Answer Me Poet

It has been awhile, but I am back posting a bit of  my poetry. 


You may write poetry around me, embroider it
or craft it into a pearl necklace. The dew on

the lily by the lake. The little bird plump, hiding
in the shrubbery.  Lovers intertwined.  I remember

you.  I remember him, the poet of the sad eyes and
witness to so much tragedy inside and outside himself.

There is so much I do not understand and which I
question, the lightening that flickers dangerously

in the distance on a muggy summer's evening,
the wars that will not end.  Answer me poet and

and drop the syllables into my barely eloquent mouth.

Beautiful Narrow-Minded Poet

I met a poet online briefly.
Gave a compliment; she sent out an x. 
I am getting old, therefore I do not always understand
the shorthand of the young, their codes of conduct
and misconduct.  For all her beautiful words of hazy
borderline mysticism, I noted an imbalance, a dishonesty,
a narrow-mindedness, lush, vibrant words of
poetry, accounts of melancholy, longing for love,
walking outside the exile, but Twitter gave her
away, the narrow camp she followed and who
followed her, her focus on just a prick point
on the earth, her homeland.

Her words 140
characters or less, beautiful random Tweets
that though lovely left an unhealthy taste in
my mouth.  There is something too pompous
and proud there for her own good or anyone's
own good. I would love for this girl of the mellow
beautiful voice and worldly words that trick themselves
into a kind of mysticism to truly open her heart
and not pretend.  Leave the pretension on the
stage. Leave your dolls there before your audience.
Remove your mind from the narrow box it is in.
It may be difficult since I do not know the conditions
you lived under growing up.

You are a refugee,
but open your mind beyond
your group of headscarved females and self-
centered revolutionaries too afraid to die by a
bullet, drawing attention to themselves but solving
nothing.  Speak as this old girl speaks, naturally
and with open love, not all this pleading in the
dark and fear.  Even this aging poet knows when
to turn off the poetry and flowers, not to speak
like a poet all the time.  Take a holiday from
the stage.  To be a poet you have to first be
an honest human with feelings outside yourself
flowing away from the cold rigid princess.

Heaven Lost

There are things we cannot say and dare not say
but if we permitted ourselves to say them
the world would be warmed and caressed
as the sun thawing and melting the snow into
nothingness, water to the arid spirit.  Instead 
of the silence, the words that demand to be
said we relish in fear, anger, sadness, regret
when it is so easy.  Just a word, mine the right
ones disconnected from our egos permitting 
the softness and innocence to return.

Small children are artists with words. Even in their playfulness
and absurdity we see there is no treacherous pretension.
I watch the children on the playground and see the 
wonderland I lost.  I can never choose that heaven
completely again now that I know.  I remember how
difficult it was to learn how to ride my bike. 
A friendly older boy coached me but I never caught
on under his patient gaze and tutelage until one day,
one day I found myself balanced and riding on two
wheels. That boy passed away recently killed and
thrown away by his hidden pain and ignorant decisions,
hurtful that this happened to that patient and kind once
boy that I knew.  Like an old song went If I Ever Lose
This Heaven....I lost it and many more millions 
before and afterwards have.

Dis Poem

As I've said before, from time to time I will post the poetry of other people.  I'm just a beginner poet returning to my roots. I have only been writing poetry for two years now (I had before in the distant past), and I have no idea where my poetry may end up since my ideas are evolving and my bravery as a poet is increasing and maturing. I haven't looked up who this poet is yet, but I think I've heard his name before.  I saw this video on my Facebook timeline.  I like Dis poem.  Enjoy Dis Poem.

Adam and Eve: Or Hard Times

Adam and Eve had a really hard time
like in those old blues songs.
The Forgotten Books of Eden give the details 
of it as so. Adam crying.  Eve being the strong one.
That's the way it is at the heart of it.  
We end up the strong in lush, pregnant,
and frightening reality. See how the men
mostly die before us, or once the sex
ends we end up nurse maids.  We betray
the men and they betray us with our 
painted faces, secrets coiled up in a bottle. 
Someone, an angel, I think, flung a threatening
snake away across the world to halt
his menacing Adam and Eve, The Forgotten Books
say. To have everything given to you, 
a welfare system instituted by God, and 
then to have it all taken away.  Well, Eve
shouldn't have been so curious.  She 
brought hard times.  Do not blame the earth for 
we women and men bring hard times...

To be continued in my paddle-less boat
floating down a river.  The poet is escaping
and does not wish to be found.  

Boubacar

I like the name Boubacar which means "little camel" in Arabic.  I also like the music of Boubacar Traore who is from Mali.  I wrote a poem this week about a fictitious Boubacar. 

Boubacar, coffee flows into the cup.
Coffee colored face. The sun's shadows
strolling along the ground.  In the village
an unsociable goat dozing on her feet
chews through stubble. Boubacar,
granddad of all, long necked, big bodied
musical instrument in hand. Sprinkling 
sounds comes from scattered tree leaves.
Hot winds today.  The feelings are remote.
Boubacar  plucks the strings, adults draw
near, children come close on their knees.
A handmade toy lies on its' side in the dust.

Boubacar, singer and poet. Women with
straight backs balance buckets of water
elegantly on their heads, village acrobats
with tired backs and hips. Babies silent
looking pensive and knowledgeable tied
to their mothers.  Boubacar musician, shining
teeth in an ancient face, sage, once 
handsome. Two beloved wives buried,
six children left. Grandchildren pleading
to know more legends about their 
grandmas. As they sit wrapped in blankets
in the chilly dark evening, the smell of 
dirt, manure and distant grasses, an old
Tuareg friend comes up and whispers 
in Boubacar's ear. Boubacar rises slowly,
frailty holding him back now. The two
old men walk off to talk quietly by the huts.

Bessie Head

The late Bessie Head is one of Africa's most renowned writers.  I just finished reading her novel Maru.  The reading of the novel and what I know of her life inspired this poem.

You walked from there from the brink
from that place of apartheid
to hope for the quiet life
to escape the hell of the tragic life.
My heroine writer and spiritual mom.
One weekend I may have walked on 
the same soil and dust that you
moved upon as an exile with tired feet.
Like you I am an exile from centuries past
and like you I write to find my soul.
The brutality you lived under more blatant
in your face than the far more subtle
riddled one of denial I reside under here.
A quiet Pan-Africanism within you.
The mix breed girl of a white woman
and black stable hand early thrown
away displaced from the black and
mostly certainly the white.
I can see the horrors of that time
even though I was not there.
As an Diaspora African woman
and in a place that without words
forbids me to think, my mind still
treads all the horrors of the oppressed
anywhere. You wrote in Botswana 
to save yourself. Your small novels
of power and a pinch of poetics
are snapshots and paintings of 
the humanity of men and women.
It is all of them, us, and you 
universal pain and longing 
the displacement.  In your quiet room
the lamp on after dusk with pain 
and passion in your soul you peered out
the window at Serowe your adopted 
village and wrote of yourself and outside
yourself.  In Botswana they praised
you to me six years after your death.
To have sat with you sipping a cup 
of tea. To have sat at your feet to learn
the craft of writing the winds and pangs
of beauty and hurt in a land I am parted from.