In “Chapter 1-Dancing on the Dangerous Side,” I got the opportunity to enter the consciousness of 45 year-old-Ron Naas (rhymes with not the boss). To borrow a phrase from Eckhart Tolle, except for Ron’s remembrances of his Princess Vicksburg, he’s mainly in his “pain body.” I do enjoy being Midlife Mess Ron for a spell, probably because I’m pleasured by his blues rifts, or as my son Steffen calls them, his rants.
Ronnie 4th Grade
In “Chapter 2-Stuff That Could Send Me To Cherokee,” I will offer you the chance to time travel and become 4th grade Ronnie-the year around 1952. This character tickles me, his voice one that’s worked with Dr. Nash and this author for neigh on 20 years. In “Chapter 3-Peeking through Kashmir’s Keyhole,” this writer from memory and imagination will return to love-seeking Ron and his rant chants. “Chapter 4, Fleeing up My Lady’s Backstairs” will explain his Little Affliction, which casts him into a sea of doubt. (His Big Affliction won’t be revealed till way later, but believe you me, he sure does leave lots of clues.)
So my son Steffen Corby Naas and I (2 crows) are sitting up in my nest tree at Penthous #25, and he’s reviewing my poems. Not an enjoyer of such yuck mucks by any means, he’s saying, “Dad, you love people so much, you ought to write stories about them.” Spurt goes the spark that lights my bush -to what was to become 12 years later Changing Colors, a 2 book memoir about this white boy’s romancing a splendid woman of color, who goes by the name of Ms. Mahogany Kashmir Dubonet Moses.
But there’s not room enough in this true romance to include my shorter celebrations of people-the Clarks and the Ledlows, in shotgun shakes long side the easeful Mississippi river-the family I left home to discover. So what I’m saying is, give this poet a chance for cripes sakes. Every one says my prose poems, essays, whatever you choose to call them, are not dense, their doors swinging wide open, celebrating the divine blaze in each of us. Click to continue »
Old Black Women and Other Wonders is a collection I’ve already written, except for the blog introductions and selection of photos. These portraits of the people I love feed into Changing Colors, but I don’t have room to include them in my memoir.
Over the past decade, I’ve read many of these prose poems to congregations inside black Baptist churches, to clapping hands and amens.
I would be honored if you’d take a peek at my 2 samples. And/or hear them being read by this author-my son Steffen providing a Jazz-blossoming video.
Thanks again, Ronald Lee Naas
Old Black Women
Honoring Lula Davis Ledlow, Annie Blair, Essie Clark
And the Mt. Carmel Choir
Old black ladies display a beauty more varied than the congregation’s babies. They range in color from full moon to the interior of midnight. Their shapes and sizes are as different as the stones among the shadows of swaying palms. Some have hips that protrude like the benches we press our weight upon. Although one wears a hat that Saturn and a comet revolve around, they are all rooted in the earth, their flower watered by the spirit. Click to continue »
