the scent of fresh tulips breaching the black earth

Be remembered, held sacred and recovered ritual.

Let us hold tight memory and warm ourselves with the flame.

Winter holds only the things that want death.

Remember my arms, holding you.

Remember my lips, kissing you.

Remember my thighs.

Nothing of love wants death or autumn.

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War Bride

War Bride

By Ieisha McIntyre

Tears rise from my eyes,

Roll down my cheeks,

And slide softly to your chest.

I rest my ear against you and listen

To the beating of your heart.

Try to match my breath to its sturdy rhythm.

Dependent. I know you are there.

I know by the rhythm of your heart.

A gentle breeze blows through the window of our apartment

Tossing new pressed curtains

Against a gently whirring fan.

It cannot drown out my sobbing.

This is the day that you leave.

I need to memorize the sound of your heart.

I need to know every tap of the muscle

And the moment in between,

I need to hear the rush of air in your throat.

I need to hear the intake of the warm late summer air

Rushing into your lungs.

I need to feel the heave of your chest

As the muscles spread gently

Letting in another burst of life.

This is our last morning. 

Our last morning before they put the suit of a killer on your back

And paint your blood khaki green.

Last morning, you’ll lie next to me and sleep

Uninterrupted by nightmares.

Last morning that I will wake next to your body

And not be drenched in the sweat of your shame.

The man they will return to me will be a shadow of you.

My heart knows.

I listen to the beat of your heart and the ease of your breathing.

You brush back my hair and promise you’ll return an even better man.

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Summer Rain

Summer Rain

By Ieisha McIntyre

Beloved, your touch

Is the warm summer rain –

air pregnant and moist.

Trees turn their leaves end up in anticipation of you.

The wind blows –

Herald of your arrival.

Love, changes shape and patterns

But that day you were rain.

Round heavy drops – and

I was welcome and desire,

Open armed and willing,

One touch of you and the dust cleared.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Days Like This

Days Like This

By Ieisha McIntyre

On days like this,

I want to fall into your arms

and let the scent of you carry me

swiftly from my worry.

Days, when I want your tired head

to lay heavy in my lap and

let my fingers comb away your troubles.

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Love Offering

Love Offering

By Ieisha McIntyre

The path that is my life has turned the soles of my feet cracked and calloused; has placed

Corns on my soul;

bunion ridden my heart continues to beat.

But in syncopated

Rhythms – rather in an arrhythmic throb of sorts –

both feet and heart left disabled -- fully hobbled.

Humbly.  Full of shame at my unworthiness, I offer you my calloused heart.  Sacrifice. Do with it what you will – my mind lurches.

Disbelief.  

I offer you my heart,

Bid you remove your shoes.

Come walk with me.  

Come stride cross, gravel and brambles, and shards of glass.

Take my hand full scared and bleeding,

But warm and worn from fighting,

Bring the strength of you to this journey and we will make it ours.

Or better – together forge a new path,

March head long into the fray. No longer a lone warrior, but allies instead,

Armed with the peace, love brings

Healed by nurture.

Pressed forward by faith, we are made army.

Intimate, I can give you partner in arms.

I can give you healer.

I can give you lover.

I can give you my heart,

world weary and ready for your love.

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Sweet

Here is the second of my Valentine's poems. I'm attempting to write one a day until Valentine's Day.  Just sending out the love energy.

Sweet

By Ieisha McIntyre

Sweet my love – lie sweetly

Next to me. Let the strength

Of your arms wrap ‘round my waist

And pull me gently to your middle.

Lay your lips against my

Shoulder and whisper soft

The best parts of your day.

Nuzzle my hair and listen

As I pray for us –As I thank God

For the miracle of us.

Let me rest my cold feet atop yours

As we drift into sleep.

When we wake we will breath

Forth new salutations, new proclamations –

Forge new bonds and reclaim our vow.

‘Til death do us part –but not now.

Now, we are us.  We are the best of together.

We are sweet, my love.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Hello Love

Hello Love

By Ieisha McIntyre

Hello love.

My heart says hello.  Take my hand and feel my love for you.

Take my hand and feel my pulse race.

Hello love.

My eyes trace the perimeter of you and map your jaw line. 

My fingers test the feather of your eyelash and the pillow of your lips.

I rest a kiss.

Hello love.

Feel the warmth of my breath as it dusts across your lips, as we speak to closely.

Too public. 

We smile and wonder at the rush of the blood and the dizzy our minds take.

Hello my love.

I welcome you. I welcome the softness of your lips against mine.

I welcome the firmness of your tongue against mine.

Twist mingle together. I welcome the strength of your body, the feel of your hand against my waist.

I welcome you. Rest your kiss soft against the curve of my neck knowing I’ve rescued you. Knowing you are hero, and home.

