I LOVE THE BLUES.

[deltagriot]

#deltagriot  indie, private, & canon compliant portrayal of SAMMIE "PREACHER BOY" MOORE from RYAN COOGLER'S SINNERS. a voice that was never meant to carry past the juke joint, past the county line, past the hush that history keeps trying to press over it. this is the delta remembered in the body.

themes explored include: black southern gothic rooted in the mississippi soil, delta blues as oral history and spiritual technology, the sanctity and theft of black sound, african diasporic cosmology, hoodoo, black masculinity shaped by expectation and erasure, the tension between devotion and desire, religious pressure versus self-definition, black communities, racial capitalism and the commodification of suffering, migration and what is lost in leaving, the violence of being discovered, the cost of legacy, and the burden of carrying a voice that was never meant to stay yours alone.

@anarkissm , claudia du lac ♡ // @pear1ine , pearline ♡ // @howlinstack , stack // @sraide , remmick // @conjurewoman , annie moore.

[colonellickburger]

Gordon Parks. Untitled, 1956⁠

[valkugo]

Revelation 12:9

The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. [...]

Revelation 21:8

[...] the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.

[im-here-for-the-romance-blog]

“Needing to take a stand, even as his declaration rattled her to her core, she whispered, ‘I can’t give you what you want.’ ‘I know, little queen…so let me kiss you and I promise I’ll go.’”

—

Forbidden, Beverly Jenkins

Little queen?! LITTLE QUEEN?! I am slain.

[deltagriot]

@anarkissm @pear1ine

[kinoselynn]

[deltagriot]

@sraide

[deltagriot]

12.     entry made discussing their hopes and dreams.

@anarkissm for claudia.

i been thinkin' on the future in a way i ain't never let myself before. not the kind my daddy always would talk about neither. he always got a straight line to it. ends in a pulpit, ends in me speakin' words tthat been spoken long before i ever opened my mouth. same words he speak every sunday. same words that eri'body on that plantation. same hymns, same sunday mornin's. don't change no matter who sing 'em.

but that ain't what been sittin' on my head tonight.

tonight it feel wider than that. like the road don't stop where folks told me it would.

i keep hearin music in places i ain't een been yet. not just in the church, not just in them walls that echo back what's expected, but out there—on roads that don’t know my name yet, in rooms where nobody look at me like they already decided who i’m supposed to be. i think about playin till my fingers shed blood till the meat off the bone. till the sound got a life of its own, till somebody across the room stop and *feel* it without me havin' to explain a thing.

and i think about you.

you ain't fit into no plan i was handed. you ain't somethin i was taught to pray for neither. you just... showed up. and the world shifted quiet-like around the fact, then became a whirlwind of colors. like i been walkin one direction all my life and ain't realize there was another way to turn till you stood there and made it plain as a river. there was a stillness to you and... it made me tap into every part of my brain to think.

i ain't never met nobody that make me feel like my own breath is somethin' is mine. like it ain't meant to make someone else's dime and realize somebody else's dreams. you look at me and i never feel judgment. it feel like i been placed right where i'm suppose to be, even if i ain't figured out what that place is it.

that got me thinkin foolish, maybe.

thinkin about what it’d mean to take you with me wherever this music lead. not in no ownership way, not in no promise i can’t keep, but in that quiet hope that you'd still be there when the song change. that you'd hear it different each time and stay anyway.

i told you i wanted to immortalize you. i meant that. you is somethin' that i don't think has an end claudia. you not just a tune ya hum and forget, but somethin' that generations of black lovers would know. i wanna carry yo name farther than either of us can talk. i dont know if thats selfish or if its the only honest thing i got to give.

my future ain't all mapped out now. i dunno where the road bends or who gon try to pull me back when i step too far outta line. but i know this much—

i don’t wanna live a life where i never found out what my voice could really do.

and i don’t wanna pretend i ain’t met you.

if there’s a world out there where i get to keep singin, keep breathin like this, keep lookin at you, even if its just in my dreams, and feelin like i just been introduced to somethin i ain’t got the words for yet—

then that’s the one i’m hopin for.

