Notions of Beauty

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As an adolescent she’s told her looks are of a different class
Thus she finds herself staring hard in the looking glass
Not something she understands like ‘cute’ or ‘pretty’
Or even something as distinct like ‘siddity’
Just a tad too young to get the full meaning of erotic
But just old enough to know it’s not good to be exotic

Ferried every other Friday to the beautician’s chair
The only way to tame her long tightly woven hair
Suffers sleeping at night with a snug clothing pin
Shaping her nose so it’s straight and thin
Wooing her lips to sit just a tad inside
Knowing what they say about lips that are wide

Gone are the colorific beads that once adorned her hair
She’s older now and looks like that look cause stares
No batiks of blazing hues or other prints of ‘that’ fashion
More intents to belie the stereotypes of passion
Make sure her posture, like her diction is just so
Muddling through comparisons to a cookie we know

Walking ramrod straight without a rounded swerve
An attempt to camouflage of her natural curve
For decades she carefully toed that social standoff
Through the changing climes of wardrobe and coif
Never looking like ‘that’ was her personal pride
But conflicted as social and ethnic respect collide

But one perm too many turned it all about
Years of chemicals caused her hair to fall out
She tried extensions and other sorts of hair aids
She’s told leave it alone or more will fall out in spades
Her hair short and kinky, not since her childhood
She’s forced to face her definitions of what is good

Her childhood teachings, the well meant suggestions
Every single bit of it came into question
Resentful for feeling defensive of other’s disdain
Now that her looks no longer follow the ‘main’
Realizing she herself was once guilty of the same negation
That had nothing to do with her character or her education

It was a few years more to combine mentalities
Before she was comfortable with her new realities
Now she revels in her cultural prints and chains of jute
And she’s just as gregarious in her pinstripe suit
No longer concerned with how well she blended
Notions of beauty redefined, her spirit mended

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dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Poetics– The Art of Letting Go

And I Tell No One

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39

I carry inside
The family pains
The broken relationships
The broken friendships
The broken dreams
How I try do right
Even during the times
When I can do nothing
It is with me always

And I tell no one

I carry inside
The lump in my throat so sore
I scream on the inside
To choke down in fear
Of the love I’ve learned
To never take for granted
For it is far too fleeting
Even while wishing
It will come once more
Even if only to be lost again
It is with me always

And I tell no one

I carry inside
This beating heart
That overflows
With the strains
The understanding
That I’ve been dying
Since the day I was born
And the only thing
That can be done about it
Is to take it to its conclusion
It is with me always

And I tell no one

And I carry inside
A fervent desire
To hurry that conclusion
It is with me always

And I tell no one

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Today at dVerse we are asked to “confess” via poetry.

And before anyone panics, the above is taken from an old journal entry. Yes, I’ve had some bad days in the past that I pray are not a part of my future, however,  I promise all of you I am fine.

dVerse  ~ Poets Pub | Poetic Confessions

 

Orphan

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35

He was my first Deity, my Lord
All I knew encircled Him
He was the sun and I followed in path
Capitulated to His moods,
Prayed for His mercy
Lived in fear of His wrath

After all he was My Father

But he bowed to a deity
Of his own
That either kept him cold and aloof
or filled with the spirit
of liquid hellish fire
of various proof

We tried to be as quiet as a church
In the middle of the night
But we never found a peace to be still
When I can be whipped awake
At any moment
For some ages old forgotten ill

And where was she you ask
When his fist and my face
Were making connections
How could she save me when she herself
Was in dire need
Of her own protection

Where do I go
This was my shelter
It was all I’ve ever known
I’m taught never to be where I’m not wanted
But what do I do when I’m a child
And where I’m not wanted is home

Well the first time I ran
I was soon returned
For I was very under aged
But I aired laundry in the process
And now both of them
Were enraged

Straight A’s brought not a praise
Chores lack brought not a reproach
His indifference became such
That I would push his buttons
With a cheeky little laugh
The only way to feel his touch

Knowing it was all
A fucked way to feel
Just added to vicious revolution
a penance to pay
For which there was never
an absolution

So when I broke out
And ran away part four
I just started living wild
No one ever said a word
what could they say
I am my father’s child

I’m told I should still love him
Pray for him
And wish him well
I say I do in the mere fact
that I simply
never wished him to hell

Some called me cold
Some called me tough
can handle any shit
But I grew up where
whining didn’t change a thing
so what was the point to it

My mother died first
and she I do miss
She did the best that she could
The next I saw him was to bury him
keeping a promise
he knew I would

He’s been gone
nearly a year
without any impact
I was an orphan
deep in my soul
long before I was in fact

====================

Mining the Memory–dVerse ~ Poets Pub Meeting The Bar :

Letter To You

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7

To You,

There are several in my life, yet…

I desire only you.

What is it about you that suspends time and makes the universe stand still?

We speak on the inane of comic book characters, television sitcoms and movie trivia with as much passion as we discuss the arcane of politics, prejudice and justice and of freeing one’s mind. It is totally appropriate that the Biblical Book of Numbers holds as much sway in our conversations as the Astrological Book of Numbers.