The comfort of surrender.

There’s no agenda, there’s no deadline, only the mercy of love.

Only the peaceful blessing of our joined fate.

Home. While the storm looms held at bay, by our love.

Hello.

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Edwidge Danticat: Stories of Haiti | Video on TED.com

Edwidge Danticat author of Breath,Eyes, Memory gives a talk on the beauty of Haiti and shares the power of story. Listen and learn of all that Haiti has brought and contributed to the Western Literary Canon. Perhaps it will bring you hope for Haiti's rebirth.

Edwidge Danticat: Stories of Haiti | Video on TED.com


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Capitalist Charity Negotiations

It has taken me weeks to try to find a way to respond to some of the many feelings I have wrapped around the tragedy of the earthquake in Haiti (World Vision appeal). I am admin of a group on Readwritepoem called African Diasporic Voices.  I posted a challenge to respond to the poem Betrayal by Leon Laleau in which is discusses the internal conflict of mental decolonization.  Here is just one of the poems that I have written during this time of heartbreak.

Capitalist Charity Negotiations

By Ieisha McIntyre

My happiness matters more to me than your pain.

--matters more to me than if you eat,

 if you are warm.

--more than if you are loved.

Your misfortune is not my fault.

It is your job to convince me that your pain

is a threat to my happiness.

-- then I will help you.

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Best Laid Plans

Best Laid Plans

By Ieisha McIntyre

When plan A failed

It freed my mind,

to believe that plan B was possible.

That every if, and, or but

and the woulda, coulda, shoulda’s

had the right to be resuscitated.

The right --

to be released,

to be wild,

to be free,

to wreak havoc and run amuck

upon the failing seeming normal. 

I laugh now when I meet those clinging feverish to their plan A –

having tied too tightly the rope around Plan B’s neck –

Never having jumped,

they left it there until the blood pooled and

the flesh turned black decay

and the head of the thing just fell away.

I should sympathize.

But, I have not time to linger over dead things.

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Prayers To the God of Convention

Prayers to the God of Convention

By Ieisha McIntyre

Squeeze me into normal.

Even if the shoes pinch, and

The bra straps dig into my shoulders, and

Make the sweat pool up against the creases

Underneath my breasts, squeeze.

Cinch in my waist.

Make me size 6 normal and taught.

Pull taut, my waist and expanse of mind,

And give me pleasure in the common fare.

Stop me from scribbling outside the lines,

And give me paint-by-number rules.

I’ll use the corresponding colors and place them

In the right spots to make the allocated image.

Squeeze me into normal. 

Give me the boyfriend who wants marriage and 2.5 kids

And suburban wonderful unconscious,

And enriched white bread culinary, mall pretzel Saturdays, Squeeze.

Bring me the promised exhale of pension and homeownership,

Secure healthcare, affordable babysitter, and retirement in my 50’s.

It is my bounty as the rightful assassin of my dreams.

I carried out the prescribed order and followed through on the demand.

Leave no incriminating evidence of crime and no trace of the dream refugees

Who hid beneath my acceptable demeanor and conventional garb.

I was the assassin who followed through on the hit put out on my dreams.

I let the years tick by afraid to risk their release.

Desperate, they were flung loose by tragedy and trauma.

As wild things will do,

Threw themselves full-bodied against the fences. 

Some lying on the wire as sacrifice so that others might live. 

I was the assassin and I claim my bounty.

Squeeze. Squeeze me into normal.

All Rights Reserved © 2009

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Pussy

PUSSY

By Ieisha McIntyre

Women know the truth but close our eyes and pretend –

pretend, when you touch and we let you in.

You see, we know that pussy is just pussy when you fuck it.

Not a woman.

Not until you love her and surrender to that which is superior to the flesh

– the spirit

Not a woman when you call her baby.

We know.

But we close our eyes and remember when baby was a name called out of love, not lust.

Not a woman when you leave before sunrise.

Not a woman but an object.

Some creature with similar limbs.

Not a woman but an object of flesh.

Dehumanize her in pieces; let her be just a bucket of fast food chicken.

We know.

But close our eyes - open our legs and imagine love, and family, and garden parties in white gloves, pearls and red silk charmeuse dresses.

While men bone and debone, making women into poultry

We know.

Some how, in claiming freedom of our bodies we lost the power of NO.

No, to cowards who put forth his penis instead of his heart.

A penis, saturated in the sweat of too many lovers.

Lost No – to the man who cannot see the beauty of a sister or the possibility of a wife – of a mother, a partner.

Lost the power to see a woman in our own reflections.

We surrendered to the myth of the money makers, take a pill, liberate, independence.

But wait,

A life is not made on those without name.

It is made on the courage to face passion and pain.

To do so with others,

To call them by name.

