Stephen House has won many awards and nominations as a poet, playwright, and actor. He’s had 20 plays produced with many published by Australian Plays Transform. He’s received several international literature residencies from The Australia Council for the Arts, and an Asialink India literature residency. He’s had two chapbooks published by ICOE Press Australia: ‘real and unreal’ poetry and ‘The Ajoona Guest House’ monologue. His next book drops soon. He performs his acclaimed monologues widely. Stephen had a play run in Spain for 4 years.
It was 1979, and I was 14; my brother, Dorian, was 28. We were in our house on 68th Drive in Queens.
Dorian worked in a record store in Times Square and always brought home the newest records. My cousin Michele and I were dancing to one of them, Rapper’s Delight by the Sugarhill Gang. It was the first rap song we’d ever heard. It blew our minds. Up until then I was listening to the Pina Colada song.
I was sweaty in my Jordache jeans in the living room in front of the speakers that came up to my waist. Dorian joined us, his button-down shirt revealing his chest and gold chain. “Hey,” he said, “let’s write down all the words.”
“Really?” I said. “It’s like 15 minutes long.”
“You and Michele write as fast as you can.”
We agreed. I ran to get sheets from my looseleaf notebook for the three of us. Then Michele and I sat on the shag rug, our legs stretched out under the wooden coffee table, Bic pens in hand. I felt as if I were about to run a race, waiting for the gun to go off.
Dorian put the needle down, scratching the record, the instrumentals thumping the beat, bump bump bump. ‘I said a hip hop the hibbit’
We listened hard and missed the whole first sentence. “Wait,” I screamed.
“Oh God,” Michele said, her black hair spilling over her paper.
I heard: ‘say up jump the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat’
The music blared. “Just write,” Dorian shouted.
‘Now what you hear is not a test, I’m rapping to the beat’
“Okay,” I said. “Keep going!”
‘Hotel, motel, Holiday Inn’
Pages of paper were accumulating on the table. Debi, my sister, came down. “How much longer are you going to do this?” she yelled above the music.
“Until we finish,” we yelled back.
It was getting dark out. My legs were starting to hurt. I got up onto my knees.
‘I go by the name Lois Lane’
“Wait,” I said again, focusing. Dorian lifted the needle. “Okay, go!” I said. My hand was cramping. My handwriting looked deranged. Dorian put the needle back on the record and sat with us at the table. More pages.
‘the beat don’t stop until the break of dawn’
I felt winded and had to pee. “Can’t we just dance?” I said and flopped onto my back.
“Yeah,” said Michele.
“Okay,” Dorian said. Still on the floor, Michele and I wiggled our feet and sang to each other: “But first I gotta bang bang the boogie to the boogie say up jump the boogie of the rhythm of the boogie that be,” singing the words with conviction.
It was night, past dinner. Michele went home to her house across the street.
My mom came in later, kicking off her Ferragamo boots. “What did you do today?” she asked.
David Sapp, writer and artist, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior, chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha, a novel Flying Over Erie, and a book of poems and drawings titled Drawing Nirvana.
The sun was out, and the temperature had risen. The previous day’s flooding that saturated much, was gone, having receded and also, I suppose been absorbed into the land. Some wind was there, and the paths were winding around trees and then going along the river and over bridges wooden but strong and reliable.
Away from the world, and sometimes other good souls went past, enjoying the routes and the sanguine hint of spring after a long and horrendous winter. One could think of shiny crystals, old books, smiles, coffee, blankets, music, the height of summer, paintings of wild wolves drinking water under the moonlight, and many good things, like some kind of visual manifestation. Or even of divinity, incarnations, gurus and sacred texts, plus the cosmos and its destiny and that of individual soul destinies. Where had everything come from? and where was it going? Sun star lake breeze the earth and trees, cities and countryside’s, billions literally, of souls traversing. Existence was, if anything, big.
A stand of trees had a stone under it, and then another tree more in the sun had a group of smaller rocks washed by the rains and previous waters. Tall beige and golden strands of some kind of wheat-like growths or reeds did reach up confidently to the brightness of the upper air then. And down the way,- flowing water and at times a broken branch for the too strong and fierce nocturnal storms.
But yes, then the day and sun, a treat from the universe for a nature writer, a solitary wandering poet, a soul something like a mixture of vagabond and visual artist, mendicant and monk, wanderer and way-shower.
The garden of my childhood was always filled with the scent of flowers. Every spring, blossoms would bloom in our yard, but there was one flower that captivated me more than any other — the tulip.
My grandfather always tended to the flowers with deep affection and taught us to love and care for them. On early spring mornings, he would take a small spade and gently work the soil while I followed him closely, never leaving his side. That’s when I would see the yellow tulips beginning to bloom — as if they carried the joy of spring itself. For me, they were not just ordinary flowers; they were the embodiment of beauty and elegance, the purest reflection of grace.
Many people have asked me: “Why tulips? Aren’t there countless other beautiful flowers in the world?” I simply smile and reply, “Because tulips are love. They are not just flowers — they awaken feelings deep within the heart.”
When I look at a tulip, something inside me stirs. It’s as if the flower is whispering a secret, trying to awaken the most delicate emotions within me. Every petal is a melody; every color, a feeling. Though the tulip bows toward the earth, it spiritually reaches for the sky.
The tulip is life itself. For the eye that sees beauty and the heart that feels elegance, there is no sight more enchanting.
Dilobar Maxmarejabova Elbek qizi is a second-year student at the University of Journalism and Mass Communications, majoring in Philology and English Language Teaching.
