24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
A woozy drunk DUI
He lost control because he was DUI
Police officer arrest drunk for DUI
What was thought a bender-fender was deeper
He got a ticket for DUI
The victim pressed charges for DUI
The drunk pleaded guilty for DUI
What was thought a bender-fender was deeper
The victim dropped charges against drunk for DUI
Police officer held drunk for DUI
The victim remedied the drunk off DUI
The drunk and victim wedded by the police officer
dearly beloved
we are gathered here,
our marriages intact
for the most part,
to see what these
ridiculous SCOTUS
pranksters will make
of us next. oh, we’ve done
the marches at the Justice Department,
the White House, the Reflecting Pool,
the Vietnam Wall, P Street Beach, you name it.
Nary a rock was thrown, not even an
insult, really. We just said our piece,
pretty please, give us the Equal Rights
for our granddaughters and nieces.
Never mind about our measly seventy
cents on the dollar or all our people
dead from AIDS. We just don’t want to
be afraid for the girls who won’t have a say.
When we put NO MORE WIRE HANGERS
on the signs that we carry, we mean the babies
barely grown, the lovely ones just now going to prom.
For goddess sake, don’t make them go through
this again. It’s not the abortions we want, anyway,
per se, but the right to be free of the ill-begotten.
We know what comes of babies who are hated, spawn
of rapists and fathers who had no right to take what they took.
Please read the book, The Power of Women, written
by a man, and you’ll know where to look. Spare us,
by hook or by crook. Spare them.
heart attack, the words
whispered from ear to ear
sounded horrible, cruel
condescending
all i wanted was to rush
into the room
where my father
lay hooked up
and hold him
close, tell him
he was safe
they were allowing
no one in
not even ma
why? did they know
about the fight
about the cruel words
did they know that
children’s hearts
flutter in fear
at such times
my heart is fluttering now
am I getting attacked too
by my own heart
I stand to call ma
but words don’t
leave my throat
I drop to the floor
many hands help me
moments later
or have hours
gone by
my eyes blink open
to see
both my parents
hover over me
what? i gasp
dada, how did you
what happened to me?
did i have a heart attack too?
dada smiles at me
ma does the same
their expression is
of genuine care
my surprise must have registered
it’s alright, dada says
we’re good, i’m good
you’re good
i didn’t have a heart attack
it was stress
and you didn’t have one either
you’d gone hungry too long
i sat up smelling something good
a tray with delicious soup
lay nearby
dada signaled to the nurse
and soon i was tucking in
relief trickles down my back
in gentle waves
all’s well that ends well
Pulling your heart closer inside
Feeling you go all in one stride.
Being together and not alone.
You find out the fun in your own home.
Once you feel you are drifting off
Get up and dust yourself
When you are feeling alone
Pick up the 1000-pound phone
and call a friend.
You will feel stronger and not alone.
A star sprangled cur
Of a breed beyond my Ken
Waiting, just waiting.
Hour Thirteen – Write a poem about a time when something really bad happened…that later turned out to be a good thing.
The Guilt
I broke two promises that year
Both, unintentional, of course
But the guilt, it overtakes the grief
The guilt becomes the driving force
The first was when I gave my word to him.
‘Take care of her,’ he’d said.
I had promised. Pleased him, eased him
Not long before he was dead.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I let her fall ill.
‘Bring me home soon, I hate the hospital crowd.’
I promised her I would. I will.
I did. In a hearse. In a shroud.
Grief got punched about by Guilt
Numbing, stiffening, shocking, guilt.
Selfish, tunnelling, funnelling guilt.
Weeping, creeping, sweeping guilt.
Two years on, and I know better
No, it’s still not easy that they died,
But I’m not the girl who broke the promise
Because I tried, I tried, I tried!
Isn’t it good though, that she didn’t stay
for me to take care of her?
She journeyed to him instead
So, they could take care – of each other.
The Holy of Holies
We
cousins would prostrate ourselves in play
Making believe in hushed tones
While above us two generations of uncles and aunts spun our lineage.
They were all swollen ankles, cracked heels,
trouser socks, and work boots.
Their voices would float
ethereal thick clouds of hymns rich with cigarette smoke
and guttural laughter and residue from midnight’s tears.
We would brush the hems of their garments careful
not to shake anointed threads.
They chronicled an uncle crouching behind a bush with a BB-gun
hunting a mean grandfather, who
journeyed by moonlight to Paris, TN for days at a time to visit
the family he had to leave behind.
Told of a sister whose dinners took too long to cook but appeared from bare cabinets like magic,
a sister who fought men like a man to protect her softness,
a sister who danced money out of wallets, the hip hypnotist.
They’d weave robes with golden thread for sharecroppers,
fasten blue ribbon to golden crowns for wanderers who’d lost their minds,
stitched ephods that sutured soldiers by reminding them of home.
They bestowed recipes like sacrement, and
hummed prophetic wisdom into our ears like poetry.
The griots burst with laughter that
quickened us from the floor into sukhasana and vajrasana.
As they chanted the names of the dead until they
conjured them from the walls, carpet, couch cushions, cabinets, and drapes.
Until the ancestors circled the room to the rhythm of the oscillating fan
GD Addie James
Ruth Barker
Bertha Mae Frankie
washing over us like anointing oil
while we played.
The
Choice
Should be
Ours to make
Not a power grab
For them to take away from us
Never thought I’d see the day, where that freedom slipped away.
Remembering the horror stories of days gone by; with coat hangers, butchers with dirty knives.
CW: older language/reclaimed slur; religious imagery
Untitled
“God blessed me by making me transexual for the same reason God made what but not bread and fruit but not wine, so that humanity might share in the act of creation.” ~ Julian K. Jarboe
I am a being of my own creation.
Made in the image of my ancestors’ wildest dreams.
They laid every brick along my path
so that I can do the holiest Creation of all:
The Creation of myself.
Every injection of testosterone in my hair covered stomach
is a commitment to myself.
Reaffirmed every time I put on the clothing of euphoria.
Giving my body rest and food and the extra salt I need
are love letters to my ancestors.
Every single day that I exist finds a new way
to say ‘thank you’ to Creation for the gift of participation.
I am the bread, the wine.
I am the image of God.
Queerness is an act of creation
and I am the wine and the grapes.
Oh rowan and ash, oh oak,
oh willow and pine.
Oh save me from my mind,
from belts and bruises and hammers.
Please. Save me from burning flesh
and screams screams screams. From
electrical grids on a mattress and the quarters.
Please. Save me from kerosene, from
laps, from kiwi and canned beans,
from bread balls and pan fried crusts.
Oh, pine, save me from the ground,
from the makeshift pulpit, from
words and wails and water. Save me from
the water, from death in a recliner,
Natural Light still in hand, from
broken concrete, from… from… from memory.
Wipe it clean.