Morning Coffee

Posted on March 18, 2023 Posted in arkansas, art, Art, black men, Culture, folklore, jas. mardis, love, Mardis, memoir, poetry, Poetry and love, storytellingLeave a comment

Leather pyrography portrait by Jas Mardis

     There is a place in my throat
for when the coffee has turned cold
    for when the beans are reclaiming their shape
     and, like freed men,   begin to search out their broken kin
   like fools think it will be in Heaven
  and that somehow there will be a mist of Grandma
      holding a pan of warm bread or a bowl of second slain beast stew

   And my swallowing is stopped at the tongue
       and I make a bowl to cradle the lacking brew
    and I can see my Grandfather’s thin lips blowing over his saucer
          of poured out   percolated   early morning   liquor
   that still wafts and wakes the most loved place of my entire known life
   until it calms into a mellow potion for my brother and I to fight over

       I beg my tongue to river that swallow into my throat
    like I begged my Grandfather not to leave
            and go over the hill where he broke open the earth
       where other men died and were swallowed by the dirt
where one man watched a Birmingham Steel girder slice his head apart
       where White men claimed splendor they did not put hands to

      Begged him to stay at that morning table
          where we fell asleep scrapping at his leftover grits   dry toast and runny eggs
    begged him to pick me to wear his scuffed and scraped hard hat
             that swallowed our tiny, boy heads
       and gave us echoes of his foot falls across wood floors
           and reverberations of the swooshing air thru the opening door
      and washed our blindedness with a screech of the screens hinges
            before being taken off and tossed into the station wagon

       And I tilt back my head
   like I did as a boy    and wait for the whiskered kiss
      of my Grandfather’s cooled breath
   to push the last of this morning’s brew into my remembered
                unaged soul

Jas Mardis is a 2014 inductee to The Texas Literary Hall of Fame and a leather and fabric artist

Woman in Red

Posted on November 12, 2022November 12, 2022 Posted in Art, black men, jas. mardis, love, poetry, Poetry and love, poetry posts, womenTagged jas. mardis, PoetryLeave a comment

Poem for an Unseen Woman

I thought of you

wearing red and looking at your face

in the lake water that covered

your bare feet

that lapped at your ankles

that reached for your calves

and wished for the waving hem of your

yellow flowered sun dress

I was standing behind you

where the sand agreed with the pavement

where the flowers were real

where the water does not reach

until the wind wants chaos and

time for sun dresses has passed

except for in photographs.

You left your sandals

just ahead of where I am settled in

my back was turned

my interest was caught up in

things that I can’t recall just now

I heard the tumbling of them fall

I caught a shadow leaving you walking

it stretched and circled over asphalt

then grass then sand and rejoined you

at the water’s edge

then it was swallowed in a rippling wave of white bubbles and dark water

that ran against the caramel skin

of your legs

So,

now I’m waiting for you to turn

not fully around

just waiting for a shift of your head

out of the afternoon sun

just a tilt a taste of skin toward dry land

I’m holding my breath

I’m counting the flowers of your dress

I’m turning that same shade of red

in your windbreaker

I’m telling myself

to pick up your sandals

I’m hoping to exchange them

for a smile

once I finally see your face

Jas Mardis

A Book About Forever

Posted on April 8, 2022 Posted in poetry, Poetry and love, poetry postsLeave a comment

                

          It has been four days of hearing you

Your laughter filling me up from where my toes end to where thoughts begin
Your early days stories
Taking me into long forgotten tales of my own
Memories and wonders and hopes and delights
Slipping between us like forever is still an infant
Like these old bones are not creaking
Like all my teeth are still where they used to be

           I am not in a hurry to be the old man that I was before 
    Before you smiled  when hearing my laughter  just a few feet away
 Standing in the same aisle   Standing in the same dusty pathway of knowledge

You: forgetting about the Orishas and JuJu women book
Forgetting about the heat of the day and the market booths
Forgetting about the drum circle men and women keeping their thunder
Between their knees and wrap-skirts and welcoming rhythms

         They are all around us
         But we are alone
     Just you and your smiling to yourself about the ways I am making you want thunder

In your breasts thru your belly between your thighs

          Later   after our third night 
     You will tell me of how you surrendered  all of your old fears  to my laughter
How you spent a journey of steps  backward toward the savoring sound of it
          How you pressed your palm to your belly  exposed by your tied off shirt  
    How your fingers played along  and said that my tongue would trace your navel
   And spill cups of whispers  into you  with the same   heavy  baritone  and bouncing joy
       How you turned your face toward  me   and parted your lips  intending to say your name
  But  instead    you swallowed up the view of my walking  and  taking   you   in

