African American Poets

January 21, 2010

“The Girls On Josephine Street” by Melissa McEwenPosted by

Melissa McEwen

THE GIRLS ON JOSEPHINE STREET

Josephine Street is notorious.
Everybody says it’s the street
where the fast girls hang,
so when the bus driver yells
“Josephine Street,” everybody waits
to see who gets off and almost
always it’s the loud mouth girls
in the way back. The quiet fast ones
get off on the next block and walk
back.

I stared at them in wonder
whenever my father drove down
Josephine Street to get to Mr. Pizza.
My mother would say, “Why can’t you just go
and get pizza from somewhere ‘round here?”
“Those places got nothing
on Mr. Pizza,” said my father.
So we’d drive down and through Josephine
Street, just for pizza. I’d be in
the back seat (my legs tucked beneath me)
looking out, imagining
those high school girls slipping
out of windows, struggling

out of jeans, sliding beneath boys. I wanted
to wiggle my way out of jeans, wiggle
my way beneath dancing boys with gold
teeth and minds filled with bad boy schemes. Hungry

for freedom, I wanted to taste, smack my lips
on the fruits of independence. I wanted to be fast like
the Spanos sisters riding their 10-speeds down
Josephine Street, hair flying behind them,
their shorts so short,
their sentences filled with street slang
and names of boys.

—from Rattle #31, Summer 2009
Tribute to African American Poets

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Melissa McEwen: “A late bloomer, still blooming, I wrote ‘The Girls on Josephine Street’ when I was in college but visiting back home. I remember walking down the streets in my old neighborhood and seeing the high school girls so carefree with the boys (no parents around, no inhibitions). The envy I felt as a youth came rushing back and a poem came rushing forth.”

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January 18, 2010

“On the Flyleaf of C.K.W.’s Selected Poems” by Herbert Woodward MartinPosted by

Herbert Woodward Martin

ON THE FLYLEAF OF C.K.W.’S SELECTED POEMS

When a man dies he doesn’t have to wipe his ass anymore,
Nor does he have to loosen those last drops of urine from
His penis; it is all over, except the bathing and dressing
Which is left to the undertakers in North America. Every
Where else you are quickly buried in what you have on.
Black people think of it as being “Dressed to Kill.”
It means you have simply stepped out of a bandbox,
That Messers Gucci and Saint Laurent along with
Ms. Chanel have themselves dressed you live, well,
Kicking and smelling as fresh and delightfully wintry,
Without their ever imagining the journey they have
So successfully prepared you for.

—from Rattle #31, Summer 2009
Tribute to African American Poets

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January 17, 2010

“Medusa’s Defense” by Jennifer Donice LewisPosted by

Jennifer Donice Lewis

MEDUSA’S DEFENSE

What was my sin? That my father, Phoebe, never taught me to swim?
That’s my alibi, our reason, and I told anyone who listened
that I’d sat like a buzzard surrounded by desert while my sisters swam.

They’d been taught by a foreign man who didn’t give a damn about
the laws, mixing of senses, or my sisters sweet complexions
that hadn’t met the sun. Yes, I was the only one.

But I’d heard them talking. Blue water, copper and chlorine—
touch that sexy trio, and your hair turns green.
So, I handed Percy the mirror. But he’s the one who found my father’s clippers.

“I’ll keep the scarf on. They’ll never know,” I said, when
my African locks fell from his hand and bounced across the bed.
Then the next day played out like our lives weren’t meant to end,

because boy, could Percy swim. And when we walked into the Y,
we were just two guys. Our bodies hidden beneath skimpy cloth, and
I’d tied a ribbon on what was left on my…“Medusa!” a classmate yelled.

“Athena saw us,” Percy said. I ran so fast that
my wet feet slid across cement as if they were glass.
Why? The fear of stoning, boys and lies, that’s my new alibi.

—from Rattle #31, Summer 2009
Tribute to African American Poets

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January 13, 2010

“The Lord God Bird” by Danusha LamérisPosted by

Danusha Laméris

THE LORD GOD BIRD

Sixty-two years since the last sighting,
ornithologists say they’ve spotted one
somewhere along the lip of the White River,
its pale beak, red crest, black and white featured tuxedo,
the last of the ivory-billed woodpeckers.
Could it be, they wonder
that the birds have gone deeper,
nested in the southern bottomland?
People kept killing them
to show in museums
nailing their bodies to planks.
Now the town is buzzing with tourists
armed with binoculars.
Isn’t this how it is? We want back
what we’ve taken, the way a child tries
to set the head back on a doll.
Jesus risen in white robes,
standing outside the door to his grave,
Houdini underwater, escaping the chained suitcase.
We want to know there is something
more powerful than destruction
so we destroy what we desire:
the lithe and fearsome tiger,
humans adorned in feathers and the skins of bison,
entire forests, quiet as cathedrals.
And then we want it back,
that thin strip of green, lush again,
the Lord God bird, as it was known
set back on its branch,
scaling bald patches into the rough bark.

