MICRO

Prayers to My Stutter #1 and #3

By JJJJJEROME ELLIS | 21 JUL 2020

Prayer to my stutter #1

Here in the red hour of repentance, how many layers of mystery do you wear? I am among the arches of your name. When midnight arrives will you be there, yet again, to drape your song on my shoulders?

Prayer to my stutter #3

Set me in the nest of winter like a jewel set firm in a crown. Set the jewel of the psalm into my midnight speech. The mountaintops are heavy with snow. Shiver me into silence, into the evaded word. Will you remember the rhythm of my vanishing? The stillness, the dancing. Smell the balsam fir, lost in altitude. Steeped in snow, I step down.

JJJJJerome Ellis is a stuttering, Afro-Caribbean composer, performer, and writer. His current practice explores time, silence, disability, and the divine in the Black Atlantic. Ellis’s work has been heard at the Poetry Project, Sotheby’s, Soho Rep, and WKCR. He collaborates with James Harrison Monaco as James & Jerome. Their recent work explores themes of border crossing and translation through music-driven narratives. They've received commissions from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Ars Nova.

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