3 Poems By Poet Morgan Parker That Are Just So Brooklyn
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Poet Morgan Parker is a Bed-Stuy resident who’s collection of poems, Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night, was selected by Eileen Myles for the 2013 Gatewood Prize. Her highly anticipated second collection of poems, There Are More Beautiful things than Beyonce, is set to release in February 2017.
According to an interview published on Brooklynpoets.org back in July of 2014, Parker stated she moved to Brooklyn after living in Manhattan for five years.
“I moved to Brooklyn three years ago after five years in Manhattan, which is a place I barely remember anymore. Last year I moved from Clinton Hill to Bed-Stuy, right across from the O.D.B. mural, and I’m in love with it,” she stated. “I love living around so many folks of color, being close to my job at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA) and being walking distance from friends. Also, Tip Top Bar and Grill.”
I personally read a number of poems by Parker and three of them stuck out to me for being SO BROOKLYN. Read them below and then head over to click here to read more of her work.
Morgan What, Morgan Who?
Do not bark up that tree. That tree will fall on you. –Jay Z
Yes and I am
dreading the New Year
I say to my mother
on Christmas when she asks
if I am really
that bitter. I spit
at the nickname
you hand me—a kink
in vinyl where
needle sticks
and repeats between
my legs. Leaving my lips
you’re cheap liquor
lusty and sad
over my blueprint.
Peep all these inches
left un-bruised, crowned
with dried leaves
and spilling
out of my shirt.
I have an appetite, make
lightposts go down when you
call me baby. Baby, don’t
forget who’s quitting who,
who is harvested
and who sows.
Careful with that
face of yours: you know
this weather
is my fault.
Trains get lost, roads flood
worry and charcoal.
Motherfuckers
better duck.
— Originally published in Forklift, Ohio, Winter 2013.
Magical Negro #80: BROOKLYN
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Here is the bright, young food co-op.
Here is the steeple. Here are the royals
not yet dead. Here are the Niggas With
Amethyst crystals. Shea butter
halos orbit half-shaved heads bowed
for vindication. Our mother patchouli
who art in the apothecary on Flatbush
hallowed be your Dutch wax dress.
Give us this day we light soy candles
for dead brothers. Give us this day we soak
our supremacy wounds.
Give us this day.
Give us fresh juice green
as avocados, and strength
to dismantle Fox news. We are marching
even in our sleep. We are reading
DuBois, getting high off the salt eaters.
Thy kingdom come to yoga. Thy will
be a black feminist Tumblr. Thy will is not
our struggle. Forgive us. We have gathered
to learn to pronounce freedom.
Procession body roll, communion oysters
with prosecco. Roses for our waist beads.
We have moved away from suburbia.
Now we live on Saturn.
We don’t pray anymore
the way our parents taught us.
Instead we stack our arms
with wood and music
hatches from our tongue rings.
Hymns for the dead, hookahs for
the almost-dead. Praise our half-lives.
Our bodies break but we still sage them.
We wrote the good book: instructions
for building new worlds.
Lead us not into white neighborhoods.
Deliver us from microaggressions.
Blessed are we who mourn, we who
are a blood built on a hill of embers.
We no mail-order hipster black wife.
We just trying to text our moms.
We are what we eat, leafy and anointed.
We are who we serve: banquets and bouquets
forever, foreverever, foreverever.
— Originally published on BuzzFeed.
Two White Girls in the African Braid Shop on Marcy and Fulton
Does it hurt. Why did you come here. What do you want. Are you filming this. Do you live in this neighborhood. Do you have a picture. Do you feel comfortable. Can I ask is that a weave. Why do you feel comfortable. Is the neighborhood treating you well. Do you read the news. Where’s your real hair. Do you like America. Are you filming this. How much. Dollars. Did you hear about the trial. Where are we going after this. I heard it was non-indictment. I have been listening. Nigerian soap operas. Praise Be to God. Did you just take a picture of me. How do you feel about America. Is it too late. Reminds me of TV plantations. You’ll get the shoes when I have enough money. Stop crying. Your mother loves you. Not too tight because I am tender. Not too big because I want it to last. Why did you come here. You know with everything that’s been going on these days. Do the radios stay on all night. Does anyone tell a baby who they are. Who they have to keep being. How did you sleep. Your soft kitchen. Dark nipples. This is when we say our prayers. Women fill with infants and butter. Who are you texting. Did we make reservations. What language. Bodies so black they syrup. Hair so black there are no windows. The smell of burnt rope. How long will it be. How long do you want it. I know you. I wish I were you. I want to drag my toes in something I finally own. Do you know it only gets worse from here. Cash only.
— Originally published on Pen.org