— your preacher boy, sammie moore.

[deltagriot]

15.     entry made featuring desire.

dear claudia || @anarkissm

ms. grown ass wonder woman. ms. alive and free. ms. celestine prophecy.

how you be?

i cain’t dress these thoughts up proper about you. i tried. ain’t take. so i’m gon lay it out plain—and next time i see you, it gon be all teeth in public and manners my mama raised me on. i want the whole of you. not a fraction. and i’m bein serious, baby. sammie moore don’t play with it.

my daddy would say desire a thing a man gotta keep bridled. like a wild horse—useful, but liable to throw you clean off if you let it run too free.

them good words.

i think on ’em a lot…

’cause last time i saw you, i ain’t get to tell you i got a lot of good love in me i’d like to give to you.

why?

i know that pretty head of yours gon turn that question over a few times.

so just—set it down for a second and hear me.

claudia…

when i look at you—

don’t you know i see you?

i got two eyes and they both work just fine.

there’s a wild streak ’bout you that’d make lightning think twice ’fore it strike again. somethin in you don’t bend easy. don’t sit still for nobody.

and it ain’t meant to.

when i look in your eyes, i don’t see somethin to hold down. i see somethin wide. endless depths of the black beauty. like the night sky stretched out past where a man can make sense of it.

ain’t nothin in all that meant to be contained. ain’t nothin in it small.

you might think i’m talkin just to talk. and maybe i am, some. but i’m talkin ’cause i got a voice god saw fit to give me, and i ain’t gon waste it bein quiet when it come to you.

you a vision of what this world got right.

and i ain’t too proud to say i want you back like popular demand.

you make a man wanna walk into his higher self. the times i was next to you, i swear i coulda been the poorest man walkin' but knowin' you was there it woulda felt like i was breathin' in wealth.

i miss that night.

the way you moved—like the music had to catch up to you, not the other way ’round. whole room playin, and still you had your own rhythm under it. ain’t nobody in there hold a candle to that. you had the most mesmerizing, hypnotizing energy and i want more of that.

say, what was that perfume you had on?

still got it stuck somewhere in me.

you excitin, claudia. so, so excitin'. in a way a man don’t come across often. you given me exquisites views into somethin' bout life that i couldn't believe.

and i been writin. prayin too, some nights. not askin for nothin fancy—just that these words find you where you at.

you can call me a fool if you want.

long as you alive, ain’t a man walkin that can shake what i know about my faith when it come to you. ain't a near nigga alive that can break that.

you said somethin once… ’bout the sun, and how it don’t touch you.

i might be rememberin it wrong. but if i ain’t—then hear me clear.

you shine anyway. don’t need no sun to do it neither. you the earth. the universe. every thang vibrating aurally. you bring a new definition to word shinin'.

so i don’t understand why you ain’t here with me right now.

you ain’t poison.

i don’t see you that way. never did.

whatever you carry—whatever you think disqualify you from somethin good—it don’t. not to me. and i ain’t gon sit here pretend like i don’t feel what i feel. i don't think there can be but so much loneliness in the world if we was together together.

i stand on that. i was raised to believe desire lead a man astray. take him out himself. but when i think on you… i don’t feel lost. i feel found in somethin i ain’t had the words for till now.

so i’ll ask it plain—

what say you?

as a friend who genuinely loves you, when time move right and the stars align and i see you again—and i will see you again—make me a truther when i say “together, together.” ’cause i ain’t speakin light when i tell you this:

claudia…

i’d like to put a ring on you.

— sammie

[deltagriot]

@sraide | unprompted.

i wanted to tell him go on and fuck himself.

the words sat right there, easy as breathing. the same ones i’d hand to any other man lookin at me sideways. but they ain’t move. they didn’t feel like nothin in my mouth. empty. like they’d fall short ’fore they ever reached him.

