Tag: poems

Never Having Been a Girl

This poem is based on a true story. A sista I know  requested I write a poem based on her childhood. And after hearing her testimony, this is the result.

Waiting_by_prettylilly
Silence lingers on every street corner of her heart
surrounded by the sounds of her own heartbeat
the only child
who knew that loneliness could be so loud?
Never remembering ever being a girl
womanhood emerging from her mother’s womb
responsibilities following her home wrapped in soft blankets and warm booties
yet infancy is kicked off too soon
removed
and replaced with scavenger instincts
tearing away at empty cupboards
hope falling asleep like heroine nods
quickly replaced with the tears of a three year old
silence tearing away at the soft eardrums of a toddler’s pride
never remembering ever being a girl
Quick paces of little feet turned nine
gotta get the cigarettes on time
crowded streets
little feet
unknown eyes that are watching me
(at least somebody’s watching me)
careful now these little feet
having never been a girl
Twelve times twelve,
twelve arrives
sadness in mommies cancer eyes
watch him do it and do it right
gotta give the medicine exactly right
the internal cries of that youthful voice (never really having been young)
somebody please tell me,
where is mommies tongue?
gotta carry cause mommies gone
will someone sing her daughters song?
The woman with the pink ribbons in her curls
the woman never having been a girl
Restaurants to wash myself
weed and drinks cause I watch myself
who cares for cute sinks when nothings left
seems like childhood just up and left
me sitting beside myself
empty benches now colored with the stench of my pain
smelly armpits reach out to beg for change
while relatives sit at home and count my change
whose willing to see this woman change?
Never having been a girl
Hustle proved its source of love
where does an instant woman find true love?
inside the arms of an abusive man she seeks her refuge from lazy hands
money giving light to dark places
apartment buildings giving substance to misplacement’s
where
where has it gone? My love? Where’s your part?
where oh where have you hidden my heart?
Numbers fade away like living water upon dirty dishes
this daughter of mine the result of these stitches
Entering the world as if she owns it!
Gotta hope another woman has not entered this world
praying my first child has the chance to at least,
just be
a girl.

Addiction

addicted26

It surrounds me and takes a hold of my mind
(It has me thinking about it all the time)
Sometimes I have to repent cause the feeling’s so good it has to be a crime
Taking me back and forth from past slavery days to my time
(to support it I think I spent all of my dimes 😦 )
I am addicted to poetry
It sits and wraps it words around my thoughts
It sits somehow waiting to be taught
Somehow attempting to read my mind
Finding itself inside of my dreams, my back is bent over and I’m searching the floor like a fiend
I mean, this poetry stalks me!
It wants to know the secret to the life that I live
And then devour these set-apart words that I spill
Nevertheless I am addicted to it
Searching the corners of this blog, I long for words that can satisfy these fluids
Wrap the pen around my wrist and forget it let’s do it!
I am addicted to poetry!
With it I spend all of my time
Hungry, mouth dry and thirsty (nothing seems to satisfy my stomach but this poetry)
I become another person when it’s in me you see…
May hair is all over my head
My voice tends to rise from the dead
It is no longer shy but loud instead
See,
No one can control this state that I’m in
Defending my knack for poetry till the end
Itching to scratch on this paper and pen
I am determined to tie that knot from—wait, I think my husband may count that as a sin
I am addicted to poetry
I am forever exercising my mind
Looking up and finding the new definitions to words
Excitement rushes through me as I wiggle my toes
Ink fumes reaching the far back of my nose and forcing out words that are untold
I think I better stop before my skin looks old and my body frame is way too thin!
I can’t seem to stop this state that I’m in!
These walking wonderful worlds of many words planning a feast in my head
Allowing me to feast on its beauty instead
Biting my nails I am starting to get paranoid
Because
T-t-t-there s-seems to be a-a void
a thing called writer’s block that is blocking my thoughts
its forcing me to say things that I don’t wanna say
(dragging my feet I am now in PA class)
Surrounded by brothers and sisters who are also addicted to words
Looking around like they see flying birds (they call them metaphors though)
It’s now finally my time to be heard
But I’m looking around I don’t know what t-to say
I haven’t had my s-s-strong d-dose of words all day
And the bloggers are urging me to speak
But instead I’m shaking my leg and chattering my teeth until finally I admit
I AM ADDICTED TO POETRY!

Guest Feature – Exerpt from Ntozake Shange

for-colored-girls-cover
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is Enuf Copyright © 1975, 1976, 1977 by Ntozake Shange

i can’t hear anythin

but maddening screams

& the soft strains of death

& you promised me

you promised me…

somebody/anybody

sing a black girl’s song

bring her out to know herself

to know you

but sing her rhythms

carin/struggle/hard times

sing her song of life

she’s been dead so long

closed in silence so long

she doesn’t know the sound

of her own voice

her infinite beauty

she’s half-notes scattered

without rhythm/no tune

sing her sighs

sing the song of her possibilities

sing a righteous gospel

let her be born

let her be born

and handled warmly.

 

Guest Feature: Waiting for Someone – Lamar Jorden

“Somewhere
In the Northwest region of Seattle Washington
There’s a homeless man, armed with a beer can
Trying to drink away war memories
Waiting for someone
Self-less enough to lend him an ear
He sits on the side of a Pizzeria on the corner of Queen Ann and Mercer
In a chair, they probably kick him out of after business hours
His skin
Has grown all too fond of the concrete beds that he rest his shell-shocked head on
His braggadocios body
rocks back and forth showing off to the world the only gifts war veterans ever receive
He addresses me, “Ey lil Bra, you got a dollar?”
Without even checkin my pockets I tell him, “I aint got it”.
Having anticipated this appointment he responds with,
“That’s fine, cause I really wanted a 20.”
Amazed, not that he still knows what humor is,

but that is one of the few possessions that the war actually let him keep, I laugh
Before digging into my coat pocket filled with a ton of change I’ll probably never use
He lets me know that more than a 20, what he really wanted was a conversation
And takes my 75 cent donation as an invitation to start one
Without offering much space for me to converse,

he lets me know how in this country,
war veterans are rarely anything more
Than patriotic flies on a wall
And that for all these people to ignore his request
Is just as second nature as swatting at a pest
I guess
None of them realize that here lie their tax dollars at work
His body jerks
To the percussion of his bones
Dancing to the song of post-traumatic stress syndrome
How wrong
Is it of humans to lack humanity
Demanding he keep his lips locked but
Possess the audacity to ask where he got his army cap on
To think it’s a trigger you can purchase at a gift shop he tells me
That they’ve labeled him as crazy and they say

he has to take medicine called percadine but the one time he took it
It made him high so why would he continue when it makes his mind worse with time
It seems like the perfect crime
Having people fight for a country that won’t fight for them
The goal
Was for one of those countries to take his life from him
And the opposing country failed when he
Returned to civilization but
The home country would succeed by stripping him of his home
How long
Will this be the standard in this country?
Where if war doesn’t kill you
They distill you
Sending you back home just to rot and mildew
the phrase
“War is good for absolutely nothing”, is still true
Before he lets me go,
he tells me
that he wants to die.
And I see the tear-shaped white flag surrender from his eye
I give him a pound
Before digging back into my coat pockets surrendering

the rest of the change I found.
I tell him I have to go
Cause there’s a white man, screaming at me through traffic
Waiting for me to end this conversation
There’s a young lady at a bar and grill across the street
Waiting for me to join her for dinner
And there’s a poem
Scratching at the insides of my soul
Waiting for me
To tell this story.”

Copyright Lamar Jorden