"SHOT FROM A BURNING ARROW"

Shot from a burning arrow into a flaming womb
Was it a random choice to a bride from a groom?

Was it by chance or was it all a plan?

Did I win the battle because I was strong?
I made it but was it a mistake or was it wrong?

In a split second I could have been someone else or not at all
I know that I am not here because of humans plan

No one said: it’s just what I wanted! It’s a girl!
Welcome to the world!

Did God in heaven rejoice when I was born?
Did the angels in heaven rejoice when I was born?

Or was it a sad occasion, just another sin child added to the world?

I NEVER FOUNG MY PLACE. I TRAVLED ALL ALONE.
I BECAME CONFUSED AND AFRAID
SO I STARTED TO RUN!

"RUNNING"

I have been running for so long
Running! Running! Running!
I have been running for so very long
Running through rivers
Running through storms
Afraid! Afraid! Afraid!
Afraid so I run
I run, I run, I run!

I ran to a place I thought I was safe
I felt safe, I felt secure, I thought I was wise
I thought the world’s troubles were soon to end
I lost touch with reality

I realized that I had been living in an illusion
That’s when my mind walked off and left me

I SAID:

My mind has walked off and left me
All I have left is the pain, confusion and the blues left behind
I don’t know what is right or wrong
All I know is that I have got the blues and I am all alone

My mind is gone
Everybody look down on me and say it is my own fault that I am crazy

I can’t eat, I can’t sleep
and it is all because I tried to love

I lived a “Share Cropper’s Nightmare”
I couldn't work in the fields
couldn't pick that cotton
couldn't pull that corn
The overseer told me I had to go
couldn't live in his house no more

"SHATTERED HEART"

My heart was shattered!

"KICKED WHILE DOWN"

I got kicked while I was down

They told me to give up because I couldn't win

"GIVE UP YOU CAN'T WIN"

My head was messed up. I didn’t know my left from my right
I was as low as I could go, I lived in disgrace

"HEAD FULL OF QUESTIONS"

My head was filled with so many questions until I wished I was dead
I lived in confusion and traveled through a maze

"WOMAN IN MAZE"

I said I knew the truth
I said I lived the truth

But in reality I lived a lie
I pretended to be what I was not
My past was hidden even from me
I repressed the truth for so long until
I actually forgot it

I condemned others for sins that
I forgot I use to practice

I lived in fear
I was afraid that someone might know the truth about me
I lived a lie because of the fear of rejection

I pretended to be wise, to have understanding
But I was filled with only remembered information

I said I was happy but inside I was dying
I was tired and loaded down with guilt

When I was asked: How are you doing?
I was never: Fine! Wonderful! or Great!
I never said that God had blessed me
Rather I blamed the world for my miserable condition
therefore I was not responsible to make things different

God sent his Son to cover my sins but I did like Adam and Eve
I tried to cover my own sins. I wouldn’t even tell myself the truth
I wouldn’t or couldn’t confess my sins to myself

Man told me I was righteous, that God approved of me and I tried to live this lie
But living this illusion was too much for me.
Therefore I faced the truth. I was conceived in sin, an off spring of Adam and Eve.

I had lived in an illusion for so long until I didn't know how to live in reality
the truth just seems to give into the lie

I said it would never happen to me but reality is kicking in and just like B. B. King said:
“I look into the mirror and it tells me the truth, gone are the days of my youth!”

I agree: Lord have mercy on me because I can’t help but accept the truth
I am old and gone are the days of my youth.
This wouldn’t be so bad if I had not cast my youth to the win.

Gone are the days of my youth! Of God please forgive me for my sin,
please let me do it all over again?

I worked for forty years to live forever
and now I don’t want to live until tomorrow.
Somebody please tell me if I am living in an illusion.
Is this world really coming to a conclusion?

I was just one big ?

