Mahogany L. Browne
Vast
"She pursued, adored and claimed me, and I was desperate
to be claimed." - Rebecca Walker
i held justin's hand in the dark
in the garage corner while everyone
else pretended to not watch us
we were slippery tongues and new
the idea of girlfriend swam in me a
drunken song
i held my breath and his hand wandered
i wondered and he tripped across my skin
his eyes brown and one lazy
remain partially closed and full
aware of the dark. his lap almost
a hot brick of discomfort
my desire to be wanted
was a cooling dam so
vast it drenched us both
shotgun suite
easy man, leave me stained::forgive the threat of wrecking ball saunter
Forgive the cut the sliced window:: oh moon, of holy neglect,
clean shotgun lineage ::uncle with a mouthful of fire christen the blackness
the name and mouth and crack and blk girl demise in dark sullied sin water
― i beg, leave me this
black girl in paris: lust retrospect
the moment I released my thirst for more
each leg slid open for a man i did not
love my spine curved like an island
his torso be a body of water his palms
kneaded then spread me granulated sand
he gripped for my hips like chine
like
capsize be heavy on the tongue
like
imminent disaster w/out p r a y e r
to my fluke altar
to be wanted,
an immaculate act of addiction
to be katrina brimmed
despair blossom
a pungent flow
to be wanted: stings
a tree bark tragedy
a salt lick wound
ready for unknown fingers:
each digit gybe
with a hunger for the dark and hidden
hurt where the limbs swing memory
on a bed-stuy stoop or inside a pirated
forsaken t r u t h along the seine
Mahogany L. Browne,The Cave Canem Alumnae and Poets House Fellow is the author of several books including Swag & Dear Twitter: Love Letters Hashed Out On-line, recommended by Small Press Distribution & listed as About.com Best Poetry Books of 2010. She has released five LPs including the live album Sheroshima. As co-founder of the Off Broadway poetry production, Jam On It, and co-producer of NYC’s 1stPerformance Poetry Festival: SoundBites Poetry Festival, Mahogany bridges the gap between lyrical poets and literary emcee. Browne has toured Germany, Amsterdam, England, Canada and recently Australia as 1/3 of the cultural arts exchange project Global Poetics. Her journalism work has been published in magazines Uptown, KING, XXL, The Source, Canada's The Word and UK's MOBO. Her poetry has been published in literary journals Pluck, Manhattanville Review, Muzzle, Union Station Mag, Literary Bohemian, Bestiary Brown Girl Love and Up The Staircase. She is an Urban Word NYC mentor, as seen on HBO’s Brave New Voices and facilitates performance poetry and writing workshops internationally. She is the publisher of Penmanship Books, a small press for performance artists and is the Nuyorican Poets Café Poetry Program Director and curator of their famous Friday Night Slam.
Return to September 2014 Edition