Joshua “Scribe” Watkis
WusGood: “What’s your fav thing ’bout being Slytherin?
Scribe: “My favourite thing about being a Slytherin is that excellence is a standard held by your people. The same people you have to hold you down, make sure you’re elevating. It’s no trash standards accepted among Slytherins & I’m a sharper competitor because of it.”
The College Dropout
They could not fathom how
their boy with a polished bayonet brain
made his mind seem forsaken parchment
Intelligence and capability incompatible here
Their boy with a polished bayonet brain
“We expect better from your effort”
Intelligence and capability incompatible here
“Where are your grades buried?”
“We expect better from your efforts”
“My passion is unfanned forge flame”
“Where are your grades buried?”
“You can’t see the progress I’ve made?”
“My passion is unfanned forge flame”
Cold blooded spark chained in Dragon Harness
“You can’t see the progress I’ve made?”
Strict tongues restricting unharnessed skill
Cold blooded spark chained in Dragon Harness
Heat honed between chattering teeth
Strict tongues restricting unharnessed skill
What forbidden nectar drips from lips and quill?
Heat honed between chattering teeth
Invisible ink steeped across imaginations
What forbidden nectar drips from lips and quill?
His words technicolor provision from grey matter
Invisible ink steeped across imaginations
made his mind seem forsaken parchment
His words technicolor provision from grey matter
They could not fathom how
Scribe’s Wand
My wand is God and Devil wood,
Kumaka tree wrapped around a Horned Serpant’s shaved horn
Black Black magic fueled by ancestral soil soil soil soil soil and blood
Horned core to ground me here
North America is my home
Away from my home
Away from my home
But it is what I know best
My wand chose me to to to to to connect the three
My ancestors connecting connecting connecting connecting to my forefathers
Connecting Connecting Conn Connecting to me
We became parts of song spell unending
Conductor Conductor Conductor
Orchestrating change change change silently
Until the moment we need speak out
My wand felt me staring my oppressor in the eye
Canines bared bared bared smile deceitful disguise
It felt the tide of magic in me
A free man in chains
Waiting for the opportunity
To flee bloody into the night
My wand found me soaked in twilight
Body cauldron, blood blood blood boiling
The brightest parts of of of my nature
Casting casting casting shadows
To balance cosmic scales
Inheriting their weight
Creation and chaos are one face
We are pen and chisel
Dagger and pistol
Our magic is instrument
Violent vessel
Hard in soft soft soft soft soft soft soft soft center
A low resonating note
Full of dangerous conviction
And critical vision
Willing to turn
Even on
Myself
Bonds
It is so much older than I.
It’s kind born in the era of Olympus
Placed in lake Lerna for Hercules to face
This descendant was born in a time of Colosseum grunge,
Gladiator glory
And civilian sacrifice
It’s immortality based around (but not born from) Gospel truth
It’s other heads around White lies
That multiply when challenged
Dearest beast, it is time to die
When I was dunked in the tank
Capsized into belief,
A piece of me flickered out
In the Lerna’s murky water
The fire in me, more an ember
The Blackness of my coals
Unimportant, unwanted
In this white church
I came to question your honesty
See your many heads as duplicitous
Instead of resourceful
My faith confounded, corroding my solid rock
Knowing nothing suffering wholly I cursed Heaven
Demanding answers to my trials
My first trial my health
Your wicked ways my second
I block out the lie that told me Jesus was white
Two more take its place.
I ask my white siblings about police brutality.
They silently condemn me me me me my face
I retreat a fair distance
Leave Evangelicals
Under the rain of fiery arrows
The light finally brings you out in earnest
A Hydra
Even the blood of Christ, venom in you
I see your history in your scales
Slavery and death
Shame and restriction
The Vatican wrapping a healing factor
Inside white supremacist power
There is no good news in white Gospel
Your final bite
An attempt to subdue me with theology
Forgetting Heaven is a kingdom of hearts
I remind you
God and Love are the only masters I submit to
And you know neither.
I mark your immortal head
Leave it under a rock
To remind those who come across it
That even if I could not finish the job
This church is dead to me.
A lifetime immersed in the performing arts has made Joshua “Scribe” Watkis entirely devoted to the gift of storytelling. Through Spoken Word Poetry and Hip-Hop, he has taken thousands into his world to experience it as he does. The Toronto born poet has performed on stages across Canada, appeared on CBC and has opened for the legendary Hip-Hop band ‘The Roots’ with ‘The Uncharted’ collective. As a competitor he has attended the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word in 2014, 2015 and 2017, never having missed a finals stage. Scribe, owner and facilitator of Word is Bond, is an Arts Educator and event organizer as well, on the Board of Directors for BAM! Youth Slam and a curator for the Roots Lounge Open Mic & Poetry Slam. His goal is not only to bring his audiences through his story, but to gift them with the courage to do what he calls the “bravest act on Earth.”. To share their own stories, in their words, out loud….
AKA
Scarborough born & raised. West end res. Spoken Word Storyteller who will run up if you call him a slam poet. Pac’s son, God’s child, Cass’ husband soontime. All for excellence.