Wednesday, July 20, 2011

some poetry i wrote a while back

forgot all about these...


Our fathers our heroes

To you he's no more than a pair of hands getting the job done
He comes home to sit at the head of our table
Long live to the sons of soil who give meaning to fatherhood everyday.
The pittance you call a salary determines how many of my dreams will come true
To me he's a fountain of advice, the voice of wisdom in this wide sea of uncertainty.
He comforts with his soothing baritone
While to you the only thing he's good for is Yes Ma'am No Sir
If it hadn't been for him I wouldn't be a girl
He's manhood decided my sex
To you he's just a Black dot on your white canvas,
To me he is wisdom personified
Hear me speak of my father

Scratch my soul
 
Look for me in the sentences, between the words
Of every newspaper article or news clip
I felt my essence as they were mutilating my beautiful body,
Stretching my oven of hope
A passage only the one I love is supposed to possess
Why, my brother, so much anger against your own
Look me straight in the eye so you can see the damage your raging loins are making you do
My soul weeps for my robbed innocence, violence in pursuit of my soul
Antiretrovirals, emergency pills - precautions only after
My bones and skin still ache where they groped
Skirt soiled with your useless seed
What a shame.
Incestuous invasions by father on daughter
Mama where were you
Did I not cry loud enough?
Give me a drug of forgetfulness, of forgiveness
Oh, Jehovah help their empty souls
My heart safely tucked beneath my ribcage,
Far out of their violent reach
They can only scratch the surface of my soul
But they'll never own it

Love deal

Nothing beats the discovery of love in tree houses.
With birds chirping all around, loud enough to muffle the sounds
that we shouldn’t be making in the first place.
We imagine ourselves in that other city,
In another world another time where no one knows who we are and
where we’ve been
Avenues lined with palm trees,
We walk hand in hand
Far from a life punctuated with uncertainty.
Nothing beats the feeling of stolen moments
Whispers in the dark, secrets sworn
Happy in the knowledge that we’re each other’s One.
With the prospect of marriage looming happily in our horizons
Mirages of a life we’ve been dreaming of for so long.
Well, that’s how we hope it is going to be.
He never escapes my imagination and I his.
He is presence and I am reality.

Forgotten motherhood 

Weren’t you the one supposed to give birth to me
Didn’t God choose you as my passage into this world?
Then, why do I use bricks as pillows?
Why do I look for treasures in other people’s trash?
Weren’t you the one whose breasts were supposed to give me sustenance?
I woke up to discover there’s no such thing as mother
Do I hold you at ransom for your abandonment?
Do I curse the gods for choosing you for me?
No motherhood to provide livelihood
Grandchildren don’t even know you
Daughters can’t even acknowledge you

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