Tag: poetry

In Situ

Upgrading –
setting new standards
learning anew

Kin/ heritage
pursues me –
influence
and legacy

Timid concerning
the unspoken
the understated

Seduction courts
a response –
I am flush with possibility
basking in attention

But God is calling me home –
reminds me of mortality
humbles me in situ

I am already engaged
passion in the moment
dalliances redundant

(Self portrait created blind with acrylic paint and palette knife)

What’s Wrong With This Image?

I hear my mother’s voice
questioning my intentions
certain I’m not doing it right
this wifely thing

I’ll be abandoned, surely –
it all rests on a string for her –
if dinner isn’t on the table at 4:38
or the beds are not made right away
or the laundry basket, unfolded,
remains in sight –
then who blames the man
for leaving.

Six generations now
I’ve witnessed women fighting
for equality, for recognition
and still the old guard holds on

And now politicians –
men with loose jowled egos
and paunchy stances –
and so-called religious leaders
call for a retraction –
women’s lives at stake

Who will lobby for women’s rights
when the female voice is silenced
needs carefully tucked away
so as not to raise ire in her mate?

Let Me Out Of Here

Weighed down by complications –
you see, the amount of baggage
I carry surpasses my storage
capacity; and despite attempts
to simplify, paranoia tends to
my bathroom routines, and
no amount of persuasion can
appease her suspicions; and
the majority of my contents
have been accumulated by
my father’s business, and not
really mine to unload, although
I try, his tyranny still haunts me;
and well, anything new that I
start has to be protected from
the familial bouts of insanity;
and that is why I just want to
pack my bags and get out of
here, and be a mother to my
children; but it’s complicated.

(Art my own)