I cannot sing because when a child, My mother often hushed me. The others she allowed to sing, No matter what their melody. And since I’ve grown to manhood All music I applaud, But have no voice for singing, So, I write my songs to God. I have ears and know the measures, And I’ll write a song for you, But the world […]
learn moreOh! Mother, weep not, though our lot be hard,And we are helpless–God will be our guard:For He our heavenly guardian doth not sleep;He watches o’er us–mother, do not weep. And grieve not for that dear loved home no more;Our sufferings and our wrongs, ah! Why deplore?For though we feel the stern oppressor’s rod,Yet he must […]
learn moreA purple blush above the marshes; below on the wooden deck, two boys squeal at the cage of crabs they’ve yanked from the muddy inlet. Each year we come back to this: A heron’s white cross sails towards the sea, the tide crawls out, and a wasp sputters about the wooden shelter as I take it […]
learn moreThey say you were a farmer, I never heard your voice, I heard you were the oldest child, Did you ever have a choice? Did you ever have a choice to say, “I want to be a girl?” Did you ever have a choice to say, “I want to see the world?” You lost a […]
learn moreAmong the Shona
a family’s success
is weighed by their children’s happiness
and the family’s state of health
not by the accumulation of material wealth.
Shona people sure are wise
to have the foresight to emphasize
values that strengthen family ties
traditions of sharing, traditions of caring
traditions that instill dignity and pride
that generate beauty on the inside.
This poem re-stages a tracing match (quarrel) between two
Jamaican women. Common cuss-words like “boogooyagga” (low-grade) “heng-pon-nail ” (bedraggled) are used.
Gwan gal yuh fava teggereg,
Ah wey yuh gwine goh do?
Yuh an yuh boogooyagga fren
Dem tink me fraid o’ yuh?
Goh wey, yuh fava heng-pon-nail,
Is me yuh want fe trace?
Me is jus de one fi teck me han
An leggo pon yuh face.
Fe me han noh jine chu ch an me naw
Pay licen fe me mout’,
Me wi tell yuh bout yuh–se yah
Gal noh badda get me out.
And where
do your parents
summer?
she asked him.
The front porch
he replied…
In the kitchen as the toast browns
I put on my 3rd grade cateye glasses
pearly blue with rhinestone tips
I found with the baby books.
Music’s echoing into the room
from the radio my brother hooked up
in the bathroom upstairs.
I prance to the refrigerator,
doing tina turner
making my dress into a mini skirt
to get some juice.
Then my father comes in
& shakes his head
saying
four years’ money for college
gone straight
down the drain…
My Daddy has paid the rent
and the insurance man is gone
and the lights is back on
and my uncle Brud has hit
for one dollar straight
and they is good times
good times
good times
My Mama has made bread
and Grampaw has come
and everybody is drunk
and dancing in the kitchen
and singing in the kitchen
Oh these is good times
good times
good times
oh children think about the
good times…
Reference:
Lucille Clifton
Always it’s either a beginning or some end:
the baby’s being born or its parents are
dying, fading on like the rose of the poem withers,
its light going out while gardens come in to bloom
Let us stand on street-corners
in the desolate era & propose
a new kind of crazyness
Let us salute one another
one by one two by two
the soft belly moving toward
the long sideburns
the adams apple or no apple at all…
Reference:
Al Young