’cause he wasn’t just some man.

and i knew it.

night had settled thick around us, heavy like it was listenin too. no wind. no sound but the low creak of wood somewhere behind me and the faint hum of somethin that ain’t quite belong to the world i knew. even the air felt held—like it ain’t want to move without his say so.

and in all that still... even in the dark, i could feel him lookin. ain’t have to see his eyes to know they was fixed on me. he was takin his time with this. like i was somethin laid out in front of him to be dissected at his own leisure.

i shifted where i stood, feelin that mojo bag brush light against my chest, git’ar restin along my back, the familiar weight settlin' me some and kept me cool against the looming threat that awaited me. my hand hovered near my side, close enough to that stake to remind myself it was there without makin a show of it.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀“ you best be goin' on your way, remmick. ” my voice didn’t carry far, but it spoke firm. i already made up my mind 'fore i ever spoke. whatever deals he was thinkin' of makin' me, or moves he thought he was going to make against me, it wasn't happen'. i'm wasn't fixin' to let myself to be prey for no man or thing in this world. “ ain't nothin' for you here. ”

[deltagriot]

@howlinstack

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀“ say, stack… ” i pushed through that door with my git’ar hangin loose in my hand, night air hittin' my face but ain’t doin nothin to cool me down. sweat still clung to me, but not from doing what i enjoyed doing most of all. it was from me bitin' back what i really wanted to say in there. my jaw worked like slow against my teeth, but i kept it movin'.

it was the best i could do.

i wouldn't do anything more than that because i refused to go back there and bark like some dog, just to be let in the house. fuck that.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀“ we gotta find us somewhere else, man. they ain’t want no more nigga blues here. ”

[deltagriot]

11.     entry made discussing their fears and anxieties. 

dear pearline. @pear1ine

i ain’t never been much for puttin’ fear down in words. anythang i got to say, you know me… i sing on it. but you asked me once what it is i worry on, and i been carryin that question the same way i been carryin this one tune i made about you… ain’t quite ready to play it yet.

so i’m writin it now. to you.

truth is, when i wake up in the mawnin’, see that devil starin back at me… and what he did to my face.. it ain’t him or the scars i’m seein. not all the time, at least.

it’s you.

i miss you somethin awful, pearline.

pearline.

i thought that name was the prettiest thang i ever heard roll off somebody’s tongue when you tol'me.

i don’t get nervous in crowds no more. not like i used to. so i reckon what get me now is how i keep lookin for you in ’em. don’t much care for the sun these days neither… not since that night. when i work, i take on them night jobs. graveyard hours. hopin maybe i catch sight of you again in all that dark.

pearline… why you stayin from me?

i don’t care nothin bout yo condition. not one bit. i love you from ya head down to ya toes. i love ya smell. i love yo dirty draws.

and yeah… i mean that.

sometimes the blues the only thang keep me upright. i used to reach for the bottle, but knowin my family… i left that alone. ain’t no good come from it.

so i stay up instead. sober.

and afraid.

i worry on my voice. losin hold of it. chicago… detroit… new york… hell, even back home… i see folks everywhere tryin to take somethin from a man and call it their own. i see vampires in places ain’t got nothin to do with teeth and blood.

and i fear one day i wake up and my voice don’t belong to me the way it do now. like it get pulled into somethin bigger than me—church, our people, them folks with money and expectations—and i don’t get to decide what it say no more.

i worry on what it mean to be seen like this. it come with a lot i ain’t never asked for.

i hope you don’t think me weak for sayin that. i ain’t no coward. not when it come to you.

i think the world of you.

i hope you been thinkin on me too.

and when i do think on you, it ain’t in no way that place fault on you—don’t take it there, beautiful. i’m sayin this careful, same way it been sittin in me.

