musicians and their teachers: musicians, and their teachers, musicians and their teachers! musicians and their teachers the mamas & the papas who feed and love the musicians and their teachers the miracles that make musicians and their teachers say aren’t you glad u learnt yr scales yr rounds & bach chorales long tones listen to their sounds closely but the musicians and their teachers the temptations of sweet sorrow in each breath of sarah vaughn howling out mean to me musicians and their teachers
ntozake and jessica
ntozake and jessica holding hands draping their lovers each other in satin don’t need it to be true to be real don’t need it to be wrong either just need it
exchange
exchange the cat was cop-watching and the cop was cat-watching Black cat fast cat bad kitty prettyprettyprettypretty it’s 20 years past the millennium the pope can still give a kick like an old spaniard ship dope across the atlantic and there’s water on the moon! and we own it and we drink it and bottle it out of atlanta
y y y
y y y must i only be concerned for those in my country, we do things differently in my four corners my border? y y y my block my home my body my bone y y y There are a billion women inside my body and all of them look like me. There are a billion women waiting to meet me. You look at me like you can see right through me. A billion women / invisible / but there.
Untitled Ambiguous Poem
how alike we are but could not prove it to you because even if we met it would not be enuf only time fuses us never got that time and so resigned to it (now) I once believed in fate, but (now) I believe in it more. Contingency. Fact is, you’re not in control what fate really is Out of Control
Poem In Honor of Pedro Pietri
My professor vibed me out While I was trying to avoid the truth Of the matter of the mass Of smoking grass on Sunday afternoon For Pedro drunken poet of my dreams Who wrapped his words in wisdom painful alcoholism The drunkard’s final words were: Go get me some wine while yr at it Decanted recanted enchanted Proof of a man gone too soon
Untitled Love Poem
i feel safer on a clean bus feel cleaner on a safe bus feel darker on a bad day feel badder on a dark day bad bad girl can’t stay awake no more she sleeps on the ground / park yr ass! park yr ass on the grass for today can’t stay awake randomsoliloquie dancing with nikki she tells she tells me she tells me things that i would like to know how she knows me and loves me babybabybaby buh buh love bug give me a sigh / love shrug are you in my dreams tonight? i’m willing to bet are you in my happy place? no lemme guess at the gym?! i picture you in every place every city of the world
CWTTY+ by (Liv).e – Review
In the midst of the ongoing nightmare that is the COVID-19 pandemic, (Liv).e released the gorgeous Couldn’t Wait to Tell You…
It knocked my socks off. I watched the entire livestream of the album release party. My partner, who I was living with at the time, soon became sick-to-death of my endless re-listening. It struck a big chord with me on an emotional level. Imagine my delight when this little EP, CWTTY+, drops exactly a year later.
The opening track (“_21”) represents the elusive “final track” of the album, hence its name. It’s got a delicious samba feel that makes you feel like you’re floating. The lyrics are about a romance that just didn’t quite work out, although they said it would work out in the long run (“he said if i could only string along”). You’re left with the feeling that although it might not have worked out, holding on to that lover in their head was still worth it.
The second track, aptly titled “Lessons Reprised,” reworks track 5 from the album in a trippy little number.
Which takes us to the third track, “Winter Songs,” where Liv.e reminds us that “real niggas don’t freeze up,” not even in the wintertime. There are themes of insomnia, hustling, and being cheated out of your money. It actually recycles lyrics from Track 9 of the album (“Cut To The Chase”):
lovers will be slipping and sliding… artists will be bopping and writing dreams will be streaking it’s frightening i gotta.. kite on my house phone and its waiting on lightning i mean.. i be waiting on phone calls like.. what are you on.. you got my money? y’know? i be tip toeing on ice..
This brilliant interweaving of the album into the EP is outdone only by the Little Beaver reference on the next track, “Party Life,” which references the famous track by Little Beaver, “Get Into the Party Life.” Liv.e makes her influences known to those paying attention, and those steeped in hip hop history will recall the People Under The Stairs’ sample of the same track. Liv.e’s reference is particularly exciting because she’s bringing the old into the new through lyricism and paying respect to the elders.
Tracks 5 & 6 are special too, but not the way the first four tracks hold a special place for me. Track 6 is a beautiful and psychedelic send-off to one of the best albums of 2020. Get into this party life!
letter to a friend
i dream about you a lot. i don’t tell you because i don’t want you to get the right idea. when i take journeys in my dreams sometimes you will accompany me and sometimes i will encounter you on the way. you never say anything. i wonder if this means you’re talking and i’m not listening.
twilight of the dolls
at dawn when i can trick my brain into thinking it’s dusk and vice-versa how joyous it is to know we die so that we may live i will not meet you again but how joyous it is to know i would die for you every day people are already fleeing this place even as they flee toward it they are only fleeing through it the way one moves toward the threat bright light//white heat the fight in-flight
Aida Rends 