Sacrificed in the Promised Land

It was what I considered my last chance
My last chance at life and love

and family.

My old life, my ex-love, and even

my family had all left me--left me

broke, heart-broken...

So I broke FREE.

He said he'd be my Brother

He said he'd be my Father

He said he'd be my Savior

He said he'd be my God.

I needed him to be all those things.

I took him as my brother because

he sat by me and held my hand

when I was scared.

I took him as my father

when he provided me with a home.

I took him as my savior

when he showed me I was worthy.

I took him as my god

when he healed the friends around me.

I prayed for him when he said he was being targeted.

I prayed for America and the greediness of our people.

I rejoiced the day he told me we could go to the Promised Land.

I never returned from that Promised Land.

-This poem is in reference to the Jonestown community that was built in Guyana, South America. It was formed by the People's Temple Agricultural Project. This community/project, which originated in California, was later known as a religious cult, enacted and led by Jim Jones. It is most-known for the tragic "mass suicide" of 918 people that took place in November of 1978. Today, research and testimonials from the few survivors of the 1978 tragedy has allowed us to see into the preachings and true intent of Jones' movement. Learn more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown

There are also several documentaries and specials about this topic: Look them up! You will never believe what you will see and hear from the few survivors and children of those who were once followers of Jones. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27052411/ Here is just one of many that I found to be intriguing, chilling, and life-changing.

What's This?!?!?

Could it possibly be? Yeah, I've finally found it in me to blog post from a public computer lab. Yikesies! I used to be (seventh-grade version of myself) extremely self-concious when typing in our seemingly private computer room for fear that my mother/sister/father-not so much would barge in and say, "Hey, dinner's rea--What does that say? You made out with whooo?!?!?" Yeck.

Now I guess I'm just slightly self-concious about people realizing that I blog. Nobody knows anyway, I suppose. I have, what? Three subscribers? And I thank each of them now. :) I don't even know why I care if people did know. Bloggers blog to be read, right? All the same I hear many of my peers make snide remarks about bloggers....bloggist sounds more fun to me.

But for now I'm going to stop trying to be humorously thoughtful and do what I intended to: Poems. I try to write new stuff all of the time and some of it gets finished, lots of it does not. Some of it seems very provoking and ?educated? to me after I go back and look at it. I don't believe that S.K.W. from Po-dunk, OH wrote it. What I have noticed is I tend to generate ideas for poems from the new stuff I learn about in my classes, or things I read in articles, and of course from the copious amounts of TV I consume. Historical figures that are usually not well-known or well-taught have been the theme, lately. I put a poem about Fred Hampton on here, and I hope to add more. I also have one posted that was inspired by the Black Dahlia murder victim, Elizabeth Short, of the 1940s. The next one that will be posted below is going to be in honory and memory of Sarjie Baartman, the Hottentot Venus, whom I learned about in my Ethnic Studies: Women of Color class (fascinating!). Writing through my interpretation of someone else's point of view is new and interesting to me. I stop concentrating on my same ol', same ol' issues in my own life and actually learn from others. Plus, it allows me to be someone I am not for a good ten minutes. Hope you enjoy!




R.I.P. Hottentot Venus




"I've been in limbo for nearly 200 years



And now they finally ship me back



Back to my homeland.



The last time I was here I was



barely a young woman.



Finally, I will be laid to rest



like an ancient cold baby who



has been shivering in the winter air



and is swept up and taken inside--



to a warm bed where she belongs.



I will be back to a place that



knows me



and not a place that only sees me.



I will be back in my family's land--



my perfect bones will rest in



the dirt near my sisters and brothers,



where I should've been centuries ago.



No longer will my



withered,



exaggerated,



lifeless,



exhausted,



body stand there in that city museum,



being pointed, gauked, laughed, and pondered at...



just as it was when I breathed air in my lungs.



For if it wasn't enough to rip me from my country,



to lie to my young, innocent heart,



to sell me to another pig-of-a-white-man,



to take me to a loud city



full of wicked people with



bulging eyes and insensitive brains,



to make me parade around



in the nude in front of hundreds who gasped,



and then to tear me apart,



inside and out,



to see what it could've been to cause my



"freakishness"



after I died...



Then maybe it is now enough.



More than a century of the same



chauvinistic, scientific racism of



Monday-Friday vacationing voyeurs,



wondering what was wrong with my



lifeless but restless body behind that glass...



the least they could do is send me back



Back to my homeland,



back to my people,



back to my family,



back to my final resting place.



For you were worried I'd become



An object of politics here, but I'm not.



I was only an object in the country



you call home.



My voyage is over,



and 200 years later,



I'm finally home."







