A slice of spoken word 5: "Goddess Poetry's House of Worship"

I wrote this piece quite some time ago during a phase when I was incredibly frustrated with the poetry community. I didn't start writing poetry until after my mother passed away (which was about 7 years ago). I took the mic the first time when I arrived in Indianapolis almost three years ago. An addiction was formed of sorts. I was so high off the feeling of being on stage and setting my emotions free, allowing my words to fly through the ether and possibly settle into someone's soul who needed to hear or feel what I spoke or felt. Then I experienced some of the negative aspects in the community, and felt very let down and frustrated. That is where the following piece came from:

Unity found within communinty.

Searching I seek for

unification within definitions.

Creep inside lounges and coffee houses sitting in

farthest corner,

finding darkest table and

praying no one sees me,

wanting no one to hear me while

screaming bleeding poetics 'til

esophagus feels as though I've

dined on sandpaper.

This mind of mine tells me the

one place in this scandalized society,

the one place in this

hideous humanity I will

finally find a

sense of enlightenment and UNITY

will be within the poetry commUNITY.

Therefore, my spirit

filled with a passionate cry for poetry

birthed from words,

led by words,

found poetry...and I

crept inside lounges and coffee houses,

sat in farthest corner at darkest table after

signing my name 'pon what I would soon learn to be

a moniker...

the list...

seeking permission to hold

sacred mic in hand and...

When my turn came I

ever so nervously took the stage, and I...

found freedom.

I spit pain,

vomited void in rivers.

Served virginal blood in

steaming cups of pewter perdition as

onlookers gulped the

sacrificial offerings of self...I

spread literary thighs and

the audience devoured me,

hungrily...

greedily digesting everything

pissed into crystalline goblets of

poetically pretty bittersweet acidity...

and I

in deep-rooted hunger for connection,

with need for affirmation and

desire for UNITY,

heard the voice of the child within chanting

over and over again:

"The like me! They really like me!"

Wanted to belong to the

warmth of this bloodline,

wanted the DNA of these people's ink

intravaneously injected into me.

Wanted to speak their language,

walk their walk.

Wanted to

be a familiar face each week when

walking through those doors,

needed to receive hugs and

automatic respect and reverence for

what I do and

how I do it,

so I created this

idealistic sense of family

within this generational clan of artistry:

a self-sufficient group of creativity,

supporting one another...

brought together by the

Divine powers that be,

in order to use Creator-induced gifts and

change the world in the name of

Poetic UNITY...

giving back to the entity of Poetry

that gave so very much to me.

I saw behind those walls of

Goddess Poetry's House of Worship

an audience of worshipers,

her parishioners,

those who joined together to

witness the homage so many would pay...

each Poet's sacrificial offering to the

Queen of Queens...

the spillage of ink and

raising of voices...

hands wrenched and clenched, raised to the expanse of skies...

open to receive blessing upon blessing.

Each poet with their very own poetic offering,

and the congregation receives...

enlightenment spread to the spirits of the willing...

words whirling 'round atmosphere,

dancing and intermingling with

sounds of sweet smooth jazz grooves...

treble and bass clef melodies harmoniously making love,

while nouns and verbs caress each note...

as music rolls around in a

beautiful rendezvous...

bouncing off walls and ceilings...and I

found spirituality.

I

found new religion.

I found philosophy.

I found enlightenment.

I found Psalmists.

I found the lines of

bleeding spirits crying out to God...

finding solace between the

dots of an ellipsis...

saving grace sent to him and her

in the form of the healing salve of ink...

and I began to think...

this is sanctity...

I found hallelujah choruses like this

soul never absorbed before...

spilled in alliteration and metaphors.

I found a love for words displayed:

"Pretty" transformed to

"a beauty unparalleled, pulchritudinous in her statute"..or

"she burned my retinas

with the vision of her loveliness,

gouging eyeballs from their sockets I

placed them in my hands

just so I could hold her beauty forever."

I found new religion...

a place where masks are removed,

masquerades smashed and broken,

and Damn...

I also found out that

what they say

can sometimes be true...

Poets really are the best liars

to walk the green of this Earth and

wade through the blue...

I have crept behind the walls of

Goddess Poetry's House of Worship,

dodged murky drippings of hypocrisy,

belly-crawled down darkened halls

as not to become a casualty to

friendly fire...

dodged skeletal remains of

Poets who came before me

in hopes of finding

UNITY.

I have escaped the grasp of the greedy,

learned to decipher the money hungry

from those feverishly fiending for spiritual feasts,

beautiful banquets of masterful Poetry.

Have learned to distinguish the

Russell Simmons from the

Gil Scott Heron's...

behind the walls of

Goddess Poetry's House of Worship.

I have discovered that

"I'm a victim" poetics

doesn't denote victimization...

that "____ the police, they

stole my brother's life in the form of

natural life

for a crime he didn't commit" rhetoric

doesn't mean ____!

Because the Poet only wants to spit,

it's "Just poetry"...

and this does not mean there's one iota of activity

once the mic is down and the

feet leave the stage...

it's all an act in the name of

entertainment...

rather than enlightenment...

for some poets.

Disgustingly, I've made the discovery

that it seems to be natural

for a female to step on stage,

3/5 of her flesh showing via

see-through blouse and a

mini-skirt that should be a tube top...

displaying the audacity to spit

line after line of

"Young girl respect your body" poetry.

Can you please respect yours first?

I've realized that

even though it's known as a commUNITY,

there's not much in the way of UNITY.

I've been taught a poet must

fit a predetermined mold,

that racism exists,

that you gotta stay in your own lane...

that all the ugliness of humanity

all the wretchedness of society...

everything I

so adamantly desired to escape

is right here...

behind the walls of

Goddess Poetry's House of Worship.

And so I figure...

this isn't much different

than the corporate Christian Church...

it's all here:

the hypocrisy,

the false prophets,

the gossip and the

whore mongers...

I guess you can

take the Christian out of the church,

but you can't remove the "church"

from the Christian...

without an exorcist... I guess.

All I wanna know is this...

is there ANY place a poet can go for sanctity?

A place of beauty... realm of clarity...

If so, let me know...

but then again...

the rest of the poets will follow...

and the cycle will start all over again.