Ziba

Nanshe’s blossom 

I was a Royal Dancer of scented Jasmine in the land of one thousand suns as I inched closer to Rabat’s sands as I danced for a Ram

I was covered in gold sequins and veils and then I was a serpent that would clank during the strange night, and my eyes were black as death and my skin was brown in a perfumed night palace 

Your camouflaged tongue has lied 

Your frame of mind shattered and died

I danced hypnotically as an exotic Nubian with many arms with my brown skin that became Black, and the lips of my face were full and my nose flat

I twist my hips towards Cypress, something I play at!

A taboo leaves a scar in Madagascar

Half of my face became a moon as I glittered among night in a cinematic dream flaunting Freya

I was languishing in my brown flesh with Flamingos in a champagne bath in a famed hotel

I was chartreuse painted brown eyes murdered in poverty and my relaxed hair was bobbed in the fashion of Aida

Then suddenly the dancing stopped!

Featurism represses my ebony skin 

I woke up and I was now a deserted Black woman stripped of her hidden cities 

I lost yesterday’s amour in a padded room 

My soul was eaten by the gray moth has died inside of me bloomed 

Veils flaunting my Ibo facial features, and my dowry was stolen 

I am hidden like Ziba made to serve in the cloistered life suffering under the night of the star goat’s moon 

A Banquet 

By Tiffany Haty

April 19, 2025   

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Black mermaids are green
Windchimes are whispering Troy
Rich auburn wild coils

By Tiffany Haty

 Debra and the Lane  

We rode through the lane

The trees towered above our smooth Cadillac and those trees would sigh standing tall on the grassy boulevard

Autumn leaves changing from yellow to a crisp brown were falling, falling to the pavement would now scatter and whirl 

My pretty Black Mother was the Diva of practicality whose words were like ice splintering were stinging my soul and my sensitivity would gush; the hurt made my brown eyes water 

My pretty Black Mother wore gold shimmer on her lids and her full lips were painted burgundy on her liquid ebony skin

Her relaxed hair brushed into loose waves was coiffed 

My ebony eyes were doleful with melancholy’s smattering 

 I am not a Black princess!

 I am not a Black princess!

My Mother and Father

The King and the Queen in an interracial marriage 

I was their biracial daughter with bushy pigtails that were wild, and all of my feelings were crashing, crashing and churning like storm clouds in the heavens, and I was a fragile biracial child painted in Black and White

I was silent in the car I became a sullen Black girl 

Debra and the Lane

I realized I was not a Princess 

Instead, I was a masked interracial child in a plaid jumper in shades of gray and my textured hair was in long ratted pigtails that were messy as the rain would fall from the clouds drifting would cry aloud

It was our weather

The sun hid behind the church steeple would smile on our neighborhood

I love you Mom 

I am not a Black Princess!

I love you Dad

I am not a Black Princess!

My childhood was foreshadowed by the beckoning water as my brown skinned Mother whose skin was like the depth of umber took care of me with my father from a foreign land

My brown eyes were taking in the scenery of our lane as my Mother Drove down the quiet lane

As the trees questioned my existence 

My eyes met the church spire, and I notice the rain falling in sync with my pitiful dread and my eyes were at an occidental slant

I got an “A” on the spelling test

I love you mom 

I love you Dad 

I am not a Black princess!

I am a mood

  

 By Tiffany Haty

 April 20th 2025

my eyes are secrets
taking photos of my mind
fields of lavender

By Tiffany Haty

                                                 Totality of my Blackness 

                    For Lawrence 

My name is Natisha Ryan

And I swallowed the drunken half moon 

that bled in the totality of my Blackness

She sang in a nude silhouette

Above Mozambique for a Zulu Priest 

I was a robed Christian

His brains were shot out in Amsterdam

Africa!

An unhoused Black girl in 5th grade is given an

award for scholastic achievement

She was dark skinned in glasses and cornrows

Her family scrambled for nourishment

Civil liberties! 

The sun rises above Mesopotamia

A Black woman dressed herself with the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers 

She was robed as Ebony a gift from Inanna dripped in gold spoke

 other languages 

Blossoms pour forth from a scribe

The city slickers cross a toll bridge to graffiti tag a train 

Glittering stars fall

Across Black Zambia 

I can see the homeland

My imaginary husband left me standing at the altar 

In Brazil fostering a poor Black woman’s dream

The walls of Yemaya’s mansion stand tall

The naiads slept on black lotuses 

Used to hide in the West Indies

Beauty’s mask was stolen by the

Crudest kleptomaniacs known as the Bronze age freaks that chirped loud

I dressed my urban hut with dried eucalyptus plants and bought 

Some gel activator

My love was a black tie foreign double agent 

I ran with forbidden centaurs with a shrouded Neso 

My Blackness became drunk 

I exited a Black pantomime affair 

My totality of Blackness was like the ocean waves 

By Tiffany Haty

February 10th, 2025

Salome's mansion
Outre song of blue Jordan
House of Butterflies

By Tiffany Haty

The Swirling Tutu

The Swirling Tutu The New Girl was taking a bath World Politics was steeped in an exotic night jasmine scent Siamese twins are dancing on the ruins of the dilapidated world stage I am Black Lyra Then there was the New Boy In the late afternoon, he held an open bible set aflame Now Claudius is dead Religion walked out on me wearing a suit and tie and I still believe in an empty Jesus in confusion The dystopian moon is in its crescent phase A homeless drunk is singing pissing on a crumpled aluminum can A Black man suddenly yells, "Your mama's a trick!" at his television set My madness is symphonic and crawling I was lost amongst rows of sphinxes He will not find his black mistress The sun shines upon the face of Egypt The air is thick with smoke at the Temple of Thoth They murdered the left side of my brain locking me up in a monkey cage Liars of Iron Age and geometric planes disintegrate thought A quiet girl with a widow's peak flirts with cinema The 24th century ballerina was mixed with a Black and Romanian quatrain danced on a grave in a swirling tutu is grown Sunlight poured into the mausoleum and lit up her pale brown skin during the summer months Her high ponytail was raven-colored and bounced as she moved in the dream of the fallen Queen of Luxembourg By Tiffany Haty