Kap, Here’s an anthem you can stand for!  

I had the honor and Privilege to perform the National Anthem for my super awesome friend’s retirement ceremony, after 26 years of serving this country like a BOSS! She contributed so much in her position and is still planning to do more in this next phase of life. I wish you nothing but the best (goon).

The best part was the creative privilege I was given to do it as I best know how (cause ya girl cant sing…yet). I wanted to take that opportunity to honor her as well as those who I feel needed a moment of recognition (we only got this moment anyway!).  Black women, we know the weight we bear, whether others acknowledge it or not. And since only women can give birth, I think you know your role…

and now, your FEATURE PRESENTATION!

She’s An Anthem

Oh say can you see her

All black, all girl, more than magic – more like, creation

For by dawns early light she was already there – perched in permanence

Speaking light into existence, light don’t shine with her permittance, you see her

The black woman

Don’t she look like the universe? Be universe right hand, that’s universe twin – you see it

Her blackness.

It’s what so proudly you hailed as this nations scar. As less than human despite  being the genesis, you remember this – how in the beginning there was darkness, birthing a million nations she be the greatest mother,

The yes ma’am on your tongue, ye to which you say amen, she is not the bruise you choose to cover up.

Band-aid we need to level up, to heal, to be the mother of all there is, was, and will – be a reminder

That even,

At your twilight’s last gleaming she will still be there -being- everything, still being, the only example of infinite, it’s funny isn’t it. how within the very color you despise lies your entire existence.

Lies the truth you tried to smudge out but, black woman be sage

Ancestral clouds of heroics to the save, still Super, with that black power, power, out here

Caped in melanin

Swallowing the sun for energy

whose broad stripes shooting from her bright stars must have blindingly flagged your ignorance in ownership

In the universe and her gift.

Got you thinking something she birthed, is yours. Got you thinking those she sent to build it, is  yours

Got you forgetting the hero, is all black, more than magic, the keeper of creation.

Cradling galaxies and nursing the off-spring of its stars, it is our milky ways your child craves.

Black woman, been feeding you life, even

Through the perilous fight, she let you taste the universe and ain’t she good?

Black woman, be better than raisins in your potato salad but still,

O’er the ramparts you watched the black woman, become a raisin under her son, still grape enough to be fruitful, fruitful enough to raise the sun, bright as it were,

So gallantly streaming, but still trying to outshine the SOURCE!

And the rockets red glare, of another galactic creation, another big – banging- black girl whose world, you’ll rise and set to

The bombs bursting in air to remind you that she, is to be celebrated

As holiday – she reigns as royalty in your DNA, you exist as

proof through the night, she, is the night

The only one strong enough to hold all this chaos, Strong enough to let you forget her, to let you think she don’t matter, strong enough that even when she shatters her greatness is cloned.

Dispersed amongst the masses who thinks the flag is still there, upon her back, upon her throat

Tried to brand her cause they weren’t the brand of her.

Silence her so you wouldn’t know who to pray to.

Tried to claim her, last name her, blame, chain, and change her

But she will always be maiden.

Always be the first of the last you’ll answer to

oh say, can’t you see that black girl? She be the one you cant close your eyes to

Behind eyelids, looking a lot like peace, like, she who lay you down to sleep

She be your guide; your left, your right

She be colonel – she in command. She enter, you stand, it’s presidential

Era, Michelle and Barak

Black girl be this work rock – you see her

all star spangled across the banner of your origin,

with so much more magic yet to wave upon the born again, this girl, be born again.

the greatest replica o’er the land

From the roots of her toes, the trunks of her thighs, hair like the crowns of trees and the gravity it defies

Black girl be poetry, still, she rise

Out of the drudgery of your dismissal, turning corruption into life

God in human form, God be black as night – and no ways tired,

She’s negro spiritual – the hymn to sing your free

Breaking every chain she be all the strength you need

She be always surviving, keeper of the souls

Does what no man can, knows what no man knows, yes

SHE’S AN ANTHEM

The song of the lands she gave, this is hers

Home of the Black Woman – she, be the brave

J.Mahogany (c) 2019

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Chat with me here anytime, but better access on FB and IG: Jess Mahogany