{"id":4087,"date":"2016-04-15T13:25:08","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T13:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=4087"},"modified":"2016-04-15T13:27:02","modified_gmt":"2016-04-15T13:27:02","slug":"on-peak-blackness-negrotopia-2-julian-randall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=4087","title":{"rendered":"ON PEAK BLACKNESS & NEGROTOPIA #2 – Julian Randall"},"content":{"rendered":"

When we do everything
\nfor which the moon is named empty
\nnobody can tell me a damn thing
\n 
\nI\u2019m the offspring of a shadow
\nand don\u2019t care who knows it
\nI sit on the stoop
\nlistening to asphalt hued boys
\nchasing everything
\nuntil the street lights come on
\n 
\nmy hands stained red with
\nthe corner store\u2019s offering
\nmy father sets the dust free
\nfrom his dented music
\njust in time for the summer
\nhome is a loud song and no ash for miles
\n 
\nI\u2019ve known a trumpet to unstitch my father
\nhe becomes a cloudless storm
\nan eloquent light craving thunder
\n 
\nWhen it\u2019s like this
\ncan\u2019t nobody tell me shit
\nfists come and I bloom
\ninto the freshest eclipse
\nmy body is one long dare
\na bet I always win
\n 
\nEvery church sings
\nuntil the night pales in comparison
\nuntil everything dead inside us
\nis a light worth praising
\nuntil we remember
\nthat Heaven is a Black name
\n <\/p>\n

\n

\u2003
\nNEGROTOPIA #2<\/strong><\/p>\n

Is there anywhere\/that does not wish us dead?\/Is there anywhere that belongs to us\/so completely\/that we cannot be buried in it?\/there wasn\u2019t\/so we became the oasis\/our damn selves\/when the thirst for home\/became overwhelming\/held our lovers\/and said nothing of the desert\/except to touch their skin\/the way sand sings\/across itself\/so we were the music too\/which means\/the silence belongs to us \/in this dark fleshed nirvana\/this Black place\/this paradise\/where nobody is ever lost\/forever\/we made it all\/and kept it\/every wound\/became a returned lover\/we gave each ghost a new name\/and danced\/ in the music of it\/until the steam of our bodies\/grew so thick\/we named it cousin\/so the sun spilled gold\/and we drunk off the horizon\/faded off our own thunderous survival\/and we did the work of storms\/we became a raucous sky\/a tapestry of dark clouds\/to slake the thirst of the fields\/said something will grow here\/if nothing else\/it will be us<\/p>\n

 
\n <\/p>\n

\"NN,Julian Randall is a Living Black poet from Chicago. He is a 2016 Callaloo fellow, Lois Morrell Poetry Prize winner and the 2015 National College Slam (CUPSI) Best Poet. He currently works as a teaching artist with the Philly Youth Poetry Movement. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Offing, Winter Tangerine Review, The Killens Review<\/em>, and Pluck! A Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture.<\/em> He is a candidate for his MFA in Poetry at Ole Miss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we do everything for which the moon is named empty nobody can tell me a damn thing   I\u2019m the offspring of a shadow and don\u2019t care who knows it I sit on the stoop listening to asphalt hued boys chasing everything until the street lights come on   my hands stained red with [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2063,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4087"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4106,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4087\/revisions\/4106"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}