to move up and down
Be-Side
The Home of Hakm's B-Side e-alter ego...his auxiliary brain or external hard drive...
Written for Women in Creativity Month performance at Tricklock Theater Company’s Reptilian Lounge in March 2013
Crea+ivi+y … for Mae Jamison
Quote
“For some reasons of reason, it is overwhelmingly apparent that the female brain does not rival a man’s brain when it comes to math and science.”
so she grabbed a telescope
to see
what kind of god
would not make space
for her
what kind of idiot
savant
would phrenologize uterus
with iQ
in a respectable scholarly journal
and call his self
scientist
an alchemist
is much more
than a palmful
of snake oil
more than scales
and skin sales
more than the atheism
we cook
and crack
in the crosshairs of that scope
she saw pimps
standing on the corner
of crea+ion and nativi+y
selling acrylic
on canvas, no prints,
of Mary
and manger
sky
blacker than universe
than womb
in it
stars look like asterisks
like X, X
on top of each other
one tick-tocked clockwise
90 degrees
“Like you don’t know what time it is!”
she says
under lapcoat collar
like impo’tent men
will put their dick in
test tubes to
try and reproduce
the laboratory inside of her
futile
those same men,
however important,
will fit firearms into mouths
of mothers
on a crusade
to barren nations
frustrated
that their black magic
will never match
her birthright…
they will say
“God made Adam first.”
She will thank’em kindly
for the compliment
and call herself
evolution
smile
and tell them to adopt
while she adapts
“We are in clinical trials,
trying to reproduce a miracle.”
she belches
“The future of this species rests in an aberration.
Inconclusive, yet well-documented, evidence that one
Of their gender was able to regenerate without the other…”
she is between homo habilis
and australopithicus
she is time travel
nine months of present
and future
at the same time
she is pregnancy without penis
he is penis without progress
he is original man
primitive
she is Es-class
opposable thumb
she has made man
without man
he has tried
to clone her miracle
jealous
of how she plays god with herself
one day,
he will worship her
for the nucleus she is
instead of the warfare
he wet dreams her
to be
til then,
he will dismiss this report
file it away in the annals
of science
and tell her
this sort of study
this sort of research
is heresy
he will unbend
his lips and innuendo
his brow
as he lets her know
what is at stake
shrug it off
by trying to diffuse
a lawsuit
with a joke about sausage
and how she is
missing link
he is not
cute
or scientifically correct
he is cocky
not cunning
he is over the line
and over confident
she is over head
and over
it
he will discharge
one last shot
at her sisterhood
laughingly, ask her
if she thinks
she can fly
and she will
look him in the eye
and say
“Yes”
“Now,
ask me…
which broomstick
to prove it with.”
© Hakim Bellamy March 21, 2013
Dear Weekly Alibi (and Albuquerque),
There is no such thing as “Best Poet.” But THANK YOU for reminding me that I am not a “fad.” I love you 4X too!
Truly yours,
Hakim Bellamy
P.S. HUGE thanks to all of you who thought it was worth your time to log in, full your ballot with at least 20 things that make our city awesome, and actually include me.
P.S.S. Mad love to Levi the Poet, Zachary Kluckman and every other poet in this city as well! WE make this a cool place to be a poet.
Send your teenager to Bernalillo County’s Two-Day Digital Workshop. It costs nothing, and could be worth their future. No pressure. More details and updates at http://www.bernco.gov/KRS or @urbanverbs on Twitter.
Look what landed on ye olde desktop today! SWEAR gets a book review in Local iQ. But this endorsement from a young, Black & gifted 7 year-old is like a badge of BADASSERY “My hero is Hakim. He is my tallest best friend. This is some of his line from Roots Revival: ‘Brother you will not sleep brother. The revolution will not be televised.” Love you to Levi, all apologies to Gil Scott-Heron. #GOODGoodFriday
Read the Local iQ book review by Don McIver here.
Crea+ivi+y … for Mae Jamison
Quote
“For some reasons of reason, it is overwhelmingly apparent that the female brain does not rival a man’s brain when it comes to math and science.”
so she grabbed a telescope
to see
what kind of god
would not make space
for her
what kind of idiot
savant
would phrenologize uterus
with iQ
in a respectable scholarly journal
and call his self
scientist
an alchemist
is much more
than a palmful
of snake oil
more than scales
and skin sales
more than the atheism
we cook
and crack
in the crosshairs of that scope
she saw pimps
standing on the corner
of crea+ion and nativi+y
selling acrylic
on canvas, no prints,
of Mary
and manger
sky
blacker than universe
than womb
in it
stars look like asterisks
like X, X
on top of each other
one tick-tocked clockwise
90 degrees
“Like you don’t know what time it is!”
she says
under lapcoat collar
like impo’tent men
will put their dick in
test tubes to
try and reproduce
the laboratory inside of her
futile
those same men,
however important,
will fit firearms into mouths
of mothers
on a crusade
to barren nations
frustrated
that their black magic
will never match
her birthright…
they will say
“God made Adam first.”
