Your love is better than wine
Your scent is better than any perfume
Your lips drip with the nectar of honey that flows under your tongue.
You are a garden. Your body is an orchard of pomegranates, grapes, and strawberries.
You are a fountain; with streams flowing from Heaven, let the wind blow upon your garden.
You will blossom, opening your heart, making today better than yesterday.
Anthony Hairston
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March 7, 2021 in Artist Profiles, Poetry Corner
Tagged art, Artist Profiles, love, Poetry
Me
Misty blue and seeking to be true
Hard to love by ordinary ones
For they don’t see me
As a romanticist might seek to
Another dimension is my goal
Where love flows through me
Touching those most exalted
And those who only long to be
Faye Jones Majette
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Posted in Artist Profiles, Poetry Corner
I AM (after Where I’m From by George Ella Lyon)
I am from places and faces I have never known.
I am the hopes and fears of a farmer’s daughter.
The passion and possibility of a solider boy.
I am their offering to the future.
I am from North Carolina red clay.
It is in my bones.
I am from hard work, strong faith and
Trust in the unseen
I am from slaves and slave masters.
I am from ancestors I have never known.
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Posted in Artist Profiles, Poetry Corner
Tagged ancestors, farmers daughter, Poetry, slave, slave master
Poem by Davinna
Disappointment
Led to my feelings of disjointment
But my anointing phases all the pain
I am faithful and guided though im misguided with handling the pain
I looked at life as a trap
Faithful but still adapt to the devils constant breadcrumbs of the fame
He is in my head
He attacks me in my bed
Amplifying my feelings of distain
I write for truths
To give to youths
Who struggle in his name
Im crazy……not stupid
Sometimes…..I lose lucid
To fight off what it is that stains…
My brain is wired to work
To speak my worth
After a life of your never gonna be shit insane
I’m the same
Yet different
I cloak myself in difference
To be a rider in the game
One day it will all make sense
I will see over that fence
To greener pastures in his name
Until then I will crash
My behavior turned up on rash
Either your in or out
The melody is the same
I have lost friends who couldn’t see in me
Didn’t believe in me or get my walk of justice in his name
Seeing no evil of my struggles everyday
No one understands the hand of the fates
Clotho spinning
Lachesis determining places,worth and feelings…
Screw this
Atropos please give me the damn scissors so I can cut the thread
Dont want to be dead
But I fear if or when im dead
No one will get or still understand
My pain
I fall and get embarked by the dark
Slithering light
telling myself get back up to participate in this game
I climb these crystal stairs
Hoping not to break the panes
Break my ways
I break for days
I break for shade
I break in shame
To hide in when im not the same to revel in me not the same..to getting back to me being the same
I keep the pain
Hiding in my brain
But a break is necessary
I brake for necessity
A learned condition of hiding all this pain
Im an actress but you didn’t know my role existed
I guess im gifted at hiding behind all this pain
I cant run
Or hide
Or get by with the weight of this……
The questions always exist when its detrimental to my brain
I underscore pity
Leaving out the precious gifts my family gives me
Its the definition of insane
System failure
Lets reboot
“As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance”
Peter said it all
even though the knowledge is tall
I still fall to repeat the same mistakes
The missed takes of my mistakes
Leading me to wrong
The questionable
leads me to questionable in head interference
Can’t seem to clear this
Bowling spares because im unable to strike within this brain……
I know this story
I live this story
I want to change this story
And I will
I will, AMEN
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Posted in Artist Profiles, Poetry Corner
Tagged Artist Profiles, chronic illness, pain, Poetry, Sickle Cell
Samiya Bashir is the author of Gospel, finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the 2009 Lambda Literary Award, and Where the Apple Falls, a Poetry Foundation bestseller and finalist for the 2005 Lambda Literary Award. Bashir is editor of Black Women’s Erotica 2 and co-editor, with Tony Medina and Quraysh Ali Lansana, of Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social & Political Black Literature & Art.
