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.




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