Comment published in New York Times

I wrote a response to Thaddeus Rutkowsky's article and my response can be found here below. Yay!

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/one-degree-of-separation/?comments#permid=12354242

There They Stand, Watching Me Watch Them

He jumps up, says she’s abusing him

Grabs his shit, runs through the door

Everyone watches

ALL EYEZ ON THEM

Bona fide great pride, all pretty and perfect outside,

Suburbia defined and redefined

Inside created a great divide

Live in a world of Jekyll and Hyde. Good gone,

Erased in time, lives in a lie cocoon. How can I judge?

Your boy Paco tells stories that make scary seem good

“A very bad person,” said Judy determinedly

Judy deals with rapists and killers

You give Motherhood a bad name

Denial and avoidance is your leisure

You brag about Paco on your Facebook page

Enjoy the fruits of your glory

Raised with hate, he could’ve been a terminator

But turned to art instead

He despises you for not protecting him

Chose to protect his father who maimed him

For that, he’ll give you up for lent

Ugly passion, you’re poison to him

Stood there and watched; shit beat from him literally

Leave Facebook messages, ‘My Paco’

Be assured, accomplishments he made were in spite of you

He should’ve blocked you on multimedia long ago

An object fit to reject

Bitch, let me break it down

Don’t contact him

He won’t contact you

Outing you is the best I can do

I officially out you for your abuse, neglect,

Your surrender to sadism

Witnessed and personally done

I out you, I do

Out you, I do

I out you, I do

It is the best I can do …do …do…

True Color Makes My Heart Sneeze

I try to think of what color 

I might be yet all I can see

Is I'm the color of me

I'm true blue as I can be

I'm still only me

Far as I can see

I'll always be me

When I'm with you

I turn to we 

No matter what I do

I become split in two 

When I join with you

I stay true to you

I stay true blue

Yet I am only me 

I remain the same hue

Alone I am me

Together I become we

The me I want to be

Remains to be seen 

I cannot be you

I don't have a clue

As to where the me

That I am goes when I'm with you

Strangely enough, neither do you

So you be you and I'll be me

And later we'll meet for coffee or tea

We'll look out at the clear blue sea

Stare in your eyes to reflect me

Because I am you and you are me

Dream A Little Dream For Me Lover

With the wings of a falcon

I fly across the valleys of my mind

The wind and my thoughts intertwined

Watch the sky, stars and planets align

Close my eyes, remind myself to unwind

Review events, people I know, combined

Can’t concentrate, lose my faith, resigned

Create a new version for mankind

On dew soaked grass reclined

Confined to visions in my mind

Dream of all I’ve left behind

Step to the left, step to the right

Wonder how to initiate life refined

Once again defined, I alight in flight

Soar across the valleys of my mind

Those Who Die For Color

Midnight blue is the new black

And black eye is the new royal blue

Blaze red is the new St. Lucia sunshine

Yellow rain forest green is the new clear diamond white

And orangutan orange is the new polka dot pastel

Tulip lavender is the new skyscraper gray

Horizon purple is the new sunset black color image heart attack

Waiting for them to invent a color you can’t see so

I could color myself in invisibility

Then when people stop and look at me
They will only see my soul energy and me

Is it worth it? You decide.

My love for you is deeper than the deepest sea

Softer than the softest breeze

Higher than the tallest tree

Don’t ask me why this prize was yours

Not mine to decide

Not what’s said but dread of unsaid

Written words make me become undone

Much more than spoken do

You don’t need this shit called love any more than I do

Move to the beat, broken souls reject

Healing, sift through broken bones

As though the answer lies in our wishes

We become lies we live

Buried in solitude, create a fortress

Make us prisoners

Of our own demise

Hearts like silver need polish

Troubled and cautious, need to demolish

Striving to forget unpunished deeds

Our souls create a fort for faith

Hide away, survive wounds, lost battles, day after day

Feel like I’m a rash or allergy, out of control

Think before you speak or

Forever hold your peace

Like shame from tarnished childhood

Secluded from the sun

There’s nothing won in fighting

Tell me give up

I’ll stop hoping

My love for you is stronger than a hurricane

More powerful than an angry storm at sea

Baby don’t make me try to explain

Feelings I have for you

My heart stuck on you like glue
Love like morning dew

Joy AKA violet performing "I Sing The Blues For You Today" with Demetrius Daniel, Charles Worrel, & Dubblex.

Joy AKA Violet performing, "I Sing The Blues For You Today" with Demetrius Daniel, Charles Worrell, & Dubblex. JoyandDubblex Poets

I Sing The Blues For You Today

I want to do poetry like Billy Holiday singing the blues

I want to do poetry like Ella Fitzgerald

I want to be me singing my holiday blues

Billie’s songs are poetry so fine it makes me think I’m her doing rhyme

Thoughts about Billie make me go off line, hook line & sinker; she puts me back in time

I sing to my lover, I want to make your poetry mine because you spout rhymes

Observing my life become an unending grocery list of things to get done

Your life or mine, yours is on my mind - the list of to dos keeps growing exponentially

Number 1, try out a mattress, 2, buy it, 3, buy new locks to keep someone out number 4, find someone to install it, make 10 million calls. Keep writing lists. What did you say? How many sessions, any lessons in storage? Will the Divine power of intervention help?

I don’t want to bore you with the details and derail you from my song.

Damn, wonder if I’ll ever see Willa Dean again– oh man, you know the women I mean

Kept her head wrapped up like an African Queen with her creamy coffee looking self.

Willa said the secret to good potato salad is to go heavy on the mayo

Willa Dean days, they’re all in a haze now. I was so high back then.

The memory lingers, listening & watching while she told stories. She’d whisper, her voice barely a breeze, tell me about her lovers, say, “I’m gonna get me some.” … I’d get confused & asked, did she mean her husband or lover.

She’d show me wilted lettuce and bring it back to life telling me about her lovers, drugs, & children while making potato salad.

I thought - she’s a woman of many talents, a stoned cold junkie and a working mom combined

The nose that knows, her preference was coke, good moist coke at a good right price too on the upper - upper west side in Washington Heights, 162nd street to be exact

Willa had class & style combined; she took me to dress models at the Ritz one time. Got paid for it too. It was such a pleasure to do. I even got a pair of designer gloves out of it.

People accepted Willa everywhere we went –

Willa was friends with a famous New York jazzman and his wife, a New York City teacher. We were at jazzman’s apartment, small tight crowded living room, upper west side 90’s.

Willa’s friend sat across from me staring at my big breasts. I can see how tight your muscles are.

Let me massage you she said aggressively hurting me so bad physically

we had an argument instead.

Passing through hundreds of lives so many colors

Let me take you back to what we share - strivings for love – wanting to go somewhere –

Wanting to discover who we really are ~

see ourselves through the eyes of others and – finally see who we really are.

Extend this power to the umpteenth degree. We still wonder who they think we are ~

Uncover recover to return to who we want to be

Dreams are reality - stop thinking, dreams are the color of my true love’s hair

Black is the color of my true love’s hair, his dreads caress my bare hands

A whole-years grocery list pressed into a foggy mist of autumn red

turns bright chartreuse before bleakly the list dissolves before my eyes

True colors make my heart sneeze amidst a perpetual mist of violet-blues
A dream more real than a memory