Bashir’s poetry, stories, articles and editorial work have been featured in numerous publications including, most recently and forthcoming, in POETRY, Poet Lore, Michigan Quarterly Review, Crab Orchard Review, Cura, The Rumpus, Hubbub, Callaloo, and Encyclopedia Vol. 2 F-K.
She is the recipient of two Hopwood Awards from the University of Michigan, as well as awards, grants, fellowships, and residencies from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, where she was a recent NEA writer-in-residence, the University of California, where she served as Poet Laureate, the Astraea Foundation, the National Association of Pen Women, Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, Soul Mountain Writers Colony, The Austin Project, Alma de Mujer, the James Dick Foundation for the Performing Arts, and Cave Canem, among others. Her long poem, “Coronagraphy,” was nominated for a 2013 Pushcart Prize.
A long-time communications professional focused on editorial, arts, and social justice movement building, Bashir is a founding organizer of Fire & Ink, an advocacy organization and writer’s festival for LGBT writers of African descent and a recipient of the 2011 Aquarius Press Legacy Award, given annually in recognition of women writers of color who actively provide creative opportunities for other writers. She currently lives in Portland, Oregon, where she teaches creative writing at Reed College.
– See more at: http://samiyabashir.com/bio/#sthash.zmcalhwT.dpuf
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Posted in Artist Profiles, Poetry Corner
Judgmental Stares
By Divanna
I’m constantly being judged even when I don’t know it
My pride wont let me show its effects on my.mind
My illness had been made to hide
Leaving me acting on a whim, smiling at them and feeling crushed from the inside
Not be in stride with what a disease should be
The looks focused on my face trying to find the pain I hide everywhere but within my eyes
I sigh
disgusted and delirious
The world is growing oblivious
my sight is getting serious
because they say my eyes will eventually grow to be faulty
I cant open the door more
The need to hide and cry and work my ass off to get by..
makes the illusion of my being alright grow loudly
I tip toe with heavy steps
My knowledge doesnt matter when they dont think im capable of fighting something I cant control
Like a pick and roll except the defender clings to me
Does things to me
Makes me cry and have my personality rescind in me……
Because it never plays nice or leaves my my ego intact
What is given can not increase without guidance
I am forced to hide in
My own mental prison
Getting lost in the mazes of wonderland
Lacking wander
Im not buying what you tell me I fought for
It seems irrelavent in the scheme of things
I canqt make you feel my pain
Or cling to these truths I bring
So continue to judge and tell me how I don’t look sickly
How im faking what’s in me
How no one can understand it is continually with me
How no one can seem to get how it gets to me
Incubating a hate that knows no bounds
I been around….
But no one seems to see how hard it has been…to be….around
Davinna is a N.Y. blogger/writer who believes that your own experiences shape and make you. She shares her experience in her battle with sickle cell disease through poetry. Check out more of her work on her blog page http://iusedtohavetheblues.blogspot.com/![[glittery.jpg]](https://bohemianhomejournal.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/6ff87-glittery.jpg)
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Posted in Artist Profiles, Poetry Corner
re post from ‘I USE TO HAVE THE BLUES’
Mortality is my reality
Built on a hereditary technicality
Forever to be carried through this adventure of living
Removal of blinds
This was designed to be my baggage to carry
So I roll with the collapse of my veins
The needle exchange and the blood taken out of me
The fight taken out of me
Dispatched
Like a knick knack
Throw this girl a bone
Inside of my head asking for forgiveness
Streaks of lightening blazing through the vessel holding my essence
It is always present
Always
24hrs a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year
Sometimes I forget as if it was an illusion
Only for it to attack crippling my nature
Destroying my confidence
Displacing my light
Allowing the dim and darkness to invade
And so I lay me down to sleep
But this hospital bed is uncomfortable,
keep clicking my caller but no one will come for you….you don’t look sick….
