Rising Against the Sinking Sun

Tyra Jamison

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Table of Contents

Tower of Babel: The Origin of Violence

page 3

Sorry, Mr. Messiah

page 6

Valleys, Hills and Wealth Gaps

page 6

Riddle of the Silver Tongue

page 6

Crucifixion Conundrums

page 6

The Chattel’s Bit

page 6

From the Galilean Dungeon, John Gives Antipas the Blues

page 7

How to Rock the Mic

page 8

A Condensed Bibliography

page 10

Parables: Dust to Dust

page 12

Out of the Atlantic/Ethiopian Ocean

page 13

How to Drop the Cross

page 15

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Fasting Pangs

page 17

Parables: Ashes to Ashes

page 19

The Book of Rahab

page 21

Black Pearl

page 22

Parables: Earth to Earth

page 23

Childhood Cyphers: Origin of Peace

page 24

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Tower of Babel: The Origin of Violence It began when Eve’s lost children denied her the moonlight— No, it began when Eve offered her body to the daylight— Was this before or after Moses spilled his hostility into the sand? — After Moses poured rage into the sand— I think it began before the olive branch was broken— Before the olive branch was broken, there was flesh— How shameless! Absolutely revolting— I heard that Eve’s body was too dark to be touched by the daylight— Didn’t the Devil vilify the daylight? — You people should wait to hear the whole story, who knows what really happened? — I heard that happened before Moses broke the olive branch — Who said that Moses broke the olive branch? — Mighty mystical, how it began— Who said that Moses broke the olive branch? — and now you people can’t keep your own bodies out of the daylight— Raging like animals, excessive, dark flesh slipping into the sand— So then who broke the olive branch? — Why can’t you just step over that bent branch—

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People were shameless. Flesh was flesh, flesh was the moonlight and the moonlight was divine— You talkin’ about the dark? — It began when Eve lost her virtue in her body’s dalliance with the daylight— Was this before or after the olive branch was broken? — It began when Moses broke the olive branch by opening his mouth to the daylight— Is that how stars appeared? — Savages like him deserve no stars— I hear that God promised Abraham as many descendants as stars in the sky— But where did the stars go? — It began when the carpenter tossed tables all over the temple— the stars don’t come out too often no more— Stars sewn, and shimmering out of Eve’s endless flesh— I heard that she became eternal— Fatally so— I hear that Eve’s gifts have escaped evolutionary loss— But where did that begin? — That began when Eve wove her flesh into the starlight— Before or after the olive branch was broken? — Why complain about bends in the olive branch when—

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But who broke the olive branch? — We all did at some point or another—

I want to know who broke the olive branch. …well it began before Eve’s children wandered into the starlight

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Sorry, Mr. Messiah No room at the inn ‘cause in development was a lovely juice bar, and in redevelopment was Bethlehem’s “urban feel”.

Valleys, Hills, and Wealth Gaps

The most interesting trend in Pittsburgh’s shape-shifting

topography is how the money floods pitch the

poor even further downhill!

Riddle of the Silver Tongue After the Romans cut Aramaic tongues off the aqueducts, which tongue did Judas, tax collectors, and the Pharisees all share?

Crucifixion Conundrum

Pilate and Caesar’s Feet sink in Golgotha, with

Heels on bones like wood chips, wondering if the corpse count

met diversity quotas. The Chattel’s Bit Arms like sun rays stretched out, wrenched back. The beauty of complexion bent back to fit binaries, only blood can escape this body.

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From the Galilean Dungeon, John Gives Antipas the Blues Love lives on, although its vessels end up dead. All my life, psalms and praises poured from my mouth. Trust this ain’t the first time I “lost my head”. I speak from Love whom allowed the Nile to run red. You serve an Empire that forces the People to live without, and Love lives on, although its vessels end up dead. Suppress me and be damned to the Judgment you dread! I’ve tasted the Promised Land’s honey, I know of rivers that never drought, this won’t be the first time I lost my head. For the glory of your Empire, our sun blessed bodies bled! You want me to keep quiet on the truths I know about? I know how Love lives on, and its vessels end up dead. I know how Love can turn false teachings of submission on its head, I know how to make my People lose their doubt. This ain’t the first time they thought I lost my head. So when these shackles come up off me, and to my grave I’m lead, don’t go thinking my People have lost their route, ‘cause Love lives on, although their vessels end up dead. This ain’t the first time I lost my head.

