When You Are Black And In America...

Jean François Millet, "Woman and Child (Silence)"
Date: 1855
Medium, Oil on canvas
Inscribed lower right: J.F.M.

Sounds from "Silence"-stereo and high quality by kwahmah_02 -- https://freesound.org/s/320807/ -- License: Creative Commons 0

mouthsounds | Vol. 2 Ep. 1 | Jean-François Millet

"menfolk who forget to be men speak as one voice:"

in here we remember prayers
from behind the white teeth
of our great-great-great visionaries
grandmas’ hands inside old
pictures are maps before maps were
unbounded space we know
where we’ve come from
are you present
here now in the front room
all over these walls are dark moons
glass reflecting menfolk they left
some like your daddy
they left their children too
you don’t hear anything
coming from those back rooms
soft brown face
inside of you is water
what will be made of you
you must answer before we proceed
hush hush
do not be afraid if you feel
somebody calling your name
over your shoulder
if you hear humming
beneath the floor
listen

Sound: Male Croud Talking by Manim8 -- https://freesound.org/s/503342/ -- License: Creative Commons 0

mouthsounds | Vol. 3 Ep. 1 | Marlanda Dekine

"yard work" by Marlanda Dekine

i need natural light to focus
on everyone we’ve known
i pour my love into ms lou’s bottle
making a hurricane smile
with her dancing
i nail reflectors on every fence
pour white paint over dolls
play like sun peeking hiding
reflecting off pots
why not make my own damn rainbow
watch us work light into focus
inside the face of a purple hydrangea
are my kindest great-grands’ crowns
imperfect as they will be we prepare
our hands to sift sand for tells of their future lying
pieces of old jars forgotten bottles
beneath clay we love to make
something out of nothing
like gods in training
i want to be a good ancestor
want you to watch us work
before dusk raking dirt to rid evil
this is our family way of being
these dolls are doors
to everyone i've ever seen
watch us work and love it yes
we are tricksters
toddling is how i start
play until something takes me
into the before and after us
that calls itself i
we make magic you hear
watch us we make magic

mouthsounds | Vol. 3 Ep. 2 | Marlanda Dekine

excerpt from "On Love" by Kahlil Gibran

Love gives naught but itself and takes
naught but from itself.
     Love possesses not nor would it be
possessed;
     For love is sufficient unto love.
 
     When you love you should not say,
“God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am
in the heart of God.”
     And think not you can direct the course
of love, for love, if it finds you worthy,
directs your course.
 
     Love has no other desire but to fulfil
itself.
     But if you love and must needs have
desires, let these be your desires:
     To melt and be like a running brook
that sings its melody to the night.
     To know the pain of too much tenderness.
     To be wounded by your own under-
standing of love;
     And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
     To wake at dawn with a winged heart
and give thanks for another day of loving;

mouthsounds | Vol. 3 Ep. 3 | Kahlil Gibran

Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow
BY ROBERT DUNCAN

as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,   
that is not mine, but is a made place,

that is mine, it is so near to the heart,   
an eternal pasture folded in all thought   
so that there is a hall therein

that is a made place, created by light   
wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall.

Wherefrom fall all architectures I am
I say are likenesses of the First Beloved   
whose flowers are flames lit to the Lady.

She it is Queen Under The Hill
whose hosts are a disturbance of words within words   
that is a field folded.

It is only a dream of the grass blowing   
east against the source of the sun
in an hour before the sun’s going down

whose secret we see in a children’s game   
of ring a round of roses told.

Often I am permitted to return to a meadow   
as if it were a given property of the mind   
that certain bounds hold against chaos,

that is a place of first permission,   
everlasting omen of what is.

Robert Duncan, “Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow” from The Opening of the Field. Copyright © 1960 by Robert Duncan. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Source: Selected Poems (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1993)

mouthsounds | Vol. 3 Ep. 4 | Robert Duncan

mouthsounds | Vol. 4 Ep. 1 | What Does Your Art Want?

Art is a labor of depth, emotional, financial, and spiritual depth, and work. People will never be able to pay you what it is worth, but we value ourselves by accounting for our time, materials, and deliverables. When we begin an art project, we say yes to ourselves or an external request for creativity. You may choose to start accounting for your labor when you sign the contract...when you send emails organizing collaboration...when you paint the first brushstroke, or when you record the first track or write the first line. When you do anything related to the execution of your artwork, you are in labor to the artwork. Please honor that time, for yourself, your family, and others.

Marlanda Dekine

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