Not bitch, nor ho, or some such thang – but wife, sister, mother, daughter –

we’re both to blame.

Because we know that a pussy is not a woman.

Not unless you love her, and claim her, and call her by name.

Child of God, reclaim manhood,

Reclaim woman hood, put down the blame,

put down the pain and take up your dignity!

It is worth more than the nickel you were told to keep between your knees.

Worth more than the dinner, the cab fare, the rent,

worth more than the mornings of waking up on your own,

it is priceless and powerful sacred.

We know.

A pussy is just a pussy,

Unless you love her and call her by name.

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ATONE New Year's Eve Performance with Tacoma Urban Orchestra

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LINK TO THE TEXT

Mississippi Mission

MISSISSIPPI MISSION
BY Ieisha McIntyre

I am standing in this field in Mississippi,
Looking out across corn, corn, and more corn.
My eyes look out across this land and at the old silos blown loose by hurricane.

And my heart is looking too. My heart asks my soul a question.
“Is this the field where we worked? Is this the field where we bled?”

“No. But, it is somewhere, and I will tell you when we find it. And the land will move up to greet you. As your blood will know its own, so too will the soil know you.”

I moved back and leaned against the fence.
Took in the blue of the sky,
the plumpness of the clouds,
the breeze blowing through the corn and trees,
and listened to the whispers of ancestors –
breathing hello and smiling.

All Rights Reserved © 2009







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LotusPapillon

LotusPapillon


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Starting Over

By Ieisha McIntyre

Let me pick up my pen and put it to this paper. 

Place it clearly in the right spot to be moved—

and to move someone, anyone to a side.

 Either righteous or hedonistic, just to move someone, moral or immoral.

Wait.

Let me pick up my pen and take it to the wall,

turn it into a sharpie

and begin to outline either the worst graffiti

 or the most remarkable of murals; but let it be art and let it change the world—Let it change everything

Stop.

Let me pick up a brush an put it to canvas –

let it make nuns blush or sinners cry –

but let it be original – let it be ground breaking.

No.

Let me pick up this pen and move it across the paper – just so. 

Just so I can reveal my truth, a truth.

Give voice to my pain and triumph.

I will pick up my pen.

All Rights Reserved © 2010

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Atone -Video Update:
I've tried to post a video of my spokenword piece Atone however, it is not working out. And when I go to new posts the video button doesn't show. I'm not quite sure at this point what to do but I will keep working at it.





This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

LotusPapillon: Minnesota Mornings

LotusPapillon: Minnesota Mornings

Minnesota Mornings

Minnesota Mornings
By Ieisha McIntyre

In the sweet soft quiet of the morning, I set my feet, hesitant onto virgin snow.

Full fresh scent of crisp crowds my nostrils and lends itself to the clearing of my mind’s fog. I am new. Made clear. The shock blue of sky bounces white and glistening off the tops of snow and water.

Crystaline.
And the crunch-squeak as my boots make their careful way.

With each step, I have ruined someone’s morning view.
They will not have the privilege of a clear and uninfluenced path. My grief is not short, just swept aside. Instead, I enjoy the hush of morning, and the wisp-shush of wind as it pushes loose snow over icy drifts.

Crows land with a soft tap.
Even the lightest foot,
even a wing assisted foot cannot go unnoticed. Even a feather sounds as the whiskers of an old man’s untended beard.

Coffee warm, and grasped against my chest-
Lips, tucked behind my scarf-
Hair hidden under wool, and fingers growing cold for the want of better mittens- I travel briskly.

Breath is labored, the cold cutting sharply into wet lungs. More than two city blocks to travel through fresh snow; how strange the shift cold makes. Now, the curse and impediment to progress, the glare of white, strains the eyes.

Slip,

Two slips, a loss of coffee – now tepid. Exhaustion, and not even halfway to my destination, I stop. Take a moment. And, survey.

The crows have followed, and are in want of the remnants of my peanut buttered bagel, stuffed halfway in my pocket. A lure. Somehow, I feel myself, bate. Non-angelic wings, full ominous with blackness. There is an unsettling keenness in their eyes. I am certain they know my name. I scurry on and abandon my bagel.

Stone steps before me and the lure of warmth. I am not in need of seduction. Ready to betray the morning and the light for the comfort of indoors and berber carpet. A tug of a heavy door.

Pretending—not to watch for her,
Pretending—not to need the sight of her smile,
Pretending—not to feel the sickness in the gut of me,

Pretend—not to need love.
Pretend—just friends.

Deprive my spirit of what she freely gives.

I slide into the cold seat of my chair, let my bag drop to the floor, take my pen to paper and begin.

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LotusPapillon: #5 of Maafa Cycle: Atone

LotusPapillon: #5 of Maafa Cycle: Atone