DEBORAH PALMER

DEBORAH

PALMER

THE COLOR OF REPOSE

With inhaled breath we await that great day when the dragon lays slain by the Redeemer’s Silver Sword.

Cries of help oft go unanswered, condemning souls to lives of torture and urgent desperation. Whilst the wicked summon the gods of war leaving negligence in their path. The innocent are blamed for unholy battles.

Refugees convicted by the stigmata of their skins shared faith with raging bullies. Exiled to the land of shades. Neither here nor there. Marching in place while aristocratic corpses decide their fates. Competing crowns spout fear, fright, shame, anger all for the lure of filthy lucre.  Twilight evermore.  Glasses clink in crystal towers. Pale dancers’ minuet around delectable wine. Red states gather together behind towers of golden grain zealously guarding from the starving hordes.  Court Jesters all while the true royalty clamors for righteousness.

May they fall upon their swords and set the captives free, for I had heard the dirge commence.  Queens and Kings once brilliant in their land trudge listlessly along a Trail of Tears. Finding the Gates to the Golden Cities locked against their entrance. The Promised Land is in view but shall we ever enter in?

Suddenly a stone flies over the camp. Then another. Streams of spittle stained red hit their marks. Horribly mangled still they creep towards salvation while crimson stains the rocky shores. And on a lonely beach a child lies still evermore in the grasp of Poseidon. Maryam sobs for the child is no more. Bloated disembodied cadavers wash up on shore. Their identities known only to God.

Yazidi Women weep and wail for lost drowned Syrian children. Rachel cries for children murdered by Herod’s steel swords. Disconnected Beloveds yearning, seeking forgotten families lost the chaos of war.

Gauzy outlines and patches of color billowing angles punctuated by oblique eyes staring into eternity.  Behind us combat. Before us a limbo. Suspended half-lives relegated to campgrounds with nary an exit in sight.  What are we? Do we wear the mark of Cain forever destined to wander the earth?

Who will pour libation, light candles and sing mourning songs for the nameless dead?

Jerusalem!  Jerusalem!  I seek your face!  The blood of innocents cries out!

Arch Angel Gabriella Blow the Trumpet that the Walls of Deceit come tumbling down!

Lead exiles to the Bejeweled Metropolises Where We will be Welcome with Open Arms!

O’ Holy One Reign out Justice from on High!

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I AM NOT A STEREOTYPE

Stereotypes Hurt.  No More Labels!!

Women of all colors, races, religions ethnic groups and nationalities face double jeopardy.

I will not be defined by the narrow conventions of your mangled mind.

Me and Patti LaBelle got a new attitude.

I will not be typecast by the slant of my eyes, the color of my skin or country of origin.

I am a Woman of faith of dignity who demands and commands respect.

I refuse to suffer indignities of your racist sexist perversions.

I follow the laws of God as dictated by my belief system whatever it may be.

I am not an exotic playtoy or life size Barbie doll existing only to gratify, satisfy or fulfill your twisted sadistic carnal predilections.

I am not the one and today is not your day.

I will not be afraid and will not back down.

I am not a victim.

I am more than a survivor.

I am defiant.

You do not have license to ill.

My height, weight, shape do not delineate me as a loose woman or a hot number.

I am not your Ethiopian Chocolate Fantasy or submissive Asian delight found in the back covers of men’s magazines.

I am not your Indian Maiden with feathers in her hair or a sari wrapped around her waist.

If I’m a Lesbian nothing between your legs will make me straight and certainly does not impress me.

Whatever fever you got, be it Jungle Fever, Yellow Fever, Red Fever, Hot Spicy Latina Fever, I’m about to throw cold water all over it and knock you out cold. Get over yourself. You’re not all that and a bag of chips.

I choose who, when, where and if I will lay my body down.

I am the Goddess and only the worthy may gain access to the Temple. As Women we are called to maintain order in the Universe. Ladies ~ Realize your calling.

Asshole Repellent

Asshole Repellent

Ladies sexual abuse, workplace bullying and sexual harassment is the Elephant in the Room that everybody sees but fails to acknowledge its presence. Instead we step lightly around him hoping he will go away of his accord. Do not remain silent. Speak up. Speak out.

The Cruelty of “Christianity”

Tekahionwake

“Oh, why have your people forced on me the name of Pauline Johnson? Was not my Indian name good enough? Do you think you help us by bidding us forget our blood? By teaching us to cast off all memory of our high ideals and our glorious past? I am an Indian. My pen and my life I devote to the memory of my own people. Forget that I was Pauline Johnson, but remember always that I was Tekahionwake, the Mohawk that humbly aspired to be the saga singer of her people, the bard of the noblest folk the world has ever seen, the sad historian of her own heroic race.”

Nobody knows my name or the real me except Jesus and him alone. Some ancestors unwillingly pulled from the breast of Mother Africa the others walked the “Trail of Tears”. Both had forced upon them the indoctrination of Euro-centric Christianity to the detriment of each noble culture.

