Miss Honey Brown Almond

Happy 65th, Arthur Jafa.

The real history, the history that most people will remember and believe in, is what they see on the silver screen.

Illusions (1982)

[letterboxd | imdb]

Director: Julie Dash

Cinematographer: Ahmed El Maanouni

Performer: Rosanne Katon

Arthur Jafa, Monster, 1988

23 x 18,2 cm; 

Dear Joe,

if you have tried to reach me and i could not hear you these words are in place of the dead air still between us. from "Morning is a Time for Miracles"

How many other dark young men at 33 left a public life becoming legend the mysterious connection between who we murder and who we mourn?

I notice everyone here likes their blossoms permanent the flowers around your casket will never die preserved without error in the crystal between our lashes they will never slam down the phone in our jangled ears or call us to account at 3:30 AM for our silence or refuse to answer or say get away from me this is my way or say we are wrong prejudiced lazy deluded cowardly insignificant faint or say fuck seven times in one sentence when the circumstance of our lives becomes so chaotic words fly away like drunken buzzards or say we might fail or say

we might fail but that's no reason to stop to miss a beat and the tinny jukebox music comes up through the floor of our shoes Nobody's going to lean too heavily on your flowers or lick the petals of the lavender gladiola for a hint of moisture wilting it with a whiskey blast or threatening the faint-hearted with a handshake or a bottle of beer.

In the side pews there are always ghosts who resemble our brothers past and future who say they were also your lovers but they lie terror caught in their throats like a lump of clay the taxi is waiting to take them back out to the sunshine a pale refugee from a nameless country hawks wired roses from stool to stool at the Pathmark Pharmacy down the street a drag-queen with burgundy long-johns and a dental dam in his mouth is buying a straight-razor.

March 7, 1989 Audre Lorde

90s portraiture of Black artists by photographic duo Guzman (russell peacock and constance hansen) via Huck Magazine.