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
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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.