I lay in bed and it is your voice I hear in my dreams, your touch I feel in my fantasies.

I often wonder, is it the charisma in your voice?

Or perhaps, it is the old soul that I see when I gaze into your eyes. That transports me another time when temples honored Ra and Nut, as the pyramids testified to the rules of Ramses and Hatshepsut.

Maybe it is the gentleness of your kiss introduced upon my cheek when we meet or part…

Could it be the truth behind your words? Perhaps it is the way in which you carry yourself with Dignity, with Pride, with Grace.

Or is it the fierce protector /valiant warrior that I see?

Maybe it is the honest way in which you treat people or the compassion within your heart, even as you chew someone out for nth time for the nth stupidity.

How am I so privileged to be let past the cool exterior to the warmth that you possess?

How am I so doomed to belatedly realize that the hidden warmth is your flame and I am your moth?

I am instinctively drawn to you…

You are: my Sower, my Reaper; my Hercules and my Achilles.

Shit! I’m in love with you…

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This “letter” was a near verbatim entry in a journal, from eons ago.

(Apparently, a) I don’t spell as nicely in my hand-written journals as I do when I type – who knew? and b) at 3:41am (the time noted on the entry), when no one’s looking I am one sappy as all get out  romantic – please don’t tell.)

It literally was the moment I realized I was in love, down to that last line. It made me laugh to read it again, so I had to include it in the post.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | OpenLinkNight Week 82

All of Love

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7

Promises made in gall of love
The lies some tell in thrall of love

Another sigh while pictures tear
The heart that breaks in stall of love

Lighting a flame, saying a prayer
Things done in hope in call of love

Sometimes one needs to lose to win
The second chance in fall of love

Then chains of fear soon fall away
And Raivenne flies your halls of love

====================

Trying my hand at a traditional Ghazal form.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | FormForAll: On Ghazals and the Ghazal Sonnet

Like Jazz On A Snowy Eve

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19

You walked in as always, someone grand
Full of ego and pride, swagger on display
The tone of my words caused your grin to wane
Releasing myself from you wasn’t planned
But I knew it was right and held my ground

The words once spoken tasted sweet as candy cane
Like summertime as delivered by Coltrane

I know I said goodbye, for that was all left to say
Despite your efforts to get the words all twisted
From the window I watch the receding back of you.
Your snowy footsteps a contrail, as you walk away
Then watched them get erased with a shovel’s scraping

Sometimes letting go is just all you can do
But Miles knows, it’s still just some kind of blue.

And like that it’s as though you never existed
The memory of us already starting to fade
I feel like I should at least want to cry
But my breath on the pane is the only thing misted
And I pour myself a glass, as the witching hour chimes

Snow done falling, staring out at a chilled winter sky
A glass of red ’round midnight, just Thelonious and I

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A little etymology here…

The final couplet (the last two lines), is a direct quote of my Facebook status from Saturday. Those two lines inspired this write. I had also promised myself, since I had tried my pen at David James’ Karousel from last week’s FormForAll | Karoulsels and Weaves, that I would finally tackle his Weave form. However, I really like the final couplet so much that I could not bear to separate the lines that inspired it all to fit the form. So, as I am wont to do with forms, and my apologies to David, I compromised. The result you see is a variation on the Weave form. Think of it as adding two extra strands to the pattern. The rhyme scheme here is: abcad cc befbg ff ehiej ii (and so on).

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | OpenLinkNight Week 81

Infinite Pens-sibility

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My pen’s a stitch of creativity
Against a world of mediocrity
A refuge within the palm of my hand
Whether cursive lines of one leaf’s rustle
Or prose on the weight of madam’s bustle

My pens lodge a dream of nocturnal bliss
Onomatopoeia of a snake’s hiss
All that’s required is my mere command
To push it further than my very best
Even when it looks like a Rorschach test

Equipoise is lost on the muse you see
Control’s illusion gone in a vapor
Pens hold infinite possibility
Upon contact with blank sheets of paper

====================
dverse ~ Poets Pub | Meeting the Bar: Creativity

Distance

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14

Distance makes the heart grow fonder
Even while it tears us through
For all the miles that between us wander
Its just one heart beat between me and you

I lay awake at night staring out the window
Staring at the moon staring back at me
With an odd envy in the knowing
Unlike me, you the moon can see
Holding the telephone ever closer
After our nightly calling
Warm with the comfort of knowing
I am your one and only

The sweetness of your voice so soothing
and so enthralling
That the silence after we hang up
Makes the emptiness all the more lonely

I cry myself to sleep knowing
That my tears are all in vain
For it’s only your warm embrace
Now far too distant to ease this pain

And I am haunted in the night
For the want of your strong touch
My memory taunts me with the ghost
Of that which I desire so much

