For colored girls poem #2

Without any assistance from you

Without any assistance or guidance from you
I have loved you assiduously for 8 months 2 weeks & a day
I have been stood up four times
I’ve left 7 packages on yr doorstep
forty poems 2 plants & 3 handmade notecards I left
town so I cd send to you have been no help to me
on my job
you call at 3:00 in the morning on weekdays
so I cd drive 27 ½ miles cross the bay before I go to work
charmin charmin
but you are of no assistance
I want you to know
this waz an experiment
to see ho selfish I cd be
if I wd really carry on to snare a possible lover
if I waz capable of debasin myself for the love of another
if I cd stand not being wanted
when I wanted to be wanted
& I cannot
so
with no further assistance & no guidance from you
I am endin this affair

This note is attached to a plant
I’ve been waterin since the day I met you
you may water it
yr damn self

for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange

I'm trying this new thing called Poetry monday and 1 photo a week wednesdays. this mondays poem is from For colored girls by Ntozake Shange. This poet is amazing and I learned so much from reading her art.


Dark Phases

dark phases of womanhood
of never havin been a girl
half-notes scattered
without rhythm/ no tune
distraught laughter fallin
over a black girl's shoulder
it's funny/ it's hysterical
the melody-less-ness of her dance
don't tell nobody don't tell a soul
she's dancin on beer cans & shingles
this must be the spook house
another song with no singers
lyrucs/no voices
& interrupted solos
unseen performances

are we ghouls?
children of horror?
the joke?

don't tell nobody don't tell a soul
are we animals? have we gone crazy?

i can't hear anythin
but maddening screams
& soft strains of death
& you promised me
you promised me...
somebody/anybody
sing a black girl's song
bring her out
to know herself
to know you
but sing her rhythms
carin/ struggle/ hard times
sing her song of life
she's been dead so long
closed in silence so long
she doesn't know the sound
of her own voice
her infinite beauty
she's half-notes scattered
without rhythm/ no tune
sing her sighs
sing the song of possibilities
sing a righteous gospel
let her be born
let her be born
& handled warmly.