The Poetry Marathon

Sufferage

Sufferage

For Cecilia Streett Waters, Mary D. Randolph, me, you, your mama, and your cousins too

 

Waiting for States to ratify any decision that would

even the playing field

Is like waiting for a snapping turtle to let go of its dinner.

There is too much money to be made in apartheid, segregation, isms, and inequity.

Corruption is profitable. 

People in power will kill before letting it go.

 

People who have never needed a 

separate Amendment to be included in the Constitution

always hoard rights when others 

begin to move about the country as freely as they do.

They argue that we who are beneath the boot stop wriggling

Stop biting at the ankles

Stop begging for breath.

They assume lesser evil of inaction is eventual action, but

both options are two roads that diverge in a yellow wood – both worn really about the same.

 

And we writhe beneath the weight of waiting.

 

In this swath of stolen land, we fight for the right to exist as entire humans.

100 years ago, we had to fight 

again 

to protect the right to decide who leads us.

Today we fight 

again 

for our very bodies.

 

Women have always fought in wars defending their tribes and themselves. The tapestry of American womanhood is garrisoned by women ancestors who took what was due them. By usurpers.  

 

We summon the energies of all of the women who inhabit the women of the USA. 

Colestah

Harriet Tubman

Deborah

Lozen

Tomoe Gozen

We call them up from the soil. 

Jael

Judith

Yennenga

Buffalo Calf Road Woman

Boudicca

We call them out of the waters.

Queen Summuratmat

Queen Vishpala

Artemisia

Nafanua

William Brown

We call them down from the sky.

Pine Leaf

Queen Nzinga

Queen Gudit

The Amazons

The Agoji

Help us avenge us for the sake of our daughters and our daughters’ daughters. 

Sisters

Sisters are God’s gift to the world.

They are there when you need a friend.

A common heritage that can never be changed.

It matters not the age or the lack of a common interest.

The mere fact that a sister provides a link

to the past and to the future will give comfort in dry times.

 

 

Sisters can share secrets.

secrets that no one else need know.

Secrets of life, secrets of love.

Secrets of days gone by.

The closeness that may sometimes fail,

but need not fail

when you remember you share the same DNA.

DNA won’t make you alike,

but it’s the knowing that women share

that makes us part of the kindred spirit of sisters.

Opportunity

behind the window

appreciation and joy

looking for new ways

(Hour 5-@Mejia)

Hour 5: The Window

 

Through the window of wilted dreams, 

I have often jumped in poetic streams

Out my father’s house and into his bookshelf

A little elf, outgrowing 

The tiny window 

Its light still seeps in, 

But doesn’t shine on all of me

‘Consider yourself free’

Every words, on every page screams 

And I am blinded, because some pages are wilting 

Tilting their head 

In approval and disdain

Adding to my heel, each word makes me taller

The ledge seems smaller

Small enough to jump

And this time I don’t bump, 

Into a shelf, a book or a word, 

I have unearthed my roots.

depression Return12pm

I have spent days upon days
stuck in this hellish apartment
of which I know every inch
only because I studied things
because I couldn’t move

I didn’t want to do anything
I didn’t want to be anywhere
I just couldn’t-and I don’t know
how it even started this time

There is a light at the end today
though-
for the first time in a month
I can get up and clean
but please understand

I’m not generally a slob
I usually keep everything nice
and tidy
everything in its place simply because
that’s less chaotic

I’ve made my list and divided it into
reasonably small sections
by room and then by task
I’d better fuel up-
it’s going to be a long day and night

breakfast first
Dishes after
that task is done
what next?
Oh yes- The list

The living room
needs the trash picked up
laundry put into the hamper
what did that dish come from?!

Papers of past writing
those need to be gone through
on the couch-
Yep; I got distracted once more

back on task
the bathroom will be last
the grossest job in cleaning
on to the bedroom

Trash is gone-
bed is made
Floor has been vaccumed
dusting? For another day
A nap perhaps?

two hours later
still laying on my bed
I’ll have to make it again
Why am I distracted yet again?

My tummy has a rumble going
on inside-I don’t think it’s very happy
with me right now.
Maybe because It’s been about 8
hours since I last ate something

Fueled once more
and I can see an end in sight
I just have a few more things to do
and then I can relax for awhile.

the mirror

on my first birthday my father gifted me a hand mirror

my mother kept it in my nursery

and as I grew, it grew with me

at five, it was hung on the wall across from my bed

I saw my face as I slept

at sixteen, I came home and found it cracked

my mother tried to fix it with resin

but it came out lumpy and distorted

at twenty-three, I moved it into my first apartment

I left the mirror with my parents, it had grown too large and fragile to move

my father protested, my mother stayed silent

at thirty, I found it in their basement while searching for long gone memories

it had become a window, and through it I saw myself

a baby, a child, a teenager, a woman, a person

Hour 3 Rods and Cones

They say each human has

6 to 7 million cones in their eyes

helps to discern colors.

But the difference of a million seems tremendous

So, what if everything that we see and claim as truth

is not?

Cardinal Memory – Hour Five

She rook a somber stroll one day
In hopes to clear her mind
She came upon a rundown shack
The bleakest you could find
Its outer walls covered in vines
’twas dark and dusty too
And peering through its window pane
A storm began to brew

The storm and cabin fit her mood
The lady dressed in black
She made her way into the wood
With hope of bringing back
A memory of olden days
And love now long forgotten
But, ‘neath the sky’s increasing grays
More gloom was all she’d gotten

Until she looked upon the tree
Out on a tiny branch
A cardinal sat so happily
Amid the sky so blanch
She thought back to the olden days
Their birding days of yore
When through a tear, a smile displayed
As rain began to pour

Prompt Five: (5 word selection) This Morning

Wine glass
on the window sill
red-gloss lipstick on its rim
a half-kiss momento
of the night before
as bright as
nail marks on my back
as hungry as
sunflowers reaching for the sun
I occupy the space in which
your scent lingers
lean into the memories of you
as passers-by on the pavement below,
never looking up,
cannot comprehend
the magnitude of
this morning

 

Photo by Michael Barber on Unsplash

“Mirror, Mirror On The Window”

The only window in my room,
Remain open, without a view.
The outside world, is too poisoned.
Too dangerous to even peak.
Now covered with old mirror, it speaks.

Mirror, mirror on the window,
What can you share to me?
How was the world going?
Is there still place left for me?
Mirror, mirror on my window, speak!

Please! Let me know what you see.
Let me know, is there still room for me?
Does this being can still see,
A happy place apart from here?
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Writer: M.E. Flores
Hour05, Image Prompt05