Happiness is Poetry: Powerful Female Poets

Tonight for my weekly arts post I decided to reach back and drop a quick sample of three of my favorite poets, Sapphire, Warsan Shire and my newest, Ashe Vernon. A piece by each with a link back to where you can get more of their work, enjoy and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

Warsan Shire

Excuses for why we fail at love

I’m lonely so I do lonely things
Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same.
You hate women, just like your father and his father, so it runs in your blood.
I was wandering the derelict car park of your heart looking for a ride home.
You’re a ghost town I’m too patriotic to leave.
I stay because you’re the beginning of the dream I want to remember.
I didn’t call him back because he likes his girls voiceless.
It’s not that he wants to be a liar; it’s just that he doesn’t know the truth.
I couldn’t love you, you were a small war.
We covered the smell of loss with jokes.
I didn’t want to fail at love like our parents.
You made the nomad in me build a house and stay.
I’m not a dog.
We were trying to prove our blood wrong.
I was still lonely so I did even lonelier things.
Yes, I’m insecure, but so was my mother and her mother.
No, he loves me he just makes me cry a lot.
He knows all of my secrets and still wants to kiss me.
You were too cruel to love for a long time.
It just didn’t work out.
My dad walked out one afternoon and never came back.
I can’t sleep because I can still taste him in my mouth.
I cut him out at the root, he was my favorite tree, rotting, threatening the foundations of my home.
The women in my family die waiting.
Because I didn’t want to die waiting for you.
I had to leave, I felt lonely when he held me.
You’re the song I rewind until I know all the words and I feel sick.
He sent me a text that said “I love you so bad.”
His heart wasn’t as beautiful as his smile
We emotionally manipulated one another until we thought it was love.
Forgive me, I was lonely so I chose you.
I’m a lover without a lover.

*****************************************

Ashe Vernon

Golden Delicious

You were melt-in-my-mouth—
Tuesdays under the sky.
I picked your words like
fruit from the vine;
we were decadent.
Stretched out in the sunshine-touch
of each other’s lips,
your skin hot like a Texas summer,
I could have spent forever
tucked against the apple orchard of your chest.
My sundress hiked up around my thighs.
The two of us, laughing, with
“Someday” on our tongues—dripping down our chins,
all gold and vibrant.
We were ripe for eating.
We were sticky-sweet.
We were less Forever than we thought.
And when the cold set in,
I was still eating apples
even after you’d dug up your roots and gone.
(You said I held my hands too still.)
I wasn’t doing nothing.
I was putting down seeds
and waiting for Spring.

*******************************

Sapphire

Wild Thing

And I´m running,
running wild,
running free,
like soldiers down
the beach,
like someone
just threw me
the ball.
My thighs pump
thru the air
like tires
rolling down
the highway
big & round
eating up the ground
of America
but I never been any
further than 42nd Street.
Below that is as
unfamiliar as my
father´s face,
foreign as the smell of
white girls´pussy,
white girls on the bus,
white girls on TV
My whole world is
black & brown & closed,
till I open it
with a rock,
christen it with
blood.
BOP BOP
the music
pops thru me
like electric shocks,
my sweat is a
river running
thru my liver
green with hate,
my veins bulge out
like tomorrow,
my dick is
the Empire State Building,
I eat your fear
like a chimpanzee
ow ow
ow whee
ow!
My sneakers glide off
the cement like
white dreams
looking out at the world
thru a cage of cabbage
& my mother´s fat,
hollering don´t do this
& don´t do that.
I scream against the restraint
of her big ass sitting on my face
drowning my dreams in sameness.
I´m scared to go
it hurts me to stay.
She sits cross-legged
in front the TV
telling me no
feeding me
clothing me
bathing me in her ugliness
high high in the sky
18th floor of the projects.
Her welfare check buys me $85 sneakers
but can´t buy me a father.
She makes cornbread from Jiffy box mix
buys me a coat
$400, leather like everybody else´s.
I wear the best, man!
14 karat gold chain
I take off before I go wildin´.
Fuck you nigger!
Nobody touches my gold!
My name is Leroy
L-E-R-O-Y
bold gold
I got the goods
that make the ladies
young & old
sign your name across my heart
I want you to be my baby
Rapper D
Rapper G
Rapper I
my name is lightning
across the sky
So what I can´t read
you spozed to teach me
you the teacher
I´m the ape
black ape
in white sneakers
hah hah
I rape
rape
rape
I do the wild thing
I do the wild thing
My teacher asks me
what would I do
if I had 6 month
to live.
I tell her I´d fuck her,
sell dope & do the wild thing.
My thighs are locomotives
hurling me thru the
underbrush of Central Park,
the jungle.
I either wanna be a cop
or the biggest dope dealer in Harlem
when I grow up.
I feel good!
It´s a man´s world,
my sound is king
I am the black man´s sound.
Get off my face whining bitch!
No, I didn´t go to school today
& I ain´t going tomorrow!
I like how the sky looks
when I´m running,
my clothes are new & shiny,
my tooth gleams gold.
I´m fast as a wolf
I need a rabbit,
the sky is falling
calling my name
Leroy Leroy.
I look up
blood bust
in my throat
it´s my homeboys
L.D., C.K. & Beanbutt!
Hey man what´s up!
I got the moon
in my throat,
I remember when
Christ sucked my dick
behind the pulpit,
I was 6 years old
he made me promise
not to tell no one.
I eat cornbread &
collard greens.
I only wear Adidas
I´m my own man,
they can wear New Balance or Nike
if they want,
I wear Adidas.
I´m L.D.
lover
mover
man with the money
all the girls know me.
I´m classified as mildly retarded
but I´m not
least I don´t think
I am.
Special Education classes
eat up my brain
like last week´s greens
rotting in plastic containers.
My mother never
throws away anything.
I could kill her
I could kill her
all those years
all those years
I sat
I sat in classes
for the mentally retarded
so she could get
the extra money welfare gives
for retarded kids.
So she could get
some money,
some motherfuckin´ money.
That bitch
that bitch
I could kill her
all the years
I sat next to kids
who shitted on themselves,
dreaming amid
rooms of dull eyes
that one day
my rhymes
would break open
the sky
& my name would
be written
across the marquee
at the Apollo
in bold gold
me bigger
than Run DMC
Rapper G
Rapper O
Rapper Me
„Let´s go!“ I scream.
My dick is a locomotive
my sister eats like a 50 ¢ hot dog.
I scream, „I said let´s go!“
„It´s 40 of us
a black wall of sin.
The god of our fathers
descends down & blesses us,
I say thank you Jesus.
Now let´s do the
wild thing.
I pop off the cement
like toast outta toaster
hot hard crumbling
running
running
the park is green
combat operation
lost soul
looking for Lt. Calley
Jim Jones
anybody who could direct
this spurt of semen
rising to the sky.
soldiers
flying thru
the rhythm
„Aw man!
nigger please
nigger
nigger
nigger.
I know
who I am.“
My soul sinks
to its knees &
howls under the
moon rising full,
„Let´s get a female jogger!“
I shout into the twilight
looking at the
middle-class thighs
pumping past me,
cadres of bitches
who deserve to die
for thinking they´re better
than me
You ain´t better than
nobody bitch.
The rock begs my hand
to hold it.
It says, „Come on man.“
T.W., Pit Bull, J.D. & me
grab the bitch
ugly big nose white bitch
but she´s beautiful cause she´s white
she´s beautiful cause she´s skinny
she´s beautiful couse she´s gonna die
cause her daddy´s gonna cry
Bitch!
I bring the rock down
on her head
sounds dull & flat
like the time I busted
the kitten´s head.
The blood is real & red
my dick rises.
I tear off her bra
feel her perfect pink breasts
like Brooke Shields
like bitches in Playboy
Shit! I come all over myself!
I bring the rock down
the sound has rhythm
hip hop ain´t gonna stop
till your face sees
what I see every day
walls of blood
walls of blood
she´s wriggeling like
a pig in the mud.
I never seen a pig
or a cow
´cept on TV.
Her nipples are like
hard strawberries
my mouth tastes
like pesticide.
I fart.
Yosef slams her
across the face with a pipe.
My dick won´t get
hard no more.
I bring the rock down
removing what she
looks like forever
ugly bitch
ugly bitch
I get up
blood on my hands
semen in my jeans
the sky is black
the trees are green
I feel good baby
I just did
the wild thing!