Noir Reflections

I was in a post-Funk downspiral, my blues overshadowing the colorful existence I've created for myself in DC. Sometimes it's far to easy to lose sight of your blessings. a health scare or lonely night can make one overlook how much life has to offer those willing to let the lessons show up through the pain. so I reached out. it was some aol ramble to a friend about needing more substantive connection with brothas who were willing to dig deeper than usual chat about the state of the "scene" or struggles of securing someone as warm and lasting as fantasies about the knight. i knew that time in West Virginia would be great, if only just to get away from the city and be amidst nature-- something I sorely miss, being an arkansas, country-boy. but i ran into some people there; familiar faces I'd seen at the club or on personals pages that reduced our essence to a headline like "down to earth brotha... seeks blah thug blah". and we went so much further to discern what lies beneath or titles, our jobs, our struggles, our educations, our anxieties about loving and longings for it... and I left with some 15 new friends, all unexpected gifts for having held on long enough to have them show up. Noir Reflections-- a retreat for black men sponsored by Us Helping Us-- was about finding pieces of myself in brothas who each shared something similar and yet, were a whole lot different: a drummer, the blunt devil's advocate with multiple personalities, a courageous quiet spirit who "opened up", and in doing so, gave us permission to do so, a brilliant, strong, and wordly long-term dis/ease survivor, a wrist reader, an closet actor and poet, a pharmacist, a "don't ask, don't tell" active duty military officer, and three wise men to guide our journey. I seldom am at a loss of words for experiences, but one of the brothas who attended the retreat felt inspired.... and shared.... and took words out of my head and heart and let them guide his fingers. i honor bruh lawrence in sharing his poetic articulation of our collective blessing with you:

Just Bruhs

loving, holding, knowing my thoughts
owning our bond like a hot wheel car from childhood
old and weathered with many play miles
it sits on my shelf as manifested memories
no one else knows its worth
but i do

i re-collect the moment of first encounters
i smile
warmth engulfs me knowing that first encounters were judged correctly
cool immediately overtakes me
i am reminded of a break
i choose the warmth...it brings me back to who you are
who i am learning you to be

right now i see a depth i could drown in
is it love, lust, friendship...?
Definitions R constricting
suffocating terms that run away a moment in time
turns fleeting possibilities into something crushed
i acknowledge this
I am allowed to title it for now
as
Just Bruhs

Heteros Though, Can't Tell from Our Clothes/Scaring Girls in Sacramento!"

So they pick me up from the airport in Sac and we head to downtown for Food and "Faces"; and this str8 (white) girl, when we inquired about places to eat, told us: "it's kind of a gay over there, but the food is good". And we, much to her surprise, replied "Perfect!, We're Gay!" And she gaggath, and Butta said (under his breath): "Burst, Bietych!"

4 reasons why I miss Oakland, California

...and yeah, i know,.... one of them is why I miss NYC: l-r: ButtaFlySoul (NYC), SoulNubian (Oakland), Solis (Oakland), PointfiveFag (Oakland) of Deep Dickollective.

"People All Over the World"......RECOGNIZE!

Deep Dickollective in action at UC Davis (Feb 19, 2005).

DC Dis/ease

tossing and turning
like my stomach
that won't keep food down
(3 days straight)
I remember everything
except to take meds
that may be doing
more harm than good

tired of this dis/ease
stats going in the wrong direction
first-time high blood pressure
and I have not been
this afraid in a while
that my body
like mother earth
may be too exhausted
might be crashing on itself

body
has forgotten how to feed itself
broccoli
arkansas well-water
mother's cheerful dialect
somebody from Oakland missing me
like I miss Lake Merritt
or good sex

body
has forgotten how to hold itself
well enough
to push its recovery
ahead of any thoughts
that I am down-spiraling
running from something
faster than my feet
and lost
not knowing what I need today
beyond peace.

