Shaela Montague-Phillips



Shaela Montague-Phillips, author of Chanting The Flowers Off The Wall,
currently majoring in English.  She is also a regular submitter to Da' Ghetto
Tymz [a Pan-Africanism Magazine] since 1994, published in Shiriazd Magazine. 
Shaela also was an attended at The Pennsylvania Governor's School For The
Arts, Carlow College Summer Arts Program, and Slippery Rock University..  She
has also won numerous awards in poetry including Honorable Mention twice in
The Black History Essay Contest sponsored by The Chamber of Commerce.


Throw The Roses

Waiting to Unleash

Chanting The Flowers Off The Wall

Slow Hands

And

Demonstrating the Art of Love

At Montey's Cafe…

love child

Women Come To The Front

Le Creole Montague

The Proposal

A Tribute To Loving, You

 

 


 

Throw The Roses

like vultures
dissecting blood
unchanged by christianity
worn
long black clichéd items
in their despair
shadows over his grave
climbing across his coffin
not even remembering
to throw the roses

taking the rest that made him
whole
to claim their new found riches
opening the papers under lock and key
reminiscing him in their youth
cold, withdrawal

saturday mornings
scrubbing walls white
holy-bound
pushing televisions upstairs
for soul train
like a solider he commanded
in the realm of swords

they left their diplomas
given as presents
that sit in the fire place
untouched
with debris
only the gold rimmed salt-shakers
remain from his ma-ma

his grandchildren recall
the attic of enchantment
where toy trains
brought out the child
in him
the dollies that sat in the chest
and the
gifts of
enlarged sweaters
that were given in
exchange for his good-bye
five years before he
forgot who they were



Waiting to Unleash

Your easy words
do not
cushion the pain you caused
or the following days after
you ruined in silence
the familiar packaged dinner
and suddenly a tight edge
four-sided box sitting on the table remains
with half ate Chinese food bought from Express
and four red roses await my arrival on our bedroom quilt
so many times I wanted
to follow you into the bedroom
and shout apologies
until I remember this time it is
your fault
like it has been so many times
so I stare at you shaking your head to the music
consumed in your own self-righteous thinking
that I turn around gripping on to my collective thoughts

Chanting The Flowers Off The Wall

laden field of amber stalks
bountiful with glory
can't stretch out
beyond the wall that locks
the outside out--
and the drifting willows
that suffocate the breathing of the wind

as they,
try to chant the flowers off the wall
that barricade freedom,
the reticent lush that can hardly move in motion
the realm--
where the meadow treks
the living world
refined in glory as the sun sets

the abba of the pasture moans all night
nesting the rhymes of grazing land
climbing stairways to the rural midnight
trapped in a sacrament not of their own making,
but forced

one day the walls will breathe again
the noiseless soul creeps through the open tomb
isn't it lovely and sweet~

Slow Hands

slow masculine hands rub
my mocha skin with cocoa lotion
while laying on the bed
succulent lips kiss
from the bottom to the top
slow hands fumble
the way i am held
careless of my feelings
that are shifted to appease your behavior
you slip your finger tips
in between panties to soothe me
but physical
isn't all that is needed
hurting my pride again
holding myself to keep me away
from charging you
punching you
taking my uncanny mundane week
out on you
and this dynamic
aggression is boiling
it needs to be addressed
not sub-sided into a different dimension
no matter how you plead
i don't want you to rock the boat
tonight


And

and quietly I submitted to his comment
unbuttoning my shirt
i heard the story of ladies that fought for their
right to be women
to have breasts and a vagina
untouched with force
in YM they had stories
of women having their rapists' babies
it scared me

my straggled voice
bagging for him to have mercy
not consenting to be pregnant
had he already known the game
before he did it
before he spoke it
smiled and took my joy
the treasure that only my husband
should know
taking the sanctity out of my home
and sane away from my being
bending on my knee
to pray
shifting hands upward
my mouth uncontrollable with fear bites all
pulling and tugging
until his small muscle
was no more
while he lay in pain
in a
fetal position
i ran like hell


Demonstrating the Art of Love

when this morning
abruptly appeared
my hand wipes
the other side
of our bed
your silhouette shadows
and you weren't there
this morning,
"told on you!"