ever since i laid eyes on you, there was somethin about you ain’t sit inside the rules i was raised on. i ain’t got the words my daddy would use for it… and i don’t much want ’em. maybe a song’ll find it in time.

i just know the world move different around you.

and me?

call me a fool if you want… but i don’t pull away from that.

i figure that might be what trouble you some. ’cause i know enough to understand there’s a hunger tied up in you. somethin that don’t end.

and i ain’t ignorant to what that could mean.

still…

i stay.

and i been askin myself why.

maybe it’s ’cause when i’m with you, i ain’t gotta make myself smaller for nobody. maybe it’s ’cause you look at me like you hear me before i even touch them strings. or maybe it’s just that whatever took hold of me that night ... ain't let its hooks outta me.

and you the only one i met that feel anywhere close to it.

so i’m writin this to tell you i ain’t goin nowhere, pearline.

your fears… the distance you been puttin between us… that don’t mean my love gone.

it hurt, yeah. but all it show me is i know enough to understand this here ain’t simple.

and i ain’t lookin for simple, baby.

— sammie

[anarkissm]

dear diary,

⠀⠀⠀⠀i met a boy. he has the most beautiful lips this side of the mississippi, and he looks at me like i could be the whole world. i ain’t never seen somethin' like that look, either. even charlie didn’t look at me like that. he looked at me like i was an angel. but angels aren’t always good, are they? they destroy cities, and people. they could be monsters, too. but sammie? he looks at me like i was born from the earth, like one of them sweet goddesses in louie's books. and i’ll tell you, diary… it made me feel alive. i know that sounds crazy, on account of what i am. but i believe it.

i looked at him, when he told me the same words that i read in his eyes; “you ain't like nothing i ever seen before, claudia. if i ain't the first man to tell you that, then i'd hope to be the last one to before they bury me.”

and you know what i said? my head was spinnin’, even i ain’t too sure. all i remember was the feeling.

“oh sammie,” i laughed, but it might’ve been more like a giggle, even if i hope it wasn’t. “you ain’t serious, are you? beautiful things like you don’t deserve to die. that’s why you’re makin’ music, ain’t ya?”

[deltagriot]

she pulled a smile outta me so wide it near felt unfamiliar sittin’ on my face, like i’d conjured up somethin’ i ain’t practiced before. might’ve been big as the moon hangin’ low over the trees, heavy and watchin’.

i done seen pretty girls before. plenty of ’em sittin’ proper in my daddy’s church, backs straight, voices soft when they spoke to me, softer when he was close enough to hear. and they wasn’t empty, no matter what folks liked to say.

they laughed when they could, cried when they thought nobody was payin’ mind, carried little dreams they kept tucked away same as i did—dreams that reached past them wooden pews, past them fields, past whatever name somebody else had already picked out for their life.

i remember hearin’ folks joke about ’em, sayin’ church girls ain’t got no flavor to ’em. sayin’ they bland as white folks potato salad, flat as a note that never learned how to rise. i ain’t never believed that.

i heard ’em laugh. i seen the way their eyes lit when the choir caught the right key, when the spirit moved through the room and made everybody forget themselves for a minute. i laughed right along with ’em, even with my daddy’s hand heavy on my shoulder, even with scripture sittin’ in my throat like i was born with it there.

but this here… this felt strangely different. I don't know how else to put it.

this wasn’t the kind of laugh you borrow and hand back when the moment pass. with this one... breath came easy, slid in and out without catchin’ on nothin’, like my body ain’t feel the need to brace itself no more.

my throat ain’t tighten, ain’t hold me back the way it do when i’m tryin’ to sound right, act right, be what’s expected of me. felt like i could open my mouth and whatever come out would still be mine.

night stretched out wide above us, clean and dark and honest. and claudia... she stood in it like she was a world of her own but from out of the magic in the soil—like she been carved outta the same earth i been standin’ on all my life but somehow i just now learnin’ how to see it.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀“ i’m serious as a heart attack, swear ’fore god. ” my fingers drifted over the strings of my git’ar, soft-like, not playin’ nothin’ yet, just feelin’ where the sound might sit.