"QUESTIONS"

I don’t know nothing and I don’t know nobody
Once I thought I knew everything

But now I see the real me. Why?
Because God has put eyes all over me

"EYES ALL OVER ME"

Now I know the truth and I will not live a lie
The truth is that I don’t know nothing and I don’t know nobody
I see many things but I don’t know what I see
not until God in his own way and own time explains it to me

I don’t know nobody
even though I might have talked with them
I might have walked with them
I might have slept with them
But the truth still remains;
I don’t know nothing and I don’t know nobody

Now that I can see the truth, my life is very ugly
but I must see the truth in order to be sat free
Jesus said to know the truth and be sat free
I know the truth and I have been sat free
I am at peace with God because I have confessed
my sins and He has forgiven me

NOTHING OR NO ONE IS TAKING ME BACK!!! I AM GOING-----

"FORWARD"

"A LEAK IN MY HEART"

(3-26-1994 6:14 a.m.)

There must be a leak in my heart
because no matter how hard I try it is always empty

It is like a bucket with a hole in it
I have drained a river dry trying to fill up my heart

I have gotten wise---only a fool would spend a lifetime
trying to fill up a bucket with a hole in it!

It is time for me to stop trying to fill my heart
It is time to spend my time mending the hole in my heart

I will never get enough love, sex, pleasure, or things
I will never be able to fill my heart if it keeps leaking

"I CAN'T GET ENOUGH"

For fifty-one years I have been trying to fill my heart
Trying to get ride of the empty feeling, the craving for more
Always hungry for more, never enough!
I am always in want of heart
Always trying to fill my heart by doing more works

I could never do enough works to fill my heart
But then I taken a look at my tears
and I saw that I had more tears than I did works
Therefore I asked my God to measure my tears

I stand before my God and he no longer measure my works.
He now measure my tears

"MEASURE MY TEARS"

I have cried a river of bloody tears

"RIVER OF BLOODY TEARS"

AFRAID TO BE REAL!!!

"CONFUSED WOMAN"

I felt like a black woman passing for white
being a member of the KKK

Blackness! Blackness! Blackness!
Go away! Go away! Go away!
You don’t have to stay away
Just leave me until I leave this KKK meeting
Then you can come back my way

Whiteness! Whiteness! Whiteness!
Please stay with me until from this
KKK meeting I have made my get away

Tension! Tension! Tension!
Running clear to the sky
If that old Blackness don’t stay away
For sure my life will be taken today

I made my get away
I am no longer under feet!

"UNDER FOOT"

I got tired of being walked upon
I will not be walked upon any more
not even if you take off your shoes
I no longer sale myself for a nickel
I no longer sale myself for a dime
Money up front, you can’t buy me on time
You can’t find me at “K-MART” or “WAL-MART”
I am one of a kind I am not massed produced
I AM HARD TO FIND

I didn't know what to do with what I have
I was like a puppet handing upside down

"UP SIDE DOWN"

I have traveled this life of mine with my head on backward
But it is now time to take inventory
I just received the news that pain is for sale, at fifty dollars a pound
I have a yoke of pain around my neck for sale

"YOKE OF PAIN"

I am now counting and I am not even half way
and I am already a billion air

Good morning sunshine! Good by pain!
Now it is time for me to receive God’s grace!
Move over I have got to have space!

"SPACE"

Space, Space, Space, I must have space to grow!

I am in a cramped place

"CRAMP SPACE"

I am told that beauty resides within me
But unless it is allowed outside
how in the world am I to know

Like a peacock who’s tail has been cut and bound
not allowed to grow and spread

Trapped and enslaved in a space not suitable for the living, only the dead

I am bound by man’s rules
They think I don’t have a mind of my own
My rights and my wrongs should be
what’s taught in their schools
My “RULERS” those more powerful than I

"A RULER"

They make muddy the water I have to drink
They make bloody the streets I have to walk
They say I am not able to think
They condemn the way I talk

Now God’s grace is operating on me
The time is here, time to be set FREE
The chains have been broken, I am FREE
I am unbounded and seeking my space
In God’s grace I am growing!
I am growing! I am growing! I am growing!
Move over I have got to have SPACE!

DON’T TRY TO STOP ME BECAUSE I AM DETERMINE!!!

“DETERMINATION”

As I have no paint, only the little bits in the bottoms of the bottles I have used up.
I am determine to not feel sorry for myself.
I am determine to paint this night, this hour, right now!

It is like the cigarettes ends or buts I use to see the poor blacks smoking.
I remember watching the poor blacks trying to get those “spider webs”
(the end of the corn liquor left in the bottles).
They held their heads back as far as it would go
as they consumed that last drop of corn liquor.

