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The Alkebulan Mixtape: The Alkebulan Mixtape

Two Poems

By Brandon Wint
I study the hunger of flames —/ the elm gorged without apology,

Synonym

I study the hunger of flames —

the elm gorged without apology,

the way, after six weeks of raging, there are no words left

for red, orange. We look upon the entire lit coast,

the new, flagless country of incinerated wings and birches and say fire,

say spark as though we still believe we can snuff it

between two calloused fingers, poise it at the end of a cigar.

The sky is a cardinal's flightless wing; blood loosed

into a vial of river water.

The horizon keeps no time, only coughs the synonyms it has for flame,

this is how we lose the word for hour, the word for day.

Still, we have morning.

When it comes, my wife peels the white curtains from the window

and reports the view:

crushed saffron inferno,                       lilium petal flare.

spilled wine blaze                                    pyre of peach rind,

fig seed hearth                                          swirls of wind, embers

                                                                                like koi fish glimmering

                                                                                through rungs of smoke-thick air.

Appetite

Smear my lips with molasses/ stir the jays from their ragged twig beds/ Make wind kiss my dark
sugared mouth/ whatever an August is/ let it leak into my chest/ magenta-stain my unbuttoned
shirt/ oh/ grief of the untouched body/ wail/give yourself to thirst/ touch is a small heaven/ of
choice/ bust the dark mirror of sky/ beckon rain to fall like fingertips/ soft against my neck/ the
blushing, dusty moon of a peach/ in my palm is enough to make my body/ an oracle promising
entire orchards/ oh sky/ be as generous as berries/ open this night like a pomegranate and gush
seed and flame/ red/ into my mouth/ let moonlight bleed/ turn my pores to windows of stained
glass/ blur me into an ecstatic picture/ smear my edges/ lust—make me a poorly developed
photograph/ Press me soft/a saxophone's glittering button/ make me thus yellow/ thus ochre
and golden/ breathe into me until I spill sound/ relax the fists my stomach has eaten/smooth my
red knuckles to blue studs of water/ let all who touch me/ drench me/ jolt me into a twilight
where arnicas bent in gusts of wind might envy the curve of my spine/ the sheen of my back/
dappled in sweat and rain.

Author photo credit to Abdul Malik.

About the author

Brandon Wint is an Ontario-born poet and spoken word artist who uses poetry to attend to the joy and devastation and inequity associated with this era of human and ecological history. Increasingly, his work on the page and in performance casts a tender but robust attention toward the movements and impacts of colonial, capitalist logic, and how they might be undone. In this way, Brandon Wint is devoted to the poetics of world making, world altering and world breaking.

For Brandon, the written and spoken word is a tool for examining and enacting his sense of justice, and imagining less violence futures for himself and the world he has inherited. For more than a decade, Brandon has been a sought-after, touring performer, and has presented his work in the United States, Australia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Jamaica. His poems and essays have been published in national anthologies, including The Great Black North: Contemporary African-Canadian Poetry (Frontenac House, 2013) and Black Writers Matter (University of Regina Press, 2019). His debut book of poetry Divine Animal is published by Write Bloody North.