POETRY READ AT

ROMEO & JULIET

APRIL 25, 2026

Time Capsule by Titilope Sonuga

There are prayers generations in the making,
that push through time to arrive in the moment
of their awakening.

That is to say my presence here,
every measure of magic that exists in my life,
is likely the answer to a prayer
made at the altar of an ancestor
for whom I only existed as a dream.

What grace,
to be known and loved before your birth.

Isn’t that the history of blackness across the globe?
Isn’t that the very ingredient
of our improbable acts of survival,
that we have always made an offering
into a future we will never see?

In our stories,
in our song,
in our art

is the prophetic declaration
that in a time beyond now,
this gift becomes a rope,
a hammer,
a loaf of bread,
something to build a life.

A lighthouse
for the children who will one day walk this soil
Black as the night sky.

We offer them the stars
to know that we were once here
and how beautiful we were,
how excellent, how brave.

We were once here
and beyond our magic
was a right to ease,
to abundance,
to a life beyond strength and survival.

That our rest and refuge
was worthy of celebration too.

And we were Black every day.

On a Monday,
when the city stomped the concrete.
On a Sunday,
when the church choirs troubled heaven.

Every day
in the face of what threatens to undo us,
we are here
a soft place in a hard world.
We make love
and we make magic.
We birth our babies
and kiss our elders.

We make each day a ritual of remembering.
We create this time capsule
and offer it to generations
who may never see us,
but they will know us
and they will know
themselves.

CARDIAC by Wakefield Brewster

Lost

So I travel backwards

Looking forward to reflect on binges and beings past
Moving quickly through snapshots and silence
Each image was still beat of a blackening heart

I once had a thought
I once had a thought

I once had a thought and that thought was about me
I once had a thought and that thought was about me

I once had a thought and thought I owned that thought
But once I spoke that thought
I gave it life into the world

Chilly and chilled like a prophecy fulfilled

Like a foolish head full of liquor

Like a pitited poet

Looking to use

Bigger

Words

Performing

Absurds me
Grammatical rule herds me
The sour milk monster curds me

I am left
Lumpy and infected
Sorry like a really bad excuse

Waiting to bust
Waiting to burst

Mediocre metaphors
Simplest of similes

See me here upon my knees
For
As they both hit the floor
And I so do implore
My need is not to have you love me tenderly
Just more

Switchin’ my scheme

Like Martin Luther King Jr. truth proofer gotta dream
I split a new lyrical seam

Same way I slice head halfs

The pen is my Samurai blade
Clever quick cuts
Leaving pounds of paper flayed

My thoughts are hot rocks
They came to me through time and space
Unmeasurable distances
They are ancient
Old and forever
Passing through a million worlds yet undiscovered
Through atmospheres where satellites hovered

Entities of diction
Denying description

Speak
To
Me
And
Through
Me
Kickin’ codes like cryptic fiction

Shh shh shh shh…

I know it all sounds crazy
But it’s just like the jaunt

You gotta let go
You just gotta let go

Forget about what you think you know

Is

Linear

For lean is merely a perception
Same as mental incorrection

The jaunt will jerk the body just fine through time
Once you shut off the bliss faucet
Because earth thoughts are too
Genocidal-holocaustic

Please do indulge and investigate my plausible solutions
Thismosphere and
Thatmosphere are
Atmosphere pollutions

Of the airspace betwixt your audio receptors
The fibre hairs have dry hands
Smashing ripples riding thermals to your heart

Heat
I will bring heat to your heart
Heat
Heat
Searing
Melting

I am pouring metal
The dials are going crazy
Your chest is a table
Now I’m pouring bronze

Hydrogen
Oxygen
Carbon
And
Nitrogen

Your innards are the universe

I am but a silver pinball bouncing amongst your stars

Silver
Now I’m pouring silver
Filling up the universe
The event horizon
Of the final black hole
China crisis
Meltdown immanent
Homer Simpson at the control

My ship and my shit are fallin’ apart
But bronze and silver
Made a mould for your heart

There’s a fire in da hole
There’s a fire in da hole
I’m da fire in da hole
And I’m goin’ for da gold

I’m goin’ in
I’m goin’ down

I’m pourin’ gold into your soul
With a skin shade of brown

And I don’t know what I am anymore

But I’ve given my whole self to you

Drip

By

Drip

By

Drop

Heart

Stop

Sanctuary by Titilope Sonuga

I turn my face toward the sisters who stay,
to the friends whose eyes hold a quiet knowing,
who lift my head when my neck fails.
I give my heart to the ones who remember.

