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Wicked Enchantment

Page 16

by Wanda Coleman


  I offer you the spurned loyalty of a woman who

  has ever been the stupid loyal fool.

  I offer you that kernel of myself—that unwanted

  playmate—that central core that deals not in

  dreams, but traffics in pain and is undiminished

  with time, knows no enjoyment—a wellspring

  of adversities.

  I offer you the memory of stolen virginity, a rose

  violated under a mother’s vigilant fear.

  I offer you spells to relieve emptiness, incantations

  to calm troubles, surprising magics to delight

  the tongue and eye.

  I give you my graciousness, my roundness, the feast

  of my words; I am trying to bribe you with

  certainty, with deliciousness, with victory.

  Black Alice Laments

  —after Lewis Carroll

  one midnight flight to Xanadu

  i got lost in the sky

  the cloud i rode had quite a load

  that dwindled bye-and-bye

  it made me late, a fact i hate

  but i’ve not learned to lie

  by the time i got to Xanadu

  my night had turned to day

  all the gold had turned to gilt

  and all the crystal, clay

  the partyers were snoring bores

  the goodies stashed away

  by the time i arrived in Xanadu

  sweet mama proved a crone

  cracks and crannies sported dust

  and brambles maned the stone

  and everything i thot was steel

  had crumbled as if bone

  as i made my descent on Xanadu

  my bowels were in my throat

  my hair was gray my hands were red

  and i couldn’t sing a note

  and as i warbled at the swans

  my last glass slipper broke

  by the time i stormed drear Xanadu

  all the stories had been told

  the mirth was spent, i hadn’t a cent

  my courage was going cold

  and when i touched the hand of God

  it simpered into mold

  by the time i found lost Xanadu

  my rose had lost his bloom

  the music men had packed and fled

  the dance floor was a tomb

  and all the thrills that might’ve been

  were shrieking in the gloom

  one midnight flight to Xanadu

  my heart fell from the sky

  the cloud i rode had quite a load

  that dwindled bye-and-bye

  which made me blue, but ever true

  for i’ve not learned to lie

  Put Some Sex Sonnet

  —after Tom Clark

  the honeypot becomes so sweet under his tongue

  it strengthens his arousal and at the same

  time causes him to lick harder, which stimulates

  her further richness to facilitate a mounting

  moistness. her orgasm fairly pulls him under as he

  thrills to the duet of sphincter & cervix—

  the inexpressible pleasure of her contractions

  inspired by him—as she melds beyond complete relaxation

  in too exquisite a surrender, her body opened and

  well-lubricated, welcoming the easy thrust of his hips

  in a spell of satisfaction, knowing yet another wave

  of pleasure awaits her as his penis glides/rides

  the residuals of her first wave, daring her. more

  I Ain’t Yo Earthmama 3

  —after Francine Coneley

  i’m so big i can barely walk. i wear

  tent dresses for coolness and comfort.

  i rock ’n’ roll, stumble ’n’ scoot. when

  some man likes me, he says “Hotcha Big Mama!”

  when he teases, he says the same

  i live everywhere at once. hot pink mules

  toast my feet. my hair is braided tight

  against my scalp under this’n wig.