-Skw '09

"Sarah" Saartjie Baartman, Khoi Khoi native

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hottentot_Venus

Fred Hampton, Sr. 8/30/1948 - 12/4/1969

I meant to post this blog awhile ago. It is in honor of Fred Hampton, Sr. who was murdered in his sleep on December 4, 1969 by a coalition of the Cook County SAO, the FBI, and the Chicago PD. This story still fascinates/haunts/angers/inspires me and I will always have questions about that fatal night. I've researched Hampton's life as best I could, and I also have turned many pages trying to find out the details of his death. I know enough to know it was tragic and horrible. I guess you could say I became obsessed with finding out more about him and his cause, and when I become obsessed with something I usually scribble out some imaginative poetry.

A cup given by a friend to a giant
Had to knock him down on his knees or they would've never knocked him dead.
Just a drink of Kool-Aid
Just a drink was all it was.
Does he know now?
In his resting place does he know?
Some of us know it was much more than just a drink,
Some of us know it was way before that drink
The things that took place--
Secret letters and meetings
Two faces on one man
Deceit at the highest level
"Some us were brothers for a cause, yes, but some of us were traitors for another cause.
We were your targets,
You sought us out like innocent prey.
We didn't target nobody!
We only aimed at those who targeted US!
Political prisoners in the Land of the Free
Every crime you committed ended up our doing.
But your neutralization efforts only point to one truth:
That we were working. Our cause was working!
And your denial of your plans of action only proved one truth:
That your measures were completely UNJUST."

There's more to this topic that I will hopefully post later. If you have never heard of Fred Hampton (I hadn't heard of him until my second year in college) look him up and read about his life and death.

“You can kill a revolutionary but you can never kill the revolution.” -F. Hampton, Sr.

Conflicts of Interest

If not for her vagabond ways, then maybe for her rare and undeserving beauty?
If not because she had no husband or child, then maybe because she had numerous lovers?
If not because of her far-fetched, girlish dreams of stardom, then maybe because of her striking independence and her unshakable nerve?
If not because all of her "friends" wore two faces, then maybe because she meant little to anyone?
If not because her family wasn't surprised, then maybe because she was asking for it in the first place?
If not because the case just simply ran cold, then maybe because the story of her death was more important than her life.

UNTOLD

I feel creative juices flowing
Endlessly through my veins
Cyclical-no stopping point,
no getting off the route.
The energy and potential
It's all there inside
But the names and faces don't come.
The adjectives are missing.
The reasons why don't exist.
The juices flow throughout my body,
leaving me unnerved and unsettled.
Mission left unaccomplished.

And then I'm walking in Hanna Hall
and a vivid memory floods my thoughts.
Whether it is real or not is irrelevant.
It feels real-the people are rich with life,
Their love is strong and their story is
original and beautiful.
A tragic ending makes perfect sense
in the timeline of my dreams.
I envision reading an excerpt of
the lesson learned and I see
young children pondering about
the morals they are coming to know.
But the beautiful story in my mind
does not manifest-it dies.
It goes unwritten and is a tiny tragedy itself-
A wound of my intelligence.
It had been beautiful and fluid
In my mind but lacked the
necessary "electricity" to make it happen.
The energy went wasted-
The tale left unfolded.

Uh oh...there's no looking back now!

So I actually have a blog now. I've wanted to have one for some time, basically to semi-anonymously get out some of my poems/fiction or non-fiction mini-stories/rants etc., but I never took the initiative to actually create one. I have recently delved back into my passion/interest/hobby of writing poetry but I am still not so sure of myself and my writing.

I have always had a tough time sharing my stuff with people, especially since I would otherwise have to do so face-to-face...and when I do get the nerve to do that its like when your best friend tells your choir teacher that you have an awesome singing voice but really you don't (your best friend is slightly tone deaf) and your teacher makes you give a little preview of your "talents" in front of your entire class. Basically, if you can't relate to that, my face gets RED and I suddenly question the use of every word I wrote, and the words "CHEESY" and "STUPID" race through my brain over and over. And when I have to read my work aloud--well, that is a whole other feat that I have yet to conquer. I usually beg someone else to read it while I stare straight down at my hands.

To give my mom credit, she has always been very supportive and enthusiastic about my poetry writing and she has always appreciated my countless poems addressed to her. But, as far as I can recall my mom isn't a literary scholar (this is not to say she is uneducated) and I don't know when the last time was that she studied poetry. Nonetheless, God bless her for being my own little fan. :)

Anyway, over the past couple of years I have posted a few of my poems on myspace but I found that to be sort of annoying for the single fact that most people on myspace are not interested in the ways of expressing your creativity and personal growth. More than that, I don't really want everyone I know on myspace to be able to follow such anecdotes of mine. So I'm choosing a less-public and obvious forum in which to dump out my daily geology-induced bored scribblings.

I finally have a way to relieve some of my built up creative energy/tension. Hopefully it will satisfy.