My sisters who know where everything is buried
and call anything dead living again.
They see me haunted and hunted
or humming with gladness
and they hold space for every version.

I rejoice with those who rejoice with me,
those who are unafraid to call me in,
yet they cover me, they cover me.
Praise my sisters who are a balm over my head,
who tend to me with sweetness,
honey bees busy blessing.

I turn my heart toward the place
that demands only more me.
Here the earth beneath my feet is lined with grace,
here there is kindness for every milestone.

Make no mistake this is a love story.

I give myself completely to my sisters that steady,
whose arms reach and brace.
I stay close to the friends who call my name for good
in rooms I am not in.
I touch my tired body to my rocks,
sisters who polish me a radiant Black.
I wait for the ones that are mine.
I run into the open arms of a grace that heals.
I stay.
I answer to a love that welcomes me home.

BLACKLIT by Wakefield Brewster

I swallow sum blackboard paint
So I can paint da word
Ain’t a word
Spittin ink or chalk I still talk

A facts-machine paradox propah truth stoppah
Can’t stop me or mock me
Europea-emcees can’t top me

When a Brotha gets a hold of technology
It’s microphone wreckology
Dealin wit’ your lame-footin
C’yan step-up-atallogy
I offer no apology

For bovine or swine
Domesticated equine
For mankind
My own mind

Up and mixed artistic with linguistic
And I slung a hot rock
Like Basquiat
When he brought the Black Thought

Bleeding paint upon paper
He changed and then deranged
The sight of man
The earth shaper
He closed the eye caper

And some years later since my Brothah’s life broke

I realize I am a smudge
A perfect brush stroke

Wit’
Pretty colours
Pretty colours

I am orange and yellow and red
I surprised myself when poetically bled

Myself

I was tongue-twisted-up like a dread
With thoughts dat rot
Stickin up in my head

Thrust back to life like Lazarus
Strife had me strike me a hazardous

Pose

Wide open with wrists and neck exposed
Liquid life tricklin eclectic flows

From my veins
Pure fiyah
Voodoo rains
Funeral pyre

My heated aspiration to be an element not simply elemental

Or even instrumental

But a song
And a symphony
With self-pity sympathy

I’m conducting those in da first row who think they know
I make ‘em all play second fiddle
If they don’t jump out da middle

And flee like dey was escaping The Passage

Faeces and vomit on da slavery comet
Founded inspiration in Black and broken bones
Da songs of da lands that we called our homes

And we can all hear them

Drawn to their timbres like
Whips to cracks
Licks to backs
Feet to axe

Funny how we stood taller when we lost our toes

And held our heads high
In a regal manner

Defying the yokes

Learning the language to create great stains
Kings and queens now bound in chains

And walking like gods

Unlike the ghosts of our gracious hosts

Now passed on to da land of duppies
Weighted down by da shackles of brutality dat dey constructed
In da hall of shame
Each one has been inducted

Back to da books
Back to da beginning
Back to da future what we were and what we are

Back in da Black hiding in da back row
Back in da Black like dese cats don’t know

Black like my namesake
Black like death row
Black like rum cake
Black like afro

Black like my Tae Kwon Do Brothers Afro Dojo

Because you can’t make Wake a blank slate
Because on the willing you c’yan break my shape
I ricochet your shots
From my own fighting system
Off da shoulder wrist strike
To da throat I’mma diss ‘em

And I’mma talk louder
And I’mma walk prouder
I’m leading by design
Because this hour is mine

I leave you with da fever
Den yo’ lip catch a slap
From da Onoshobishobi Ingelosi of Rap

This here is the evolution

Amoeba to man
Grunts to griots
Slavery to bravery

Cryptic like messages written on rice
Rolled up in blunt papers

And

Burned like our foremothers at da stake
Hanged like our forefathers dancing from trees
A painful slow waltz done in black and broken knees

Please
Please
Please

Help me find da method
I talk so much
That my teeth itch
And my hair hurts
Lyrical spurts

I try and I try and I try
You say you want a sensitive man

And den you hate me when I cry

I gotta internalize
And re-energize
And represent

Because you know my words quick clever can never be spent

And in diss industry

No Poemcee mediocrity can mess with me

Though it’s not all I’mma be

In this here reality

I’mma flow it

Cuz y’all know it

Black is Poetry

See?