virgin/whore

no one ever praises the virgin or the whore;
without them women wouldn’t know they could be more
than two spread thighs or two closed ones,
living and breathing to fuck or bear sons,
both-and either-or or nothing-at-all:
virgins and whores are blamed for the fall.

i teem with the crust of a virginal lust:
the kind that never thinks of sex without trust
the kind that erects feminine pretenses
as sturdy and sound as white picket fences
but secretly covets her honest brothers
and sneaks her hands under tightly-tucked covers.

i embrace the eyesore of the seasoned whore,
who knows her place and still wants more
and can please others as well as herself
and sometimes places her pleasure on a shelf
as a homage to some forlorn liberty
for her guests and parents and audience to see.

the great irony of life is this fiction
this fixation turned cultural addiction:
we beg women to pretend they have no skin
unless it’s pure, clean, and paper thin,
or to make their desires fully known…
so judges can burden them with broken homes.

i am a virgin and a whore all my own.
i beg the world to see how well i’ve grown:
i play at coyness but i know you’re staring,
and i wear tight sweaters to start you glaring,
and either way i make no recompense:
being just one or the other makes no sense.

i’m a woman; hear me roar.
i’m the one you’re looking for.

hollyweird

i’m ashamed of everything i’m inspired to write
because somewhere, someone has thought this
exact thought and threw it aside or shook it out
of their heads, saying that it wouldn’t be worth
the paper it was printed on, not worth the ink
and scratch-outs and eraser smudges framing
it.

i want to write myself a new life, a better script,
a happier ending, the multiple shames-on-me
stricken from the record, the embarrassing
lessons undone and shrunken to pithy one-
sentence aphorisms, like next time wait until
the food cools or maybe he just isn’t that into
you or why did you think a woman would be
different.

i could handle my daily experiences on a big studio’s
budget, could control the mini explosions and scale
the deep depressions with some bungee cord and
a clever double, could shoot sparks out of my fingers
with my computer resulting in more than just poetry,
just prose, just thoughts, just words, just chaotic
me.

foolish

Spare me your desires:
if I knew the best worlds
to shape and knead for you,
I would hide your new worlds
inside my irises
so you would see something
beautiful inside me.

same indifference

today’s napowrimo #14 challenge is to write a cleave poem. i am not enthused but i will try it.

i skipped yesterday because i am having really bad allergy congestion, headaches, coughing, sneezing, itchy throat, and all-around suckitude.

i’m black

reason number 365 to be proud of my people:

we have dissolved
“i know where i came from
i know where i’m going
and i don’t know who you think you are
but i think you’re crazy
white person in the vicinity
saying some silly white person shit
and i know i am not alone
in thinking that you need to clean
whatever white lenses you’re wearing
that’s making you claim to see
something that anyone with a brain
cannot see and are trying to convince
all of us to see right now
slavery is over and i am not going to warp
my eyes or my life trying to fit your
crazy white person shit of the moment
into my vision and
i KNOW i can’t be alone on this
can i get an amen from the people”
into a single, prolonged, sidelong glance
into a fellow black person’s eyes.

our lives are codes.
saying that we want to be more
than maids and janitors and whores
means that we remember the jobs
our parents and aunts and uncles
and grandmothers had to do.

hearing any glorification
for the confederacy means
that some white person is angry
that black people are doing jobs
traditionally held by white folks
to keep white folks happy even if
they’re getting screwed the same way
the black people are screwing them
because at least the screwdriver
looks familiar.

when we hear “the victim’s door
was unlocked and there was
no sign of forced entry” we know
it happened in a white neighborhood.

we can’t say this out loud
because if we did white people
would climb over their cracker boxes
to exclaim:
“SEE Y’ALL NIGGERS ARE RACIST
JUST LIKE US”
and we’d have to sit around for
days and weeks explaining
how we don’t have the power
to make our sidelong glances
into full-length history textbooks
or successful television shows
or regular programming on
AM news radio stations
across the nation,

and if we just said “ho siddown”
they would say we’re sexist
primal horny jungle jiggaboos
trying to exercise our
super-strength and intimidation
on poor little them.

we don’t own language
so in this game of codes
and switches we take what
graces and glances we can get.

napowrimo #12: secret codes

Make up a secret code. Begin by writing a few nonsense sentences, like “The raindrops tap out a cry for help” or “The dandelions are saying all at once, ‘You are overwhelmed.’” The formula is easy: come up with a message and assign it to something unlikely. Remember, of course, that inanimate objects can speak and that signs and symbols may be nonverbal.

Once you have a few sentences, select the one that is most intriguing to you and use it to start a poem.

the dress

the first time i attended
i did not know what to wear
i did not know what to do
so i found something tasteful
(i thought) and readied a smile

only to find everyone
beautifully bedecked
finery and livery
while i masqueraded in
painfully poor tastefulness

so i thought
this year will be different
this year i will be fitted
and i will glitter in sequins
and i will beguile

but then i realized
i don’t want to turn heads
i want to be an invisible seam
plunging my worth in my neckline
would be too revealing

napowrimo #11: the thing you didn’t choose

Everyday we make choices. Some are small: English breakfast or Lipton? the highway or back roads? Some are more significant: convertible or mini-van? farmhouse or condo?

