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soul talk
with Saint James
by Saint James
Church
When I left church
is when I started to find a new gospel everywhere
The good news was in shower water
and Fire shut up in my bones when
I could feel that someone’s heart was
mended by our conversation
Church was born again in the music
Oh music!
Playlists became pieces of prophecy
Albums, secret gardens where only the
spirit and I could meet to perfect our love affair
The gospel was orange light
pouring through off-white curtains
It was colors
Bright, bending colors that
Massaged the shoulders of my soul
I found church in deep breaths and
The memory that most of the time
I can stop and say confidently that
“I am safe here with mySelf”
Church rolled out of the words of every
black woman that spoke to me in the supermarket
“My love will find you between the mac and the yams”
“My love cradles you between ginger root flesh and
red bean heart.
“Like white on rice so shall grace be upon you”
“In the aisles
In every smile
In the earthquake
of every heartache”
“I will make and remake you
Knead and rebake you
Cause you to rise
And show you where and why
And who and how
My love is”
So let this be the manifesto
of a man in plain clothes:
On the day the world finally stands still
And there are no trees to sit beneath
And every steeple has been toppled
When traffic lights and offering plates
are unable to show their green faces
When the Communion bowls rust
Nothing has a price
And stillness takes hold of the night
The ground will shake again
And this time it will be us
Me and you
Yes, me and you
Remaking the world
Finding a salve again
Humming a new hallelujah
Re-prophesying what a balm in Gilead should look like
Re-finding and re-defining
church
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Please Hold
To save ourselves, we kept things. To spare some unrealized versions of ourselves, avatars who—through no fault of our own—had fallen on hard times, the brunt of a crippling havelessness.
The rationale was that it was better to have and not need than to need and not have. So we had, and had, and had until the belly of our home was too full of half-chewed gum to receive what we really needed.
Crayons & socket plugs because there once was, and one day may be another child in the home. Maybe we prepared for a child that would hunger while the home sat there, full off of our fear of the exact situation.
by Saint James
SELECTED
Assortment
Ain't it Funny
Ain't it funny
How
Every place is an altar
if you’re paying enough attention
Every inch of your body can be a receptor
of the love you need
If you decide to be the source
Leap and the net shall appear
But maybe not immediately
Maybe you’re meant to fall
Hard
and fast
Maybe your deepest fear is an incision
That will be the womb for your wings
Maybe you need some air in that wound
in order to fly
Maybe
by Saint James
Truth, being Power and All...
Trepid tongues on striped straws
Stacking silences bold as black marker on white walls
Or red lipstick on white drawers
This world is sick as sin sometimes
So we cry when we need to
But we laugh more
Ask what we need to
When we’re unsure
I gotta tell it to you like it is
If I love you
In the right way
In the just way
by Saint James
Aunty Thug Misses
I spilled tea on my Aunty Nikki
But I forgave myself quickly
And moved on
Cause Aunty never taught me shame
Before I (a better me) knew it, there was a sugar packet
In the fold to hold my page
And before I (a better me) could skew it
I was putting all types of things where they “shouldn’t” belong
Like feelings into phrases
And daffodils into daisies
And church boys into short stories
That reminded the masses of my insanity
I learned to play
And to laugh and cry directly onto birthday cakes
And to be a mess,
A beautiful
Accidental
Absolutely all-purpose mess
And it was all because
I spilled tea on my Aunty Nikki
by Saint James
Tears
(A Visu
al Poem)
by Saint James
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I don’t wipe my tears anymore
I let them run down my face, across my stomach
and past my ankles
I let them trickle into the ground beneath my bare feet
I let them soak into my hair
I bring them to a boil on the stove
I use them to whiten my teeth
and shine my shoes
I let them nourish me in any way they choose
Today I’m only capable of making puddles
In the middle of the floor where I saw you last
But one day I will be able to cry oceans
One day I will flood coliseums
and churches
and my old family home
And from the water will grow sweet fruit
that will feed my children
And the salt left behind will clear walkways
that they might not slip where I once did
So I don’t wipe my tears anymore
There’s too much growth to be done
Too many lessons to learn
Too much of me to save