Tuesday, November 17, 2009

WORDS

WORDS
an excerpt from my book SHOUT MAMMY SHOUT!!!: where the thunder hides. I love thunder and a recurring theme in this book which I wrote as a follow up to my book on my experiences as Adomestic violence survivor (WING-PLUCKED BUTTERFLY) is my love of thunder. SHOUT MAMMY SHOUT!!! is my victory voice over victimization.

Words don’t work in a vacuum
Sucked in between two cardboard covers
Words are to be kissed out
They explode on the scene of joy
Vomit in a firework of anger.
The unspoken word is just that--
Unspoken non-speak
Illiterate unreading.
Breeding depressed paranoia
Ungraced esteem
Blinded by silence
Untouched by the complimentary
I LOVE YOU
YOU’RE THE GREATEST
I MISS YOU
COME TO SEE ME AGAIN
CAN I DO ANYTHING FOR YOU
Words aren’t just words
They are power
The Word was with God
From the beginning of time
WHO LOVES YOU BABY
LOVE YOU MADLY
I LOVE YOU THIS MUCH
To speak or not to speak
Whether tis nobler
to shut up
Or to share
It is the best of times
And worst of times
Thunder…
Can you hear me?

Monday, November 16, 2009

THE RIVER WITNESS


I watch the news and it depresses me, I have no one to talk to so I needed to get this off of my chest. Where are the Amber alerts and intense Adam searches for the impoverished children of color and underserved populations?:
The River Witness
(To all of the lost, stolen, murdered and unclaimed children of color)
by Kentucky Yo'
My water churned and lashed
Angrily irritated
Trying not to swallow
The tender morsels of flesh
Trying to toss the dark skin
Back to the river bank
But her humanity was
her enemy
Already marred and scarred
In ways unmentionable
If she would only relax and
Let me gently rock away her pain
But she thrashed around desperately
Not wanting to let go
Twelve years of memory
Swallow-shouted “Mamaaaaaa”
But mama couldn’t hear
Mama was working overtime
Earning the unimportant little extras
She would never see
Rock-a-by river girl, rock-a-bye.
Kerscrunch went the crimson painted screwdriver
Tossed out of the devil red Ford truck
I recoiled just enough to reject the unacceptable refuse
Later found by a young boy gone fishing
Slumber river girl, slumber
I will ever treasure your breath in the secrets of my waterfolds
Rest brown river girl, rest.




















Tuesday, November 3, 2009

REVOLUTION

THE REVOLUTION
I am not a girl
When will we ever grow up?
I am 54 years old
I am a WOMAN.

I was at Applebee’s taking lunch with 2 other women. We were all 50 something in age. The young, bored out of his mind, bad postured, still wet behind his multipierced ears, teenaged waiter appeared from thin air. He clutched his order pad with perfectly manicured black nail polished hands glared at the floor with his perfectly smoky, grey-blue eye shadowed orbs and barked “What can I get you girls to drink?”

My cohorts let out girly giggles, one ordered coffee the other ordered a Pepsi. I said nothing. The waiter puffed out a sigh of intolerant impatience which I easily recognized, being the mother of a 15 year old daughter and having groomed a 24 year old likewise through this same teen phase of life.

Another now harder puff of breath, “And you?” He still had not looked up or met any of us eye to eye. Perhaps he just didn’t recognize who was sitting at his table.
“I would…like…you to not call me a girl. What do I have to do…how much more growing up will I have to experience before you call me a woman or a lady?” He looked up finally and I saw that the dark-sided “emo” revolution in him met the same spirit of revolution in me and he apologized. “I’m sorry, mam, what would you have?”

“Ice tea with lemon.” He vanished as quickly as he had arrived.

Silence…silence…and another dose of silence. I saw immediately that I had ruined our “girlie” outing.

“Honestly, what DO I have to do in order to be considered a woman? What size bra do I have to wear? How many children do I have to have nursed? How many sanitary napkins must I have worn? How many soufflĂ©’s, thanksgiving turkeys, casseroles do I have to have cooked? The minute a boy even sees a hair on his face or his armpit or where the sun doesn’t shine, one hair--real or imagined--people, including himself, start calling him ‘A MAN’. When do I--we--get to stop being girls? When do we get to grow up and be women?
“I like being called a girl. It makes me feel young” the oldest of the three of us said with an unconvincing giggle.

“We always call each other girls. Girls call girls--girls” my other friend whined. At 54 I was even younger than her. I was the baby of the group.

I bristled. “That’s why men don’t take us seriously. All of our lives to them we are just little girls, to be taken care of and carted around like trophies. At the board table with all of the big boy manly CEO’s we are just little girls. And when we command womanly attributes in a manly world we are branded ‘bitches’ not women. But a female dog. Or a ’tough cookie’. A dessert mind you, a dessert!!! You spank, chastise, talk down to girls or you come to their rescue, show them off to your other man friends. A man never treats a GIRL as an equal. We need a revolution, a change of thought about ourselves. Domestic violence will never end until we stand up as well as lay down in the bed as women, not girls. I am the revolution, even if I am a revolution of one.”

POOF, the waiter appeared. He immediately placed my tea before me then served the other two. He turned towards me. “What would you--you…ladies like to order?”