Her Name is Kizzy

Black art in America presents A Daily Dose of Poetry With Cynthia Short. Inspired by Lavett Ballard’s multimedia piece, “Her name is Kizzy.”

The fences they put up became shields. They isolated us but brought us closer. My name became Kizzy. My sister’s name is kizzy. Her eyes move beyond this land. She has learned to love it. Her big sister’s name is Kizzy. She moves like African lightning. Her sword out, she protects these grounds. I paint my face like my ancestors. We draw on the fences, bring offerings to our heroes. We dress like our ancestors. Here we are queens. We feast like them, we fight like them, we love like them. In our bellies, in our fists and in our hearts, we are kizzy.

This has been Daily Dose of Poetry with Cynthia Short. To view this work and others like it visit buyblack art.com

Mother Revolution

Black art in America presents A Daily Dose of Poetry With Cynthia Short. Inspired by Charlie Palmer’s Mother Revolution.

Tell me, I’m your national anthem Tell me sway of my hips is another flag let standing Tell me I birthed revolution I endure craving for a better life My mood swings sharp enough to cut bigotry in its throat My varicose veins follow the evolution of my body I become too big to big ignored To large to fit into a box or celled room My scalp is lush soil Every nod of my head Every twist in tune with ring of freedom I compel the ground to top breed liberation I parry the permafrost that has ravaged the south I turn the chill of subjugation into African sunshine

And jeweled fields Oh say, Can’t you see

This has been Daily Dose of Poetry with Cynthia Short. To view this work and others like it visit buyblackart.com

Love like a Fairytale

Black art in America presents A Daily Dose of Poetry With Cynthia Short. Inspired by Evita Tezeno’s “I Am Beautiful.”

The black woman becomes her own mirror on the wall Declares herself divine She needs no magic mirror to affirm her splendor How can they name the fairest when they’re never fair She writes her own fairytale In love letters to her skin I am beautiful, she says She wears spring like earrings Her shoulders squared Her eyes lucid Never pricked by propaganda

Never cursed to her melanie as anything other than her own magic carpet Her sought perfection, though her locks were never gold And that is ok She is comfortable in her own skin She has made it her castle Quick work of the wolf that sought to huff it away Her throne was solid ivory Self love was the kiss to wake her sleeping beauty

This has been A Daily Dose of Poetry with Cynthia Short. To view this work and others like it visit buyblackart.com

Gullah Jack

Black Art in America presents A Daily Dose of Poetry With Cynthia Short. Inspired by Najee Dorsey’s “Gullah Jack.”

Decades before Jon Brown Bandaged a Bleeding Kansas Gullah Jack conjured dreams of Haitian skies Purchased as a prisoner of war on africa’s east shore Gullah jack carried a conjuring bag everywhere he went
In 1812, a raid on the plantation he worked on allow him and many other s to escape
Charleston, South Carolina was no safe have
In 1821, slave chains sought his wrists again
Paul Pritchard purchased him without a second thought
Jack shucked and jived
Worked different roots when the whites weren’t looking
In late december of 1821, Denmark Vesey asked Gullah to be his lieutenant
Gullah said yes
Skilled in medicine and poison
He became known as the little man who can’t be killed.
Vesey wished to seize the city of
Kill every white man they could if necessary
African born men wore African protection symbols
Carried crab claws in their mouths
To taste freedom as they fought for it
But Slaves began to leak information
And gullah jack was captured on July 5th, 1822
Hanged on the 12th
But I can still hear his howl at midnight
When I hear black sorrow among the trees
When the news tells of another unarmed black man
And another cop gone unpunished
I hold the claws tight enough in my mouth
To bruise
I bare the wood and let the world know
That he is not dead
I pray for the poison to put out prejudice
And the healing to get going after the fact
I ask what is it that makes us blacks so strong
We’ve never cared for odds
Only opportunities
Never why not
But why should we
Perhaps it is our skin
The way it blisters but never breaks
Or perhaps this blood don’t know the difference
Between strife and African sun
Perhaps this spirit don’t know a God that ain’t go by freedom
These hands are posed to conjure
This mouth is fixed to rally
My feet are staunch and ready
To find ground in Gullah’s shadow

This has been A Daily Dose of Poetry with Cynthia Short. To view this work and others like it visit buyblackart.com

Ice Cream Melting

Black art in America presents A Daily Dose of Poetry With Cynthia Short. Inspired by Najee Dorsey’s “Ice Cream Melting.”

The kids don’t know why ice cream trucks won’t come here Or why the world moves like thick heat and molasses They don’t know much but hide and seek among the landfills Or held breath in toxic water

I don’t know how to tell them no fruit grows on these trees no more There’s no apple to adam and eve us from this wasteland Oh, how they dream of Eden

I wish for studies That tell me how to teach my children “methane” How to spell it in a way that makes breathing a little easier How to learn them mathematics, to calculate it’s deadliness, its range, our life expectancies I can not bear the tears when their ice cream melts This be the one cartoon villian I can’t unmask

Alabama and environmental skies Cancer alleys run through coastal states I wonder if their science teachers know Of transport trucks and sickend miasmas

I wonder if they care

If they know what’s like to be stored as undesirables? Do they teach the children about poverty? The odor that it spreads upon our clothes? Do they know what we should call our reflections? Are we what we live among?

Teachers, Can you teach slow death like luxury? Count the letters in hazardous? Can you tell us who is next?

Can you pry the propaganda off my children’s eyelids? Will that be covered in after school tutoring? Will you take payment in the form of time we don’t have?

How about funerals? Is it cheaper to bury them in doctor’s notes

This has been Daily Dose of Poetry with Cynthia Short. To view this work and others like it visit buyblackart.com

The Lady Flower 

Black art in America presents A Daily Dose of Poetry With Cynthia Short. Inspired by Kevin Johnson’s “The Lady Flower.”

So, the woman became a flower

Or maybe she always was

Something blue to grace the wedding vows

Something improbable to grow among the graveyard

Flower petals to spell love for mahogany

Ferns to denote the magical shelter of skin

Is there a bud that births god?

Was she born of it?

Forget Me not adorns her ebony locks

And spin her memory impeccable

She isLine thy eye upon the field of her cares

Find it barren

Call her name

And suffer springtime forever

She empyreal

See her obsidian throne

This is why nature is female

This has been Daily Dose of Poetry with Cynthia Short. To view this work and others like it visit buyblackart.com

The History of Blues

Black art in America presents A Daily Dose of Poetry with Cynthia Short. Inspired by Najee Dorsey’s “The History of Blues.”

Blues

Born from 16th century blacks

The blues was how we expelled our sorrow

Tethered lyrics to our loves

And spawned ragtime

Then Jazz

And so turned the musical world

Creators met the crossroads

And nothing was the same

All cause the blacks wept

And thought to bring their tears to life

We saw ourselves in musical notes

And then we had soul

Civil Rights came and penetrated political awareness

Then came hip hop

Where we’d play the dozen

But never be numbered like Cattle Or how many pounds we picked Now Boom boxes are antiques And we don’t know what next But my faith rests with the black kid With his heart in his Ipod When the music drops And his spirit rises

This has been A Daily Dose of Poetry with Cynthia Short. To view this work and others like it visit buyblackart.com

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Cynthia Short is a high school senior and current summer Fellow at Black Art in America. She has been writing creatively since the age of 12. She specializes in the creation of poetry. Born and raised in Columbus, Georgia, Short has dipped her feet into the theatre and slam poetry scene. She was a competitor at the 2018 Brave New Voices festival, a national slam competition. Her team won Best of Brave New Voices there. She plans to major in English and become an author. #bravenewvoices

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