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How to Rock the Mic Long as you didn't miss the cypher, you can't be too late. Stars were tossed at the door, for darkness took no breaks. The stories turning tricks in your stomach won't take no more restraint. So tonight, with palms blushing, brush nerves to burn off heavy hips, feel out how the amps make your blood vibrate. In four walls, you find pulses mixing in tight space, vibrating

creating one patchwork story despite displacement, and lately

you've been finding new rhythms to fit in the midst of hips. Absorbs the sway of hips sacred enough to break

your muscle memory back to the schoolyard, to palm

games, to a time where it didn't take too much to protect your space. Take

the mic, hear "check one two three" vibrate. Raise your arms and lead the crowd's palms

to rock left to honor the departed and the late

to rock right to sooth the right brains that needed a break, alternate the pulse of palms with the swing of hips. Drop your worries into jaws, drop your hips

in front of your faith, grip your mic tight, take your time to feel your story break from your teeth and let the bass vibrate

your face. Don’t be scared to let the set run late, throw your frustrations from your palms to the beat. Forget velvet seats, or palm

oil, this healing exists within holy hips. This healing began right on time, late

at night, a total consumption that takes the blues and the negative vibrations

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off your back, removing tension threatening to break the wings that you were made to form. Break down the weight of everyday by raising palms

to the pattern of lyrics, beg the stillness in the air to vibrate, pray to the pushing of hips

that they will take their time, because the best blessings are never too late. Palms raised, they made a place for their voices to vibrate. Here there are hips to shake; boundaries and bellows to break

It was too late to take the trace away from this space.

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A Condensed Bibliography “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel” -Maya Angelou

BAARTMAN, SARTJIE. “Hottentot Venus Exhibit”. PALAIS-ROYALE FREAKSHOW. PARIS,

FRANCE . DECEMBER 1814. What does nausea feel like to a daughter forced to be a deity?

Does it pour over a plentiful bosom portrayed for large, pale hands? Perhaps it rolls down

delicate curves in waves, humanity caged in unprecedented display? Or does the side

effects of being consumed starve her, leaving no place for their eyes but her bones? Tell me

how a goddess is priced to be worth less than a pound of lilies.

HEMINGS, SALLY. “Notes on the State of Virginia”. MONTICELLO PLANTATION.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA. 1787 TO 1835. There is no sentiment in these nightmares.

When survival is to bite your tongue, to clamp your jaw, to grit your teeth and bear it, the

bitterness of iron becomes a comfort. When your captor can use his pen to captivate basic

morality into rot, revolutionary rhetoric into ink blots on parchment, your private sobbing into

the public’s sweet nothings, you wonder how many centuries it’ll take for them hear the

loudness of your silence within this narrative.

WELLS, IDA B. “Lynch Law in America”. CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. 1900. Under the eyes of the

law, I am too visible to contain the worth of lilies. Something in my voice will always be too

hard, too loud, too honest to be measured as femininity worthy of protection. Lilies are

dressed and watered with the blood and ashes of my visibility. Despite this, lilies never lose

their milky tint. Imagine that.

BRYANT, JOSEPHINE. Originated in Pittsburgh, PA. Current Location Unknown. 1950s. To be

able to disappear and forget, to be able to assimilate, to have a choice in whether you are

worth lilies is a phenomenal one. Where do you go when you shun the crack black asphalt of

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Center, Wylie, and Webster Avenue in favor of invisibility? I wonder how invisible you became

to the Bryants’ matrilineal flow into me. Did you cast it aside like dirty clothes? Do you

become more transparent in your denial? Where did you bury it all?

WHITEHEAD, TEAIRA. PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA. 1997-2014. RIVERVIEW PARK. The

mutterings of drug use and a premature womanhood send the same nausea through me as

the silence. A girl like me, a child, cast aside like dirty clothes. Her name was a faint breath

on the local news stations, pale curled fingers begrudgingly dangling over distress, visibility

to the point of translucence. With unbothered backs, they reclined on her name and her life,

like sixteen years cut short is what you discuss in the barbershop. She was stripped and

covered in bleach to blanche her body to lilies, and there’s nothing that adds up about it.

JAMISON, TYRA. PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA. 1998-PRESENT. Seventeen years worth of

accusations of hypersensitivity stings my teeth and leaves a metallic memory on my nerve-

bitten tongue. This nausea, one wonders where to bury it all. I want to take the theories and

academia I’ve been indoctrinated with and bury it all. Crumple white lily petals into my brown

hands and bury it all.

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Parables: Dust to Dust Who said the beginning needs the end? The end was invented by demons to give us something to dread, a threat to fill the cracks beneath the soil where Black bones would rest. What the beginning really needs is Blackness! Needs Blackness the way the soil needs the sea to surround it, the way the sea needs the Moon to push it, the way the Daylight needs the Moonlight to reflect it, the way the Moonlight needs Black skies to carry souls to the base of the sea. Black people were made from this earth, formed from this soil, with as much purpose as anybody else. Do you remember the day your demons laid purpose on your back? Being made of this world is to inherit tissue that you cannot throw away, it’s a legacy that your demons have spent years trying to take. So let your chin lift up from your chest. Let the gold, dead skin cells, and dirt rest in your pores, for your flesh is nothing less than refracted soil, and the soil was made to give life.

