aplus
04-12-2005, 03:00 PM
http://slumz.boxden.com/showthread.php?t=236496
This is an older poem of mine, but I don't think I ever shared it with ya'll, so I figured I would. This will be in my upcoming book, a poetic memoir entitled "My Own Brand of Blues" to be published by RockWay Press this fall (shameless plug). Let me know what you think...hate it or love it.
My Pedigree
My mother’s mouth
talked, when she was younger,
about segregation in rural Oklahoma and
of an undersized schoolhouse, a single room
where my grandfather dutifully educated
his daughters and the other
small-town colored children.
It sounded challenging,
but somehow, along walls of prejudice,
they painted murals of hope and survival.
My mother’s skin, fairer
than most, was brown enough to
distinguish her from the governing race,
but light enough to make her
a prized filly on campus. I envision hordes
of conked haired, smooth talking, brown studs
jockeying to go out with this leggy,
light-toned lass and fawn over
her cocoa-butter softened hands.
My father's ears, perhaps,
heard squabbles between hustlers,
sounds of blue jazz siphoned from jook joint doorways,
and the scrape of spit-shined shoes on concrete.
Raised during the Great Depression, he was a Cleveland
boy who ran track, inhaled cigarettes, and
found his way into trouble,
until he donned a crisp, olive green uniform.
That uniform disappeared with my father
into dismal demilitarized zones
and marched across the 38th parallel
into hostile Korean battlegrounds.
My father's eyes
witnessed, I imagine,
napalm twilights in Vietnamese jungles, and
children used as human shields, some murdered
and bleeding bitter juices
into the humid ground. A hardened soldier
returned stateside, nights riddled with flashbacks;
he then crumbled silently
amid the general population
before probability connected him
with my mother.
I have spoken through my mother’s mouth
and voiced resilient howls against injustice
I have worn the redbone hues of my mother’s skin
and remain confused within changing racial landscapes
I have eavesdropped with my father’s ears
and recognized the muffled noises of my desperate adolescence
I have studied human tendencies using my father’s eyes
and watched violence execute the innocent, rather than deserving demons.
Mother and father, entwined together
Forming a double-helix ladder of existence
A genetic clone comprised of two integral components
Their senses and my perception
My mother, who functions at a rapid pace,
breathes not only through her lungs, but also through mine
My father, who passed away years ago,
strolls this earth with my legs, furnishing an inherited swagger
Their parental essence, my pedigree, rests within me,
influencing the unwritten chapters of my biography.
This is an older poem of mine, but I don't think I ever shared it with ya'll, so I figured I would. This will be in my upcoming book, a poetic memoir entitled "My Own Brand of Blues" to be published by RockWay Press this fall (shameless plug). Let me know what you think...hate it or love it.
My Pedigree
My mother’s mouth
talked, when she was younger,
about segregation in rural Oklahoma and
of an undersized schoolhouse, a single room
where my grandfather dutifully educated
his daughters and the other
small-town colored children.
It sounded challenging,
but somehow, along walls of prejudice,
they painted murals of hope and survival.
My mother’s skin, fairer
than most, was brown enough to
distinguish her from the governing race,
but light enough to make her
a prized filly on campus. I envision hordes
of conked haired, smooth talking, brown studs
jockeying to go out with this leggy,
light-toned lass and fawn over
her cocoa-butter softened hands.
My father's ears, perhaps,
heard squabbles between hustlers,
sounds of blue jazz siphoned from jook joint doorways,
and the scrape of spit-shined shoes on concrete.
Raised during the Great Depression, he was a Cleveland
boy who ran track, inhaled cigarettes, and
found his way into trouble,
until he donned a crisp, olive green uniform.
That uniform disappeared with my father
into dismal demilitarized zones
and marched across the 38th parallel
into hostile Korean battlegrounds.
My father's eyes
witnessed, I imagine,
napalm twilights in Vietnamese jungles, and
children used as human shields, some murdered
and bleeding bitter juices
into the humid ground. A hardened soldier
returned stateside, nights riddled with flashbacks;
he then crumbled silently
amid the general population
before probability connected him
with my mother.
I have spoken through my mother’s mouth
and voiced resilient howls against injustice
I have worn the redbone hues of my mother’s skin
and remain confused within changing racial landscapes
I have eavesdropped with my father’s ears
and recognized the muffled noises of my desperate adolescence
I have studied human tendencies using my father’s eyes
and watched violence execute the innocent, rather than deserving demons.
Mother and father, entwined together
Forming a double-helix ladder of existence
A genetic clone comprised of two integral components
Their senses and my perception
My mother, who functions at a rapid pace,
breathes not only through her lungs, but also through mine
My father, who passed away years ago,
strolls this earth with my legs, furnishing an inherited swagger
Their parental essence, my pedigree, rests within me,
influencing the unwritten chapters of my biography.