THERE WAS NO DOUBT

There was no doubt
+++++++ He was the mad man
Of our town,
+++++++ The only one declared.
He spread his rough hands
+++++++ To soldiers for tomato seeds.

He was our own mad man; he could not be taken
From us.
+++ He decorated his hair with weed leaves
+++++++ But it was from him we learned
To grow hybrid tomatoes,
+++++++++ Not the Agriculture Organization.
+++++++ Woo! How his tomatoes were tasty
And sane!

————————–

LET A WOMAN

++++++ Let a woman not be stolen
From a sleeping rib
++++++That we may not find
Our path into half-bitten
Do-dare-not-eat apples.

Let a woman
++++++Come weaving life
Like the moment
++++++Before a kiss
Or a bud
++++++Brewing dreams
Of trees not living.

If a woman must pass
++++++Like one intruding harmattan
And from her veil a man reaps chills
++++++Then Black Pearl,
Had we not walked under glaring lights,
++++++One small quiet night, along a freed street?
Were our words not pregnant buds spelling the night’s fog
++++++Silent witness?
I was blown by her wind
Before time undressed
Her cunning

And I knew we had met
To part.
Who traps the wind?

If a woman must come singing
Like a breeze
But leaves a hurricane,
Shattering life out of windows
++++++And china,
Then that Weech of Wandy
++++++Came sowing
Wings of blooms but left
With knives hungry to intercourse
Bellies
++++++And I knew she had come to go
To jail.

Again, let a woman not lay herself
A Red Sea to cross
+++Where breaking a sea
For one man to cross
+++Is strangling an elephant
+++To catch a maggot.

Let a woman lay herself
A river where one deep diver
May not drown
But let a woman
Not be one licentious
Nile; getting dirty cleaning crevices.
————————–
Poems: Marial Awendit
Image: Valerie Everett via Flickr (modified)