to move up and down
Be-Side
The Home of Hakm's B-Side e-alter ego...his auxiliary brain or external hard drive...
New event added to my schedule. You won’t find this under the “What’s Next?” tab. I get to introduce my sister Jessica Helen Lopez, who gets to interview Jimmy Santiago Baca, AND YOU GET TO WATCH IT!
Get your tickets here at www.KiMoTickets.com or call 505.886.1251 to order by phone.
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.
It is a distinct honor to represent the city I now call “HOME” in my hometown paper! Humbled, that a readership of 70,000 in the Philadelphia/South Jersey area is proud of how I serve community 2,000 miles away. Thank you Kim Mulford, the City of Albuquerque, my parents, the Albuquerque Poet Laureate Program, and the Courier Post! Read the article here.
Work - by hakim bellamy
(Edited via performance at TEDxABQWomen in Albuquerque, NM on December 1st. The full text is below. This poem will be published in my forthcoming book “Swear” by West End Press in March 2013)
WORK
I
There are few things more difficult
than getting lipstick
out of a blue collar
for a few things
we work
work like
lipstick on a blue collar
like three jobs
and the sex
we still can’t afford
to have
like a sex worker
fancy feet fantasies
of strawberry toes
dipped in fondue faces
while we rest
in the heel of society
I will never
let him have my feet
of running
kicking
and standing
instead of lying down
II
That pill
drug skid marks
down my esophagus
after kicking
and screaming
‘cross my tongue
awoke
took my longest finger
out of me
at 6 o’clock
erected it
to twelve
and shoved it past
his sleeping nose
there is nothing sexy
about eye sockets.
when the perpetrator
sleeps over
it’s date rape
whether the patron
paid
or not
III
my arms
are longer than his sentence
rivet strong and smooth
sometimes
for fastening
the maturation of
baby boys
to Maybe Men
other times
for the quickening
of the removal
of his sternum
from my bosom
maybe baby
maybe not
these arms
do not belong to him
they are open
to me
IV
My ankles
were pregnant
with desperate housework
when I collared him
lipstick I did not recognize
perfume I did
but did not blame her for being a victim
did not blame my hands
for refusing to wash
anymore of his fucking shirts
did not blame god
for leaving my daughter’s father
and his patriarchal paycheck
for putting my baby girl
on my back
putting food and shelter
on my shoulders
making my living
off my ass
my brain
cannot be judged by its cover,
my complexion, nor my circumstance
not where I clock in
or clock out
I have a degree
in sociology
and survival
and only one
is coming in handy
V
My daughter
is my body of labor
a woman now
born from my rib
pushed from my pelvis
apple of my Eve
I named her “Eden”
she has nested with serpents
seen me
serve leg, thigh and breast
to a tapeworm society
that cannibalizes its women
she’s seen
my serviceable body parts
removed
used to fill their holes
she’s seen my heart overlooked
cast plate-side
like a gizzard
she’s seen them
eat me
from the inside
out
VI
she barely remembers
my housewife days
of not lifting a finger
to her father
and him
putting himself
where ever he wanted
his fists
as hard as he wanted
and I chose
bait instead of bitch
I chose pussy
instead of prison
because I rather teach her
teach her
that there is dirt
underneath every French manicure
that working girls
get their ass kicked for a living
that’s a choice for some
less of a choice for others
but so is getting your ass kicked
for love
for life
teach her
the difference between sale and sacrifice
is the cost and the price
like the difference between
pay equity and fair wage
teach her the difference between
high risk career
and poor life choices
that either way we have rights
even when they put their palms
over our voices
I taught her that
I’d rather give the street
what her father repeatedly took
even pride
what she learned from me
is the value of her body
for better or for worse
she learned not to stay for bullshit
like “relationships take work”
work takes work
and work consists
of whatever a body
is obliged to do.
