I was born of a Black Pearl.
Somewhere in the East of London.
As a Leo with Gemini Rising and Scorpio Moon divining
I arrived wilfully and disrespectfully
To a hospital in the middle of a semi-concrete jungle
In this dis-place-meant
Dem call Eng-Land.
On a night pretending to be Summer
I emerged at the intersection of Time and Space
Earth and Sky.
And pushed through rain clouds naked
But fully warmed by
Memories of sun rays
And safely swaddled by moon-cloth dipped in
Atlantic Ocean waters.
I was baptised in the air of my Ancestors’ breath
And the pools of my mother’s frustrations.
And like many of us, I was forged in the fires that burn

When continents collide in our blood cells
Africa, Africa, Africa
Europe
Fragments of Asia
Islands thrust together
Tectonic plates of Empire
Shifting gears…
As I howled my way into
This.
I want to believe that the Goddesses smiled
On that July night as I took my first breaths.
That they saw me as their own sacred handiwork
Moulded from material THEY had fashioned over centuries…
Whirling and Whispering…Asé
But who knows?
I was raised close to the sky
In Jamaican Mountains
On love and rage mixed with yellow yam and Julie mangoes

Root and Fruit
Spirit squeezed, in flour bag cloth
Pounded like cassava
Blended with fire and water
Like Christmas sorrel steeped in sugar, ginger and white rum
Not for the self righteous.
I was taught to spiral through any mist
Let the fragrance of my soul rise free
Like morning coffee strong, rich and touch wid likkle salt
Mix up, and blen up
Freedom, freedom, freedom
Silence
Memories and visions
Woven with golden thread
Soaked in drying blood
Liberation’s tears
When?

You see…
To be the being at the intersection
Of enslaved and overseer
Of Mama Yemaya and a virgin named Mary
Of Papa Legba and a messed up fallen angel
Of rice and peas, curried goat and roast potatoes
Could simply be seen only ever as the fuckery of forced hybridity that comes
with a ship, a whip and book they call God’s word
For my own sanity
I choose to transmute the fuckery through and to…alchemy
Intersectional alchemy
Check it…
Black woman majik theory
Black community diversity
Black dyke witchery
Black queer imagery
Black moon divinity
Black son wizardry
Black earth chemistry
Black soil fertility
Black soul creativity
Black folk artistry
Black linguistic versatility
Black memory nobility
Black herstory legality
Black intellectual technology
Black radikal theology
Black educational philosophy
Black emancipation psychology
Black liberation strategy
Black love capacity
Black vision mystery
Black future ancestry
Black life infinity
Black collective mystical, majikal, mercurial, seven generational cosmology
Black,
black, black.. intersectional alchemy

Spiral Seeker