Tag: poetry

Poems

April 8 Birthday: Kofi Annan

ROMPoetry

kofiEating Dark Chocolate While Watching Paul Holmes’ Apology (43-45)

i am sucking on a sante bar / sneaked / bought at pak’n’save
in a cigarette gold wrapper / i remember when you bought
them in dairies / they were stripped and served undressed /
edges worn from the friction / getting down with the
brown / chocolate dust was in the air

i am watching paul holmes apologise for calling kofi annan a
darkie / darkies takes me back to

6 years old / school grounds / see-saws / we won the
war / we won the war in 1944 / mean boys alternating
between catch and kissing and sticks and stones / darkie /
tania got called blackie / golliwog / I remember being
thankful I was pretty and fair / and had long hair / no one
called me manu off playschool or darkie / i was a milk
chocolate glass and a half / half caste / caramello enough to
be safe from bitter dark accusations

tonight paul holmes apologised for calling kofi annan a
darkie / takes me back to

10 years old / sitting on my dad’s stomach / him flat on the
sofa / we’re watching a week night movie / southern
drawls and white sheets / me crying hot wet tears over
black men with hurt in their eyes / what does lynching
mean maka? / my daddy / dark / my feet dangling off his
tummy / me milky brown chocolatey sweet / wanting
to grow up and be the prime minister / or a lawyer like
matlock / make everything all right for darkies everywhere
tonight paul holmes apologised for calling kofi annan a
darkie / takes me back

15 years old / barry /surf lifesaver / washboard abs /
the mattel man / automatic winking machine / ambivalent
crush / half hate / half fetish / blonde frosting in his fringe /
darkies / that’s what he called us / hope you don’t mind
darkies / he said / setting up his mate / flirting on the phone

tonight paul holmes apologised for calling kofi annan a
darkie / takes me back

17 years old / do you think they would ever let a boonga
be prime minister / corey p / dreadlocked bob Marley
wannabe / says to me / mocking laughter / he’s drunk at
three / in highbury / but we never dreamed they’d let an
indian woman be mayor of Dunedin / so let’s sukhi it to
them corey p / we were darkies anonymous then / making
fun of ourselves before anyone else could / revolution in
the bottom of a bong / cutting off our veins to spite our
lives /

tonight paul holmes apologised to the nation

i am 28 / aucklander / jokes about jaffas don’t involve
maoris and minis / just another f-ing aucklander / the
p.i.’s here outnumber prejudice in wide open spaces /
skinheads low key / less closely shorn / too much rugby
league brawn / on the arms of coconuts / i’ve been told
i’m the cream rising to the top / the cream of the crop /
nesian queen / rank and file member of the chocolate
soldier movement / getting down with the brown /

tonight paul holmes apologised

sorry / he said / i’ve hurt my family / i may have hurt
yours /

yes / we scrapped in the car over it / there was yelling / by
the time we got to the end of the mangere motorway / i
was crying / who is this redneck with the big brown
shoulders sitting next me / anti pc / darker than me /
defending freedom of speech / but i don’t want it to be all
right /

/ i don’t want my kids to have stanzas of darkie memories /

sorry / paul holmes said / i could see that he meant it / i felt
sad for him / and happy / i signed the petition to say he
should get sacked / i am a manager in a govt department /
not matlock / not the pm / just a member of the chocolate
soldier movement / melting in the middle

 –Karlo Milo

NOTE: In honor of National Poetry Month, each day a person’s birthday will be celebrated with a poem about or by him/her. The poems come from all over the place.

Poems

April 6 Birthday: Raphael

ROMPoetry

raphael-200Raphael

I shall not soon forget that sight:
The glow of autumn’s westering day,
A hazy warmth, a dreamy light,
On Raphael’s picture lay.

It was a simple print I saw,
The fair face of a musing boy;
Yet, while I gazed, a sense of awe
Seemed blending with my joy.

A simple print:–the graceful flow
Of boyhood’s soft and wavy hair,
And fresh young lip and cheek, and brow
Unmarked and clear, were there.

Yet through its sweet and calm repose
I saw the inward spirit shine;
It was as if before me rose
The white veil of a shrine.

As if, as Gothland’s sage has told,
The hidden life, the man within,
Dissevered from its frame and mould,
By mortal eye were seen.

Was it the lifting of that eye,
The waving of that pictured hand?
Loose as a cloud-wreath on the sky,
I saw the walls expand.

The narrow room had vanished,–space,
Broad, luminous, remained alone,
Through which all hues and shapes of grace
And beauty looked or shone.

