for colored girls and phytane love.

for marsha.

 

 

 

What screwed up the relationship between

me and you, mother of my child, is this picture

in you're head of how it's suppose to be. As if

up-loading the  fossilized images to the spokes of a

runaway dream. Good intentions in bad dreams

are only the half truth of it. Everything else

rolls down the iron tracks like severed heads.

Tonight I will dream the moon a 401k in four wheel drive,

and if it does in fact happen, I will write poems about

the rapid rate of compliance. Buy for you all the

Power Ball tickets in the cosmos. My legs grow tired

while I write this. Too weak to speak out of

anticipation. Too confused to wonder of the

remains of roses, in the unattended garden,

and how their sharp thorns last thru the cold. So

much so, I refuse the flower bed like an order.

 

Dickinson, I am sure, still loves me in the dark.

Ready, as she always is.Rings removed,

pantalletes, chemise, black crepe dress neatly

lifted. But my East side Detroit bravado is

of no help to make-believe. I have to face my own

Black demons whether dead of half alive.

Leroi Jones will destroy all those who write of

anything but revolution. I love Black women

in long, Yaki wigs. And

 

what gives me peace is just knowing

where peace comes from. Knowing where to

go to dig it out from the white page journal

with the fingernails of doom, like Ginsburg

perhaps, holding onto the protocol of self-hatred

and calling it deep love poetry. When I saw

you last you were fatter than before. That you're

mother and her mother was fat doesn't matter now.

Only that we can marvel at the shadows cast

as some ghost hematologist who carries away

blood (mine and yours) in the suction tube,

where the blue-band ties the veins to the surface,

like a horrible fish.

Reviews

[Emily B]

i used to read nikki giovanni and wish i was a black girl that wrote poetry

the kids i sewed with this year called themselves the brown kids, one was black and one was red and one was coffee with milk kinda, and they called me a slave master and i teased them about fried chicken and watermelon

they want to learn more about history and slave life and i'm afraid for them, for all of us, it's too ugly to be re-created, too weighty for somebody just fourteen and soft to air conditioners and mcdonald's and modern convenience

i don't know a thing but poetry, and i know you are the top of that

[Ken Simm.]

I think I'm going to go overboard here Dana. I warn you now. This is an incredible mixture of thoughts, almost apologies, tradition, culture and sheer break your heart pathos. I think it is one of your best and one of the best I have seen on here. I am dumbfounded and at the same time envious and amazed.

[Lydia Shutter]

The poets you mention in this piece all influenced my writing through the years. Poetry can provide a wonderful fantasy world, but, yes, we have to deal with reality as it is once the reading is finished and the words on the dog eared pages are faded. "Too confused to wonder of the remains of roses, in the unattended garden, and how their sharp thorns last thru the cold" what a fantastic line this is, Dana!
The Temptations, when they sang "Ball of Confusion" must have known your innermost feelings. The ending of this makes me believe someone is ill and you are giving them your blood to survive....perhaps a metaphor, but certainly powerful. Very well written and deeply emotional words, Dana. Lydi**

[K. Louis]

thrilling read! I really enjoyed this..

[Corset]

you're killing me now, lol, "Your" Third line second word, as in belongs to and You are as in You're, lol, you did that on purpose so I would come out of hiding because you know damn well it's crawling up and down my back like a slow smile...your amazing..lol, but I cant stay, I'm in the midst of conceeding to defeat, lol! But I want you to know something....you see those stats at the top right? yeah, one of those numbers will always be me :) You just won't see me in this form (have naked harpie) sliding by with a icecream cone and a thrill of delight at whatever it was that you just wrote :)

[Adam M. Snow]

This is amazingly good. 10/10