The first time your heart
Will break in front
of your daughter
It will be to your silence
And eyes that betray
Neither age
Nor suffering.
You will smile.
You will talk to her.
You will keep watching your movie.
You will remember.
You will swallow his name
To put it back into
Your heart,
Hoping it for not
To rise again.
-JBHarris, 6.2023
Written after my ex-husband’s wife threatened to call the police on my daughter for screaming at her brother, making a bad joke, and her stepmother of a decade became Carolyn Bryant.
To the White woman
who tried to call
the police on my child—
The prophets tell us
that there is
nothing new under the sun,
and because there is
nothing new under
the sun,
It is of great
and grave expectation
that Black woman
are never dumb.
But you
like me
who hold life
on the inside of you,
yet you pull death
from your mouth,
aiming at a child
who is defenseless
in this world,
whose only
recourse is to
Call the only name
she knows other
than God—
Mama.
And her roar be but
whisper to you
and hurricane wind
to me
and I will sprout up
as wings as eagles
as Isaiah spoke
about to see
where the tears
have come from.
hiding her behind me
I stand in front of her
and death daily —
You do not scare me.
I push death back
into your mouth
that you may breed
and birth it as you
and all your kin
have known to
do for centuries.
you will not devour mine.
She knows who she is
to whom she belongs
and she knows
that she is part
Of Maya’s 10,000.
Plus 1.
She has my blood in her
Divine Father on the inside
of her
and how dare you
try and stifle life
in her that has
already begun!
Because when Black women cry,
even in girlhood,
they summons
the 10,000 who will
protect her
arm her
show her the faces
of enemy from a long way off.
These ancestors which
she will take with
her always,
and as the prophet said,
there is nothing
new under the sun
In life and death
is in the power
of the tongue in
those who choose
we eat the fruit of it.
Your fruit is chosen—
curse is already on your line.
Me and mine?
We gon be just fine.
-JBHarris, 5.25.2023
It is of the rolling of
Water in muddy rivers
That give the rebel
To the Belles along
Mississippi banks–
Give roar to what
Should have been
Whisper.
Gave power in havoc
Passion in chaos
And Anna became
Tina to tell us
How to get over
And the end of
One life is the
Gift of another.
The ancestral is God’s memory after all.
that is memory
Is gifted as
Music.
-JBHarris, 5.24.2023
Written after the passing of Tina Turner at age 83. STL KIDS CHANGE THE WORLD.
This year was introspective for me.
I was forced to think about things I was scared to, while making room for myself. I think the presumption is poets will have this never-empty, never-ending reservoir to soothe or settle those that read our thoughts.
I’m always humbled for it by anyone who reads my work or is inspired by it. Sometimes the wells we pull from for others, are dug by our own hands–watered by own tears!
Yet, we write.
We create.
We serve. Make no mistake: a poet is a servant. Perhaps this is why Baldwin said it is a horrible tragedy when a nation ceases to produce poets.
The poet remembers what everyone else forgets—and gives light when all is lost. On this, perhaps, hangs humanity.
There is peace
In me which
Is as deep as
The mind of God
When you are near….
Having neither rival nor equal.
She will desire peace at the
Cost of war
Being both prisoner and soldier
Believing if she fought harder
Bleed more
And denied her own
Thirst for more
Hunger for justice
and sight for more
Then she will be enough
When her body no longer
Blushes with your coming
Has peace with your going
And all love becomes an act.
The weapons of he warfare
Time, body energy
Have been taken as spoils
And she will do all allowed
To pull herself back together
Your touch no longer soothes.
The heat that was there has
Cooled…
With the turning of
Her head…the love is dead.
she will put self above love—
and nothing else will matter
JBHarris, 11.20.20
I want to spit
Remembering every time
I told you that I loved you—
every time
I kissed you
every time
I close my eyes
to remind myself
of what peace
and love look like.
in the middle of hurricane wind
and hellfire knowing that
the desire you had for me
was only contingent
on “how quiet I would be”…
reliance fiercely on what
you knew I would become
because I would become
anything…for you.
because I was you, was a part of you.
because I would’ve was a part of you
I could not be without you
and now that the hurricane is over,
and the winds have gone
and the sun has come.
I want to spit
every time
I think of how deeply
I loved you
—-and meant it
-JBH, 12.8.2020
What do I do
Now when what you
Left me with
Haunts me…
And with all resolve
As faith gives
I send it back to
You.
The love was mine—this is mine.
I give this back to you!
I will not leave you to rest!
When it calls to you
from the depths of
what you thought
was dead
to quicken you
with kisses warm
and love a deep
reminding you of just
what you held on
for the glimpses of
future hidden in
past if I were
To just give you
more time
“You know
I love you
You know
she cannot be
what you are to me…”
Wait for me
you are my heart
love of my life…
there’s a chance
wake me from
summer willing my heart
to start all over again
so the wedding
won’t be so hard
this time perhaps
-JBHarris, July 2021
Note: This piece will be in THE DEATH OF PETER PARKER & OTHER FAIRY TALES (August 2023).
In the myriad of hours
that I count since
counting you
as part of my hours
And days taking
your smile
your laugh
your joys
into all considerations
I wonder
is there ever truly room
for me in your hours
And days
to be counted
important among?
Counted enough
to be worthy
to be chosen.
From the pondering
I find myself wanting…again
-JBHarris, December 2021
I miss him so
Tough that sleep
Is the enemy.
-JBHarris, 4.2023
I Breathe Fire 