  ‘girlfriend this and girlfriend that,

  skinny men prefer ’em fat.’ my good good

  cookin’ keeps folk comin’ round. when

  i stomp my foot the ducks take ground

  i relax by sitting for so long

  staring at the TV screen, reading my

  fanzine, making sweet things for dessert,

  ’tween frettin’s why can’t i make this life work

  when i walk too much too slow, i sweat head-to-toe

  my heart thumps in my neck, my arches

  threaten to fall. i gasp

  the only safe stairway for me to climb

  is in my dreams. sometimes the world fits

  and though i can’t be called small

  no one laughs or cracks jokes behind my back

  i will cut you

  with my tongue

  my nails and the

  butcher’s knife

  in that order

  when i sit on concrete, it gives

  when i sit on a man, he disappears

  i have pretty eyes, they say

  when i stomp my foot, the ducks take ground

  Supermarket Surfer

  —after Allen Ginsberg

  what bohunkian images i have of you

  crash against my niggernoggin as i shiver and stroll

  long air-conditioned aisles at 2 a.m. the liquor

  l under lock and key, the lettuce full and moist with

  a fresh spray of mist and neon

  my cart wobbles giddily on crooked wheels as i sputter

  between the confused and the absurd as i cruise for pudding

  and citrus-free hand lotion. there’s plenty of disabled

  parking outside. it is lonely here though the

  automatic doors never close and a bleak phosphorescence

  never dims and bananas are going at two pounds for

  the price of one. the bin of avocados is small

  and most of them more like plankton-stained golf balls

  or too rotten. somewhere, i am detected via camera

  lens while picking over pepper mills between

  the spice racks and the baking soda

  hang ten toward checkout is a certainty

  the only Walt here is Disney

  the pork chops are killing me

  i am a nobody angel

  my heart is a frozen delicacy

  Obituary

  —after Denise Levertov

  The unread poems of true poets

  are sad. No one should love

  so hard in vain and go unnoticed.

  This sunset should trouble

  the sky. Rip the curtains

  from the windows and shout

  It’s their fault!—the craven curs

  around and around and all fall

  down everywhere, the gut-rending

  sound of cogs grinding and poets

  felled silent. If the empty only

  feed the empty, the reign

  of apathy will go on and Molochs

  triumph. True poets will go on,

  unread, eking out a space at the mean

  end of time. They will bare their

  teeth and spring at the moon.

  Her Poem

  —after Anne Sexton

  I went out to possess the spirit of women

  when it was bitch & butch, feeling the

  bold itch to write. Sexton and Plath were

  long dead, but there she was—her renown

  was named Ann. And it didn’t matter

  if I was of a different race, she

  handled my fire with a learned grace.

  She was a mere snip of a lady in her

  size two dress and mushrooms, with

  graying flaxen hair. And the room

  was crammed with nymphal poets

  like myself, and we leaned into our

  elbows,
hushed our competition for

  her eyes, and scribbled sacred notes.

  Two-thirds into the lecture one lass

  finally asked, “Where do you get ideas

  for poems?” Ann pantomimed the act. “I open

  Webster’s Dictionary,” she entoned, “and at

  random, let my finger fall upon a word. And

  I think upon that word until upon my page

  a poem has bled.” With that, I promptly

  dropped my pen and in a snit I fled.

  My Bleak Visitation

  —after Sun Ra, for Gloria Macklin

  In the early days of my earthly visitation,

  Black hands slapped me and spanked me . . .

  Black minds, hearts and souls rebuffed me . . .

  yet I loved them hungrily, in spite of that.

  In the early days of my visitation

  Black lips called me names, as did White lips

  but somehow, those names on those Black lips

  impaled me like spears on which I forever writhe.

  I became a name caller.

  The hearts, minds and souls of my kin were denied me—

  even today the overtones from the fire

  of that lovelessness still burn in my brain.

  I am twisted and hurt and death-damaged.

  Yes—in those early days of my visitation

  White rules and laws segregated me also,

  but Black fear, ignorance and self-loathing

  separated my soundness from my spiritfist.

  And so

  the strength I pray for and the freedom I seek

  bear convolutions heretofore unaddressed, make

  me the radical’s radical, inspire a sacrifice so deep

  it rattles the old bones and the old stones.

  I am the Reaper’s scythe. Unforgiving in my sweep.

  I am. Because of that. Not long ago enough. Twisted

  and hurt and damaged.

  Outside In

  —after Diane Wakoski

  She walks the purple carpet into my eyes

  carrying the thirty pieces of silver

  but an airplane rumbles overhead,

  leaving its streamlined fantasy on my soul

  and old aches the endless rings of a telephone on hot

  afternoons

  no one answers, and that fact is a giant fly buzzing

  thru my consciousness, stirring up murderous swats.

  Loan me a hundred, she said,

  from inside his boxes, those sorry imitations of Cornell

  ashamed of her wig of Italian hair, explaining

  that nappy heads have to work. Of course, I understand. But

  they are about to cut off her lifeline. And her hands

  pick at the hair every second, like whiskers on a cat,

  inside her old head, too many acid trips, a ruined mouth

  where

  she

  grinds her teeth when she chatters endlessly

  about nothing on the phone, and writing anthems

  that no one will ever hail. She’s too mature to expect a music

  career.

  I cannot let her walk inside me too long

  the muscles in my stomach knot and

  I heave.

  I must reach down and pull her out

  like a writhing asp

  from my breasts.

  Having Lost My Son, I Confront the Wreckage

  —after James Wright

  During dark,

  on the borderline between sea & soul

  I walk yesterday’s path, hunting everywhere,

  seeking to explore every light

  walking corridors that close around me

  like the birth of a pearl.

