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.

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

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

I Don’t Want It All Back

Posted on May 21, 2020 Posted in eyes, jas. mardis, love, Mardis, memoir, poetry, Poetry and loveTagged aloneness, flirting, Jas, jas. mardis, Mardis, PoetryLeave a comment

i-done28099t-want-it-all-back-.m4a

I don’t want it all back

just that one morning

when I put my phone on the bumper

and you wore that orange shirt dress

and shook your head

at the idea that everything was going to

work out

that the angle was right

not to cut off our heads

not to slip off the bumper

when the ten second timer hit

not to have a hundred shots of sky

on nights like this

in the middle of the moon

when the phone has six thousand pics

and only one

of big hair an ebony hue an orange blur

and endless

endless

blue sky

. (Oh, well…)

Jas. Mardis

I, Eye

Posted on May 20, 2020April 6, 2022 Posted in poetry, Poetry and love, poetry posts2 Comments

(I Eye–audio)

I, Eye

certainly
there is some other way of naming your attraction
some other ways
of counting out the names that I have given to your beauty

some simple method of calculating the hours spent remembering

all the joy
made possible simply and wonderfully by looking upon you

and knowing that
no other person or thing or moment on this old Earth
is ever going to bring me such a wonderful aching
until it returns comes back around knocks…enters…home

so,
tell me again how I first came to be in your eyes

dancing my old bones and flesh thru the sunset rivers of your stare
holding your browned, honey glazed look upon me
and being swallowed into your pupils as a precious light

just once more
say my name without opening your mouth
without parting your lips without any sounds at all
like you do on your pictures
taken from above your head from your camera’s phone

selfish selfies

with the whole world wanting to be part of such a moment
men and women themselves watching for their turn in your eyes
willing to settle for a moment of you thru a lens
wanting silent credit for capturing all of what you want just me to see

and moments later there you are

the distance miles of roads acres of grass and river waters
steps and tip-toed inches erased with a button’s push

and you

your eyes so brilliant and bright and beckoning me into that flash moment
your silliness your awakening into morning light your muscle work
spilling out from my phone
sighted suddenly like lonely sailors must have seen Mermaids

missing home watching dark water a noise
the glass eye raised to see whatever could it be

“Captain, my Captain…oh, my soul…”

Jas. Mardis (06/ 2015)
(4nomi/)

Jas. Mardis is a 2014 inductee to The Texas Literary Hall of Fame and Editor of KenteCloth: Southwest Voices of the African Diaspora, UNT Press

Between Then & Again…

Posted on July 23, 2019May 21, 2020 Posted in poetry, Poetry and loveTagged aloneness, jas. mardis, Literary, Poetry, SeriesLeave a comment

(audio: Then And Again)

between seeing you
between having a moment of your smiling
and the absence of you
between the early afternoon sun on your face
and the memory of wanting to keep you longer than one meal

between then and again
the same again of wanting and waiting
the same again of hoping and having
the same again of knowing and wanting to know more

between all the stops and starts of doubting
between every ounce and measure of experience
between each one of my days and nights of aloneness
and the heavier weight of choosing rightly who to kiss twice first

between every moment that chases me toward the again
I am awash and dumbstruck by the moment of THEN

I remember every step that I’ve taken in your presence
and every time that you turned toward me
every flash of recognition in your eyes
each of your tentative smiles each parting of your lips
the opening and closing of your mouth to greet me and to send me on my way

I had thought of you before   from a collection of distances
thought of you married    thought of you otherwise taken and claimed and loved
thought twice of you younger   twice your dynamic in that youthfulness

I had checked and held my breath in your presence

checked for those awkward, low whistles that the body creates around breathing

checked on my taking in and letting out

checked out those risings and fallings of your small chest

checked on the way your stomach fills to a tightness then yields to the belted waist of your black dress when you chuckle

checked off all of the reasons to leave you in the distance

THEN

checked off all the reasons to close that distance

Jas. Mardis is a 2014 Inductee to The Texas Literary Hall of Fame. He is an awarded Poet and Fabric Artist living in Dallas,TX

Lily of the Valley

Posted on January 3, 2018February 20, 2022 Posted in love, poetry, Poetry and love11 Comments

Photo credit April Anue

Lily of the Valley

by now

we are clearly smitten

unsure of the end but certain of the path to it

all at once I understand something that others have wanted me to read

or at least the reason for so many to agree
it is a simple coming together

the rising voice of two people who know truly of love

somewhere along the way

their tongues have merged into a single song
you and I know it as kindred spirits

we already know what the hours ahead of us hold

so few minutes make up a night together

that we are both out of time before the clocks have run full circle
I want you to be sure of the brown bud

frozen outside your window

baked brown into a dormant husk in defiance of the driven snow

and laced poorly with the ice-cicled web of a lone spider
I want you to know that it is a bud of the Rose of Sharon

again cast against the shadows of another fair Maiden

the sun darkened lily of the valley

biding time in the season of bitter cold and frozen brambles
and so, let’s answer the question rising and falling within your breast

the one that begs at the corners of your mouth

the one that is awakening the unfamiliar craving tugging

riffling and running with your blood’s fire thru your soul
listen, Sweet, as I speak with a plan of love on my lips

with every intention of your flowering and blooming

of covering and protecting of comforting and pleasure

listen, like this bud in repose, for a strum of the web in your Winter
Our’s is not the Solomon Song

but You can be the dark maiden come in from the sun

breaking free from all of the known words of men and sisters

pressing your head gently to the thunder of my welcoming breast
you have been found

every whisper of your heart song is heard without need for reprise

each of your nights are calling for voluminous joy

endless is your destiny evermore becomes the only answer
and so to your soul I speak:

Lily of the Valley Rose of Sharon

do not bother with the brambles that have so long entangled ’round you

press into the shadow of their brittle vein and thorns
come forward to my arms and favor

wipe the weeping memory of any binding rope

untie the warm caress within you

undress the trembling, waiting, loving, searching hopes.

Jas. Mardis 12/28/2017

Jas. Mardis is an award winning Poet, Commentator and a Fabric Artist living in Dallas, TX. Jas. Is a 2014 inductee to The Texas Literary Hall of Fame.