Loveliness that hides

A line from "I am more than this" on April 22 that takes quite a different turn. Inspired, in part, by all the horrific "you deserve rape" stuff I've been seeing. It's appalling to me that the way a woman dresses or looks could ever be "asking for it."


Behind the burka
is a face
too lovely

Beneath the skirt
is a treat
too tempting

Between his legs
is a beast
too savage
to control


April PAD Day 29 - a line from a former poem

Palm reading

I used to
hold your hand when we
crossed the street.

It was warm
and firm, unlike the bony
fingers I hold now.

April PAD Day 28 - shadorma

Morning routine

Snooze button pauses
my morning system start up.
Where is the coffee?

April PAD Day 27 - mechanical

Making the cut

When you came on the
scene I knew
the search was over

April PAD Day 26 - casting

Everybody bleeds

There's a story for every line
striping her forearms;
a name for every slice,
for every time they called her
slut or dyke or wetback.

There's a tear for every cut
she now covers
with long sleeves;
for every time she believed
the lies of the unloved.

April PAD Day 25 - everybody (blank)

Autocorrect

I do not
think you meant to say
what you did

April PAD Day 24 - auto

Summer Solstice

The sprinklers were cool in
the summer heat,
spraying slivers of rainbows like
holograms hovering above
the thirsty summer grass.

We frolicked through the fountains
bathing suits sticking
to our slick skin, tanned
by our afternoon
forays in the yard.

We peeled the wet fabric
over plump bellies
filled with laughter and lunch,
shimmying and tugging
our bare-threaded bikinis

tossing them into the bathtub,
relishing our nakedness
ready for the next adventure. 




Poetic Bloomings #104 - time flies

The fragments

Sometimes it takes
a big explosion to remember
together we're whole


April PAD Day 23 - love or anti-love

Complexion

"It's a bit complex," he says.
She staring in the mirror,
analyzing her pores, tugging
at the laugh lines that make
her want to cry.

He's in the bedroom pulling on
his pants going on about
some scientific discovery he
read about yesterday, oblivious to
his own uneven complexion.




April PAD Day 22 - complex

I am more than this

I am more
than a dark
loveliness that
hides between
thick grown
womanly thighs

I am more
than a disposable
plaything that
fulfills all your
secret little
pubescent fantasies

I am more than
a played out
stereotype that's
perpetuated in
every rapper's
uninspired lyrics

I am inspiration,
secret stereoscopic
fantasies that
grow thick
with love and
groan for more.

April PAD Day 18 - I am (blank)