Hear Our Voices Live on April 19!

Exciting news!  On Thursday, April 19, the Pentimenti Women will be featured guests at the Haley House Cafe as part of their weekly performance series Art is Life Itself.  We  hope you will come hear our work brought to life in each of our unique voices.   

Thursday, April 19, 6-9PM (The Pentimenti Women will take the stage at 7:30PM.)

Haley House Bakery Cafe

12 Dade Street

Roxbury, MA 02119

If you are unfamiliar with Haley House, it is a wonderful organization that believes in (delicious) food with a purpose and the power of community.  Learn more about them here.

Life Love

At dawn’s first push into blushing light

velvet black lashes flutter as monarch’s wings.

My struggle with waking lost, and the veil of sleep drawn back.

I see you, seeing me as though for the first time.

I can hear all in those eyes as I fall into their deepness.

With wondrous thought you ask,

Who is she?

What is she,

that her mere being holds me with a power super-natural?

Her skin soft as sky cloud, lips a deep wine perfect in silhouette with

a supple sweetness that would drive the most stalwart insane with desire

and at the same moment powerless at a sober sharp wit tumbling from them

cutting to the quick.

I see you, still strong: a warrior worthy of ballads sung, stories told.

Time finds you still tall, wise yet yielding, with a heart holding sweetness beside

the shadows of pain past and present now and again flickering ever so slightly

across your brow. 

I see you, as your fingers lightly brush a wayward wisp of hair from my face tapping the tip of my nose in their travel to my heart still

beating in time with yours…magnificent, powerful.

From somewhere and nowhere I hear my name and with it a knowing you will always be here listening, waiting for my call.

You now see me seeing you as if for the first time

the last time.

Shani's Song

I am a Brown Skinned Woman

Warm, so warm in sienna, bark, mahogany, color wrapping around the beginning with a hot cinnamon sweetness.

I am a Brown Skinned Woman

Born of dark and oh so darker queens of fierce, fearless mighty Amazons

The strength of my loins held rivers, mighty oceans, and love to the world.

I am a Brown Skinned Woman

Love, loving, lover, holding heart and soul tight within, ancient music emanating from my secret place.

I am a Brown Skinned Woman

A comely Mother of the Ages 

Tasting of strength, tasting of life

Here now,

Here forever.

I am.

Cover Me

I have seen some bridges, you know…I’ve seen them.

Liken to those in my dreaming eye 

covered with Heaven’s hand, those long ago hallowed halls of travel to

passion and the raw beauty of nature -

God’s very breath.

I have touched some bridges, I tell you…I’ve touched them,

and they crooned the sultry longings, pain and desires of Lady Day,

the cool, low, creamy tones of Johnny Hartman as we melted into one another

sweeping, swaying, swinging

I have walked on some bridges, I say…I’ve walked on them,

as the rippling rivers underneath spoke of magic

creating a love lasting all the way to forever.

I have danced on some bridges; I remember…I’ve danced on them.

Oh, to once again dance with you so stand-still slowly on those old wise planks

of long ago that sung time by with their melodic aged creaking as they

wrap timbered arms tightly around lives lived, hearts found.

I have seen some bridges, you know…I’ve seen them.

Liken to those in my dreaming eye

covered with Heaven’s hand.

safe harbor from doubt, despair, tears yet to fall.

Those long ago hallowed halls of travel.

Dudley Square Cries

Hear the living cries of Dudley Square woes!

The heartbeat of Boston reveals

Life’s blood victories and defeats

Newborn babies in strollers
Young mothers, seasoned mothers
Fathers too!

Strolling,
And rolling,

To make a hustle to work

They go

Reading Boston Metro

Cell phones singing curses loudly of

Love’s soap opera gossip gone wrong

Or tender muted sounds of love’s promise

Look at the fine apparels worn to protect or expose

The appearance of a hidden soul

The lows and highs of self worth and self esteem

In arrays of bright and dark colors fashioned

Smells of

Restaurants, fruit stands and vendors calling
Sweet cooings of flying doves above
Living, breathing, moaning Dudley Square

Cry on!  Cry on!  Cry on!

Photo credit: "Faces of Dudley" by Ernesto Valencia, www.picturingroxbury.wordpress.com

Dudley Square II

Vegetable soup stirring, daddies maybe,
crying babies, mamas talking loud

Ebonics flying, see hips swinging?
Women, men walkin’ – or are they swaying?
Hear the wind blowing?
Birds chirping, flies flying
Sounds crying, tires screeching

Horns justa blowing
Culture moving
White, yellow, black and red
No need to salute a flag
Look at heat risin’!
Chicken gumbo soup in motion
Boiling!

What you say?
Poetry in motion
Swinging and justa swaying
Ha!  That’s Dudley Square!

Dudley Square III

There’s a be-bop de-bop in the square

Something’s always going down

Sounds of a circus coming to town

Be-Bo-De-Bop
Be-Bo-De-Bop

Right here in the core of Dudley Square

The colorful cartoon reality ringing

Out another rhythmic beat

Marvin Gaye – “What’s Going On”

Be-Bo-De-Bop
Be-Bo-De-Bop

A woman hungry is asking for a dollar

Be-Bo-De-Bop
Be-Bo-De-Bop
           
Preacher man preaching from the good book

Be-Bo-De-Bop
Be-Bo-De-Bop

See the man on crack walking unsteadily toward you
Asking for your money

Be-Bo-De-Bop
Be-Bo-De-Bop