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Out of the Atlantic/Ethiopian Ocean Do not confuse my silence for consent. You see, this wait has gone on for centuries, maybe eons. Time tends to blend itself up when you get this old. I’ve been listening for a while, I’ve been listening for a long time. It's been a long time since He last "troubled" me. But I’ve been troubled for centuries, maybe eons, found my movements to be slow, learned to speak low, focus on stomaching tongues that cannot taste salt, felt my sea weed stutter/screams/stutter/screams/stutter SCREAMS/ from lips that were once/dusted in gold, now/cut by the rusty horse's bit, from sun-bathed bodies stacked inside ships, dragging across me like the last breath to escaping splintered ribs. You see, they started by sinking into me, drifting, arms that stretched into centuries, maybe eons, of spiritual wealth living in circles, living in movement that bows Black backs to the bounty of life, in Black wombs that grew wide from carrying basket weavers and warriors, in Black women who's laughter lingered from carrying divinity, in Black men who's mouths grew full from carrying stories. I've been listening. My currents cannot carry all the languages you cast into me. all the corpses you cast out, all of blood-crusted bodies you cast into me. I’ve been listening. To the drowning babies with brown bellies swollen by my seas I've been listening. to the wailing of mothers/their breasts hanging with milk that will never mix /with their child's first breath,

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I've been listening. I’ve been listening for centuries, maybe eons. I’ve been listening, to you, who longs to live like mountains, to you, who is arrogant enough to attempt to eliminate your roots, to you, who has fallen so far past the point of inhumanity, I've been listening. I’ve been listening, to hear His voice. Cause when He calls on me, there will be no more Titans to protect you, there will be no more soil sick enough to soak up your blood, there will be no more empathy for you to exploit. When He calls on me, my vengeance will consume you/ 'till you beg for the right to take your last breath.

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How to Drop the Cross One glad mornin, when this life is over, I’ll fly away…

With the sun sinking left of the stain glass cross, you knew it was getting late but Sunday mornin don't have no breaks. Was it the hand of God to make the sanctuary shake?

Or did undulating voices make the air vibrate?

Pastor pushes his praise up, determined to raise his congregation up, and heavenwards their hearts rose. To that home in God's celestial shore, I'll fly away—

to this tune the organ would vibrate. Church folk saw the tail end of the morning as the temples to the afternoon; service could never go on too late. Up there toward the altar, a Sista’s shoulders began to shake

she discovered how the Holy Spirit don’t take no breaks. Down there beneath the glass blood drops, wails would break. Only cool air to be found was raised

by cardboard fans displaying the chicken and waffles shaking like the tambourines rolling on in between the—I’ll fly away—

and the greens were kept in slow cookers, no fear of runnin’ late. Swelling over the songs, Pastor’s voice would vibrate hymns of the saved, the saved would vibrate back until the worries fell from their breaking backs. Nobody cared about service runnin’ late, when there were spirits to raise. Oh glory, I’ll fly away. It was rumored that harmonies of rocks could shake the blues out of the sky, send it crashing and shaking

through windows, scatters across the floor in tiny, vibrating

dew drops. When I die, hallelujah by and by, I’ll fly away. Here, Pastor’s voice would break,

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Here, you’d forget the stone face with which you were raised, Here, nobody cared that service was runnin’ late. And there, just as you thought it was too late, From the barrels of your lungs, enough praise to shake

the floods back from their celestial chains. Something holy to raise, another voice to join the congregational vibrations, because Sunday mornin’ don’t have no breaks. When I die, hallelujah by and by, I’ll fly away Palms raised, they made a place for their voices to vibrate: Here there were hips to shake; boundaries and bellows to break

It was too late to take the trace away from this space.

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Fasting Pangs Before Legion could be sifted from the shrieks of a meandering man, before a flock of pigs pitched themselves

into the sea for every soul to see, the Carpenter heard temples. With acidic mouths, they cried out to him, poured emaciation through his ears, saltwater left him to nurse his own piss and prayers; he was feeling forty years in forty days. The shadow of doubt tasted like a silver fog, dried up tantrums on the tongue

sent the Son of Man stumbling

towards temples, toward cliff tops, towards the sting of State in his lungs. And lo behold, like mercury temples gleamed Satan’s voice

beneath the most frigid sun. Beneath sweat of the Carpenter's brow, his eyes bore clouds that clawed at his sight, an altar calling his feet over, longing for a leap of—

faith is a test that flows from my Father's pen to my page.

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Tasting like the rivers I had been missin' for forty days. And now?

It’s about time I stopped swallowing the sea.

