There once grew a rose on an isle
The only flower around for a mile
Then a breeze came by
And made the rose fly
Thoughts of its flight make me smile
Tag: Poetry
Post Script: NPM: Squishy (Poem 2)
There once was a man
He ate squid out of a can
He was sick a lot
Post Script: National Poetry Month 2012: 30 Poems in 30 Days Challenge
Poem 8: From My Lips to Your Heart
Poem 9:
Poem 10:
Poem 11:
Poem 12
Poem 13:
Poem 14: All the World’s a Stage
Poem 17:
Poem 18:
Poem 19:
Poem 20:
Poem 21:
Poem 22:
Poem 23:
Poem 25:
Poem 26:
Poem 27:
Coming Home in the Winter of 1994
Construction paper snowflakes fall off of classroom windows
like leaves from trees in autumn. Each snowflake melts
as it reaches the concrete ground. Buried
underneath a black woolen coat and red hat,
scarf and gloves, I appear rotund. Heavy
thuds of windows finding their sills grow fainter as I move away
from the red brick school building, rubbing frozen hands together
as I taste the bitter winds. I breathe in the sharp odor
of now stale cafeteria food seeping out of the grate
that I pass on my way home, its stench pressing heavily down
on me. St. Catherine of Genoa School is now a block away,
yet I can still see the snowflakes as they lay on the ground.
The freezing wind stills once I walk pass the cemetery,
and I’m chilling like a villain the rest of the way home.
As I reach my building, Tai tells her mother she is home,
as she will do for the next three years,
until she has her own set of keys. I enter the grainy hallway
and make my way to the living room. I am chilled to the bone,
the cold so deep my fingers and toes burn.
Lakay se kote ou mete tèt ou
The living room rug wraps itself around my cold feet until the numbness
melts away like snowflakes on an autumn day.
April 12, 2008
A squirrel lies on its side
while the sun lays gentle fingers,
hoping to warm him in his hour of need.
But nothing can heat up preternatural cold.
I fend off Mother Nature’s cleanup crew,
remove the maggots,
and tenderly lift him and place him
in the soft fissure I have hollowed
out of the earth beneath an oak tree.
With him I place a few nuts and acorns,
for the journey to his afterlife.
The red jays and chickadees have come out
to offer an eulogy and I
say a silent prayer of safe passage.
Modern Charity
In my opinion, very
Reverend Mother, developments
in the U.S. regarding work
on behalf of immigrants, and
the use of non-verbal and militaristic
techniques in working with families,
is at the heart of this tension
between individualism
and collectivism – no,
instead this emphasis between
an individual and the government
is at the forefront of …
Well, the resolution is the paradox of modernity itself.
Christmas Shopping
Tahoe jeep, red car
red van, one bike
one wheel, USC67P
New Jersey plates
Down here to the left are red
Dorothy shoes, red
boots, red
wool coat, hat and gloves
To the right are grey
uggs, brown uggs
black boots, brown coat
light brown and dark brown converses
Red cell phone
Brown hair
Blue umbrella
an ugly furry sweater and
an ugly furry coat
Shopping bags
several taxi cabs
small cool snowflakes
and my WaMu checking account
Sunday
Lay with me, here.
Hug me, close.
No, not close enough,
closer. I want you
close up inside
and I need you
in me. Fuck! This is not what I want
I want intimacy and I’ve had sex
since taught at six by him
that I was wanted for nothing else.
Sex is intimate only to me
and you call it fucking.
So fuck me, now.
Fuck me fast,
fuck me until I forget how we got
to this place where I no longer know
your name.
Or how we met and you said you
loved my voice and could listen to me
whisper until six in the morning
while my roommate sleeps in the next room.
Fuck me until my need for punishment
dissipates while your cum soaks my cunt
from the inside out.
Fuck me until fifteen years of crying
on the frigid bathroom floor
vanishes, vanquished
by your black dick that mesmerized me
since the sixth day after I met you
on the three train at four in the morning
Sunday night
Arctic
Eleven times in two
days she saw the ghost
after fearing the apocalypse written
in black on the rim of
the john. Coded
lengthy surprise; one copy
north and one to the ground.
The ice traveled was
twelve feet deep,
years-old. Heaven dark and she
had surely gone crazy after
the third time he “woo-woo” ed
her outside, in the bathroom.
April 8, 2008
Caught in a thunderstorm,
rain sluices down my body.
A droplet discovers an opening
in my doused wool to slither down my flesh.
I imagine that it’s your index finger making
the path down my throat, in-between my breastbone
and onto my belly, where you pause
for a brief second before sliding down the right side
and getting absorbed by my blouse.
sayTaïna 