Three Poems, Sherese Francis

 Saint Veronica (Naming Ceremony Part II)
(Inspired by my grandmother and Belkis Ayon’s Vernicle series)

My grandmother’s name was Veronique.
She bestowed her name unto me as my middle name.
The name I would share with the shed blood of relation.
The name given to me :: medium. :: mirror. :: mask.
The name carries the past 
I could never witness with my own eyes.
The name always returns :: a face.

The face returns :: the first iconography.
The face returns :: the measure of the weight of light shining through punctured skin.
The face returns :: sweat. soot. s/ang/uine stain.
The face returns :: a death mask.
The face returns :: these watery reflections of love. or is it con/demnation? or is it vic/tory?
The face returns :: you the screen-struck girl.
The face returns :: the propelling of a fabrication.
The face returns :: an uncredited picture. a disembodied source.
The face returns :: a bacchanal dismemberment leaving the head as oracle.
The face returns :: a brazen head rolling down the river. 
The face returns :: a beheading in crosshairs.
The face returns :: a Medusian talking bronze horse. a Wizard’s green mask. a Mimir.
The face returns :: I believe I know I love you and not much beyond that.
The face returns :: an unidentified flying creature forged on an aegis.
The face returns :: these forget me nots.
The face returns :: the horror of seeing his missing face.
The face returns :: the other holding up the mask of his missing face.
The face returns :: the other seeing through his eye sockets.
The face returns :: a snake egg.
The face returns :: a wounded projection.
The face returns :: a slow motion smack in the face.
The face returns :: a sun-incarnated fleece.
The face returns :: a caul vision.
The face returns :: a new craft on in/visibility
The face returns :: the eye at the center of spinning wool. 
The face returns :: a crossdresser’s manifesto.
The face returns :: a bullfighter’s mockery. Or a thread out of the labyrinth. 
The face returns :: a look into the cavern’s pool to see your grandmother’s face again.

Dis face covers up :: a form of Re/velation.
A weaver of the face :: a flag clearing space in a name :: the foundation of a Re/volution.
The trick of the constant doing and undoing:
She wears the songs of Caly/pso to forget apo/caly/pse. She’s dancing an in/visible dance.
Dis face re/mem/bers herself on your body as if Nature will never tear the body apart.

Battle of the Quiet, Contemplative Oracle

Them: You’re so quiet!

Me: You have to earn access.

Them: Why are you so quiet?!

Me: Demanding my words is breaking and entering.

Them: Why are you so quiet?

Me: Would you like step on the shattered window glass in my mouth?

Them: Say something!

Me: I have two ears with an open sign and dry lips stuck together. (G)Listen.

Them: Talk!

Me: Moving my Jaw requires anointing. Pass some oil to me.

Them: Speak up!

Me: My vocal cords haven’t been to the gym. I’m working on a mem/ber/ship in nakedness.

Them: Why?

Me: Words require labor. Are usually birthed with heavy messiahs covering their bodies.

Them: Why?

Me: Tongue twisters. My tongue gets cramps.

Them: Quiet?!

Me: Mistranslations of the mind               Dis/figuring both of us.

Them: Quiet?!

Me: Di/vine existed before saying a word.

Them: Quiet?!

Me: My arm is a long tongue. A dancer. A drapetomaniac. A w/riter of ringshouts. A cursive language speaker. 

Them: Quiet?

Me: Some sounds can’t be heard by human ears.

Them:

Me: Is my tongue part of your colony? Your manifest destiny? Do you feel less real without it?

Them:

Me: The tele/phone — ultimate symbol of modern man’s inability to communicate. Binding and carrying as man/y sounds we can. Still understanding is too far. Rings at the wrong time. Distracts the mind from its concentration. I am misheard all the time. You slur my speech with an accent. Like a baby learning to sing.

Them:

Me: Too much wind around a ship steered by a trying ty/rant sinks it: A why?-whale chase fixation in response to dis/mem/ber/ment. A limping king of thieves curious about origins, the answers to herself, the product of civilized brutality. A blurting out of a one-leg’s secret name when thinking the spinner isn’t (k)listening, and having to flee in a lady’s body. Are you still (k)listening?

Theory of My Minds: I Having a Conversation with Myself Having a Conversation with Des/Cartes Having a Conversation with Himself (Meditations with Enlightenment and Freedom)

“The white fathers told us: I think, therefore I am. The black mother within each of us - the poet - whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free.” — Audre Lorde

Dear Re/NTR,

Who is God in the eye of the beholder?

I can never catch myself in a flowing river. Ground zero is where new paths of unmapped territory are found.

Is there a God? If so, does God deceive?

You need a lot of make-up remover.

What is intimacy?

What I think of you will die. What I think of myself will die. Hint: the Self dies all the time. 

Define the ripple effect.

It is yourself always broken open and read.

What is the correlation between the depth of Self and the depth of Image?

Self-preservation can be the same as Self-ignor/ance. Aka what sank the titan(ic).

Deluge or delusion?

Definition: Tumbling around in a deep whirlpool. I have fallen and I’m not sure I want to get out.

Who is the father of science, psychology, philosophy?

Your thoughts are not my thoughts. Classification and authority: a fabrication of certainty. The wise say they love their mother and her big pot.

Is there one immovable point to shift the earth?

I have a distorted sense of the world. You pushed me off balance. It is my form of adaptation. 

Do memories lie?

My body. My shape. My place. My movement. My extended self is a chimera. Call it compounded matter aka it’s complicated.

Is this life a dream?

As long as I conceive of the idea that nothing has happened, it has. The consequences of construction. Even fiction has its own rules.

Then distinguish reality from fantasy.

I overthink others’ reactions to me. How do you know that’s me? Sorry, my mind is prone to err…

What is thought? What is rationality? What is man? What is animal? 

Self-movement is a question of relationships and reflections. Pull my string. Or is it my leash? 

Then what is intellect?

A tower of babel. or babble. Oh I got it: experimentation of the experience of environment and embodiment. How about this: the e-motional limit as it approaches words and equipment. 

Do you mind that I put us at risk by reading beneath the surface? 

I’m gathering evidence.

When something changes is it still itself?

What do you think I am? I’d like to remember myself as I was. I mean am. I mean will be. I mean what I am not. You know what I mean. 

Is God a He? Does God look like me?

If so, then I don’t exist.

Is seeing believing?

Only with selective attention. I’m over here. 

Am I somebody or just deceived?

I can only make judgements about things that are known to me and things I am still unaware: I am a thinking thing. I in a stable. Neigh. 

Is I dependent on what I invent?

What use is imagination if I can’t cover myself up. I am missing a puzzle piece. What’s the big picture?

I think I am, so I exist?

Please tell me that I matter. I heard in the dark outer space, you are weightless because no external force of contact is there to hold you. I wish I could fall for you.

What is the nature of the human mind?

My body is angry that you don’t listen to it. 

Signed

Re/TRN

Sherese Francis is an Alkymist of the I-Magination and expresses her(e)self through poetry, interdisciplinary arts, workshop facilitation, editing and literary curation. Her(e) work takes inspiration from her(e) Afro-Caribbean heritage (Barbados and Dominica), and studies in Afrofuturism and Black Speculative Arts, mythology and etymology. Some of her(e) work has been published in Furious Flower, Obsidian, Apex Magazine, Bone Bouquet, African Voices, and Newtown Literary. Additionally, Sherese has published three chapbooks, Lucy’s Bone Scrolls (Three Legged Elephant), Variations on Sett/ling Seed/ling (Harlequin Creature), and Recycling a Why That Rules Over My Sacred Sight (DoubleCross Press).