Belita André is a Johannesburg based spoken word artist of Nigerian and Namibian descent. She is at the forefront of the Johannesburg poetry scene as both a performer and organizer. In 2019 she contributed to the groundbreaking poetry-colouring book ‘Colour Me Melanin‘. Belita has kindly granted us permission to share the video of her poem ‘Smoke’.
Watch Belita’s video performance of the poem ‘Smoke’ below.
Belita André - Smoke
Sister how do you get your skin
Into such soft kindle
Sister is that smoke through the mirror of your pigment
so stressed out the absolute is irrelevant
It seems you haven’t been scarred in a minute
Mantras as dead as your ivory earrings
Sister It is winter our body will have it’s wood
It’ll pass off as human
breathe because we must
Ears as sharp as pyramids
Laughter squinting in the easy sun
Clumsy anatomy
the rib and the knife working as one
mmm, don’t you smell so grounded
my raging cotton mouth coffee bean goodness
Sister all your sharp edges are chiseled
Your mask dripping
the blood swelling into the outline of a spirit
A giggle of internal shadows
Singing fill your head with water
Crack the skull like so
If you shake hard enough you can hear the swishing
The balloon in your chest aching
Eyes lush waves of
Something tossing
Sister is that smoke through the mirror of your pigment