Video Clip from Our Dub Poetry Workshop

I am so pleased to be able to share this clip from our Dub Poetry/Music Event that took place at our college in January. Our special guest was Jamaican jazz guitarist Maurice Gordon, but this clip features a young man from Aruka, British Guyana, (now studying at Claflin), who did a spontaneous song for us called "I Need Your Love Every Time, Jesus." He was one of the band members who just showed up from various local colleges and the community to form a last-minute band on the stage with Maurice. It was just too cool. The video is shaky because we did it ourselves, and we are just learning, but we are pleased to be able to reach students where they live --- on YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, and MOG ! We will be posting students performing their dub poems over the coming weeks; this is our first effort.

More Musings

Placing my first poem on here made me feel free. I would like to add more:

Prayer for My Child

Dear Lord, don’t let my child become a thug
The only thing lower than his pants is his self-esteem
Don’t let him shrink back with hate from his mama’s hug
Please, Lord, remind him that there is a dream

Please, Lord, don’t let my child become a thug
And feel the need to use her body to get her way
Don’t let her toss away her well-being with an indignant shrug
Dear Lord, don’t make her some boy’s baby’s mama today

Dear Lord, don’t let my child throw away his life
Chasing a false manhood attainable only on BET
The edge he walks daily, Lord, is as sharp as a knife
Please don’t let him get turned away from what he can be

Please, Lord, let my little girl find herself
And never feel that she needs a man’s permission
Help her find her way to independence and health
And remind her that her path is her own decision

Dear Lord don’t let my child forget respect
Especially the fact that it’s earned
Don’t let him be a baby’s daddy full of neglect
Or end up regretting the bridges that he’d burned

Please, Lord, bring my daughter safe through this world
Full of decency, love, beauty, and joy
Let her remember the good times she felt as a girl
Before some man tries to make her a toy

Protect them, Lord, don’t leave them alone
Guide them safely when their paths may bend
Rescue them, Lord, and bring them home
With you, safe and loved, at the end

This is my prayer today for the young
Who are lost and beginning to stray
Black and white, to us they all belong
May God find them and show them the Way

Forbidden Entry

Forbidden Entry
I remember that day…….
Yeah, I was standing right there when……..
Why do those times always come back
to torture us with what happened then?
They are not usually happy-go-lucky days;
days of love, friendship, happiness, and joy.
They are days of darkness, pain, sorrow, and fear
So we place ourselves there and we place ourselves here.
We mark our lives by days of loss
Memorializing forever what tragedy costs
In my life were King, the Kennedys, and 9-11
We still carry their crosses from here to heaven
Our polished internal shrines often compete with real events
As we shape our what’s and our where’s to fit
How easily we forget people we see everyday
The pass through us like ghosts and then they fade away
Let some horrid event dominate the news
Then everyone remembers the place, the time, those shoes
I must confess to you that in all my joys and pain
From pleasure at night and heartache in the morn
The one place I was that made me whole
Was being there the day I was born