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Parables: Ashes to Ashes In my kindergarten coatroom, it wasn’t uncommon to find inhalers

decorated with Spongebob stickers and Dora the Explorer Band-Aids, plastic like Barbie dolls and large hair beads, like the red-cross kit resting on the teacher’s desk; nothing too serious. It was never an affliction until Asthma attacked the frailest kid in my class. Although I tucked my inquiries at the back of my neck, I still wondered how to live without breathing. When they showed us pictures of downtown Pittsburgh;

dirty enough for midday to resemble midnight, I could swear the only time I ever saw the sun shine through so much smoke was when my church caught fire. There were no little colored choirgirls, no black altar boys in alabaster robes hacked up out the ashes. But from beneath collapsed bell towers, two firefighters crawled up into heaven. The questions teased at the back of my throat, for I was still learning how to live without breathing. Live without breathing

a word about the boot on your neck, live without breathing

too loud, lest you shake scales out their eyes, live without breathing

‘till the dried gum and loosies smashed on the street disappear, live without breathing

while your cries are sold for Internet hits, I am desperate to forget how to

live without breathing

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live without breathing

live without…

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The Book of Rahab She was wary of prophecies, of revelations, of voices rising against the sinking sun. In the shadows of the metropolis, she dares the West Bank to utter her name. Beyond her door, men’s voices were rising against the sinking sun. “I’m no stranger to strangers” With this, she dares the Captain to utter her name. But they were concerned with foreigners, spies, plots of terror in her walls. Rahab was no stranger to strangers—

strange men, strange lips, strange tongues—

but these men could be foreigners, spies, plotting terror to Jericho’s Wall. Past this woman’s threshold, past the strange curve of her rouged lips, lay the wrath of an estranged God. And it is her threshold that these soldiers would not pass. They would not find that beneath her home’s flax crown, lay two sons of an estranged God. Although she was wary of prophets and revelations, But in good faith these men laid beneath her home’s flax crown, With this, she dared their God to utter her name.

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Black Pearl Black is/ a beautiful sister walking past the Clairol sign/And watching the sign literally asking herself/”I thought I knew for sure, I thought I knew for sure, that I was beautiful!” – Umar Bin Hassan

Sunlight will never touch the day I tell you to seek shade and fair weather, to displace the decades of radiance manifested in your melanin, nurtured by the ninety days a year the sun sets into you. You are the skies that cradle the Earth, you are galaxies embodied, and false prophets have confused

the power of your complexion for bleach, dismissed the genetics of survival for properties of corrosion, mislabeled what’s survived generations as what’s to be applied in low concentrations. Do you know of the infinity you possess? You are the Gospel that false teachers tried to blot out of textbooks, you are memory, sharp and clear as the daylight that loves you. Paper bags pale in comparison to the depth of God’s palette. Impersonators scrambles to love your traits and loathe your humanity, because the truth is, you wear time like fresh pearls, and like fresh pearls, you will rise from the sea, and bend back the spines of sinners who wished to live like mountains, and they will sing: Black pearl, precious little girl/ Let me lift you up where you belong Black pearl, pretty little girl/ You been in the background for much too long

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Parables: Earth to Earth The monkey bars are covered in blood! Deer’s blood, the blood of the lamb, blood of the Son, a sacrifice, perhaps the red drips down the monkey bars to protect the babies from the crossfire of the grown folk mistakes. I never heard about how the plastic red paint got stuck in the midst of dripping down lemon drop monkey bars, so I’ma make my own sense of it. Being raised a Baptist girl, I sang songs about how I was covered in blood, how Emmanuel bled for the good of us all, how the paper-skinned Horseman trotted past the children of Israel, because they let lamb’s blood drip down their doorways. They let the lamb’s blood drip down their doorways to protect their babies from the Horseman that had been invited, he and his indiscriminate greed. We let the red drip down the doorways to reassure another day for the babies. When they stole our power to protect the babies, we forgot how to make love.

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Childhood Cyphers: Origin of Peace Quiet as morning dew, Mama’s bony hands move to Massage a roundness into my tawny bald head. I’ve outgrown baby doll clothes.

Monday afternoons are reserved for appointments

with my Barbie head; I’d yank pink combs through dark hair,

to give tight braids for the week. Easter at Grandma’s meant the people pictured on the walls came to life, walking around with my smile, and my brown, laughter all proud.

Grandma Mabel is

five foot of class, Coke bottle glasses, clutched in her

right hand, Menthols, and in her left, a dragon cane.

In prayer circles, God sees church babies giggling over our dress shoes, ignoring revelations of getting popped in the mouth.

Red Velvet ice cream’s

The color of melanin. Tell me which one melts?

Here’s a hint: Ya Momma can’t simply slap the Black off you.