Insomnia

eyelids almost
but not quite
heavy enough
to take me
from the dream i live to dream
into the dream itself

i long
to smile
with such happiness
i drool
and am proud
of the traces
on my pillow.

my mouth
craving
somethin' sweeter
than honeycomb,
or butter pecan
somethin' sweeter
than memory of a lover's insistence
or his seduction
to come
be
remembered
in this here present

my touch
wanting to feel
something softer
than keyboard clicking
something
pre-linguistic
something simply
less calculated
than the calculus of poetry
or its failure
to hold my hand
write me the poem
no one has written
me

thoughts of this thinking
fumble
like some deferred cuddle call
some awe-inspired calling
a third chapter or 7th breath
waiting to ex hell
at 2:00 a.m.
and counting...

my body
caresses itself against the mattress
arms fold under arms
that have promised to hold me
better than others have
let me slip away

tonight
I am feeling
not so strong
un-sexy
like tomorrow is taking too long
to give birth to my next smile
(what I would give to smile
as effortlessly as I spell it)

my insomnia
is the body's insistence
that these arms will not trick,
tease, sex
this body
into thinking I am enough
tonight
I cannot save myself
hold myself up
measure the distance
between the drum beats of my
he-art

tonight
i reject others
who would love
to try
to love

tonight
i want to be
enough for me
tonight
but i am not...

don't
feel safe enough to cry
stong enough wait for night
to come
as surely as it passes

so eye stay up
like the yawn waiting to come
with mourning...
when eye done grown
so tired
of being open
that eye curl back
into the promise...
of a new salvation
and the darkness morphs
into a chance
to maybe
do it better
next night

Where Love Is?

i'm still looking... but I think I might be on to something in my search. the following was written almost two years ago. Interestingly, I was very much in love with someone and we were really struggling to come to some resolve about how we imagined love... our similarities and differences and our challenges in spite of and because of those things. It's been two years and who woulda thunk I'd still be single (mr. serial monogamy?)

anyhow... this poem makes me a little sad today. i've really loved anyone I've ever loved... and sometimes i remember what that felt like... even when things weren't at best, but you wanted to try and try again to make things work.

maybe next time, huh? maybe there'll be a next time... and if not... i still got lots of love in my life
__________________

Where Love Is…
Tim’m
02/02/03

Where is love?
if not between the falling in and out
nestled there firmly affixed to the heart
like a first joyous gaze upon a first love
or patience for a favorite meal...
if not somewhere
between the first and last line
of a cherished poem.

Where is love?
if not underneath a memory
of a first night hug or kiss or last glance back
before the eye met you
and merely anticipated
a gracious givingness of the heart
to even a perfect stranger
willing to surrender a smile...

Where love is...
is straddling the space
between be mine and be you
pulling you close and letting you go
me being happy and we being happy.
Love often chooses not to choose...
once released it can never be returned

Unconditional
love gets burdened by
expectation, anticipation, selfish longings
delusions of fairness, reciprocity,
or possession.
Love just wants to love
have it be accepted without explanation.
It is not so very different
than other loves.
Humble
it demands no speciality...
for it accepts
that it is no less special
than what it is:
the shine glistening rhythmically
with the water's shimmy on a lake
the pitch of a laugh
that rises and falls
with the release of a breath.

Love is there.

PlayBoys.... PlayGirls... In the Night!!!!

tim'm with michael christopher, damien, and chad at February "Front Porch"

Loving A Blakkboy, Learning Me

so I spent a few days in NYCity as a panelist for an NYU/NAACP Black Solidarity Conference, conjoined with a benefit performance for J-FLAG sponsored by NYU and Amnesty International. Much of my time in NY was spent in Jersey; exploring the beauties of being platonic with a blakkboy I have found it extremely difficult not to love as deeply as I know how to love. make sense? So this weekend was our breakthrough... an opportunity to see one another differently, and still recognize and relish all that the years between he and me has taught we about how to be.... in love... and not... and friends.

