“Nebet”
Isis wings
Wadjet's body is threaded in gold in the hall of strange cats
I am Hetpet
I am Nebet
He is Ra
I am a Ka
The late-night paparazzi encircles weird butterflies
A pair of ambrosial Twins are escorted to Mata’s soiree in Lagos and Morocco among the falling
ruins
I am a mask
A tall actor playing a Priest points a gun
He fell through a trap door that led to espionage with a foreign Black man.
The night valet wasn't really himself, he was being chased by a paid marksman sailing on a
pontoon
Murder.
An ambassador flies
Open 24 hours
Liquor
On air.
Closed
Driver
I am the night distilled in the Temple
of the moon’s disk and daughter to the throne
I am sister to Osiris
I am Nubia
I am Kemet.
I am Wabet
I am Queen
I am Egypt
I am Isis
I am the eye of Horus who sees things seen and unseen that sends tingles down the spine
Knows all tells all.
I am a pyramid
Daughter of Ra
Sing hymns to the cat goddess
I am Hetpet.
I am Nebet.
He is Ra
I am a Ka
VIP Lounge
Detour
Happy Hour
Dancer.
The high sisters walk together in Memphis
Lady of stars
The lion rises in the East
My mirror is a stream of lotuses
The king's wife was a stolen consort
She was a sleek lady of cats
My black eyes are deep and heavily lined now awaken like a debonair magician’s stage magic
from behind the velvet drape
Step right up boys and girls! Step right up!
I am the royal wife to the falcon who bathes in red.
The Black twin shakes the sistrum while the White twin laughs
I am the winged crown sought from the Nile Reeds who sees watchful eyes on her lissome body as jaws dropped
Incense wefts through the temple as the Jackal God changed color
I was exotic flora adorned in faience beads that spread out wide clasped around my neck steeped in the ornaments of Netjer thousands of years old
Regalia
Smoke Shop.
Bar.
Turn left
At midnight I was chauffeur driven through the gates of the leisure class
Politics submerged in a cigarette ash
I am Hetpet
I am Nebet
He is Ra
I am a Ka
Yield
Cocktails.
Open Late.
Taproom
After hours
Egypt
Exit
* * * * *
“Black Lives Matter Be Still My Chatter”
The Liberty Bell hath rung her chime
Leroy Phillips puts on his Sunday best to worship in the House of the Lord
I was force fed scriptures that were not from Africa left me in a confused daze, and I was later whipped
while I was a scrubbin’ and a cleanin’ working hard for colorism and going nowhere from it but in circles,
and I was never good enough while I was humiliated over a boiling a pot of water
Mira's dark-skinned baby girl is learning to walk on clouds.
Troy was a curly haired mid tone brown complected Black man and his eyes were the lightest sky blue
color in Lynnwood Washington
Manner of death; police officer open fire on a 24 year old unarmed Black male
He was murdered by the jingo cops with nationalistic pride.
His life didn't matter.
His grandmother was 70 crying in a Baptist Church for 400 years.
Her life didn't matter.
America we're losing our unemployment as we die.
Death curdles on the sly dressed as a covid pandemic that rages in its sobering horror while our Black
blood is shed in multiple bullet wounds broadcasted in soundbites on the weekend news at eleven
The Executive Branch is a Russian Interchange
He was a President for the well-to-do for the hungry bigot who dons a badge to declare war on a Black
Man's Freedom that bled
Our Pride is woven in the stripes and stars of the American Flag of a Buffalo Soldier man’s vocal chords that
calleth you out of the wilderness of your sleep under a starry night on the battlefield
He is Nationalism encapsulated and the attempted rape of our democracy
United We Stand
Liberty hangs in the balance of our 50 states and our freedom's breath of our nation was founded upon
stolen colonies from the Hopi and the Iroquoi
Divided We Fall
America stands on the blood of my Black Ancestry that was looted and forced into labor in the torturous
shackles on the plantations of Virginia.
Black Lives Matter Be Still My Chatter.
Liberation Day meets a bullet.
Injustice hops on milliseconds
Juneteenth was only yesterday and cops are trigger happy so they execute,spill the blood of, and murder
our Black children in the spirit of malice against our oppressed and defamed nationality that dripped the
sweat and blood of our ancestors who toiled day and night under the slavemaster’s whip on our back and
they still hate our skin that is pigmented in Black ebony of our defenseless people young and old and
singled us out for our unruly grade of hair, our melanated skin, and our Black Ibo Tribe facial features and
used our bodies as target practice for the cops as we were ripped from our homeland and our mothers
were raped while spirituals were sung in the antebellum
Black children's lives don't matter.
Our mother's are shot and killed.
Her life didn't matter.
I can't breathe.
His life didn't matter.
Found hanging dead in a jail cell.
Her life didn't matter
Pigmented in melanin.
My Black life didn't matter.
Fatally shot to death by a White police officer.
My Black life didn't matter.
I was mentally ill.
My Black life didn't matter.
Black Lives Matter Be Still My Chatter.
Buying skittles at the grocery.
His life didn't matter.
Shot dead several times in Ferguson.
His life didn't matter.
I was at home asleep in my bed.
Her life didn't matter.