Some choices lead us straight into the life we’re living, but for this poem, think about one of the things in your life you didn’t choose.

Be concrete. Pick an object — something tangible* — and write your poem directly to it, as if you were writing it a personal letter. Explain why you didn’t choose it. What could things have been like if you had? Talk about what your life has become without it. See where the “confession” takes you.

*As an alternative, dig a little deeper and write your poem to a person you left behind.

haikus (3)

at the burial
the geometric snowflake
on my black wool coat

an uncle has died
the third in five years to pass
i cried with my dad

say a funeral
tell them you’re going to grieve
no one questions that

napowrimo #10: celebrate!

Write about a birthday party, a wedding, a baptism — any kind of celebration where you were with family or friends or both. Write about the colors you remember, the sounds (and how they made you feel) and the tastes you remember from any of those events. Did these things make you feel good? Did you experience any new foods? Did you meet any new people?

Sometimes, beyond our control, festivities can take a turn for the worse. Maybe that happened to you or someone you know. Whatever happened, be it great or not so great, let’s write about it!

sometimes it takes sadness to appreciate when one is happiest, when one has much to live for, when it is proper for one to grieve. sometimes facing sadness and fear can turn into a happy occasion. a sad face may hide a happy heart; so each must have its due and respect.

telephone

hi.
i am grateful for greetings
because otherwise i would
get hung up in the sound
of your voice.

hi gives me something to say,
something human. i hear you
but i need acknowledgement
of who i am before i
continue.

hi.
my heartbeat is closing
my throat and collapsing
my lungs. funny how
you raise that in me.

hi.
i love you.
she’s dead.
i can’t do this.
i’m sorry.

after hi
i’m lost on what to say.
i can’t form the words
beyond acknowledging
i owe you my voice.

impatience

i won’t wait until you want to be committed
asylum workers don’t wait for wanting to be committed
they sedate you and put you in tangly jackets
they hoist you into big fort knox vans
and away you go to paradise and hell

love is supposed to be pink
and heart-shaped
and fuzzy
and ethereal
and everlasting

i know this is infatuation because
i want to take my love and form it into
a bat or a club or a staff or nun-chuks
and beat you over the head with it
and drag you away into a gentler place

i want to put you in my fight club
and the first rule is
don’t tell anybody
and the second rule is
don’t tell anybody

and the third rule is
tell me everything you
don’t tell anybody
and the fourth rule is
love me back RIGHT NOW

napowrimo #8: unusual love connections

Today, think of your current love, your current obsession or the one who got away. Now come up with five or more unusual metaphors for the object of your affection/obsession: wool scarf, cough drop, puddle, half-empty bottle of red wine… Choose your favorite of the bunch and write a poem celebrating (or trashing) your love.

one of my erstwhile crush’s descriptors for me is crazy. because i am, or else i wouldn’t be able to put up with the world. or be attracted to him. so i decided to use literal images of institutions. it’s not pleasant; it’s not pretty — but neither is most dimensions of love.

the perils of inspiration

inspired by regina spektor’s “hero”

i never ever see it coming at all
i’ve said too much to let this be my fall
i have to write it now; i can’t let it stall

it’s not right, it’s not
right, it’s not right, it’s not right,
it’s not right, it’s not right, it’s not
right

too open wide and now i’m hardening within
too open wide and now my blood’s running thin
too open wide and now i’m thinning my skin

it’s not right, it’s not
right, it’s not right, it’s not right,
it’s not right, it’s not right, it’s not
right, it’s not right, it’s not right
it’s not right

no one writes it all
i don’t write it all
why write it at all

power through the people: it only comes after pleasure.
and the TVs try to rape us and our fights mean they’re succeedin’.
and our sins all try to leave us; but they’re leavin’ through the bleedin’.
and no matter how we wrap them, they’re still seepin’, seepin’, seepin’.

we open wide and then we’re beaten with sticks
we open wide and then we’re stoppered with dicks
we open wide and then they tell us we’re sick

it’s not right, it’s not
right, it’s not right, it’s not right,
it’s not right, it’s not right, it’s not
right, it’s not right, it’s not right
it’s not right

no one writes it all
i don’t right it all
why try to write at all

power through the people: it only comes after pleasure.
and the TVs try to rape us and our fights mean they’re succeeding.
and our sins all try to leave us; but they leave us through the bleeding.
and no matter how we wrap them, they’re still seeping, seeping, seeping.

i am a poet in this world; i don’t need a big stage
i am a poet in this world; i don’t need a big stage
i am a poet in this world; i don’t need a big stage
i am a poet in this world; i don’t need a big stage

it’s not right, it’s not
right it’s not-right it’s not-right,
it’s not right, it’s not-right it’s not
right, it’s not right it’s not-right
it’s not right

no one rights it all
i can’t write at all
why write poems at all