We’re both so near the breaking point
Of memory’s latest gall
I watch you turn over in frustration
To see me smiling in the moonlight
It takes a full moment to digest
I’m not imagination after all
That I am in fact here with you
As you reach to grasp me tight

My need of your touch pushing me
Past the point of any qualms
Of driving hard through the night
Straight into your loving arms
And like that everything is all right
The heart cannot this joy contain
The pain of parting is nothing
To the joy of meeting again

Distance makes the heart grow fonder
Even while it tears us through
For all the miles that between us wander
Its just one heart beat between me and you

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dVerse ~ Poets Pub | OpenLinkNight Week 80

Carry On Tuesday # 189

Theme Thursday

Yes It’s Time

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22

I sit here in this foreign clime
Skyscrapers far as the eye can sweep
And strange rurals, bring forth a yawn
Once joys, now all things I detest
I’m going home, aye, yes it’s time.

My home so many scribe, regale
Of craven and the ones of brawn
The men of yore adorned in crests
Words that make one laugh and weep
And yet fall flat upon truth’s tale

The hills that rise and fall gently
Row upon row of verdant breasts
Their knolls soft, their valleys deep
That lull in dusk as well as dawn
My lands of home they call to me

Oh yes, my life will travel and roam
Yet never thought these sojourns would keep
Me so long from the lands that I love best
This homesickness must be withdrawn
Aye, yes it’s time, I’m going home

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Trying out David James’ Karousel form.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Form For All: Karousels and Weaves

Judge Not, Lest Ye…

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Ulanda Williams, a social worker in New York City, fell into a hole when the sidewalk beneath her collapsed last week. Ms. Williams was waiting for a bus and sought shelter under an awning when it began to rain when the ground gave way seconds later. Not falling straight through to the cellar below, she wound up wedged in the hole instead, it took special FDNY equipment to pull her out. She was taken to a hospital and was released the next day.  Ms. Williams was extremely fortunate that her injuries were limited to a broken arm, cuts, scrapes and bruises.  Apparently EMS and FDNY concurred that a smaller person may have died from the drop. It is Ulanda’s size that likely saved her life.

And that (her size), as they say, is the rub.

Granted, in each article I’ve read, the news sources have taken care to mention that upon inspection it was determined by the NYC Department of Buildings that defective steel doors and a loose staircase were partially responsible for the four- by-six-foot slab of concrete’s collapse. However, that part of the story is almost seems a side-note to the main article. Why?

Because in each of the sources that I’ve read, the story was not that a woman nearly fell to her possible death due to a poorly maintained structure. The immediate focus for each of them was that the woman in question was nearly six and a half feet tall and weighed 400 pounds, according to the New York Post. Yes, Ms. Williams is in one word fat. Journalisms presumed penchant for being unbiased (yeah I know), went out the freaking window once her size was known. Don’t believe me?

Here is the lead-in line for the Huffington Post article? “Looks like she got her big break.”

The New York Post’s opening salvo? “Size does matter!”

Oh, and my personal favorite, the first sentence from RoadRunner:  “Whoever says good things come in small packages hasn’t met Ulanda Williams. Williams, who is 32 years old and tips the scales at 400 pounds, claims she owes her life to her trailer-truck physique.”

Oh, look they so funny! So why the hell am I not laughing?

Why is it when something happens to a person of size in the news it becomes all about the fat?

Even in their headlines, headers and web links, the view is already skewed to immediately blame the victim.

*Woman who fell through sidewalk says her ‘girth’ saved her

*http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/too_big_to_fall_Fz8VbWLT2tMkq9gvShHF0J

*Ulanda Williams, 400-lb Woman, Falls Through Sidewalk In New York City

I am not saying that her weight did not contribute to the incident.  My complaint is how the media specifically and the public at large focused mainly on her weight as the culprit. Fellow blogger and someone I’m lucky to call friend, TheNatural54 rightly notes that if this were two men of average size who had fallen, or even a tackle for the Jets or Giants football team (because we know tackles are rarely small guys), the focus would be more on the badly maintained property and not their weight.

I generally do not read the comments on such stories unless I just want to be pissed off and appalled at a bunch of strangers who are never worth the energy spent in the ensuing foul mood that will then color my day.  Unfortunately, because this story came to my attention from various fronts, I wound up reading quite a few comments and yes, I was pissed. From their view it seems the concrete collapsing would never have happened to someone of a smaller size and that just is not accurate. But for the sake of devil’s advocacy let’s just say it really was all about the poundage.  What is it about being over a very subjective number that a person is no longer considered worthy of basic decency and respect anyway?  The mocking bullshit tweeted by Rupert Murdock before issuing a not even half-assed retraction (because it damn sure was not an apology), notwithstanding – the general public is absolutely vicious and loves using the mask of the internet to spew its fat hating vitriol, especially fat women.

If it had been a smaller woman who fell there would be much sympathy for her and anger against the building owners/managers.  Ulanda Williams has cuts, scrapes, bruises and an arm broken in not just one, but two places from her ordeal, why does her weight not entitle her  to such?

Judge not, lest ye…