Creative Living, Creative Works - Angela M. Counts

By Angela Michele Counts © 2009 Commissioned by Myrtle Street Baptist Church, in Newton Massachusetts in commemoration of their 135th anniversary and the Atlantic Slave Trade. Performed in 5 Voices... Part I ~ The Waves… The waves so restless now, Tossing us about, confused This same ocean I knew Since youth, and his eyes too And now, I can’t look. His eyes, the same as mine. Panic, they look away. The same, Dark, ocean we belong. Only now, terror: the smells That we did not know. So Close together. The shame I never knew; his leg Crossed with mine, and hers too. Somebody’s arm bloodied. She fell, We smell, each other, Our humanity. Who are these Devils, the ones with greedy teeth? What did we do, and Now can it be undone? Part II ~ The Ship and the Land… The wench, that one o’er there. Grab her, and the child. Wild, yes they are wild But they will work hard If they know who is Master. The slave and the mule can Be beaten into submission, And neither will work again, Perhaps, but the o...

“OOPS UPSIDE YOUR HEAD” THE LOS ANGELES MONOLOGUE Angela takes a comic look at coming of age in the early ’80s, against the backdrop of Motown, Funk, and Sex, Drugs and Rock-n-Roll, when she leaves the comfort of her Detroit roots for sunny L.A. Performed in 2007 at Arts Night Boston; Published 2009 The Wick. http://public.me.com/angelacounts

Founded in 2001, Wax Poetics is bridging the timeless with the current. Check it out. http://waxpoetics.com/

© Angela Counts From Tuscany, Italy (July 15, 2009) The soul is a house Tri-level The soul is a house From childhood In dreams, lucid Saturated with wine The soul is robbed Day workers, disguised In daytime, asleep They come to take They come early To look around But they take And they remove One comes home A little too late To find ones Childhood home empty But don’t complain It happens lately But cry, grieve You will find comfort And awake you will Realize the soul That which is gone Sold to others, removed Is forever on your mind A photo remains Of dirty beige carpets And scraps of life We move into transit One soul death At a time, asleep We lose, awake again We grieve, and live Down into the now

Angela Counts © 2009 Jamaica Pond (Boston, MA) He drives by sometimes and sees them inside Flushed cheeks full of grease But tasty Whatever concoction they are chewing Tastes good to them He on the other hand has refined tastes In small portions He is watching his weight It never varies two or three pounds in either direction Unless he is careless He drives by, the tint and bulletproof Blocking out the din and laughter of the untaught He is gifted in the knowledge that he is special, apart But he is troubled by the bomb, and the stars They hope for what they don’t have and Have more than they need Food, house, loans Children, not too many of these Fore they too are children in their way Life is like a playground after all, Where the adults work Hard so they can play, and buy He buys too, but he can afford it He drives by, no bullets tonight Just words and thoughts The future has become the present Different than what he expected And what he expects ...

By Angela Counts © 2009 Lake Como, Italy There was a cow skull on the onyx coffee table It was a centerpiece It was picked up and dusted under Next to the skull were seeds And papers for rolling cigarettes Sometimes there were bottles of cheap wine And sometimes there was cheez whiz and crackers Daddy brought home little debbies one day Running into the kitchen full of anticipation Someone opened the fridge door, her skull collided Against the heavy door and stunned them She got extra debbies and equilibrium Daddy got restless and left, the skull beneath the soft flesh, forgotten like the onxy coffee table and innocence