audio: reading of a poem | “stop praying for what you want”
Category: poet
“Forever You”: an ode to friendship at the horizon of loss
as my longest and dearest friend,
Jill Johnston Hayes
neared death
an illuminated scroll
drawn on gold metallic cardstock
with pen, marker, paint and crayon
Lajuana Lampkins
September 2023
FOREVER “you”…
My childhood friend, and through the years, we've grown together, shared joy and tears, were bonded like the day and night, our hearts forever will unite, you've given me, a chance to be, a friend forever, most definitely, I am forever, there is no end, you'll always be, my most best friend, each day and night, I keep you near, always know, that I am here. Thank you for, the love you've shared, nothing else can compare, So much we've grown, and been all through, forever is forever you.
Poem by Lajuana Lampkins
©️copyright Lajuana Lampkins
September 2023
Continue reading ““Forever You”: an ode to friendship at the horizon of loss”
the mourning cloak
near invisible,
imagine silk organza, chameleoned
peach-pink colored, when i Am naked,
the color of water as i bathe.
sky blue, golden, sherbet, grayed or midnight black,
when i Am outside
ever-shifting with the time of day and weather,
once, even green,
as i knelt down in the cold grass
while diaphanous to all the unobservant
i Am dressed in this cloak of mourning
and the hem is lined with lead
Continue reading “the mourning cloak”repair of the heart | kintsugi
version i
a vessel
of perpetual sustenance
fumbled by graceless hands of men
those breaks that once disfigured her
now sealed
with aurum scars instead
august the 4th
today, i proposed to a hummingbird we had loved each other in the spirit world
reunited on Earth, now, finally,
beauty, will you please marry me?
i’ll promise to always feed your dreams
you’ll promise to always come find me
i’ll be our garden,
you’ll be our wings
weeds, july
while washing dinner dishes
a hummingbird surprised me
feeding on a milk thistle
them overgrown “weeds” just outside my window
you see, it’s not just about my garden that i tend to
but the things i leave alone,
that i let go,
i let grow wild, too
i didn’t get a photo, my hands were too wet with soap
yet i really wanted you to know about this, really, to know this, about us, both
you see, we, errant human weeds, you need us too
we’ll prick your finger
we’ll quench your thirst
we’ll tell you truths
burning down
there’s no sense
in gaslighting me
i’m already ablaze
night falls, late july
nightfall
proceeds like this
small rodentia head under, in or up,
mourning doves perform a vigorous last forage,
hummingbirds, always reliable for last call, drink up/
rabbits boldly show out in numbers to spaghetti-slurp dandelion, plantain and clover stems/
barn and tree swallows own the lower troposphere
red-winged blackbirds
cardinals, and robins
in that exact order
loudly call everyone home for the night
the air surrenders to insects,
the sky — to bats, beautifully acrobatic /hey!/
cottonwood or black walnut trees will host owls on supremely, rare summer evenings
moths, beetles take the lamps
frogs take the sidewalks, steps, stoop,
walls, windows,
and eventually, the lamps too/
toads pace and post sentry on barn thresholds
deer passage through — or bed down
in the tall unmowed grasses, now properly – a prairie, a meadow,
natural salt licks — and halved, quartered and whole apples,
are my selfishly generous lures ’til autumn’s own bounty
coyotes herald the Moon
or the first dark train,
depending on the phase,
lightning bugs mimic eye-level stars,
golden-gold like our Sun and in asynchronous constellations
raccoons strategize, then raid, but i know to expect them now
possums about their business — quiet, slow, sweet — these, my dear ones, stay a while, please
cricketsong
errant cicadas, what year is it, again?
and incessant croaking, banjoing, ribbitting
fog may appear,
then settle — or lift,
or maybe the night is sultry, still or clear
Continue reading “night falls, late july”venus 𝖗𝖃
and she and i were out of sync
and he and i were out of sync
and the crows and i were out of sync
and he and i were out of sync
and she and i were out of sync
and he and i were out of sync
and we were all,
out of sync
but mostly, i Am out of sync
so i stepped back,
and out,
then forward, and back, yet again,
then circled,
and waited,
waded, treaded, floated
it
out
to keep from
sinking
poetry as sustenance /ethan hawke
“Most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about poetry until …”
// this piece on creativity by Ethan Hawke is one that i return to often //
“[S]he floats like a butterfly …”
marker, paint, glue and chunky gold glitter
on 12”x12” square
gold metallic cardstock
These two gorgeous, requested works by the most gorgeous and extraordinary artist and person Mz. Lajuana Lampkins of Chicago.
