he has eyes like a raccoon
but he has a good hat
the sun on my back
and the stars on my left
sun and stars
stars and sun
he has eyes like a raccoon
but he has a good hat
Tag Archives: poetry fridays
poet diva chick
who has coffeehouse
or whole foods market
running through her
veins
scan her dna and you’ll se
thrift shop
swimming
in it
hear her open her mouth
and youll hear alternative music or
hip hop living in it
she gives kids on the streets m&ms or
now and laters
she sees you
gives you a kiss now
and promises another one
later
maya angelou, amber tamblyn
and jill scott
are some of her sisters
dauxrianne laux , wanda coleman
nikki and Nicole blackman
you cant resist her
she can give her love freely like
edna millay, floating like a feather
or like Sylvia plath, a thunderstorm
no matter the weather
her body may be a temple
or she may look like a
buddah
she’s not out to impress
as she blowing bubbles
but she’ll school ya
words ride the hemn of her dress
her love is a hymn she gives to
him
when she opens her mouth
like a bell, she’s always heard
she chews licorice like a communion
wafer
a high priestess of words
– erren geraud kelly
ursula
the poet says “troy”
this reminds Ursula
of something
“god works in mysterious
ways”
“if I ever have a boy
I am going to name
him Troy”
she looks at me
“I have twins you know”
I do know this
because everyone knows this
I listen intently
perched on the edge
of a decaying
cafeteria chair
she continues
“they are girls”
“they are named after
bible characters”
I know more than she
offers
she doesn’t tell me that
the twin girls
named after bible characters
were taken last year
by a balding man
and his silent accomplice
conjoined grim reapers
c/o the department of social services
they were taken
because she lives
in a cardboard box
and does the things men ask her to do
in exchange for food and protection
she’s electric
a fallen powerline–
when I am near her
in a public library
9 am on a Wednesday morning a heterosexual woman
I think about
sex
she makes the men at our table nervous
with unflinching eye contact
and spaghetti straps
I watch them drown
in her flood
the man
who consumed her body
“Bobby Wilson”
gave her HIV
along with
those identical heartbeats
and was never seen
again
Alan says something now
he says
“what is going to be Troy’s
last name?”
everyone laughs
they know about
Ursula
they know about what she
does
“well I can tell you
one thing,
it sure as hell
ain’t gunna
be Wilson”
she laughs
and only
then do
I laugh
poems from 4/29
he eats oreos
two at a time and
quotes edgar allan poe
with great liberty
I wake up alone
and feel such relief
you were just
a dream
he says that you want
to fuck me
I tell him he is wrong
but I really hope
he is right
I like her messy eyebrows
how they spill out everywhere
sloppy girl I wish
I could loose control
that easily
there is no atheist on the street
I wonder sometimes if they
understand something
I do not
about god
the universe
what matters
unbridled love
I’m a 9 in Skid Row
according to some
Hollywood not so much
time takes its toll
these hips tell a story
at least that’s
what I’m told
I get sick to
my stomach
with syllables
I throw them up
5 at a time
I avoid the silence
but forget how to
speak
“it is an elation I wish to
prolong” – May Swenson
he rhymes bloom and gloom and
looks at me
needy
hungry for praise
that I won’t give
no crib for a bed
motherhood,
it dissolves me
a lonesome defeat
I fell asleep with
the oven on again
a thousand sweet potatoes
dead and gone
what have you hidden in a box of gold?
what about the gold box?
it was precious to him or her
what about the moth?
a symbol of deterioration
I laughed so hard
I wet my pants
on Selma Avenue
walking to the
piano bar
I receive the best compliments
from street dwellers
the most genuine smiles
from nobodies
a la brecha (to the persecuted)
If suffering comes unabated,
if weariness weighs down your spirit,
do as the once barren tree:
flourish.
And like the planted seed:
rise.
Resurge, breathe, shout, walk, fight,
Vibrate, glide, thunder, shine forth…
Do as the river rich with new rainwater:
grow.
Or like the sea approaching a rocky shore:
strike.
Know how to face the angry thrust of storms,
not braying, like a frightened lamb,
but roaring, like a defiant beast.
Rise! Revolt! Resist!
Do as the bull in the face of adversity:
charge
with confident power.
how wonderful
How wonderful to be understood,
to just sit here while some kind person
relieves you of the awful burden
of having to explain yourself, of having
to find other words to say what you meant,
or what you think you thought you meant,
and of the worse burden of finding no words,
of being struck dumb . . . because some bright person
has found just the right words for you—and you
have only to sit here and be grateful
for words so quiet so discerning they seem
not words but literate light, in which
your merely lucid blossomiong grows lustrous.
How wonderful that is!
And how altogether wonderful it is
not to be understood, not at all, to, well,
just sit here while someone not unkindly
is saying those impossibly wrong things,
or quite possbily they’re the right things
if you are, which you’re not, that somone
—a difference, finally, so indifferent
it would be conceit not to let it pass,
unkindness, really, to spoil someone’s fun.
And so you don’t mind, you welcome the umbrage
of those high murmurings over your head,
having found, after all, you are grateful
—and you understand this, how wonderful!—
that you’ve been led to be quietly yourself,
like a root growing wise in darkness
under the light litter, the falling words.
– irving feldman
