HAIKUS

Black Girl Magic

Ancestral soul song

mixes with my sublime jazz.

I am enchantment…

*****************

If

If the man I dreamed

became my reality,

then whose dream am I?

******************

Epiphany

Sunrise seeps thru blinds;

splendid hues examine me.

I know me bone deep.

******************

Abandonment Issues

I abandoned me

for you to love all I am.

I thought you would stay…

***********************

Good Night

Indigo sky falls

Slanted light from crescent moon

crowns our good night kiss…

************************

Good Morning

Dawn refused to break

Because you had yet to rise

The sun envies you...

**************************

Good Night Moon

Neon moon glows blue;

like I do when you kiss me

with sapphire silk lips…

**************************

Craving

Good morning, handsome.

That tall, chocolate glow you carry stays on my mind…

you make mornings sweeter.

**************************

Reckless

Hey you, morning heat,

Your smooth brown sparks reckless thoughts…

I want to free fall…

**************************

DNA

With each thought of you,

I absorb your DNA

You are my heartbeat

**************************

©Impresse 2026

I Am

I am Gaia.

I am roots of my culture.

I am rich ginger spice & deep cinnamon kisses.

I am sips of caramel macchiato lattes & chocolate beignets.

I am easy days with amber clouds & cocoa shade.

I am fluffy layers of hazelnut flavor. I am the fulfillment of every craving.

I am rich & thick with a honey-coated switch in my hips.

My melanin is pure decadence. My magic is evident…

My essence is relevant…

A testament to enchantment

in its purest form…

©️Impresse 2025

Liberation

I need you to free me...own me...victimize me; 

TAKE it

AGGRESSIVELY. 

See, because I'm searching

for love poems. 

And I know I can find them where your lips trace kisses that outline my shape as if u'r a sketch artist. 

When I want inspiration

your eyes are motivation when you 

stare n2 me,  

letting me know you're n2 me ; 

I welcome your entering... 

n2

my intellect

reviving my thought process. 

You are the better version of myself ,

so, that makes you my auto biography. 

Words unspoken leave my pen w/everything 

2 say

until metaphors morph n2 syntax errors & similes run off the edge of the paper. 

I labor for your pleasure, 

sacrificing beads of sweat for

an offering, 

making your body an altar 

for my prophetic calling

to create you lyrically; 

because your poetry

is Gospel...

© 2016 Imprese

Sho-Nuff

What I thought was a gun was just his bloody pen laughing,

taunting me with distraction.

“Don’t you know who I am?!?” he kept asking.

“I am the inescapable fate of self-hate. I scurry in the shadows of doubt. I am the dance of self-destruction, forfeiting your identity when I come.”

I suddenly started choking on insecurity & couldn’t breathe.

I started crying and fighting, till finally I collapsed in agony.

 In the midst of my weakness I pleaded, “Why are you here for me?”

“I know you fear me. I am here to suffocate your creativity”.

 I  reached for my pen & pad I had covered in lime to prevent rotting, but my body started throbbing when he grabbed me and attacked me with flashes of my past, unmasked impurities.

I tried to run but, I kept tripping over my have-nots, my should’ve-beens & my never-meant-to-bes. Now I’m hurting and feeling worthless & again I collapse in agony. Finally, I cried out to GOD to rescue me.

He spoke to me and said “I’m sending my soldier Harvey”.

Now suddenly this entity that held me began to tremble. The foundation shook and there Harvey stood with his pen & pad, I mean his sword & staff, bringing the dance of the warrior.

He slayed the darkness and kept his heart as a warning.

All at once, I could breathe, but still felt weak.

Then Harvey stripped me and covered my body in loose-leaf and began to write. My blood churned and turned into ink.

Then I could feel it, the lyrics, boiling in the pit of my stomach, waiting for me to spit them up.

“Just one more touch.” He held my hand and singed my palms with his fingertips.

With my skin still burning, he commanded me to write.