You might find her making her art in the late night scene of her favorite spots in the Wicker Park/Bucktown neighborhoods of Chicago — or reach out to her on Instagram at Lajuana.Lampkins1 and peruse her art, her process and her community.
Lajuana Lampkins has had her art exhibited to great praise; she is a prolific and widely collected street artist; and she has edited and published a book of her late son’s essays, poetry and letters: The Collected Works of Prince Akbar AKA Jus Rhymz.
She is also a sister, aunt, friend, poet, community member and activist, writer, rapper, historian, archivist, fashionista, paralegal, social commentarian and modern philosopher — but most proudly, a mother, grandmother and great grandmother
— and to me, she epitomizes the Crone.
Muhammad Ali
Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them: a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.
Mz. Lampkins works may be exhibited again in autumn 2023 in a community art show that she is hoping to create and develop —-and she aspires to publish her next non-fiction book in the nearer future.
She is also the subject of the forthcoming documentary “My Mother is An Artist” which follows Mz. Lampkins’s journey from 2019, eight years post-release from a 30 year incarceration as a wrongfully prosecuted and convicted young woman and mother —to 2023, as a working, locally-renown and yet-still-struggling artist living in these American systems of modern oppression and exploitation.
Continue reading ““[S]he floats like a butterfly …””for Christi:
inspired, in part, by a poem from Mary Oliver’s Drunk Cousin :
how can i “calm down” when all i feel is love and rage, when all i experience is beauty and pain/ no in-between / pass the cab and the kettle corn / and if you didn’t want me to opine on fresh-cut flowers and this film — then why, why, why – did you insist that my eyes see them – yes, i know there are flower farms —— but have you heard that pollinators aren’t allowed indoors around vases? it’s none of anyone’s business how many time i’ve seen “Almost Famous!”
yes, i am a mother, and i drink too much wine, sometimes — but he’s in Albuquerque not in a crib in the next room — i wish time travel were true // and other times, wine is not enough to squelch the pangs – of 18 years gone in a flash but thousands of hours wasted on PTA and homework — fucking homework ! /// i took my kid road-tripping and camping, sent him to the SCA and Grand Teton to keep him out of these systems — how many huckleberry milkshakes at the Pioneer Grill does it take to finally see mountains and bears and rivers and trees as persons? well, i can actually tell you!
we had our deep talks, but not enough, never — how can time spent philosophizing be measured? in life choices and paths — that’s how. and i’m proud.
can you make a pact with me and promise i’ll never have to eat these words – especially the rants — and when, not if, i say something really wrong — you’ll push bowls of fresh figs and olives in my face to shut me up as a signal? salsa and chips will work too
can i tell you i’m broken without you trying to fix me? can you tell i’m broken — or do i wear it well? do these big feelings make my brain look small?
never stop showing me the radiance of you just because i’m dark — someone has to be the shadow, the mourning veil, the contrarian — and i know i volunteered — a long time ago — but “at some point” i would appreciate a different assignment?
— by the way, your auras do wonders for this room
you’ll both never not be in cascade canyon with me
it was
fated, serendipity
oh, june
oh, june
she crushes me
these roses warmed in her Sun
today, tomorrow, and yesterday, at least
it’s not enough
to see them, touch them,
smell them, now
i want to swallow them down warm
into my heart
and keep them forever
song[s] of my self: epigenetic lamentations
During the summer of 2017 – a time of significant change in my life – including the rupture of my marriage, an upcoming “milestone” birthday, and a relocation to a quiet rural place with dark skies and an abundance of fauna and flora — I literally heard myself: I had unconsciously begun a meditative practice of singing or humming verses and melodies of sorrow, wonder, gratitude — or simply, of the mundane. They were autonomic and presumably original, lamentations.
then, serendipitously, I retroactively encountered a May 2017 piece published in Yes! magazine about the revival and history of “lament singing” in Finland.
To find that I was unconsciously, but actually, participating in a Finnish tradition that I had never experienced or even heard of — but that was somehow still within in me — in some cellular, trans-generational or ancestral place — felt like a bridge to my lineage — to all my unknown women-kin.
The lyrics and tunes occurred spontaneously over several months, and I often automatically repeated the same one over and over while working, cleaning, cooking, gardening, walking or driving. I sung or hummed them mostly while alone, but sometimes they would emerge aloud in public places — and I didn’t even realize that I was in song or know how long I had been doing it.
Continue reading “song[s] of my self: epigenetic lamentations”People who laugh, cry, sing and talk to themselves aloud in the street are not “crazy” — we are comforting, raging, celebrating, mocking and mourning ourselves, our lives, our experiences and the world.
the limineen | earthling, poet & crone 