“The poet or the revolutionary is there to articulate the necessity, but until the people themselves apprehend it, nothing can happen…perhaps it can’t be done without the poet, but it certainly can’t be done without the people.
The poet and the people get on generally very badly, and yet they need each other. The poet knows it sooner than the people do. The people usually know it after the poet is dead; but that’s all right. The point is to get your work done, and your work is to change the world.”
– James Baldwin, 1986
Lip Service is a Poetry Open Mic hosted by L’Monique. It’s an uncensored venue for mature folx (both new to poetry reciting and experienced) interested in sharing their thoughts at Charlotte North Carolina’s only LGBT Poetry Open Mic. It’s where the creative go to EAT DRINK & SPIT. Beginning Thursday, February 20th, 2020, DUE TO COVID-19 LIPSERVICE IS ON HIATUS. For up-to-date info, follow L’Monique on social media or stop by the Lip Service Facebook page.
Before relocating to North Carolina, I spent 40 years of my life living in New York, where I was born and reared. In elementary school, I ghost wrote love poems for my friends….many of them ended with check boxes, “do you like me? check yes or no. As an adult I have brought my love for writing and poetry into everything that I do. And I mean everything, I’ve performed for weddings, homegoing services, Juneteenth celebrations, divorce parties and LGBT Pride events. I’ve organized open mics, poetry slams and full theater productions. When I wasn’t performing, hosting or organizing poetry events I was teaching others how to write and use poetry as a creative and therapeutic release as an alternative to violence and suicide, my students ranging from primary school students to maximum security prison inmates.
One of my most memorable poetic experiences was facilitating Poetry Wordshops for New York State’s prison population. Behind the walls of those prisons were (and are) some very talented folks, some guilty of nothing more than not knowing how to constructively channel their love of the written and spoken word. During one such 12-week long Wordshop at Woodbourne Correctional Facility I wrote and performed for over 400 of the inmates and correction officers the following poem, co-authored by Dre Dickerson. Dre is one of the most talented poets I’ve ever met. Today, Dre continues to write…beyond the walls of prison incarceration (after 14yrs he was released in 2012) – though still seeking the freedom many Black men in America are consistently denied as a result of having been born in the skin they’re in.
THE LOVE
written by Dre & L’Monique
It’s been a long time since I’ve cried
I mean really cried
Cried?
Lying here between lines designed to strangle love
Break hearts
Capture secrets
Silver razor-wire that sever ties
Turn warm hearts cold
And strong men weak
As I lay my indelible imprint
On your skin
Casting shapes and shadows
You’ll want to memorize
As you absorb me, drink me in
Caged emotion
The need to be touched
Stroked
Cress me with your smooth grip round stick Bic
Kissed with passionate script
Kissing you with dots, dashes and quaking strokes
Seduce me
Seducing you
As you lay in wait for me to complete you
With me on top
Embrace my nakedness in mixed emotion of love and lust
Embracing how you complete me
Orgasmic flow quenching my unquenchable thirst as I inhale you
Hold you as you whisper confessions of your affection on my skin
Until my composition stiffens
Without you I’m nothing
Together we can change the world
Breath life and wreak havoc
Our union is immortalizing
Like Rosetta Stone
Poetic Rhythm that traverse U.N.I. Verse and wisdom was our first
Born
Soul searching
Digger deeper than Africans mining for blood diamonds
Arousing a life force hot like Sub-Saharan nights
Hotter than the passion that bore me
Under serpent skies
I tried to find the essence of your beauty between
Loose sheets of loose leaf
Ohhhh, baby
You should have been looking on the walls of
Hatshetsup’s Tomb
Or within the pages of the Dead Sea Scrolls
But I remained shackled within the restraints of
Contemporary prose
Thought your fine points made it clear to me
That you’ll always be there
Always be there for you baby
For me
Carefully weaving emotion into Spoken Word
And what was left unspoken I kept tucked away
On the black pages of my mind
Until time
Permits kindred spirits to emit
Kindred Spirits ~ Secret Practices
Secret practices of kemet
Auset
Ausar
I conquered you through Kundalini mind spells
Thought it was magic
But it was love
The Love of The Written Word
More from L. Monique
Beyond The Middle Passage
so she dances in her head to her own
drum beats – resound – time is kept – 1,2,3
she moves in her own time – dancing alone
Djembe singing her song – hands tell history
time talks of people sitting upon thrones
before a day when they are leaving by a sea
which shakes souls – destined to’ward lands unknown
none know what life will be
arriving light – yet their souls are so dark
when yellow suns seem to cease in shining
remembering culture is fire’s spark
against all odds – they await – good timing
behold the thoughts of revolutionaries
seek still the knowledge in the libraries
I WISH…Charleston
L’Monique’s latest video poem [Officially Released July 4th, 2021]. This project was directed by Seneca Robinson and captured by Sean Pollack. It was inspired by a 2021 trip to Charleston South Carolina, “Incident” by poet Countee Cullen, America’s enslavement of Black Africans and the nations continued police brutality against Black and Brown people. Some scenes may be TRIGGERING.
In the wake of this global pandemic, let’s talk about Normal. Check out this poem, debuted for Charlotte Pride’s Virtual Festival on Aug. 1, 2020
Click below to see, hear and feel L’Monique recite “I Am The Little Girl” – for Dr. Angela Davis at UNC-Charlotte (2/12/20).
Recently released CD [June 2020] Get yours, Get Woke!
L'Monique King 