The Hump Day Show with Hakim Bellamy by Inner Child Radio
I Got Your Black. (R.E.S.P.E.C.T.) – by hakim bellamy
(Written on Day 2 of my trip to South Africa…after Soweto)
South Africa has no secrets
That’s
The beautiful thing about it
Nakedness
That spends this amount of time
Under a microscope
Under the microscope of the world
Just looks like skin
Looks just like our skin
That’s the beautiful thing
About it
We are twins
For maternity
For paternity
We are not eternities
Apart
We are Siamese
Only separate
By seconds
And first
By
Who came out
First
By
Who got out
Second
The beautiful thing about it is
Faces
I remember never seeing
But remember
People
That walk like me
In places
I’ve never set foot
In places
I’ve yet to set foot
In places
I’m destined to foot
In place
Of me
We walk
In shared footsteps
Of pasts & futures
We wear
The same bootstraps
Of past abuses
We bear
The same backs
And the beautiful thing about it is
Our bodies
Spell “beautiful”
In different languages
But our bruises match
Our bodies
Scream “family”
In different accents
We are
An entire auction block
Of colonial detachment issues
But our siblings match
And
The beautiful thing about it is
Our music still sounds the same
From Jersey
To Jozi
It all still sounds
Like freedom
From relic retail chains
That made lunch counters
A name brand
To Woolworth flagships in Johannesburg
That up until
Not too long ago
Still sold the same damn thing
Our freedom still tastes the same
Still tastes like rice
With every meal
Still tastes like
A million and one things
Our people
Can make with cornmeal
And the beautiful thing is
We are still hungry for the same thing
We be
Drinking liberation
And speaking libations
We be
The kind of love
That only gets stronger with hatred
We KNOW labor
We don’t know “Days Off”
Cause we be no days off
Til oppression takes a mutha fuckin vacation
Took every religion
That came to en-“save”-us
The clinically depressed scriptures
And self-flagellation
Turned suffering and services
Into celebrations
And the beautiful thing is
We are a cooked book
Of recipes
For turning the chips stacked against us
Into plantains
A bake sale
Of Devil’s Pie and crow
We are never for sale
Only for certain
In South Africa
We are NO secret
In America
We are surviving
And the beautiful thing is
Our connection.
Separated by cell,
Ship and submission
Shackled to our diaspora
By a history
That won’t stop hitting is
Shackled to our diaspora
By separate
But equal experiences
Shackled to our diaspora
By shared histories
No matter
Where we’re Black
The beautiful thing is
We want the same thing.
© Hakim Bellamy October 2, 2012 in Johannesburg, South Africa
Click the pic above to go to the Bandcamp and support Bernalillo County Place Matters.
We are in Washington, DC for two days with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies doing what people who make a living in the District of Columbia SHOULD always be concerned with…the HEALTH of all Americans.
“We are only as HEALTHY as the least among us.” me
I’m honored to be the keynote poet at the Place Matters: National Health Equity Conference “Models of Action, Innovation & Collaboration.” Tonight, DC can join me in a HEALTHY dosage of poetry tonight at Busboys and Poets (5th & K) with 2x HBO Def Poet Regie Cabico.
Follow our Live Tweet @OurPlaceMatters and @BCPlaceMatters #pnmc2012
Printed in New Mexico Business Weekly this week, originally from www.unm.edu (click through the image above to go to the article). Thank you to Poet Sari Krosinsky for spending the time with me and my son, and putting in the work to make sure I did not sound like a total “headcase.” I’m honored to be recognized by my school and the business community in New Mexico. Keep calm and carry on, people.
Photo by Wes Naman/Naman Photography
Click the pic to link through to the article at www.local-iq.com
Be boys? B-Girls be present. Past and future . Dance up a revolution of record proportions. Wrecking rotations.
Hakim Bellamy, 33, Philadelphia native and New Mexico resident since 2005, was recently selected to represent the Duke City as its first-ever official poet laureate. Bellamy’s two-year tenure started April 14.
It’s a development that lands Albuquerque in league with cities like Boston, San Francisco and even Santa Fe — all municipalities that recognize the cultural significance of poetry by naming a poet laureate. And it’s a title Bellamy accepts with humility, as well as the determination to serve his colleagues and community by doing all he can to raise the profile of poetry in the city over the next two years.
