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Mahoganyanais
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mahoganyanais

Post Number: 228
Registered: 01-2005

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Posted on Thursday, April 28, 2005 - 09:44 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

My Man(child)

for all our sons

In the beginning
you are a man
full grown
Black man
savanna dust and heat
rising up
from obsidian skin
your hunter’s eyes
bely the prey
you are
you stare
and I wonder,

Will you--
compliment my fat ass?
thank my mama for blessing me?
Will you—
notice my don’t-fuck-with-me fists
clenched at my sides?
smirk at the stride
I have perfected for this block?

--or will you
look right through me?

I cross the street and
you are just a boy
like Emmett Till
was just a boy
then I get closer
and you are my son
I inhale your milky breath
and I know all over again
why Emmett’s mama
wanted the world to see
If I touch your bruised-peach skin,

Will you—
cringe
my hands as foreign to you as
the birthright you refuse to claim?
Will you—
knock my hand away
like your father knocked
some sense into you
like Ike knocked Tina?

--or will you
let me?

I pass you by and
a siren wails at my back
like your mama wailed last week
last month
last year
when you were protected
and served
right into your grave
but the next time
(“never again”)
we mothers stood
a half-moon of witnesses
to your eagle spread
(but never soaring)
against the wall
and you were safe
(but not really)
now
there is no one here
but you and me
and I wonder,

Will you—
keep your feet firmly planted
in quicksand?
call Tomorrow an urban legend
you refuse to fall for?
Will you—
die yet another death
and forget to bear sons who look like you?

--or will you
make love to me?

All the answers to all the questions
are found
--they say—
in the promised land.
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Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof

Post Number: 221
Registered: 02-2005

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Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 02:15 am:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I love that, Mahoghany.

I'm going to print it out and frame it and put it on my sons' wall in their play room.

Their DAD more than likely will read it each time he comes to visit. He loves poems like that.





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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique

Post Number: 2211
Registered: 01-2004

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Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 11:46 am:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I thought your poem was good, MAH
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A_womon
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: A_womon

Post Number: 1258
Registered: 05-2004

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Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 12:14 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Big Ups Mah! AWESOME!
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Mahoganyanais
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mahoganyanais

Post Number: 234
Registered: 01-2005

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Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 01:27 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Thanks so much, ladies, for the positive feedback!

I was "inspired" walking down the street a few weeks ago. I saw this man in front of the corner store, at a distance, but as I got closer, he looked like a boy, maybe 13-14 y.o., slight build. But then I got closer and he "became" a man again. By the time I was close enough to touch him, he was a boy again. I really thought I was cracking up; he really did CHANGE!

Anyway, that moment stuck with me and I scribbled some stuff down as soon as I got home, and then forgot about it. Then last night, I got a little tipsy (not vodka, Kola; Framboise), dug out my scribbles, and wrote.
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Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep

Post Number: 181
Registered: 01-2005

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Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 04:02 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Will you...
call Tomorrow an urban legend
you refuse to fall for?


D-E-E-P.

Watcha gonna do with this?
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Sisg
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Sisg

Post Number: 178
Registered: 01-2004

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Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 04:40 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Excellent Mah! It sticks with you!
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Mahoganyanais
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mahoganyanais

Post Number: 239
Registered: 01-2005

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Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 06:58 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Thanks, Sisgal!

Yvette:

I don't know what I'm going to do with it. I often hold on to things (poems, stories, and essays) and eventually the right *home* for it makes itself known. ;-)
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm

Post Number: 2459
Registered: 04-2004

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Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 02:00 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Mah,

That's stunningly beautiful. :-)

<<bowing!>>
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Mahoganyanais
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mahoganyanais

Post Number: 256
Registered: 01-2005

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Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 11:11 am:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Thank you, ABM.
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Lambd
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Lambd

Post Number: 726
Registered: 01-2004

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Posted on Thursday, June 09, 2005 - 12:18 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Mahogany has blessed us once again with her brilliance! Is this Mahoganysun from years ago? So many of your poems are not archived. I hope you kept copies so that you can bless us again. I can't find about thirty of my poems from the original Poetree! The archives they said housed them is jacked up. Luckily I had hard copies of some of them. Keep writing. You are a master, just keep copies.
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Mahoganyanais
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mahoganyanais

Post Number: 557
Registered: 01-2005

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Posted on Thursday, June 09, 2005 - 01:16 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hey, Lambd...

No, I'm not Mahoganysun. I'm fairly new around these parts.

Thanks for the feedback on the poem!
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Camille
First Time Poster
Username: Camille

Post Number: 1
Registered: 06-2005

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Posted on Friday, June 17, 2005 - 08:47 pm:   Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

All I could say when I read this was whoa. I had to print a copy for my fiance and future mother-in-law. This is the sort of thing they love.

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