A few months ago I traced my maternal ancestry back to Mozambique. When I made that discovery something in my spirit clicked and I knew that one day I had to return to the birthplace of my Great, great, great, great, great Grandmother, her birth name lost to time and eternity. Other ancestors born in this great land have yet to be revealed. Many times I wonder, “What was my African and/or Native American name.”  The names of Finney, Halstead, Gordon, Palmer were all given by some distant slave-owner. Who were they and who were they 500 years ago?

Like Tekahionwake I live my dichotomy every day even in my spiritual life wondering about the respective faiths of my African and Native American ancestors. Thinking about how their own unique worship was torn asunder only to be replaced by a Euro-centric “Christian” god who relegated them to a lesser status, below that of their European captors.

CHILDREN OF AN ACCURSED HAM? (GENESIS 9:20–27) I THINK NOT FOR THE DESCENDENTS OF THE GREAT REALM OF ETHIOPIA HAVE RISEN AGAIN TO THE RIGHTFUL PLACE IN THE DIASPORA.

MATTHEW 12:42

New King James Version (NKJV)

42 The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here.

The cries of my people would not be extinguished. The voices of my Native American ancestors called to me for redemption. Through an experiment called Carlisle Indian Industrial School History, really internment in re-culturalization concentration camps Richard Henry Pratt sought to erase the cultural identity of Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho and other tribes through forcing children into complete immersion in Eurocentric culture and identity, effectively erasing their own. Take away a person’s language and belief systems, telling them that how God created them was wrong and had to be fixed only serves to create indwelling images of self-hatred within those lost children. If eradicating my indigenous and African American culture, traditions, ethnicity and exchanging them for dominant white culture will I be closer to God?  Will Jesus accept me in this new form?

As I gaze in the mirror as many Native Americans did 150 years ago neither my face nor my features as God made them can be erased. The efforts on the part of European conquerors failed. Nor were the colonizers able to erase the connection to the Great Spirit as he was known long before the white man touched our shores.

White man you tell me that only your version of Jesus can save my soul and deliver me from sin. And just what is my sin? Being born with a brown face, high cheek bones, full lips, long flowing Jet Black hair or locs that rise to kiss the sun. Does my sin lie in the dances my people perform to honor my ancestors and Mother Earth who gives us all sustenance? Am I or my ways at fault because we revere Nature as opposed to destroying the land, fouling the waters, polluting the environment in a never ending obsession to conquer, convert and control? Now who is the savage? Who is the so-called heathen?

Oh European who comes bearing the sign of the cross who is this God of yours that lifts up your customs and traditions but disparages mine? He is not the Jesus depicted in your Old Master paintings from Italy, Spain, France or the Flemish Masters. No, more than likely he was a swarthy man with kinky dark woolly hair, skin darkened by constant exposure to the sun. Jesus was someone whose looks paralleled the populations most of the indigenous tribes of Africa, North and South America.

REVELATION 1:14-15

New King James Version (NKJV)

14 His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; 15 His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters;

We Sisters and Brothers from what you named the “Third World” now know that Jesus came for us just as we are. God accepts us in all the richness with which he created us. We Black and Brown followers have redefined and returned Christianity to its original intent and meaning.

No longer do we walk the “Trail of Tears” or the Via Dolorosa. Now we stand together arm in arm marching onward to Zion that beautiful city of God taking our place among those who have been redeemed.

PARANOIA SEEDS REAP MURDEROUS MILITIAS

Rage and anger still hang in the air.  Just like the stale smell of spilled mixed bloods of innocence and evil.  Murky thoughts reap dark denizens of warped erratic soldiers.  The Grim Reaper ushers in cattle cars of newly thread cut souls. Harpies are kept busy knitting death shrouds for mounting numbers of never-ending procession of carcasses.

Cruel knives have excised hearts of flesh and replace them with hearts of stone.  Blameless lambs have been forfeited on altars of hate.  Penetrated and inseminated by odious sermons alien babies burst forth for vengeance of perceived wrongs.  Imprinted fury orations cloud sense and humanity leaving behind robotic combatants programmed to destroy.

Obliterated beings victims of bizarre boot camp rhetoric. Minds fed on twisted animosity, frenzy, wrath being pushed through narrower and narrower corridors. Young thoughts empty of direction are seeded, watered and fertilized by sadistic rantings of violent false profit prophets. Seasoned by false doctrines. Paranoia reigns across the world.

Mangled casualties and mercenary arms are gathered together under oceans and seas of golden grains.

Bodies lie in crumpled heaps.  I hear screams in distance lands.  An abominable stench wafts up from frozen faces ajar in cries for help.  Floating detonated disembodied appendages wash up on copious coasts.

Peace and serenity are wrapped inside flaming swords.

Grave marker tombstones spring up from the ground like granite flowers still-born commemorating lost lives.

Gurgling choking gore coughed up cartridges of bullets before letting go.  Grudges chew up compassion and humanity gnawing away at former sensible soul empathies.

Sulky dogs indulge in decayed corpses littering pastures, turfs of thickly timbered interiors. Small concussions into the ether.

Fatalities live on only in printed photographs newspaper articles and family memories.

Will spontaneously self-exploding personages continue to litter the landscapes with sacrificial lambs?

DeBorah Ann Palmer

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA