Poems from Imprints 12:
"After the Wedding" by Marisa Anlin Alps, "Brian at 18" by Rick Hillis, "I Grew Up" by Lenore Keeshig-Tobias, "The Layers" by Stanley Kunitz.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b5b-vNhVdE
"Staring at the clock on the wall" - Noriko Kosaka
Still remember how proud my parents were about me once
But not in this school
Still remember how whole I once was
But not in this room
Staring at the same clock
Only to see my precious years pass by
They tell me that I need to prove myself
By doing math problems that used to take me only 5 minutes to finish
And I am wondering myself why it’s been already half an hour and I am still not finished
Staring at the same clock
Wondering whether I am dreaming or how I became so “dumb” somehow
Feels like a baby learning how to walk and talk as if I traveled in time backwards
But I am sure I am getting older
Because I just turned 16 last week
Still remember how proud my parents were once
And it hurts like hell
And I look at the math problems
Thinking whether I will ever be able to convince the world
That I am still whole when I finish it
Identity Poems
"Identity" by Julio Noboa Polanco
Let them be as flowers,
always watered, fed, guarded, admired,
but harnessed to a pot of dirt.
I'd rather be a tall, ugly weed,
clinging on cliffs, like an eagle
wind-wavering above high, jagged rocks.
To have broken through the surface of stone,
to live, to feel exposed to the madness
of the vast, eternal sky.
To be swayed by the breezes of an ancient sea,
carrying my soul, my seed,
beyond the mountains of time or into the abyss of the bizarre.
I'd rather be unseen, and if
then shunned by everyone,
than to be a pleasant-smelling flower,
growing in clusters in the fertile valley,
where they're praised, handled, and plucked
by greedy, human hands.
I'd rather smell of musty, green stench
than of sweet, fragrant lilac.
If I could stand alone, strong and free,
I'd rather be a tall, ugly weed.
"Theme for English B" by Langston Hughes
The instructor said,
Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you---
Then, it will be true.
I wonder if it's that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:
It's not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me---we two---you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York too.) Me---who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records---Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn't make me NOT like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white---
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That's American.
Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that's true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me---
although you're older---and white---
and somewhat more free.
This is my page for English B.
"Trinity"
dedicated to Brion and Bryan
I found you so late in high school finally
when my identity had settled
no longer pretty or smart
athletic or alternative
good girl or good-time girl
no longer binary.
We were the same:
more complex than our peers would allow
intellectual and insouciant
ambitious and artistic
sensual and spiritual.
The Father
You radiated wisdom and warm beauty
and a Mona Lisa smile
You had already attained what
most would never see.
Your body
strong from years of martial discipline
your jumps and kicks supernatural
your mind
achieving mathematical perfection and
well on its way to understanding the deeper mysteries of the spirit.
Equal parts
your Chinese artist mother and Irish physicist father
you were in balance
though I often think you must have been lonely
resigned in your greater ability to
being more than human.
The Son
You even looked like Jesus
your frame wiry and long
with dark hair and eyes that hinted at pain and possibility.
Your paintings were chaotic brilliance
your stories gut-grabbing archetypes
I would stare at you
mouth agape
face flushed
disgusted and aroused at the darkness you painted with such
stripped down honesty.
At first I didn’t understand
where these shadows came from
I knew your gentleness
I saw your tears for the deer among the frost-covered firs.
Your answer was simple:
It is only through dancing with my demons
I can control them.
It is only through expressing my darkness
I can know my light.
The Holy Spirit
When I was with you I became the Holy Spirit
dressed in silvery-white
limbs lithe and lengthened
hair a soft dark halo
lips and eyes opened in laughter.
I brought passion
wove carnal body and ethereal mind
bonded Prometheus and Zeus
smoothed away jagged divisions
to fuse our collective soul.
We formed a sacred trinity
pushed beyond the boundaries of
sweaty bodies
clamped minds
jealous spirits
and created something pure.
Revised April 29, 2008
The Sun or The Moon by Floyd VB
I do not belong to the Sun or the Moon
In 9th grade 14 year old freak frustrations manifested themselves in the need for transformation
I wanted fur to prickle forth from my skin like hypodermic flower stems
I needed my voice to lower and break
ripping vocal cords and slicing growls
I wanted to double forward in pain
spine cracking rib snapping muscles toiling and troubling into new shapes
and strengths needed to be bound by this lycanthropic curse and quadrupedal ecstasy
HOOOWLING
at the moon
Driven by Artemis
and all her virginal obviously lesbian werewolf sanction femininity
she was the only god I ever prayed to
Artemis please teach me your ways; wild moon dances and gravitational tidal flows in and out of my lupine body
let me hunt for my loves in the fictitious wilds
teach me the secrets of this womanhood I was born with
Artemis, why can't I bare to be a woman?
But she wouldn't answer
and I came to discover that because of my doubts of the correspondence between female body and something else mind
she had abandoned me
I do not belong to the Sun or the Moon
When I was 16 new frustrations manifested themselves in the need for transformation
girls over here, boys over there
hair, please prickle forth from my chin
good morning girls!
voice, please break lower and growl
ladies first
body, please square out and grow
you are such a strong young woman
breast, please be bound by this curse
be bound by this curse
be bound by this cursed tensor bandage which will crackle my spine, snap my ribs, shorten my breath and make me feel animal
I looked for Apollo; twin brother of Artemis, driver of the sun, protector of young men and masculinity, portrayed as the personification of perfection
Apollo, please
Make me into a man
I was no longer praying for I knew my two years older wisdom that he was nothing but a metaphor
but I still begged him to take my physical me away
This world of Apollo scares me though
It scalds moon skin all around me with fiery sneers
trying to turn my female cohorts into something
that is not something
Sometimes I used to join in; trying to be one of the Apollo-bros
Solar flaring behind the backs of lovers and friends
I do not belong to the Sun or the Moon
Solar Apollo is so corrupt among society's blatant misogyny that I cannot relate
and Lunar Artemis will not have me and will not have her for she is my body and I want to transform
I am at odds with this binary
and while I still wish to be called man and cringe when "she" or "ma'am" are
shot in my face by mistaken slipping lips
I do not want to be what man means to so many
I do not want to adhere to these black and white extremities
I do not belong to the Sun or the Moon and I do not want to
I just want to belong to myself.