—from Rattle #31, Summer 2009
Tribute to African American Poets

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Danusha Laméris: I was introduced to the world of poets on Dover Beach in Barbados by her grandfather, writer Gordon Bell. I remember walking alongside him and his friends as they recited aloud, talked and laughed, their feet skimming the white sand. What other life?” (website)

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January 11, 2010

“Who Are You and Whom Do You Love?” by Jacqueline Jones LaMonPosted by

Jacqueline Jones LaMon

WHO ARE YOU AND WHOM DO YOU LOVE?

The woman you were when you left them. The silhouette
sorting through your garbage, in search of aluminum
cans and credit cards. The man who jumped
in front of your car and the man who thought
he had pushed him. The jealous husband. Clarence Thomas’
first wife. The minister who built harpsichords
and molested you, again and again. The mother who cannot
taste her milk. Your grandmother’s image of herself.
Sammy Davis, Jr. Your children. The children you knew
would die as sacrifice. The man who wears headphones
and operates the ride. The child running into the fire,
for protection. The reprieved. The stoic who embraces
his weakness. The woman you swear you have become.

—from Rattle #31, Summer 2009
Tribute to African American Poets

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Jacqueline Jones LaMon: “I began writing what I thought were poems when I was six years old. I began studying poetry in 1999, reading and listening. The first collection that allowed me to redefine the possibilities of the poem was Cornelius Eady’s You Don’t Miss Your Water. I strive to tell new truths, to push my limits with every poem, every project.” (website)

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December 31, 2009

“Ode to the Bedpan” by Janice N. HarringtonPosted by

Janice N. Harrington

ODE TO THE BEDPAN

Consider the arching hips, the buttocks
squeezed, thrust upward and then pressed
to that metal lip, almost sexually. Consider
the bedpan—shit bucket, hat—its adaptable
demeanor: triangular, oval, saddled, slippershaped,
sloped, enameled, plastic, antique
porcelain, disposable, yellow to match the pitcher
and the plastic glass, spoon-colored or blue,
the faithful servant who bears away
the human ordure, its stench and its dye-free tissues.
Feel its patience. A bedpan waits more placidly
than a woman curbing her dog. Washed out,
it is used again. How many buttocks and thighs
has a bedpan cradled? How many beds has it
sat upon? The warmth of a bedpan
forgotten beneath a sleeping rump. The floor-
jarring percussion of a bedpan dropped
on the night shift. Consider its calm,
its kindness, really, that a bedpan accepts
these urges, spillings, the bowel’s complaining,
and the voweled protest. It does the job
assigned to it. Thigh, buttock, hip, the hand
that takes it away, embarrassment—
it is all the same. Shame—yes—but
that too is easily sluiced, nothing that anyone
should keep or have to sleep with. Bedpans
do not judge us. They are a measure
of humility, a scoop, a shovel, a gutter,
a necessary plumbing, the celebrant of hierarchy
and the social order, pleased to be lifted
by darker hands paid the minimum wage.

—from Rattle #31, Summer 2009
Tribute to African American Poets

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Janice N. Harrington: “I worked my way through college as a nurses’ aide in several nursing homes. I am still haunted by the memory.” (website)

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December 29, 2009

“Mucambo” by Myronn HardyPosted by

Myronn Hardy

MUCAMBO

There is one street-light in
the twenty mile stretch     violet      kryptonite.
We are walking      three

in a row      wax idols as earth melts to garnets.
I am beat-boxing (no one would
believe this)      the Bronx ubiquitous.

The others are rapping      something
by an emcee from São Paulo      dead
the year before      the claim      suicide.

The newspapers lie      dark
victims abbreviated. Hemispheric
history slithers through capillaries.

We stop at Rodrigo’s house.
The gate squeaks      a gaunt black
chicken runs into the peony bed.

The others peck discarded
carcasses in piles. Their
beaks      bronze.

Overripe grapes are offered in a blue bowl.
There is only hot water but it barely stings.
He smirks      used to power awry.

There is a debate on television.
They will vote for a new
president      once

poor      a worker from the northeast.
They’ll repair the roof.
All else weak      subterranean termites swell.

The road has become muddy.
Our flip-flops sink      stick      the flesh
in that ground rotten      stacked      easily mush.

We stretch in the white room.
Limber as octopi      wild      adulterous
we have learned to kill with limbs.

My Mets cap dangles on a hook.
Our prayers      answered
in violence.

—from Rattle #31, Summer 2009
Tribute to African American Poets

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