Me: this is what the dreams of aloneness have taught me
And I have watched you saunter beyond and back to me twice already
You are in desire mode you came wanting knowledge of mysterious things and women
Somewhere you have reasoned that another book is waiting for you
I can see it in the way you come to the end of the shelves and take the corner toward home
In watching you I want to know that manner of thirst that way of having the tongue surrendered
That opening up and taking in of things anew

        Later    after our third night
   I will let free every thought and want of you 
               From this first moment of you  amongst these books of our people
     You are already   forever   known to me for the way you want words  around you
  The way you steady yourself and touch each spine 
                 in the same way that you will read the curve of me thru a wet towel on day seven
          already    everything  that I knew before seeing you searching   has been lost

and there is only come whatever will come whatever may

            so… I ask for the title of the book that would send you on such a journey
 and I listen when you turn your face up to me and say



              that you are looking for book about forever
          and it seems to be written  on the sound of my laughter

.
.
.
.Jas Mardis 2022
Jasmardis.com

Sting

Posted on February 20, 2022February 21, 2022 Posted in poetry, Poetry and loveLeave a comment

For James Ward Lee

play audio –Sting

Sometime

the smell of lemon

on my hands

reminds me of my father

and of being home

for the last time

the swollen acrid smell

of lemons

and the remembered yellow skin

with its pimples gone awry

dotting the landscape and

chasing the perfect oval

hull

covering all that is possible

to cover

in that seasonal lifetime

of a lemon

dotting the rise and sloping fall

of a hull:

Yellow to yellow-dotted black aromatic pore

seeping out the blinding

mellow

quick, sharp breaths

of this lemon life

a season of smelling

and tarting the tastes of things:

water into thirst quinching ‘ades

fish from bland sea palate

into a chasing, feverish rush

of once fighting muscle

pulling tightly against the line

making this plate

of bones and baked flesh

again

worth the swollen chest

of its being here

lemon

the squeaky run of its juice

of my hands

fingers

chasing tightly into the

smallest cut

into the hell of broken flesh

into the naked wounds

of being

home

for the last time

Home Home Home

sometimes

the worst of the four lettered

words

Home

for the last time

with my father’s breath

packed and ready to go

leaving his heaving

hairy chest

beneath his sweat soaked

death shirt

home

like his last words

“lemonade” & “son”

home

running over me

there–

here–

with these lemons

bursting under my grip

spilling

exploding

crying the hot juice

of giving in

like my father

who

wanted lemonade

as his last

throat quinching drink

So he asked me

to make it

and now

the smell of lemon

on my hands

will mean

always

that his throat is dry

in a room

that’s just a sting

and a step away

.Copyright Jas Mardis 1999 Awarded the Voertman Poetry Award and published in Our Texas anthology , Center For Texas Studies @ University of North Texas Press, Denton, TX.

Stealing Sweet Apple Pears

Posted on February 21, 2021February 20, 2022 Posted in poetry, storytellingLeave a comment

Audio–Stealing Sweet Apple-Pears

We could not walk away from the wet mouthed joy
of the palm-sized apple-pears
stolen at a speed of one hundred steps an hour
from the tree in Mr. Willie’s backyard

each bite to come

worth the bare-foot procession over spurned alley trash
and fallen branches petrified against the barren, rootless earth

each of our shirt-baskets
full to the wide-eyed brim with yellow-green and crimson delight

our mouths already full of last summer’s remembrance:
zest and tang and pith and running

we could not

not even when he stood watching
his ratty bathrobe tied into a knot
the same patterned knot that tied his Viet-damned soul
tied it so tightly that this battle for pears
was his only connection to the world still outside of him

tied and ragged
ragged and red and yellowed and bruised
as much like his wounds on the battleground
torn into strips and shreds and being pulled away from him

like the skin of his plump, backyard fruit
between our teeth

gathered between the supple lips of our youth

pulled and suckled away from the meat and the seed

each bite
each crimson and yellow-green oddest oval globe
taking our teeth like first and last
lovers

each fruit
licking back against our tongues
lapping back into the canyon of our bite
claiming that moment of fulfillment
cajoling our senses toward the next summer’s delight
creating the answers to the questions of pleasure

each of those fruits
come so graciously year after year to that tree
come so tauntingly aromatic on the first day winds
come so wickedly olive-to-sanguine
and finally to wasted, fallen, saffron fodder for the night creature’s to taste