I know what it feels like to be a poor black woman.
And that is bad enough.
But I am blessed to experience what my young black children
and all people who feel that they have no hope.
My heart goes out to them.
And for some reason that I cannot put into words
I feel especially related to young black males.
I wish I could share what I experience
with all those who feel hopeless.

I don’t have the proper materials and tools to work with
but I am determine to paint this night, right now!
I will paint even if I have to use by blood!
I am going to take these leftovers
and I am going to paint myself a picture no matter what!
And it will be beautiful in its own way.
I will call it
“DETERMINATION”.

"DETERMINATION"

This is what I felt while painting “DETERMINATION”

It is like wanting to make love and you ain’t got no mate
Like wanting it now but told you have got to wait

Like wanting to take a bath but you ain’t got no soap
It is like wanting to get high but you don’t want to use no dope

How am I to live like this? I just can’t!
I didn’t ask for much, just a few bottles of paint

Circumstances may keep me from doing exactly what I want to do.
But absolutely nothing can keep me from using my imagination!
Nothing or no one can stop me from using my mind!

After I finished and looked at the painting I felt very strange.
And I said to myself:
circumstances and situations in my life only forced me to be creative.
What would be so great about it if I had not been forced to use my mind?

There has been a change even though it has taken some time,
twenty years or more.
I crossed many swift and angry rivers.
I saw many things I didn’t want to see.
I did many things that I didn’t want to do.
The things I wanted to do I did very few.

I met up with many who thought I was a pony and wanted to ride my back

"GET OFF MY BACK I AIN'T NO PONY"

I came out like a three-headed fool

"THREE HEADED FOOL"

and said:

I See! I See! I See! What I see is killing me
Look out there! There! There! There!
Like burning arrows they come in on me from everywhere
Traumas! Traumas! Traumas!
Traumas from the past
Traumas! Traumas! Traumas!
Traumas get of my A__!

"GET OFF MY A__"

If you don’t stop messing with me
I’m going to put my big foot where it should not be

"BIG FOOT"

I am tired of people “KILLING MY LOVE”

"KILLING MY LOVE"

I have always been told to “SHUT UP”

"SHUT UP"

I am not going to “SHUT UP”!

You tried to slower me whole
but I put a taste in your mouth that made you “LET ME GO”!

"LET ME GO!"

I was going down slow. I prayed to my God above
I said if you don’t hurry up and help me
I am going down for sure.

"GOING DOWN SLOW"

Then I got “HOPE”

Once there was a beautiful Queen who was taken away from her world of many colors
The Queen was forced to live in a black and white world

"QUEEN IN BLACK AND WHITE WHORLD"

The Queen was very unhappy. She cried every day and every night
The Queen hated living in a black and white world.
She even cried black and white tears

Then one day the Queen cried a bright red tear
The tear couldn’t be wiped off her face
And the tear wouldn’t dry up
The tear brought color into the queen's world
One morning the Queen woke up and the bright red tear
had turned into a beautiful little princess
The Queen was so very happy!

"THE PRINCESS HOPE"

The Queen named her little princess “HOPE”
because she hoped that the little princess
would not have to live in a black and white world

As the little princess grew the Queen told her
about the world of many beautiful colors
The Queen told the little princess about a world
filled with colors like a rainbow after a storm

Every time “HOPE” saw many colors together like a rainbow
she thought it was the world her mother and told her about
“HOPE” was happy until the world of many colors
like a rainbow told her that the color
“BLACK” did not belong in the rainbow

But “HOPE” would not listen
She refused to live in a black and white world
She was determine to be part of a world of many colors!

"HOPE"

Everyone became angry with “HOPE”
She was treated unkind and unfair
because she wanted to be part of the rainbow of many colors

One day the Creator of the rainbow came for a visit
“HOPE” asked him why didn’t he make her part of the rainbow
He told her that he did make her part of the rainbow
He told her she was the black pot filled with gold at the end of the rainbow
but only very special people with very special eyes
can see the black pot filled with gold at the end of the rainbow

"HOPE AT THE END OF THE RAINBOW"

CAN YOU SEE “HOPE” ???