As I continue to share my pick of writing artists this month, I will also share some of my own visual art and writing as a contribution to National Poetry Writing Month. My painting above is a work in progress titled Coco Brothas. I am pairing it with my poem I Haven’t Kept Long Hours In My Blood which was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement.
I Haven’t Kept Long Hours In My Blood
Have you seen the bodies?
There are bloated effigies swaying above my tongue
Is there even a remedy?
While I burn with citrus
and grieve for coffee
My mother continues to crush garlic with honey for offerings
Places them like wreaths strung upon my adam’s apple
Gives a splash of rum
To charm all that I speak to with potency
It hurts to swallow
My throat, a cliff of dying dreams
While this eddy in my mouth
holds the palace to which my words are dragged
and drowned
Bitterness has a glittering harbour
When the merchants of language fail to bargain
For softly
For gently
For my waking
Up close
I learn the flickering lights are the constant dimming of eyes
And I recall my ancestors saying we must perfume our shadows so the living will remember us well
Since this shade of onyx is never left untarnished on the pavement
Now the city wipes its feet on oboe reeds and bagpipes
My people carry native chants for my edgeless breath
And in whispers
Over white sheets
Father tells me I was birthed with a spot pre-fitted for obols
And that I haven’t kept long hours in my blood
Because they always painted my sighting too dangerous for it
~ Nia Andino