She will thank’em kindly
for the compliment
and call herself
evolution
smile
and tell them to adopt
while she adapts
“We are in clinical trials,
trying to reproduce a miracle.”
she belches
“The future of this species rests in an aberration.
Inconclusive, yet well-documented, evidence that one
Of their gender was able to regenerate without the other…”
she is between homo habilis
and australopithicus
she is time travel
nine months of present
and future
at the same time
she is pregnancy without penis
he is penis without progress
he is original man
primitive
she is Es-class
opposable thumb
she has made man
without man
he has tried
to clone her miracle
jealous
of how she plays god with herself
one day,
he will worship her
for the nucleus she is
instead of the warfare
he wet dreams her
to be
til then,
he will dismiss this report
file it away in the annals
of science
and tell her
this sort of study
this sort of research
is heresy
he will unbend
his lips and innuendo
his brow
as he lets her know
what is at stake
shrug it off
by trying to diffuse
a lawsuit
with a joke about sausage
and how she is
missing link
he is not
cute
or scientifically correct
he is cocky
not cunning
he is over the line
and over confident
she is over head
and over
it
he will discharge
one last shot
at her sisterhood
laughingly, ask her
if she thinks
she can fly
and she will
look him in the eye
and say
“Yes”
“Now,
ask me…
which broomstick
to prove it with.”
© Hakim Bellamy March 21, 2013
Honored to be the recipient of the 2013 Emerging Creative Bravos on Saturday evening. Each Creative Bravos award recipient got the opportunity for a 30 sec. acceptance speech. In my absence (I was completing my role as Albert/Kevin Fusion Theatre Company’s 10-show run of Bruce Norris’ award-winning play Clybourne Park), My son hit it out the park with “Thank You for my daddy!” Better and shorter than anything I coulda come up with. Proud of my lil’ man. A huge thanks to his mother, Tracey, for escorting him.
Here is my social media “acceptance speech” (status update) from before my 7:30pm call to the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe:
Thank you Creative Albuquerque and all those who daily make it their job to honor & empower artists in ABQ. My son will be accepting my Creative Bravos award tonight as I create art in Santa Fe this evening. But THANK YOU to my fellow Bravos honorees and all behind the scenes that make sure EVERY Burqueno has access to art regardless of cash or class.
And from this article about the Creative Bravos award in ABQ Arts & Entertainment:
Selected as this year’s Emerging Creative award recipient, Albuquerque’s inaugural Poet Laureate (2012-14) and nationally recognized poetry slam champion, Hakim Bellamy, is one whose body of achievements continues to grow alongside his artistic ambitions. “I’m a little young for a lifetime achievement award, but this is what the Emerging Creative Bravos feels like. It feels like a humble validation and acknowledgment of my art as ‘professional,’ which is important for up and coming artists who do what I do and look like me but may have never thought of declaring themselves a poet, until they witnessed me doing the same,” says Bellamy.
This article about the 2013 Creative Bravos Award recipients was published in the Albuquerque Journal.
Thank you, thank you, thank you … I mean it.
Join me, Poet Manuel Gonzalez, Reel Fathers and the 9th Grade Class at Capital High School in Santa Fe as we present the work we’ve developed as part of the Fathers in Focus Intensive for the past two weeks. This FREE event at Warehouse 21 on Sunday, March 24th at 3pm will include an originally written GROUP POEM, as well as individual poems by 10 of the 200 9th Graders that we had the pleasure of working with as they read Homer’s Odyssey in their English Classes. There will be refreshments provided, you WILL NOT be disappointed. There will also be a poetry slam to win a Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0!
Had a “Welcome Back” party with my New Mexico Style family (Nikki Stanzione and Kristen Van Dyke). We talked “SWEAR” on the air at KASA FOX 2. See the instant replay and we’ll see you at UNM Bookstore, Bookworks or the Southwest Book Fiesta! (Details at “What’s Next?” tab here at www.hakimbe.com) Thank you Nikki & Kristen!
The Creative Bravos Award Recipients are in and I am truly humbled to win the Emerging Creative Bravos Award. So please come and join me and my fellow award recipients on this night of honors and arts! You can enjoy the article and find out more about the awards ceremony here: http://abqarts.com/?p=11794
It is truly an honor!!
ONE MORE WEEKEND LEFT TO SEE THE 2011 TONY AWARD WINNING, PULITZER PRIZE WINNING, OLIVIER AWARD WINNING CLYBOURNE PARK IN SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO!
Get Tickets HERE!
See reviews by Broadway World and the Albuquerque Journal!
Join us at the Historic Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe! - hb
