Category: language

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For Cheryl Boyce-Taylor and her Malik, our Phife

& I immediately think of Cheryl, her Malik, his beloved
obsession with the team’s orange & blue, a sunset sky over

this city. The ruckus of these players’ sweet grit, the desire they
have to come in first. They rebound & strip like stickup

kids. They pound the paint as if their feet were wrapped in
Timbs, their lean torsos tattered & tapered in Coogi sweaters.

This is New York. Bodega filled with the aroma of a good
chopped cheese. Ambitions racing through our minds fast as

the 2 train during rush hour. I watch the reverie on TV, as
the Garden thrashes & quakes by the tectonic plate of our

steadfast fandom. Don’t get it twisted, capitalism is dying

& yet here I am rooting for boys bred to burn out their bodies
to make billionaires more billions. Was this what Rome felt like

toward the end? When the colosseums filled with gladiators
stirred the masses into a frenzy. How the people hungered for

food & freedom, but instead lost themselves in the carnal play
of sacrifice—reliable warriors, safer to believe in than

Caesar. No matter, I think Phife would’ve loved this team,
unflappable & carefree, anti-establishment, uncompromising.

What happens to the heart of a city when its people survive
on air; that space between the flick of the wrist & the swish

of a three-point buzzer beater? We fight for a win to fill
the ache of losing: Palestine, Congo, Sudan, Ayiti. We take

what we can, celebrate small victories until we win everything
we thought we never could—

As Capitalism Gasps for Breath I Watch the Knicks Game, Yesenia Montilla

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Everything they say and write is a lie,
about law and freedom, about equality
and justice, in the rubble of the bombs
we make and sell, in the silent cries
of limbless orphans, in the night
lit by white phosphorous and the
relentless sound of buzzing drones.

My Apologies, Ammiel Alcalay

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Here is a place where nothing can die
Darkness that lives beneath the leaves

We bring our nights there without knowing
We bring our fear there before the singing begins
We bring our silent names there hoping we are forgiven

We bring our hands there scented of a river

We bring our prayers that hide and watch us
The landscape where we have held the loose feathers
Of a fallen bird

And awakened in the land of the unseen

Here is a place where nothing can die …

– Lance Henson

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Collaborative performance by Amanda Linares + Legna Rodríguez Iglesias

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It was the name that called forth the true him.

Anarchic, wandering

There were no photos of them, but they were there in the pictures of trees behind their houses, the fields where they worked, the river they fished, the church where they testified, the joints where they drank.

TM, Tar Baby

…protect important black art, yes.

‘Great if you like Baron Samedi staring at you from every corner of the house.’

Academics lack range.

ZS

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The Miami Individual Artists (MIA) Grants Program provides non-matching awards to individual artists of all disciplines in Miami-Dade County on a competitive basis to support their artistic development and practice.

Thank you for this grant. (FY24-25).