Around the mighty master came
The marvels which his pencil wrought,
Those miracles of power whose fame
Is wide as human thought.

There drooped thy more than mortal face,
O Mother, beautiful and mild!
Enfolding in one dear embrace
Thy Saviour and thy Child!

The rapt brow of the Desert John;
The awful glory of that day
When all the Father’s brightness shone
Through manhood’s veil of clay.

And, midst gray prophet forms, and wild
Dark visions of the days of old,
How sweetly woman’s beauty smiled
Through locks of brown and gold!

There Fornarina’s fair young face
Once more upon her lover shone,
Whose model of an angel’s grace
He borrowed from her own.

Slow passed that vision from my view,
But not the lesson which it taught;
The soft, calm shadows which it threw
Still rested on my thought

The truth, that painter, bard, and sage,
Even in Earth’s cold and changeful clime,
Plant for their deathless heritage
The fruits and flowers of time.

We shape ourselves the joy or fear
Of which the coming life is made,
And fill our Future’s atmosphere
With sunshine or with shade.

The tissue of the Life to be
We weave with colors all our own,
And in the field of Destiny
We reap as we have sown.

Still shall the soul around it call
The shadows which it gathered here,
And, painted on the eternal wall,
The Past shall reappear.

Think ye the notes of holy song
On Milton’s tuneful ear have died?
Think ye that Raphael’s angel throng
Has vanished from his side?

O no!–We live our life again
Or warmly touched, or coldly dim,
The pictures of the Past remain,–
Man’s works shall follow him!

–John Greenleaf Whittier

 

NOTE: In honor of National Poetry Month, each day a person’s birthday will be celebrated with a poem about or by him/her. The poems come from all over the place.

 

Poems

April 5 Birthday: Bette Davis

ROMPoetry

THE UNTOLD WANT

better
THE untold want, by life and land ne’er granted,
Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.
–Walt Whitman
In one of her most famous films, Now, Voyager, Bette Davis plays a neglected woman who transforms her life. The novel’s writer Olive Higgins Prouty took her title from Whitman’s 2-line poem “The Untold Want” and also from “Now Finale to the Shore,” which includes the line, “Now Voyager depart! (much, much for thee is yet in store;).”
Bette Davis was, indeed, a voyager. So may we all be.
NOTE: In honor of National Poetry Month, each day a person’s birthday will be celebrated with a poem about or by him/her. The poems come from all over the place.
 

Poems

April 4 Birthday: Maya Angelou

ROMPoetry
maya-angelou

Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size

But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
‘Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

–Maya Angelou

NOTE: In honor of National Poetry Month, each day a person’s birthday will be celebrated with a poem about or by him/her. The poems come from all over the place.

Poems

April 3 Birthday: Jane Goodall

ROMPoetry

janeThe Old Wisdom

When the night wind makes the pine trees creak
And the pale clouds glide across the dark sky,
Go out my child, go out and seek
Your soul: The Eternal I.

For all the grasses rustling at your feet
And every flaming star that glitters high
Above you, close up and meet
In you: The Eternal I.

Yes, my child, go out into the world; walk slow
And silent, comprehending all, and by and by
Your soul, the Universe, will know
Itself: the Eternal I.

–Jane Goodall

NOTE: In honor of National Poetry Month, each day a person’s birthday will be celebrated with a poem about or by him/her. The poems come from all over the place.

Poems

April 2 Birthday: Jack Webb

ROMPoetry

jackPsalm in the Spirit of Dragnet

Tonight all the stars are just celestial swag

in the moon’s handbag, flashy & overpriced.
All the angels are pinheads, & not even pinheads of light.

Here’s what I know: I am good
at déjà vu but bad at karaoke.  I am good
at Magic 8-Ball but bad at bicycle-built-for-two.

Axiom, from the Greek meaning “No rebuttals,” meaning “Whatever I say is true.”
For instance, the heart is shaped like a Hungryman dinner,
indestructible as Styrofoam & always divided.

Somewhere in the cosmos this moment
the ghost of Jack Webb is asking the ghost of Harry Morgan
for “Just the facts,” & Morgan is laughing his ethereal ass off.

Axiom, from the Greek meaning, “No facts, ma’am, only interpretations.”
When the smooth, voluptuous moon falls into the ocean,
like bait on fishing line, I see her for the yo-yo she is,
& God, who is learning to walk the dog.

–Julie Marie Wade

NOTE: In honor of National Poetry Month, each day a person’s birthday will be celebrated with a poem about or by him/her. The poems come from all over the place.