Open Mic Poets and Venues Migrate - South Bend Media & Culture

Open Mic Poets and Venues Migrate - South Bend Media & Culture

To Be

Poetry written by Pam Blair

I wanna dream...the video

Poetry Written by Pamela Blair / Music by Child of the King Records

Pam Blair
Your emcee extraordinaire

A spoken word artist, and poet asking you to help me bless the MIC.
My mission to inspire, provoke, and motivate to create.
The gifts given to you are not for you to hide under a bushel but to share with the world.

Pam's outdoor photography

Indiana weather

100 years celebrated

A group, sequence, or series
Of 100 like things
Yeah that’s what makes a century.
Her life more than a legacy
Her story pieces of your history.
May we bow our heads
And truly agree
That God has blessed Us abundantly.

She created this family tree
Eleven branches and many leaves
The wind that blows through them
New life constantly breathes
Generations to come an instant guarantee

She is this families VIP
Sweeter than the honey
Made from the bumblebee.
She’s served on committees
Been an employee
Played referee
To some knuckle head kids
Who never knew the phrase latch-key

Her prayers kept you safe
In wars you fought overseas
Fighting for a country
With no warranty
Coming home safe
Was more than some foresee

With five loaves of bread
And two fish she did feed
Eleven kids
Some of us barely feed two or three

Chicken wings
And collard greens
Black eyed peas with okra it seemed
A spread that only
Bigmomma could create
Sho-nuff soul food filled your plate

As a kid going to her house
Was like going to the country
To many bugs for a city girl like me
Sittin on the porch
Waving at speeding cars go by
Legs ate up by mosquitoes and horse flies

No sidewalks to ride my bike for goodness sake
Stories of my uncle killing backyard snakes
With a shot gun non-the-less
Now that just takes the cake

No driving record
Had to add longer years to her life
No baby momma drama adding less years of strife
No fast food joints
Every other night of the week
Making her own clothes to fit her beautiful physique.
100 years her life preserved
Jim Crow laws treated equally…umm unheard
A black president her eyes surely deserved

I spit these words
In rhythm and rhyme
Causing your memory to race back in time
When life was simple
No real bills to meet
Now some of us working 40, 50, sometimes 60hrs a week

100 years painted strategically
God the first artist better than Leonardo DaVinci
Should I reach this age
I hope it’s as a retiree
Sipping on ice tea
Sand between my toes on the shore of Hawaii

A group, sequence, or series
Of 100 like things
Yeah that’s what makes a century.
Her life more than a legacy
Her story pieces of your history
May we bow our heads
And truly agree
That God has blessed Us abundantly.

Cancer

My Journey through (the shadow of death) Cancer.

February 2003

One morning while working at my desk I thought to myself….”man do I feel gassy today.” This will be trouble for all those who walk by the copier while I stand there making my daily copies. The day progressed and so did, what I thought were gas pains. Feeling that this pain had gone on too long I called my physicians nurse for advice. My doctor was not available but they offered Med Point as an alternative. By now my co-workers who saw the pain growing on my face, transformed into MD’s to diagnosis what I was feeling. Five o’clock rolled around and I could barely walk. I knew that driving home, helping Langston with his homework, and cooking dinner would be tasks I didn’t think I could complete. Med Point seemed to be a good choice. What I experienced at Med Point was more pain, few answers and wasted time. The suggestion was left at; if the pain gets any worse, go to the emergency room. Home was more of the same. The pain had immobilized me, and all I wanted to do was lay down and pray the pain would go away. At a very weak moment I wanted my mommy. So I called her and cried through the whole story. By 1 am I find myself on the couch still waiting for the pain to go away. I made this deal with myself that if I was still in pain by 2 am I would drive myself to the hospital. 2am comes around and here I lay – eyes wide shut – and faced with the proclamation I made an hour earlier. I knew something was not right. Desperation was upon me, yet I had a plan. I’d go to the emergency room at 2 and be home by 7, plenty of time to get Langston up and ready for school. So I called Marce, who at the time lived down the street, to let her know of my plans to leave my 8 year old sleeping child at home. When I arrived at Memorial hospital I was surprised that they attended to me so quickly. Maybe it was the way I was doubled over. I was shocked to hear myself explain my condition as abdominal pain and not just gas pains. Twelve hours later a doctor comes to my bedside and informs me that I have a large mass growing in my abdomen the size of a grapefruit and that I would need to see a surgeon. My only question to him at the time was can you make this current pain go away. That pain was a warning sign. Up until my surgery, a month later, I had no pain similar to that.
Having cancer never crossed my mind. Not even after meeting with an oncologist (a doctor specializing in cancer). I just thought he was a female surgeon who would serve as counsel to the surgeon performing the surgery. After surgery, what I was considering an onsite oncologist, informed me that my gas pains now had a name – ovarian cancer. According to him I would need three injections (in the end four). In my mind what’s three little shots? I had no idea what chemotherapy involved. I learned later that ovarian cancer has very few symptoms which are subtle and often leave patients in the third or fourth stages upon discovery of the cancer. I was blessed to find mine in it’s first stages. However the moment I learned that ONE treatment consisted of 3 to 4 hours of chemo a day 5 days a week, and I would lose my hair, my whole countenance changed. The crazy part was I could handle being sick but certainly not looking sick. How vain….I probably thought the song was about me. This was my life: I had just purchased my first home, lost my job through downsizing after five years, endured 80 hours of chemo, only to include having two blood transfusions. “What did I do wrong God,” was my question. “Have I not been your servant?” “Why the big pause in my life and when do we press play, or better yet fast forward. My understanding of this has not fully unfolded but I get glimpses of it all the time. I know it has helped me to become more compassionate for people and an intercessor for my mother who 1 year later to my diagnoses’ discovered she had cervical cancer.
The kind of care, support and prayers I received from my church family was something no one could ever dream of having. New Wings of Faith came through with flying colors without even a whisper of me saying one word. I am to this day drawn to tears of the people that reached out to me and my son as if we were a part of their own biological family. No greater love than a man that would lay his life down for a friend huh. I could not be cancer free today had it not been for my faith, my attitude, the prayers and my praise. Hallelujah!

God I’ll never forget.
Love,
Pamela Blair.

Good Friday/DWI

DWI
Driving With Intelligence
Or
Driving With Integrity
No
Driving Without Insurance
Taking no consideration the severity

As you turn the key you load the gun
a four thousand pound bullet
poor coordination, disorientation
leading to a destination
someones life left with devastation

Pain in a bottle
life's problem I imagine you swallow
A cab you forgo
it could damage your ego
wow a real hero
dead man driving
staring you at the movie show

While some at 6am are looking for caffeine
my mother looks into the eyes of the paramedic
begging for morphine
Jaws of life come down on her
like a fork in a can of sardines

One chilly Good Friday
clothes ripped from her body
unable to call her family
two surgeons agree
exposed bones would need emergency surgery


Open bar
leaves a body marked with scars
pain when it rains
from the amount of metal
within her knee, ankles and wrist now remains

10 weeks in a nursing home
her body held captive
her mind sharp and active
walking again her only motive
prayers that kept her supported


And there you lie on the wall of shame
restrictions and convictions precede your name
your fate a judge now proclaims
yourself only to blame
daddy God should be you lawyer's nickname

Anger I cannot hold to you
you see
Mathew 6:12-15
says not forgiving you only effects me
In him would lie my own poor self esteem
leaving me with a soul that's unhealthy

Consider your state of mind
you are not a Jeanie
and your home is not found in a bottle of wine
think before you drink next time
Because drinking and driving is not a right
It's a Crime!

by Pam Blair July2009