the gloomy sun shines down
on me
as i sat
in the corner
waiting for a phone call
to hear your drunken voice
list excuses of bewilderment with nonchalance tones

putting on my knee-high nylon boots
cold
white cover blankets
on the ground
i slush feeling my boots absorbed, heavy
hurting and torturing my spirit
the omen of your soul
whispered gently in my ear

where could you be,

this morning
buttons
fumbled on
my winter coat sloppy sided

i didn't care…

I pulled down the yellow hanky
barely covering
with the Steeler print
particularly, showing the brown mess of hair

At Montey's Cafe…

(The first time she looked into a woman's eyes
and knew she loved her
more than her boyfriend)
They sat in a booth, and the manila-colored table
separates them
Two cappuccinos sit with lipstick stains
There mugs gritty and dirty, there are cracks at the bottom
The silver napkin dispenser glimmers, reflecting
their profiles
They stare in each other's eyes,
these teenage girls
"Hold my hand" she says.  "There is a question in
my mind how it feels...
I mean I held my mother's and my sister's...
but never a woman's, not like this"
How could she tell her mother, that she was what
her mother feared
that she loved the touch of a woman
the company of a woman,
better than a man
The girl with koolaid-stained hair gently
puts her fingers around her hand, they stare
The cappuccinos go cold~




A Tribute To Loving, You

i was warn
how to love,
you
tripping over booby traps
to your liking
hugging your head to calm
down
rubbing knees
warmed milk
to show you
i was not the disappointed
one
that left you broken hearted
misshaped
motionless
with no warning
you don’t have to scrap
for food in canisters
to escape in the open
angry at breath
catching existence
for me to hold you near
to want you, bad
unconditioned
relentless, beauty you are
i wonder what you could have been
given a chance
to break the covering from your
wobbled legs
later in life
your words
drying out the cactus flowers
that holds you in bondage



The Proposal

at night
the moon becomes liquid
dreams subsiding north
brightly shinning
close to our martial bed
while we entwine
red sequence in-between
the sheets
spasms say, “yes”
no, to the due of dawn
half curled finger tips
wave welcomes to secret pleasures
we dance to the bending of the stars
a hula dancers’ nightmare
stuck between the galaxy
we do the voodoo
carving small white doves
saluting our love
to tell our story

at night
we pull out
red checkered blankets
swallowed by the night
wrap whispers’ wind
while eating juju bees
laughing at soft sounds
that inspires our lovemaking
moving south to the border
juicy fruit smack sandwiched in the lips
our erotic exotic interpretations
of karma sutra
delectable while sitting on the porch
passions that hang on spittles of cupid’s beard


Le Creole Montague

I am a descendant of le creole montague
spreading to the carolina’s
in the tobacco fields
dreaming of plows that burn finger tips
oversized breast of ancestry
riding proudly with the birthmark
of my overseers
cursed blood flowing down my ankles
causing water gain
fighting its own civil war
into the depression of no man’s land
this where father takes me
where now
  the streets cut
pave
into the hill side
as oak trees play patty cake with the wind
flaxen colored leaves mixed with rouge
dance lightly to the ground
and i listen the beat of djembes
talking
behind the french quarter
where my great-great grand mere
with long drawn out skirts
once polluted the air with her beauty
wild
restless
a true debbie taunt
kissing garcons
soon became impregnated by an African



Women Come To The Front

scrambled legs
and run
from the
second wave
in the rubble
of twisted beam
bodies lie on top
and spirits rise
to see a new world
wives forced to
put on working boots
five cent in wage
while children’s' fingers
are used
as tools
grungy
and
dirty
after the war
is done
they all
will have a hand in it
not wanting to give it back
women grew power
got masculine over night
held offices
kept cobweb out
but at night
negro leagues
would play
shadow ball
bloodied
undefeated
baseball from the soul




love child

jeans bloody
x-ing the middle
of her passage
taken her love
away gentle
lush
fingers expressing
her empathy
lashing out her
sins
of the first born
taken to the heavens
cropped and snipped
tossed into succulent
dust
old bloodied aroma
from a nine month
dream
of a love child
once
there was a tummy
with elastic band
pulling over
a living being
ten toes
and torso
proud and smiling
at ma-ma
now a voided
vision
in a picture
box



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