I was ruined by the west
My Black life didn’t matter
Racial Equality and the American Dream.
My Black life didn't matter.
I was an interracial child.
My Black life didn't matter.
Jim Crow.
My life didn't matter.
We live in a melting pot.
My life didn't matter
The Diaspora.
My life didn't matter.
The Civil war.
My life didn't matter.
The Black Church.
My life didn't matter.
The Civil Rights Movement.
My life didn't matter.
From sea to shining sea.
My life didn't matter.
Sold into slavery.
My life didn't matter.
I was a Black trans woman.
My life didn't matter.
I got called a nigger.
My Black life didn't matter, never did.
Innocent until proven guilty.
My Black life didn't matter.
I fell through the cracks.
My Life didn't matter.
I was a victim of self hate
My life didn’t matter
2020.
Our lives don't matter.
Black lives matter. Be Still my chatter.
* * * * *
“Match in Nairobi ”
For Antoinette
Midnight pours out the scent of painted snapdragons as she played a game of Bao with a foreign goat
dressed in a tuxedo in Nairobi city Inc.
Her body language was serious, then her hands were motioning a man to follow her into a complex
pipedream in a village of streets that fester in ghettos painted in gray
While the fathomless eyes of a fragmented city are lost under the black skies of the American divide
My opponent rose in Jacksonville and gathered water along a threadbare delta
I was loitering in California on a politician’s lawn under a scarlet sun
My brown skin was scintillating in Verona
You spewed out your mother tongue during a game of Bao
Lies were bought and sold
You bottled your joy waged war on Native soil
I lost my mansions
At sunrise I served you Southern molasses and egg whites
I could barely utter a sound in my frayed apron among the Texan plain
You hated my black skin
I was then a boy you taught to run
You were nestled in the Scottish foothills my Father
I was then your caliginous daughter born again
Run free hope in the wilderness with quaking rivers and black sparrows
I took down my altar and I was the oldest of the female sex
I was marauded at sea
I drifted among lotus flowers lost in the ruins of Arabia
You were my make believe suitor rooted in reality turned rival
You married a modern caricature of a socialite that was your sister-wife in Sacramento, for she was a portly bride
I tango to a disco beat
Clouds dance over the mare
Wanton spinsters banished to a rainforest carrying their wine
My next opponent was a rainstorm
He courted winged fairies and played the Clarinet off key with an R&B Jazz ensemble,
He was friends with the drummer man who was the Emperor of Black Winds carrying his drink with a new woman
The Queen of Marigolds lost at a televised game of Bao that wasn’t worth a Bride’s dowry in Africa
She became a dispossessed queen of the mad on a carousel of forbidden flowers that dive for water.
Midnight poured out the scent of painted snapdragons as she played a game of Bao with a foreign goat dressed in a tuxedo in Nairobi city Inc.
* * * * *
“Hod”
Native Lands
Chokmah and Binah
The Brown and the Red Man
Blackfoot and Cree
Red Smoke
Womb Rhythm
Dance Rhythm Eagle
Dancing Bear Rhythm
Sing Peyote Man
He has many forms
Tiphereth
Sing Star Woman
Drum
Wounded Deer
Black Smoke
Soaring Heaven Child
Hod
Our Runaway Black Ancestor is mixed-blood we call him Standing Cloud
Red Smoke
Earth Spirit
Thunder
Rain Water
Yesod
Song
* * * * *
Dancing Rabbits
Puppets wear top hats
Empty nightclubs in Harlem
Dancing rabbits hop.
About the Poet
Tiffany N. Haty
Tiffany N. Haty is an emerging writer, poet, and author of “The Tall Night of the Nyekundu Woman” and the “Depth of Words Spoken” published in aaduna’s spring 2016 issue. Ms. Haty, part Black, was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. Though studious, she could not afford college after graduating from high school in 1989. However, she later attended Seattle Central Community College in 1990. She dabbled in drawing and painting during her high school years and again while at the community college. When she could not continue to pay tuition, she withdrew from classes to work as a customer service representative in telecommunications. However, Tiffany’s life was interrupted by an unforeseen event which resulted in much hardship that changed her forever. After years of being plagued with severe emotional problems, Ms. Haty decided to take classes at the Seattle Goodwill Job Training and Education Center. Her writing teacher suggested she submit a homework assignment to various publications. Her creative nonfiction piece was later published in aaduna in 2016. Tiffany also received a certificate of Outstanding Achievement for her writing from the Seattle Goodwill.
Tiffany’s writing draws heavily on dreams, images, Mother Nature, and multiethnic themes. She states her “ writing is for people with an open mind…[that] comes from her soul, and she may write about foreign cultures, distant lands or her current reality from a place of love and respect for humanity.” In her spare time, Tiffany enjoys creative writing, reading, yoga, learning about ancient civilizations, listening to music, socializing, fur babies, philanthropy, watching fantasy/adventure movies, as well as comedies. She would like to rediscover electronic games like Ms. Pac Man, Space Invaders, and playing darts. In the future, she aspires to publish her first book,
a collection of prose poems. She dedicates her writing to the loving memory of her beloved parents, Cosmo and Joyce, and her cat Midnight. Ms. Haty currently resides in Seattle, Washington.