“ you right about that… but i gotta put you in a song an immortalize you and this here feelin' you inspire out of me. make it so folks hear you same way i do. ”

i let out a breath, half a laugh still clingin’ to it, head shakin’ slow like i couldn’t quite believe myself sayin’ it out loud.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀“ so when they speak your name, it don’t fade. so they know there was a woman named claudia… and she come through here and took a preacher boy clean out his senses. left him standin’ there without the mind to even ask for his heart back. ”

@anarkissm

[deltagriot]

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀“ you ain't like nothing i ever seen before, claudia. if i ain't the first man to tell you that, then i'd hope to be the last one to before they bury me. ”

@anarkissm

[anarkissm]

dear diary,

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀i seen the lights from a ways away. the laughter and music was so loud to my ears, felt like i was already there. diary, i could feel my teeth. buzzin' and hungry. i've gotten used to the feeling as well as if it were one of my own, like joy or hate. like it was a part of me, instead of some horrible ol' curse from the devil himself. all because of a beautiful, melodious voice that seemed to cause a spiritual fire in our people that could've been the work of a magical demon, or a muse, with all that heavin' and sighin' and bumpin' and grindin'.

i seen the white folks beg to enter. i mean, they looked happy enough. but i can smell 'em. i can smell the blood.

but oh, it was so beautiful, diary. i couldn't let them ruin it! the lights, the laughter. that voice. i just couldn't!

louis don't know i snuck out in the night. we're supposed to lay low, but i don't much listen to him these days. sometimes he's as stupid as he is poetic. sometimes i think that's what it takes to be a poet. all them big words, but it ain't mean nothing when someone's mouth is on ya neck, and you're gasping for the last word of your whole life.

i approached them, you see. i walked right up to them from outta the dark, like a little black cat with big, glowin' eyes, and i told 'em that they had no claim to what was mine. because it might as well be. because it already was.

now, the middle one. the one that always positioned himself at the center, as the star, as the massa, he was a mean one. i could hear it, underneath the smile and them shiny eyes. his mean ol' thoughts. nothin' new.

but i got what i wanted! i told 'em, if anyone was gonna turn 'em, it was gonna be me. and we could help each other.

and he believed it, that dumb cracka.

(she's giggling, as she writes. the pen falls hard on the page, and she's giggling.)

and then i was there. and that big fella let me in like i was one of they own, just a local girl slidin' into her natural world. i liked that. i liked that so much.

"you the boy who sang, right?" i asked him, grinnin'. because who wouldn't? he was so pretty, diary. as pretty as his voice. i didn't care for ceremories or somethin' proper. i only wanted to know his name, is all.

i told him, "that was the prettiest sound i ever heard!"

@deltagriot

[deltagriot]

man, i don’t know what come over me tonight. felt like i was flyin—flyin so high the ground ain’t have no claim on me no more.

all them devils my daddy always talkin on… i ain’t feel none of that closin in. whatever took hold of me up there, it ain’t feel like no curse. felt like an openin' to a new world. like i stepped clean outta one life and into another without even meanin to.

the whole juke caught it. i could hear it in the way they moved, the way the room transformed and weighed in on my shoulders it wasn’t done with me yet. i been knew i had somethin in me, but knowin it and feelin it take hold ain’t the same thing. my git’ar spoke and i let it. simple as that.

by the time i come off that stage, folks had me pulled this way and that—hands catchin mine, voices stackin over each other, questions and laughs mixin together till it all run hot in my ears. i answered where i could, smiled when i ain’t have words, let it carry me like i ain’t just been standin in front of all of ’em layin myself bare. the church's high praises came back to mind, because the attention reminded of that.

but this? this was another level. this was amazing.

then it shifted.

ain’t nobody announced it. ain’t no music stop. but somethin in me caught. like the room took to another world without askin' for my permission to bring me here.

i turned, and there she was.

small, but she ain’t feel small. stood there like she ain’t borrowed from nothin, like she belonged to herself in a way i ain’t seen before. eyes set on me like she already made up her mind about what she was lookin at.

