Buttercup

I’m a high-yella-skinned

blues singer. Daddy was a preacher –

a Methodis’, raised me in Paris…Texas.

I put my head above the grass-root parapet,

inhaled, then wailed:

this little light of mine,

I’m gonna let it shine.

I was drunk on dandelion wine.

Said I am a sinner,

one of God’s lost chil’rens.

I ate soul food; collard greens,

candied yams, chitlins.

Said I wanna smoke grass.

Sing, dance, sway, laugh. Kick

back. Do diddly-squat. Stay

out late, give love bites,

git plucked…a lot.

I’m a sister, a hip-twister,

a deep soul whisperer.

Watch me dance, hitch my skirt,

show my knock-knees, raise

the roof in a juke joint called Mister

B’s. I can play the piana, bend my back

bone like a rag-dolly-anna. I’s brown sugar,

I’m one honey-yella-skinned hot mama

shootin’ through your veins like meltin’

butter. I don’t do gospels or angels.

I sing, I sing the blues. Dip in, wash away

everythin’ in the warm water of my bayou.

Hummin’, lullin’, I ain’t sayin’ nothin’…

I’m not promisin’. Just sweatin’, glistenin’,

beggin' to git under your skin

like, a heroine.

I’s color. I’s song. I’s stoned –

Daddy says my soul is lost.

Guess I’m just too old to change.

Truth is, I think I always was…

Don’t you know by now daddy,

purty is, as purty does.

–Cheyelle Omar

Cheyelle Omar is from Grangetown, Cardiff. She was employed in 2006 as Liverpool Football Club’s first ever Resident Poet. After a successful first season she was reinstated by Rick Parry in 2007. Her compositions have been translated into numerous languages including Spanish, Chinese and Korean. Her major influences include Alice Walker, Charles Bukowski, John Donne and Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes. Her maxim in life is: I like my men like my bread - thick. (source: In The Red 5, literary magazine)

COPYRIGHT ©2009 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: CHEYELLE OMAR