Fighting this biting pain as my disability continuously rolls through my veins in a never ending story
Wheezing, body seizing, pain meds hardly relieving
But my moans never escape
For I am strong, I am woman hear me roar
Or whimper, or cry, or……or…….or………sigh……
I’m so tired
Davinna is a blogger/writer who believes that your own experiences shape and make you. Check out more of her poetry on her page ‘I USE TO HAVE THE BLUES
Posted in Poetry Corner
Tagged Health, Medicine, Online Writing, Pain Management, Poetry, SCD, Sickle Cell Anemia
Poem by Elena Levon
If you want to hear the truth ~ Listen to your heart.
If you want to fly ~ Don’t be afraid to break your wings.
If you want to forgive ~ Ask for forgiveness.
If you want to be a good dancer ~ Dance with your soul, not your feet.
If you want to get to the top ~ You have to touch the bottom.
If you want to be free ~ Don’t lie to yourself.
If you want to heal ~ Cry, Laugh, Breath & Let go.
If you want to be rich ~ Help someone.
If you want to find You ~ Get lost.
If you want to learn ~ Change.
If you want to feel loved ~ Love.
If you want to be happy ~ Be.
02/07/2013 © Elena Levon
LOST ETERNITY
Time has stopped.
Crowds, chaos, voices.
So many faces,
So many echo’s
So many places.
Except one face…
Yours…
Except one echo…
Ours…
Except one place…
Eternity.
Among the crowds we are lost,
But my eyes still hope to see yours.
I search for your face in so many masks…
But they just laugh at us.
They laugh, because I will never belong to you…
I never do.
If we shall never find eternity,
I ask for only 3 things;
One Face – Yours
One Echo – Ours
One Place – Now…
12/23/2012 © Elena Levon
“Russian-Armenian-American solo Nomad. I’m a Writer, Photographer, Actress, Dancer, Model & a Dual Citizen. I have backpacked solo through Africa, lived in 8 countries and traveled to over 30, in 4 continents, before my 30th Birthday. On my journey I got to share dinners & laughs with everyone, from homeless people, to Presidents, Hollywood icons & Royalty. I walked with lions in the wild, bungee jumped into a river full of alligators, got in a fight with a female baboon, hang on the edge of the most dangerous pool in the world and jumped out of a perfectly good airplane, in the middle of one of the coldest winters in Russia.”
Commentary – Bohemian Home Journal
Elena Levon’s bio reads like an action/adventure/romance novel, which is why I find her writing style so fascinating; sincere, soulful, soothing, insightful, earthy. Check out Elena’s blog, I know you will enjoy her work as much as I do.
Posted in Artist Profiles, Poetry Corner
Tagged Africa, Armenian American, Elena Levon, Hollywood, Homelessness, Multiple citizenship, Poetry, Royalty, Russia
Free Flow Forum is an open mic dedicated to artistic expression and music. Boasting a live band that enhances the entertainment provided by various Poets, Singers, Musicians, Comedians and Dancers that grace the stage. Located in the jazzy urban U Street district of Washington DC, Red Lounge attracts the professional business art crowds of the city. Flowrhythmic brings a spotlight to the art community to showcase its best, brightest and most valued performing artists.
Every 2nd and 4th Wednesday @ Red Lounge 2013 14th St NW (U Street) Washington D.C. 8-11pm – $5
Twitter Handles: @FlowOpen – Producer/Co-Host: @J_D_A_B – Band: @flawedlogikband – Host: @PresidentLDavis – Free Flow Forum Open Mic – Hosted by President L Davis.
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Posted in Lifestyle, Poetry Corner
Featuring Gregg Shapiro & The DC Youth Slam Team
Hosted by, Sarah Browning & Katy Richey
$5 online or at the door
Posted in Artist Profiles, Poetry Corner
Tagged Arts, Busboys and Poets, GREGG SHAPIRO, LGBT, Poetry, Poetry slam, Spoken word, Sunday Kind of Love, Washington DC
The Bohemian Home Journal 