My words rained fire onto the pages & he told me to swallow the ashes.

I began to glow and Harvey asked, “Now who’s the Master”?

I replied, “I am…”

He said, “Sho-nuff”…

And that’s how I defeated WRITER’S BLOCK…

©2016 Impresse 

Hip Hop

Hip Hop verses birth words that urge murder
& discharged nickel-plated bitch lyrics from
nigger mortis tongues...
Microphone check one

Rec execs slip chains around the necks of plantation MCs,
Black face rat race shufflin like Steppin Fetchit
content to fit in hauling buckets full of platinum bullshit for label pimps;
Jack be nimble, Jack be too quick trickin for a deal to sign.
Hip Hop is no longer about the righteousness of the rhyme;
it's about the ice, make a mill, keep a bill & use the rest to pay back the advance.
Understand the industry's plan is to destroy
the TRUE NATURE of Hip Hop...
The "Yes, yes y'all & you don't stop" 
See REAL MCs be microphone fiends...

Microhone check two
It's time to get back to the roots, the real, the raw, pure unadulterated lyrical rage, two turntables & a microhone stage.
Dope ass beats that rock the spot & groove ya ass whether u like it or not...

Microhone check three
Roll Call
Chief Rocker Busy Bee, Run DMC, Afrikan Bambaataa & The Zulu Nation, KRS One, Common Sense, Black Thought, DJ Kool Herc, Guru, Q-Tip, Yo-Yo, Lady Of Rage, Roxanne Shante, MC Lyte, Dead Prez, Da Roots, Dougie Fresh, Rakim, Sugar Hill, Mia X, The Queen...

True Hip Hop is the unruffled voice of the masses.
Fuck these two-bit ass rappers that wouldn't have lyrics if it wasn't for sampling...

©2016-Impresse

Spring

Spring

It’s spring again.
Knowing again this is the time to begin again,
feeling easy & free;
moving cool like lips over ice cream.
Curves enticing warm breezes to tease my skin
winds sneak underneath the hem of my dress
exposing just enough
of my soul
to the sun
rays
paint me ultravioletly the color of honey so…
I’m glowing again.

Grew wings and planted trees in flower pots during the winter
so I could fly high when spring came around again.
Walking on clouds with manicured toes
watching for rain
drops
fall like perfume for the flowers
and shower giant oaks with green afros.
Gonna sit underneath & let the velvet grass beneath
envelope me like the kiss of emerald from a thousand lips
and sip pomegranate tea
cipher with the bees
while humming bird wings scribe lines to my poetry
The universe knows its me
when I send vibrations thru my pen
cuz I’m connected to my gift
like my hand’s connected to my wrist;
Watch
gravity reverse
as I conjugate verbs
and manipulate words
cuz my cipher’s connected to this earth.
Call me Gaia
cuz I give birth to new beginnings
and creativity
and new theories to relativity
Seasons change at the mere mention of my name
Mother, Goddess, Queen
The universe knows it me,
when I send vibrations thru my pen.
Impresse ©2014

JAZZ

Last night, 

you felt like jazz.

Ur fingertips improvised complicated vamps & rifts in the key of ecstasy.

U made my heart beat in swing,

keeping Count with ur kisses like Bassie.

I tasted ur composition

on my lips.

U wrote 8 bars of a love song on my tongue

with no lyrics;

because we were speechless.

With the moon as our witness,

the stars danced to our rhythm.

And the night wind tried to mimic our emotion,

but it was encoded like;

"Ski bi di bi di do bap do

Do bam do" ...

U harmonized 

with my bass line

& my treble clef trembled in staccato

from the tempo of your percussion.

Made me wanna blow 

ur trumpet 

like Miles, 

as in Davis.

Please,

let's press last night's soulful memory in vinyl.

then, we can replay it on an old turntable;

or maybe

download it digitally 

onto an ITune 

& put it on repeat.

And we can hum our melody whenever we wanna remember JAZZ...

©Impresse 2015