  Behind a star

  its light on the chilled rubble

  of my city-bred heart:

  Frost, frost.

  This is where he has gone

  stillborn, under the eaves.

  Bundled away under waves and smiling faces.

  Beyond sick, I go on

  clawing earth, making brick,

  erecting monoliths. Here, on these altars

  all the urns,

  all the lost hopefuls.

  This cold summer

  Sun spills inhuman snow

  the jewels

  of his tears burn my palms.

  Living. He’s living still. I will

  not let him die!

  I will not let his light escape

  this beauteous ruin.

  Letter to My Older Sister 6

  Hi, Georgiana.

  When you see Pop, tell him I said hello.

  Just a few days ago I was recalling

  him in the light of my near death. We

  were once again standing off in the dark

  stall of hospital admissions. It was

  October, 1957. His 43rd birthday was days

  away, as was my eleventh. And I was sick

  with delusions and fever (you know, as

  said elsewhere, they’ve never quite left me).

  I was wrapped in my favorite heavy

  blue blanket, pulled straight off the bed in

  Mama’s panic. I was in those blue and white

  print flannel pjs Mama sewed. I was so sick

  I couldn’t stay awake, kept going in and out

  of consciousness. I listened that night as

  Pop and Mama desperately argued with the

  White admissions nurse and begged her

  that I be allowed to see a doctor. They just

  didn’t let any Negro child into the hospitals

  in those days, especially if the physician

  didn’t oversee the admission himself. I can’t

  drive this city without thinking of Pop.

  Tell him I’m sorry I haven’t been able to

  keep up the gravesite. Tell him I’m sorry

  that things haven’t worked out as I’d hoped.

  Tell him I’m sorry that rent, food and

  transportation are still the big issues. Tell him

  that I know it’s late and that I’m way overdue.

  Yours,

  Black-Handed Curse

  May the sky widen between your eyes

  and a storm twist across your thoughts.

  May the false images you create devour all you

  give birth to. May the false images you worship obscure love.

  May you look in the mirror and see the malignancy.

  May you writhe in dishonor. May you writhe hearing the voices

  of those you have dishonored. May you writhe knowing the

  whole of the pain you’ve caused others.

  May the limitations you impose on those more gifted

  than yourself steal the beats of your heart.

  May you be kept out of the heaven

  from which you have kept others.

  May no one hear your last words.

  May a small rodent eat your last words.

  Moon Cherries

  1

  smudged fingerprints

  cheap water-based paint, lust ten layers deep

  over and over the walls speak

  voices clear and without accent tell me

  what one so-called friend kept secret

  a terrible penalty will be paid for trust

  (o and to think i brought it into the

  house)

  who was the Hecuba who believed good potlikker

  could rule out genetic predisposition

  and nullify cradle-to-grave social abuse?

  who was the Hecuba who could

  2

  midnights bring on poisoned sleep

  spells for success fail

  and a wedding day bodes an abiding and

  relentless bleeding. downfall will

  come with the muted cries of lock-key kids

  his pleasure restricted to the pursuit of

  his dope-fed illusions & her deluded belief


  that not only can she overcome adversity,

  but bad advice and the jealousy of knaves.

  their journey is a shock-ridden careen

  through a wasteland of slashed wrists,

  amphetamines and unscratchable itches.

  their deep-Hollywood story will

  come to its predictable ending: the rape

  of beauty, a secret bludgeoning, the

  death of an angel

  3

  but when this grim heart

  slips into its grimmer past

  of terror shame rage

  where broken dreamless nights

  are interred, there is no relief

  in pretense. fantasy is an affront.

  ordinariness was wanted yet denied. what

  was never learned in time proved the

  undoing. mind be still. the crack-up

  intensifies these recollections,

  resurrects the flood of a bitter spring

  4

  you know it’s your fault you

  kept doing it when you should’ve

  stopped. you squandered irretrievable

  bliss. you. the reason of you the

  mirror says you, the highball glass contains

  you, your face floats up from the ash and

  smoke at the end of this cigarette.

  the clock spun backwards around you.

  from behind the closed door out you stepped. you.

  under the merciless light you were revealed

  these are the dark currents in which

  you do the butterfly stroke upstream. you. so

  rude & tender & strong. you are a guardian,

  no, a watcher, no, a warden. you are what was

 

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