if there was a single word that could sum up the essence of my poetry, it would be the word violet. For two reasons:

1. violet(s) sound similar to the words violent/violence. they are spelled similar, but also represent two different aspects of life.

2. violets represent beauty. flowers of beautiful color, bright, lush. they represent life, but also as flowers are usually present at funerals and graves, they represent death.

my poems represent the beauty of life, the innocence of a flower pushed and pulled by wind, grounded in earth, fighting for survival. for the representation of something pure, and honest. a flower plagued by the idea of violence. the idea that someone can tear apart the most innocent and beautiful life and make the earth ugly. there is so much in the word violet(s) that it can not be hidden from all of the world’s surrounding violence.

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there they were: in my dreams: the pyramids: and the planets they came from: my ancestors were born here: of mysterious flesh and blood origins: some came with brass bones: trumpet mouths: ivory teeth: seashells for ears: i saw the sun burn me: came from ashes: ibrahim came from ash and wood: slave wood ship: sun sea scape: birth stone sand: came to this land from sky:

ibrahim azhar // 2013.

phredom

“… my whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up … I wasn’t in human form …”

first came planetary visions: the sun was once in my lung, but from that I pulled two bouquets of moon flowers: the size of piano keys: these songs I created on Saturn: came from an ivory horn originally: from an elephant’s tusk: or a brick: later pyramidic: i dressed myself in the universe: in a timely fashion: black empress of constellations: in robes of sea sculpted manifestos: the kind that feel like waves: or rain fall

in a forest of lemon colored flowers: they spoke in peace: similar to my brain’s memory: a mouthful of hummingbird music: a language familiar to birds and other feathered creatures: possibly the dinosaurs:

I believe in ancient ancestry: the original man had feathers too: or was it because of tar?: someone had stolen my bones and dipped them in earth: I am written in ink:

“I’ve never seen a nigger like you before;”

“No, and you never will again.”

-jack brown… ibrahim azhar… 2013…

**some of the words in quotations may have come from the mouth of Sun Ra, other may have come from the mouth of a judge he may have come in contact with after refusing to be drafted by the US military. Memory may be important here… memory or something like memory…

el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz

(May 19, 1925 - February 21, 1965)

“You’re supposed to have the rope around your neck and holler politely, you know. You’re supposed to watch your diction, not shout and wake other people up— this is how you’re supposed to holler. You’re supposed to be respectable and responsible when you holler against what they’re doing to you. And you’ve got a lot of Afro-Americans who fall for that. They say, “No, you can’t do it like that, you’ve got to be responsible, you’ve got to be respectable.” And you’ll always be a slave as long as you’re trying to be responsible and respectable in the eyesight of your master; you’ll remain a slave.”

quiet body split open with music
through your pores onto your skin
warm soul of music: songs ascend
from your river your mouth is a
river dressed in water dressed
in stone: I take a sip
feels like ivory
feels like coal
beneath your hands
I lay with your fingers
Take me inside of you
Gently I want to feel
Your tongue

create a hymn

 

 

jack brown // ibrahim azhar // 2013

 

my body                                  a home

            a house                                    a shell

cracked open             a  broken             window

the curtains      pushed   into             drifting air

            wind lulls in her          violence

                        violets pulled apart

here I am:

            someone          caving in

at the bottom of a cave           in the well water

of         imagination     torn      apart

a winter skeleton:

                      a set of teeth,

                a body of ribs,

                                   a pair of knees.

          a head used as a drum:

                                the sun continues to beat.

jack brown // ibrahim azhar // 2013

Kamau Brathwaite… my new favorite poet.

The transatlantic slave trade: or elegy

 

there was a crown

removed from my

head. a breath escaped

from my lung. a name

cut from my tongue.

 

my body

and some dampened soil.

 

a pelican flapping

wings where

i once wanted

to fly.

 

-jack brown / ibrahim azhar / 03/30/13

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I know it’s hard to see sometimes, but men can be beautiful too

(Source: disciplesofmalcolm, via disciplesofmalcolm)