when someone asks you why it hurts the earth to pull one flower from a field of flowers, tell them you are the lilac or the hibiscus, growing and sunbathing in a community of natural color, and you know a lot of kinfolk who have the same roots. tell them your kind of people are […]

Written as a gentle reminder to be in tune with your whole self. Let the music play when joy dances with sorrow.🖤 Check out the audio version & its remix, on all streaming platforms. Give yourself some flowers By Marcus Amaker, Poet Laureate of Charleston, SC And in the beginning, God gave your body a […]

On a head full of hair, there will always be weak strands. Knots on the brain are also knots in the stomach. Itch buildup. Gut-touched twists too tight on the scalp. Don’t cut them off or wish for an unraveling. Instead, be thankful that dry skin can still wear a crown. Be aware of the […]

(a poem about Miles Davis) As if the ability to blow into a horn is more important than the ego balloon it took to suck the air out of a woman’s voice. As if Sketches of Spain is anything but a masterpiece. As if calling yourself “the prince of darkness” is something to be proud […]

I met America at a neighborhood bar. He offered me a shot of rum and I reminded him that Captain Morgan was a slave owner, so the bartender awkwardly slipped another liquid lie down my throat. I ordered another drink and was channeled by dark spirits. The courage of black ghosts who haunt American dreams. […]

Episode 1 Battle droid theory: Turn war into fetish, make army of robots. Episode 2 Soldiers are now slaves in galaxies of mass graves, programmed for violence. Episode 3 Fear is mutation, soul transformation and sin when man starts to kill. Episode 4 The family back home: Echoes and faint memories of life before war. […]

written with Asiah Mae. Commissioned by Mayor John J. Tecklenburg for the removal of the Calhoun monument in Charleston, SC. I. There is a shadow that no one talks about We allow it to reside among us in our supermarkets In our schools At festivals where willing ignorant laughter topples over the chatter of my […]