Buddah Desmond’s New Poetry Collection, Coming Up From the Downside: Finding Joy in Our Song, is Out Now!

The celebration continues! Happy to announce that my latest poetry collection, Coming Up From the Downside: Finding Joy in Our Song, is out now!

Coming Up From the Downside is about adversity, healing, resilience, and faith. It’s about overcoming pain, loss, depression, health issues, and heartbreak to get to real love and the joy that sustains us through it all. It’s the third and final book in what I’m calling “The Home Within” trilogy, which was preceded by 2020’s From The Inside Out: A Poetry Collection and 2023’s Everything I Miss(ed) At Home.

The vast majority of the poems in this book were written in the thick of the pandemic. One of the bleakest periods that completely changed my life, and the lives of so many others. It was a season that kept giving lesson after lesson after lesson in the midst of getting up from the downside.

Coming Up From the Downside was published by Liquid Cat Publishing. The cover was designed Black Author Brand. Extremely grateful to my publisher’s team and the Black Author Brand team for their love, support, encouragement, guidance, and great work throughout this process!

And thank you so much for all who’ve supported me along the way. Words aren’t enough to express my gratitude.

Coming Up From the Downside: Finding Joy in Our Song is available for purchase at Amazon. Get into it!

Much Love + Many Blessings! ~ Buddah Desmond

Buddah Desmond, A Featured Poet on Vocal Expressions for National Poetry Month 2023

I’m happy to announce that I’m a featured poet during Nation Poetry Month 2023 on author Dee Lawrence’s blog Vocal Expressions. The feature includes an interview and two poems, “The Words We Used To Say” and “BLACK NATION.” 

Much gratitude and appreciation to Dee Lawrence for providing this opportunity, along with a platform for highlighting poets during one of our favorite months of the year. To learn more about Dee Lawrence, go to Vocal Expressions or check her out on IG.

Buddah Desmond, A Featured Poet for National Poetry Month on Vocal Expressions

Elated to share that I was recently a featured poet on author Dee Lawrence’s blog Vocal Expressions. The feature includes an interview and two poems, “When Freedom Called (The Fallout)” and “The Music of Life.” 

Much gratitude and appreciation to Dee Lawrence for providing this platform and highlighting poets during one of our favorite months of the year. To learn more about Dee Lawrence, go to her blog Vocal Expressions or check her out on IG.

~ Buddah Desmond

New Project – shifting from the inside out: love poems – Out Today!

Cover of shifting from the inside out: love poems by Buddah Desmond

I’m happy to announce the release of my latest project, shifting from the inside out: love poems today. This collection contains some of my favorite love poems from my last two projects, Exotic Shifter and From The Inside Out: A Poetry Collection, along with some new poems. The title is a play on the titles of the aforementioned projects, and serves to illustrate the notion that love is an inside job. It manifests from the inside out. And when we are loved, love ourselves, and love others, it changes us. 

With it being Black History Month, Love Month, and my birthday month, I thought to myself—why not put out a special project and offer it for free?

To check out my latest project, go to: https://bit.ly/BDez-shifting-from-the-inside-out

Feel free to share and let me know your thoughts.

Happy BHM! Happy V-Day! 

Much love and many blessings!

~ Buddah Desmond 

New Book, From The Inside: A Poetry Collection, Out Now!

I’m happy to announce my new book, From The Inside Out: A Poetry Collection, is out now! After sitting on this project for a few years, I finally decided to get over myself and hit the button.

About The Book

From The Inside Out: A Poetry Collection examines the power of love and its impact on our lives. When combined with action, commitment, faith, hope, persistence, and pride, love can transform our relationships, our communities, our world, and each of us. We can find “Glory” when we “lose [ourselves] in the beauty and wonder of life and love.”

As these poems illustrate, this journey may require a little work, a little discovery, and some growing pains…. For love is an inside job. And we love from the inside out.

From The Inside Out is available for purchase at Amazon. Tell a friend, then another friend, and then another friend.

Much gratitude for your support. Peace, Love, and Many Blessings!