We
We could not walk away from the wet mouthed joy
of the palm-sized apple-pears
dangling so much like desire
swaying in the lilting southern summer siroccos
like radio music from air-condition less cars
and the sweet, sweet flask of bay rum spilled onto the barber’s smock
and the yelping night hounds trapped, swollen in mid-hump out back of the fence
and
the from heaven falling
out of Mr. Willie’s apple-pear tree
having never landed and bounced against the earth

rather,
dangling
flying
circling and spinning and pendulant from a branch
my face turned crimson
my pants ripped into a knotted gash
and Mr. Willie
coming finally through the screen door
knife
in hand

Your Face

Posted on September 9, 2020September 9, 2020 Posted in Art Quilting, poetry2 Comments

Touch here: your-face-1.m4a

For Natalie

I saw your face today

the one you rarely show

the one with all the sunlight in the shadows

the one that says

we should have met a year ago

and run thru a park with old kites

made from comics & on short strings

and flown them just above our heads

so that when people pointed at us

we could fall on the grass and pretend to be reading the funnies over and over again

Tell It All

Posted on May 28, 2020December 15, 2021 Posted in Art Quilting, poetry, Poetry and love, poetry postsLeave a comment

TELL_ it all

It seems silly in this moment

but let me just say:

William TELL! Do TELL! TELL Me A Story!

or, maybe just …TELL Me Something Good!

how could I not take the advantage

the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity

to play with your name

to chance your smile

to risk a another slap on my wrist

Truth be told

Entering the room where you stood eating

confident … owning your ground

I expected you to say:

Angel. Vixen. Joy. or just for once

the Sistah to say “You can call me Often”

instead

you are called by the most unexpected

of monikers: Tell

so,

Tell me you love me

floods my mind from songs on the radio

“Tell Me…Tell Me…Tell Me….

Won’t you tell, tell, tell …tell me”

I’m certain that the crooner is crying

his tears are starting their journey

his shirt front stiffens for their weight…

Wait, I have it wrong

the song is, “Say You Love Me”

but what a wonderful mistake!

Forever and more the thought of you

the first thought of you

and every time I say your name

and consider your face

every time I

enjoy you chewing

recall you standing in a room

every time I

drink the aroma of your memory

it’ll come with the joy of song

4tel2

Jas. Mardis

Poem: winds of change

Posted on May 28, 2020April 4, 2022 Posted in national poetry month, poetry, Poetry and love, poetry posts

Winds of Change

I found myself

standing in the wind today

standing and pushing my body against the idea of falling

against the thought of twisting

against the desire to move on

but

I was standing

suddenly

and steadfast

in the spot where I’m sure

I’ll kiss you for the first time

You were on my phone

a text an emoji a silly, moving image

telling me that you were certain

its hands/your hands

tiny/small but thick and lined with years of muscles delicate caresses waiting to be rested against a fold in my cheek

waiting to trace the rivulet-curls

of my new beard

into the curve of my jaw

onto the bulb of my ear’s lobe

where you’ll pinch it gently

and guide the awe of my opening mouth

onto the wanting blush of your grinning

and so

I stood still

and took the biting wind

took the pressing hand of that force

took the whipping chill

took the harsh whistling growling bark

took the pushing and twisting at my legs

took the tugging away at my hat brim

took that moment

before I had known you existed

before there were snatches of thoughts

and remembrances of your faces

and reasons to hide away the echo

and fullness and temptation

of you laughing

I took that past me

absent the coming moment of you

absent the pulsing racing hoping

days without you or an emoji you

and watched them eclipsed

like useless wasted sunny days of youth

covered over

by the chance of a day

with you tugging

tugging tugging

into the winds of change

Jas Mardis

Final Natl-Poetry-Month Poem: How Sweet It Is… (audio and text)

Posted on May 28, 2020 Posted in love, memoir, poetry, singers, singingTagged Dallas, I'll Never Hear the Bells, jas. mardis, Library of Congress Prints, national poetry month, Poetry, THE DELLS, The ORIGINALSLeave a comment

