Sojourner Truth

Assignment 19, write a poem about a person. Title the poem with their proper name)

Your were born Isabella;

changed it to Sojourner Truth

when you learned the word Sojourner

from being read the Bible

when you, yourself, couldn’t read.

You sued your son’s master;

demanded his return from Alabama.

You won, even though as author said

“Slaves didn’t do such things!

Women didn’t do such things!”

But you, in spite, of expectations

did.

Peter was freed

and returned to your care.

You went to New York,

because you heard black children

could take schooling there.

Your son, you vowed,

would learn to manipulate words,

use them as the liberation tools

God and you meant them to be.

When he was 18;

he took a job on a whale boat

sent you a few letters from far

off places, when they stopped

you assumed he died.

Then God told you in a dream

to travel and speak about your

life in bondage.

You did as the Lord instructed,

being a pious woman

you could do nothing else.

You gathered your few belongings

and your lone quarter, took the ferry

to Long Island, made your living

working the fields, doing laundry,

earning wages and lodging wherever,

however you could.

You spoke of a life in chains,

of the master’s lash and misogyny.

You spoke- fearless- to people

who sought to make you fearful.

You met Lincoln,

shook his hand,

recounted the tale in letter to friend.

I wonder if you felt like Cinderella

at the ball.

You are what

this little, colored girl

aspires to be.

To the little hockey player

You are small for age,

pale as milk and have crazy thick glasses

like Steve UrKel, a TV character

you are too young to remember

accept via rerun.

Green wheelchair and brittle bone disease

don’t stop you playing rough house games,

you say (and seem older saying it),

“My bones will break anyway,

might as well break them playing hockey.”

When you get older,

perhaps you’ll hate-

as much as I do now-

people calling you inspirational

merely for living life on terms

dictated by self rather than impairment.

But today,

you are too young

to have learned that

and you make me smile.

Rage...

(assignment 17: a science poem)

I am angry at scientists.
Angry that the dared have gall
to manipulate my small girl muscles
into shapes they never meant to hold.
Stole my weight baring knees
without backwards thought;

robbed girl child of only independent mobility
she processed for 24 months
until the Shriners- urged by school based assistant-
returned a degree of what was lost
in the form of power wheelchair.

Even today,
falling on what used to be my kneecap
and is now scarred over nerve endings-
just waiting for agonizing, accidental exposure
to anything resembling pressure-
means a few hours, days, or weeks in bed
with ice/heat, narcotics, and evermore both
annoyed and annoying assistants for company.

Because someone, somewhere
who had only known me for hours (if that)
decided the way my childhood body moved
was inadequate for adulthood.

Poetic Asides #16

Theme: Death

On Too Many

Friends, mentors, beloveds

You all are perishing too quick

for me to recover self

after loss of each.

Poetic Asides #15

Theme: Deadlines

Due date

Google calendar rings with them

for grants, for fellowships, for self-employment taxes-

the necessities of a writer’s life

or at least one that’s less austere.

Often, they harness wayward muse to task forgotten,

revive sprit in effort to meet request

by dictatorial forces, perhaps unknown.

Sometime grateful,

sometimes hated

mostly worth it!

Fantasy Island

The theme for today was "_____ Island". Sixteen more to go!

Thinking of balmy
soft grass islands,
I wonder what I’d Mr. Roarke to grant.
Would I allow my self to marry you?
Have a kid from every continent?
Own horses or dogs?
Dance with abandon in the streets?
Win a Pulitzer or a Pushcart?
Change the world?
Become the woman you see when you look at me?

Poetic Asides #13b

The Theme was write a love poem


Weather Patterns

When I think of love,
two thoughts pop simultaneous
into brain, unbidden.
You…
and hurricanes.

You swept through
ordered life like category 5.
Dearest, Katrina had nothing on you.

I swear ignorance
if I am guilty of
similar offenses.

Not that your Hindu cow calmness
would disclose such affects.