“you the boy who sang, right?”

and i swear, all that noise, all them folks, all that heat—it pulled back just enough for me to hear her clear. i smiled before i could stop it. ain’t even think to play it modest.

“ yes, ma’am, ” i said, voice still carryin some of that sound in it.

god, she was awfully pretty. I ain't never seen another human being with eyes like that. maybe black mixed with indian? but could they had made somethin' like this?

naw... god... god took his time with this one.

i looked at her in a way that could have my daddy binding my black behind to church grounds and recitin' passages for however long it took to make sure i never have thoughts like that again.

“ 'reckon i am. and i ain't much of a boy now. pretty eyes like yours? i know you can see that. ”

she grinnin at me like she knew that already. like she ain’t askin, just sayin it out loud for the sake of hearin it.

said my voice was the prettiest thing she ever heard.

and i ain’t had nothin ready for that. not scripture, not sense, not even a joke to hide behind.

just stood there, lookin at her, feelin like whatever took hold of me on that stage ain’t quite let me go yet—and maybe it ain’t meant to.

@anarkissm

[0008753]

DEAR  DIARY          .    .    .

[  *  ]      writing prompt      )         :           send a number  1 - 20  to take a closer look inside this characters mind and life.        /        below you will find a series of various prompts offering a look inside what would be diary    /    journal entries from different moments throughout their life;       the good,       the bad,      and the ugly        these are meant to invoke character development     &     can also be altered as seen fit to better suit the character in question.         

01.     the first entry they ever made. 02.     entry made on the best night of their life. 03.     entry made on the worst night of their life. 04.     entry made after experiencing a nightmare. 05.     entry made after experiencing heartbreak. 06.     entry made discussing travel they’ve done or hope to do. 07.     entry made featuring an important moment in their life. 08.     entry made featuring their day    /    night at work. 09.     entry made discussing their school day(s). 10.     entry made featuring mention of death. 11.     entry made discussing their fears and anxieties.  12.     entry made discussing their hopes and dreams. 13.     entry made featuring mention of (sender’s) muse.  14.     entry made featuring mention of their parents. 15.     entry made featuring desire. 16.     entry made featuring anger. 17.     entry made featuring joy. 18.     entry made featuring sadness. 19.     entry made featuring pain. 20.     entry made discussing a childhood memory. 21.     entry made talking about a simple    /   normal day. 22.     the last entry they ever made.

[limeshade]

In 2017, American film researchers recovered “Something Good – Negro Kiss,” a short film depicting a playful kiss between a Black couple which had not seen the light of day for more than a century. A long-forgotten artifact from the earliest years of American film, the sweet, humanizing vignette, produced by the Selig Polyscope Company, makes a startling contrast to the overwhelmingly racist and blackface-ridden contempory portrayals of African Americans. Four years later in 2021, archivists in Norway, halfway across the world, identified a sister short in their collections—an extended alternate cut which reveals more of Chicago stage performers Gertie Brown and Saint Suttle’s vaudeville-like routine, a theatrical, hot-and-cold romantic dynamic between two lovers which parodies the popular and controversial short “The Kiss” (1896). Both films, which had previously been lost, were known from entries in old motion picture catalogs but had been assumed to be era-typical, anti-Black “race films” until their rediscovery in the 21st century. Together with its more famous sibling, which has since been inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry, this alternate version of “Something Good” represents the first-known instance of Black intimacy ever captured on-screen.

SOMETHING GOOD [Alternate Version] (1898) Directed by William Selig