Audio: How Sweet It Is

How Sweet It Is…

I want to sing
not just that hand moving vocalizing from American Idol tryouts
but sing in a way that makes men wait to go pee

when the alarm has gone off and it’s me on the radio
and the morning is still cold on the other side of his woman
and she is barely making a sound
but her mouth is a smile
and her hips are exposed from beneath and around her gown

and I’m chiming something from The Originals

and I don’t even care that it’s four-part harmony
’cause damn he’s looking over across her curves and sweetness
and remembering a few nights ago that should have been last night, too

and she’s curling her shoulders into the full light of day breaking across into the room

and her leg straightens and the gown just gives up

and there is something rising in the air on the sun’s rays and in the mist of dust
and there are all kinds of “yes” in the way that she opens her eyes to him

and the covers and pillows fall into line

and there is nothing to be said with words
not even that line about “gonna be late for work”
because I’m on the radio

and what they HEAR when I sing: “DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR”
is “I’ve been missing you since yesterday night”

and what they FEEL when I sing: “WHEN YOUR LIPS ARE KISSING MINE”
is, “Yeah”

and what they KNOW when I sing: “DO YOU HEAR THE BELLS, DARLING”
is, “All I need is five minutes to show you”

and what they DO when I sing: “DO YOU HEAR THE BELLS RINGING IN YOUR EARS, BABY”
is ask, “Can we turn that up a little bit, then?”

…”OH, I’LL NEVER HEAR THE BELLS….OH, I’LL NEVER HEAR THE BELLS…
NO, I’LL NEVER HER THE BELLS WITHOUT….YOU, BABY”

How sweet it must be to sing

Jas. Mardis (04/2015)
National Poetry Month 2015

**Click here to see The Originals sing their hit song properly

Jas. Mardis is a 2014 Inductee to The Texas Literary Hall of Fame, Multiple National Association of Black Journalist GRIOT Awards for Radio Commentary and a Pushcart Prize Winner for Poetry. He is Editor of KenteCloth: Southwest Voices of the African Diaspora (UNT Press). For booking information of poetry or The Family Story Project workshops–j.mardis@verizon.net or just send a reply from this page.

Summer Honeysuckle, Like Manna

Posted on May 28, 2020February 21, 2022 Posted in poetry, Poetry and love, poetry posts, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Creator(s): Lange, Dorothea, photographer — Fruit jars being sterilized on old lady Graham’s back fence in berry season. Near Conway, Arkansas. Lange, Dorothea, photographer

Audio: Summer Honeysuckle Like Manna

Summer Honeysuckle, Like Manna
for Terri Boyd

Go ahead
let the air move in and out of your body again just breathe
let your surprised breast rise and fall and rise
as we talk about what is familiar between us

breathe like
the last time you crossed the just cut grass of your Grandmother’s yard
where the air was sweet and new and Summer morning fresh

and remnants of those chopped blades clung to your greased legs
and dusted the patent-leather reflection of your shoes
and you kept on running because there was blooming honeysuckle
to pluck and strip and lay gently on your tongue
then pull back thru your pursed lips and enjoy in joy

it took all our breaths away to know that a wisp of honey hid there
like manna
opened anew each morning always, just right there
laid out across
simple post and wire fences that partitioned off the journey
for those blocks and corners that created neighbors and later hoods

every time I say it I crave
another sip of that backyard heaven weed
grown from vines that seemed to fall from an endless sky
yet reached up from miraculous patches of ground cover

even now we cannot run our minds into believable paths to their roots
where old bees too fat for flight must be relegated to stuffing
and slathering new vines with left-out and spilled-over nectar

what else could explain it

surely not just childhood
moments of wonder and growing and seeing mysteries so clearly
so wonderfully happy with just sunlight and cool winds on our face
sun soaked, nappy heads and pool water burned eyes and nostrils

surely no dog chased existence
or tree-climbing bare-foot-racing mind could make up
this terrible goodness grown wild and fetching and free

were there always wasps and yellow-jackets to chase you screaming

do you remember the sting of that surprised you
as you watered the garden in burping ripples from that tangled hose

did your Grandmother come running to hush your scream

do you remember
if you left the water running when you dropped the hose

did that sweet, Summer-warmed stream run all night
did it run
until it found a way into honeysuckle’s roots

Jas. Mardis (7/2015)
* Happy Birthday, Terri. Thx for your support

Jas. Mardis is a 2014 Inductee to The Texas Literary Hall of Fame