We're both single now... but I had shared this letter some time ago with a friend or two and was reminded about it today... just after my return from NYC.... allowing the joy of friendship and the courage to get beyond my own passion guide my next steps... to more clarity about myself.... or those I may choose to try loving. I realize, more than a year after this initial letter was written, that it says a great deal more about me than it does about him... So I'll protect him, in this case. I'll call him "blakkboy", cuz that's what he (still) represents to me: a reflection of the gift of love that I long to give especially to myself.... black boy or not.

11.02.03

Blakkboy,

This is the letter I have not been brave enough to write. Yet nothing here should surprise you if you know anything about my eyes and how they look at you. Especially when you are there and me, here, I remember you best: brown and luscious and ebony and oil scented like the king I peeped on Christopher back in ’97. I have been in love since. And I am well aware that these feelings don’t make much sense. If I didn’t believe in spells before, I do now. For I have not been able to shake your touch… the rare and erratic moments when you indulged the possibility of filling the void that has been here since I first saw you. You are magic, and it troubles me that other men who’ve hurt you do not see this. It sometimes hurts me to know that I do and cannot be with you.

There is this immense capacity within me to be greater than I know is even imaginable. And when I’m with you I’m closest to this—as radiant as the sun. I glow in the potentiality of a life with you and in the resolve that I have not settled. I’m reminded most of this absence when I’ve tried to fill it with others who can not love me conscientiously as well as you do without even trying.

I need someone in my life who can dance with me and explore strange soul sensibilities in record shops. I need someone in my life who will inspire me to save for trips to the Dominican Republic, Brazil, London, or Capetown. You inspire something in me that believes love can be borne out of, especially, the empty spaces. I close my eyes and remember our dance and it is a shelter for every pain I’ve endured. I close my eyes and think of you and give myself permission to cry while driving. I wipe the tears into a grin. How silly I must be to think you’d ever be with me?

I have wondered if prayers or fasts can really make things happen. I suppose I have tried them all. And I sometimes think that someone like you will appear; and I’ll call you up, and you’ll know, unlike the times before when I’ve claimed finding love, that I truly have found another spirit in the universe with eyes, spirit, rhythm, and softness like yourn. I’ll be ecstatic to tell you that such a person exists; for no creator in my imagination would create just one of you. I’m not suggesting that there’s another you in the universe. I am perhaps suggesting that my heart will not know the difference, should I find the right person. I’ll be able to feel that same glow and happiness. And indeed, if only for moments, I have experienced this potentiality in others; albeit fleeting.

I know that my poetic superlatives have often made you uncomfortable. You somehow feel that you don’t deserve them. That I tell you of your perfection does not mean that I don’t see imperfections. It’s just that the imperfections are necessary to your evolution into yourself, as whole and perfect as you were born. You are Cassandra Wilson’s lazy run down the Mississippi, Omar’s perfect stretch for a note out of his range, Nina Simone’s unintended wail cracking into a melodious run, Ron Trent’s unintended, extended remix of Oya’, Rux, or Primitive rhythms. You are Kahlo’s imperfect eyebrow connection that Diego’s finger traced to discover something greater about the thickness and texture of black. You are Basquiat’s patient indifference to post-modern praise of his “Famous Negro” masterpieces. You are the only man I have longed to love in spite of his imperfections; and this is painfully perfect. Almost as sweetly imperfect as it would be if you someday accepted an invitation to be, and stay, and grow alongside me: one who has always been willing to be your friend, even as my heart longed for more; one who monitors your night-breathing or gives you space when you so infrequently desire it.

Blakkboy, you are a song I danced to and cried with and never heard again. You are a second wind. And however you should respond to this plea written bravery (e.g., “Tim’m, you off the hook”)…I will never forget that whoever is trying to love you….or me, that there is something special and enduring between us. I know you love me, and I don’t take for granted opportunities to tell you that you’re loved. I won’t forget you, in spite of my imperfect desire to express longings for things I dare to dream-- things I want but may never have. You remain: mine, friend, lover, blakkboy. You are a reminder of the beauty life holds for dreamers who remember that life, despite the madness, offers many beautiful possibilities.


Your boy,



Tim’m