This piece is highly unusually for me, as I do not normally write poems with end line rhyme and in this style…but I decided to have some fun. It was written for Read Write Poem’s NaPoWriMo #12: Where Do You Come From?. Have fun reading…

-Nicole

—————————–
I come from
              my mother’s Kentucky mouth
             and my father’s New Jersey lips,

             the echoes of trans-Atlantic chains
             and violated plantation hips;

from
             souls written in fiddle, dulcimer, and pipes
             upon Killarney’s stony pages,

             and barbed wire and machine gun symphonies
             exacting war’s nightmare wages;

from
             holy Cherokee prayers and
             sacred Delaware incantations,

             and African Methodist Episcopal
             Sunday morning celebrations;

from
             dinners spelled out in cornbread, catfish,
             soup beans, and collard greens,

             and teenage nights curled up on my bed
             nursing inner pain unseen;

from
             worn-out Doc Martins and sullen eyes
             lined with Neil Gaiman black

             and ancestral blood that threatens me with
             an early heart attack;

from
             Sonoran desert rainbows –
             my skin forever embued

             with azure, crimson, gold, indigo,
             and strains of turquoise blue;

             and now, I come from Ohio wearing
             silver in my eyes

             pulled from endless years living under
             masked pale winter skies.

I come from
             lakefront summers carrying
             Milwaukee lilacs in their arms

             and pots of coffee played to the weary backbeat
             of 5:00 A.M. alarms;

from
             sound boards, wearing music
             and microphones as my mask;

and from
             every odd job, unemployment check,
             and ignoble mindless task.

I come from
             Frost, Dunbar, Angelou, Giovanni,
             Williams, Sia, Hughes,

             Morrison, Poe, Ali, and Ginsberg – they all
             taught me how to sing the blues;

             and now, I come from rhyme, metaphor, and line
             spoken into the air

             or tattooed into paper skins and flung
             from my hands to share

             with you this graphic, deranged riddle
             so that you will understand

             just where it is I that come from
             and precisely who I am.

Written 4/14 and 4/15/09
© 2009 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Stumble It!