Reflections (Slaying The Monster)

I looked in the mirror
And what did I see
A monster staring back at me
From galaxies unknown
Dark, brooding
So alluring yet so scary
Projecting the happy fantasy
When really singing the lost soul blues
Self-sabotages almost consistently
Holds feelings so deep that when expressed
It’s potency trumps the fire expelled
by an entire Weyr
Putting on, showing out
Acting up, always on the raucous route
Wouldn’t stop until he’d achieved total
domination, control, and power over you
And he won
Or did he? 

When looking in the mirror
What did you see?
A figure you almost couldn’t believe
Because he looked just like you
In fact, it was you
So familiar yet so unrecognizable
How could you manage to let it all go?
No more, you say
NO MORE
His time of recklessness, dysfunction,
and drama are done
For you’re taking it back, all the way back to one
The lost, but not forgotten one
The O.G.
YOU
Time to slay the shit out of this
muthafucking monster
He’s gone on for far too long
It’s the only way to right this wrong
Say goodnight! 

From now on, when I look in the mirror
I’m going to see me
The real me
Not lost, not blue
But genuine, authentic, and true
Loved from the inside out
On that realness route
Reclaimed
And reframed
Like Fantasia, I’m finally back to me.EndFragment 

~ Buddah Desmond, From The Inside Out: A Poetry Collection (2020)

Let’s Love

Love Selfcare Createherstock 4

Come on, let’s make love until
the moon and sun are emanating from
our cells
Let’s let that love light shine eternally
combating the darkness that once shrouded our joy
Let’s stay in love like Minnie
And don’t let anything get in our way
Let’s be love and love until pain is just a
faint memory
Let’s love like there’s no other
Let’s love cause we don’t know any better
Let’s be love cause like being yourself
it’s the only way
Let’s love cause love is right
Let’s love cause it’s our right
Let’s love cause there’s no such thing
as too much love
now, is there?

© 2015 BuddahDesmond

Inspired 2 Be

Courtesy of The Root & Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images

Courtesy of The Root & Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images

Those who’ve come b4 me have left me
Inspired 2 be
Just like, just as great, and better
I’m inspired 2 be
By those who’ve raised me
Those who fought 4 me
By those who stand by me
By those who set the example
I’m inspired 2 be
Because a way has been paved 4 me
A way that may not have been
If our ancestors did not fight
2 make a better day
A better nation
A better world
A better way of living
So that we could be free
I’m inspired 2 be the best
I’m inspired 2 be the greatest
I’m inspired 2 be
10 times better than
what the masses expect me 2 be
because I have the blood of gods,
kings, queens, soldiers, warriors, pharaohs,
leaders, activists, slaves,
fighters, mothers and fathers
flowing through me
I have a legacy to live up 2
and people, spirits and most of all, myself
that I cannot let down
There4, I’ve been
Inspired 2 be

© BuddahDesmond

Black Magic

Image courtesy of http://beautifulbrownies.tumblr.com/

Image courtesy of http://beautifulbrownies.tumblr.com/

Blackness in full view
Open and vast
Varied and rich
Not hidden in the cloak of
your lies and shame
Blackness doesn’t need your acceptance
or validation
It just is
As it is
And my, what our blackness is!
Full-bodied power
A vivid cultural mosaic
Intricately woven
Connecting our past, present, and future.

My experiences are too often judged, rarely understood
If I let you tell it –
my story simply wouldn’t be
My existence – my truth –
buried, annihilated
At the other extreme, you’ve tried to tell
my story as if you know me better
than I know myself
Praise to the gods that there never is and there never will be
a substitute for the real thing.

My story – our story –
more hype than virtual reality
Afro-futuristic dreams—
we live them every day
Casting spells before you
can comprehend
#blackgirlmagic
#blackboymagic
Rocking it like no other before, during
or after.

Forever an enigma
Keep ‘em guessing, as Mom always says
And just when they think they’ve figured
you out – flip that shit!

My blackness is unapologetic
Will not turn down
for your comfort
It’s everlasting
Just like the storied journey passed down
from my ancestors
Label it haughty or narcissistic
It’s simply self-love
Black love and BLACK PRIDE.

The strength and resilience
of my blackness is unbreakable
as the blood I share with my brothas and sistas
Forever catching our fires like Sonia
Yielding the fire within
Bringing beauty and beyond to the world
And making history every day
Now, that’s BLACK MAGIC!

© 2016 BuddahDesmond