From my literature corner: Women Poems with Heart, Tears, Sadness, Rejection and Abandonment

Not What It Takes

Poem by Patricia 

When I was thirteen

I noticed myself becoming a woman

or what I thought was a woman then.

My first time I was allowed to wear make-up

I experimented until it was so heavy

that it’s a wonder my face

didn’t fall,

It was so thick.

I rode around and around

the block on my bicycle

where my first boyfriend lived.

I was hoping he’d notice

That now I was grown.

So I thought.

On one trip around the block

He finally came out of his house

And hollered: HELLO

So, I stopped.

He took one look at my make-up

Red lips and all,

and laughed.

Well, I knew then that’s not what it takes

To be a woman.

She

Poem by Chrystal

When she is asleep, she dreams

Of a lot people round her

But she can’t communicate with them.

It is as if she is invisible.

She wants to scream or move in some way

So she will be like them.

If she could just get her sister or mother

Or anyone to just touch her, she would be reality

As they are.

There are many people around her talking

And laughing.

They think she is in their presence and they talk

To her. They don’t know she can’t reply back.

They think she is normal

But she is not.

If someone would just touch her

She would be in their company

Mentally and physically.

She fights desperately and finally wakes up.

She wakes up frightened.

Why does she dream this so often?

What does it mean?

Where is she at?

Doorway 
 

I can’t stand his face

because the doorway

is always closed.

Myself,

can’t let me see inside.

Doing Something Wrong

As a child I was always

doing something wrong.

Not because I was Black

but because I was a girl

and not a boy.

I didn’t like it, 

being a girl. 

Hark
Poem by Peggy Sue

Little Miss Muffet

Sat on her tuffet

Smoking her pot that was dusted.

Along came a spider

And sat down beside her

And hailed:

Hark! I’m a narc

And you’re busted!

A Sense of Love   

 Poem by Sandra

The grandchildren haven’t turned out

The way we thought they would.

Their parents are hurt and angry,

Ashamed, and worried about it.

I’m not.

I like these kids the way they are, 

Open and honest, disorganized and gentle,

Scruffy and kind.

They don’t seem to mind spending time

With me. We talked about real things:

Dreams, peace, the sky.

They tell me living

Is more important than accomplishing things.

I agree.

Their parents are outraged by this.

So I don’t go into it.

I say the kids came.

The parents say, Good. At least

They have a sense of duty.

I think they have a sense of love.

(C) poems from “So I Swung: An anthology" of work by women in the Travis County Jail, (Austin, Texas) 1978

It can't Be Love  
Poem by Zandra Diane Holmes

When we talked, I never seemed to listen.

When we loved I never shared the passion.

When we walked I never walked beside you.

When we laughed I faked my smiling gesture.

But when we argued, I awakened.

Marian Anderson
Poem by Loretta Campbell
Black Forum, 1978

She opened her mouth to sing and 

the DAR called the FBI,
who called the CIA, who called the KKK,
who burned a cross in her honor.

She opened her mouth to sing and                 
little Black girls went from
Baptist churches to voice teachers and
lined up outside the Met waiting for
the doors to open.

She opened her mouth to sing and
the White House turned up its hearing aide
while Eleanor pulled her chair up closer
to hear a revolution.

She opened her mouth to sing
and the winds of change whistled through
the crack in the Liberty Bell.
America heard a symphony in the first note.
   
© poems from Black Forum, Fall/Winter 1978  

*** Note: On April 9, 1939 opera singer Marian Anderson, who could not sing in all-White opera houses. She was barred from hosting a concert at Constitution Hall because of her race. This what the poem is about. The protest against Anderson was activated by The Daughters of the American Revolution. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR in protest. She helped arrange for Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial.

of her choosing
Poems by dorothy Charles banks

From “Black Maria”, 1979

e/z tears flood

her eyes nearly drownin

her face, washin

away Maybelline eye lashes

that waved good/bye, so long

As did her lover

and she chose to go insane

Rather than lose him

Rather than be a/lon and

lonely, watchin happy teevee 

commercials

Rather than suicide herself, seeing

him no more                                                        

she asked me, her best friend:

ain’t that nothin

showin how damn weak I am

showin how silly I am

choosin to go n/sane

cause my cheatin man left me

leavin me outdoors

but still in love with him

leavin me weepin and grovelin

at his feet, beggin for a

little kindness from him

he didn’t give me an explanation

I deserve to know his

reason for leavin me

but he did tell me in a hateful voice:

“Bitch, yo’ ass is all the 

way out of my life! Forever and ever!

You too fuckin weak and needy!”

his words stabbed hard at my heart and soul

 but I still love him with 

my bleedin heart 

my bleedin soul

I can’t even weep for myself

I hurt so much

ain’t that nothin?

I mean . . . 

ain’t that really nothin?

Cold poem unwritten

I’m trying to write

A cold poem cause

Men keep telling me

I’m cold.

I went to Alaska

To meditate 

And wait for a cold poem

To freeze itself

Inside my head.

3 days later

I left Alaska and 

The cold snow, 

Returning to the states,

Poemless and colder 

Than ever.

(C) by dorothy charles banks

I Have Decided
 Poem by Mary McAnally
From the book “We Will Make A River” 

 

I have decided that I own my emptiness

It is mine.

I can tap at the roof of it

with the tip of my tongue.

I can thrash around in it

when the bowels of the night

rumble across my forehead.

I can imprison it between my thighs.

I can lure it out of me

for several delicious moments

and gaze at it

through the windows of my wrists.

I can turn up my collar

and let it shrivel me to noting.

I can hurl it across the caverns of the moon

and wait for my cycle to bring it back.

I can wear it on the ark of my consciousness

or let it simmer out the corners of my mouth.

No one can fill it but me

Nor spill it across the fine silk web of my days.

This emptiness is mine

and I own it.

Drag Assing

drag assing

ass dragging

the hot ground

cause she too lazy too

prance like she is

full of self confidence.

Miss Marymay saw her one day

and fussed at her for

dragging her feet.

“Stop a minute, young lady! 

You looking awfully

Like a flat-footed hussy

Who ain’t in a hurry

To get nowhere!

''Pick your feets up like you

supposed to do, girl!

I know your

Mama taught your better!

“You supposed to walk

On your feets

Not your ass!

“Lift your feets

Off that sidewalk and 

Strut like you got some pride!”

(C) by dorothy charles banks

The Closet

Poem by Peggy Scarborough  
from“Family Violence”, 1982

Moonlight Publications

There in the closet tat whispered

I’ll be good, Momma. I’m sorry

Over and over again

A little girl lay fighting demons

With tears lapping under her chin

I won’t be bad anymore, Momma

I won’t be bad anymore

I’ll be your good little girl again, Momma

But none opened the door