Broaco*’ Voicc ■* -t
Homccoming 1995 X X
o n
d
‘Magenta
by Natasha Etienne
Magenta is vivid purple, strong red,
Full of wonder and awe
Always changing like something said.
Magenta is the bloody aftermath of war
It is royalty, regal, high-class
Forever seeking more.
Bold and daring
It is the color of your heart
When you want to be caring.
Magenta is beautiful, the Queen of all colors
It is the color you get
When you think there’s another.
Magenta is majestic and eager
It’s the feeling you get
When you want to please her.
Magenta is the cloak of the king
It’s the sound of birds
As they sing.
Magenta are my lips so perfectly formed
It is definitely out of the norm!
Magenta is suave and debonair
It’s the kinky bend
Of your hair.
Magenta is licorice so sweet
It’s what you throw up
After you eat.
Magenta is fire bombs
Bursting in air
Magenta is wishing you were there.
Most of all, Magenta is daring and different like me
No matter what, that’s the way
I’ll always be.
Th« Middle of th« B«d
by Cornelia Crisp
When your man leaves
Don’t cry—
Move
Stretch your arms and
And sleep in the middle of the bed.
legs
Don’t concentrate on the pseudo-emotional
Who will hold me?
Who will I lean on?
Who will do all those things for me
that are only done in
Fairy tales
The drops of urine no longer staining the seat unlifted
The toast you won’t have to scrape—you burned it...
The screams and yells the children no longer hear-
He is
gone
The Peace
The Quiet
The Stillness—expanding from the middle of the bed
No hands slithering under your nightgown
or the sound of
Snoring—cutting—through your dreams
Wakening you to the scent of cheap alcohol and
Cheaper perfume
Sleeping without interruption the
Middle of the bed...
Appeal? (For Tony and Ftank)
by Lesli Sample
I am aware, now.
Of how you feel
About me.
Spouting nonsense
Out of the side of your neck
About how I fail
To appeal to your Masculinity.
Which is better?
For a sistah to think you ignorant.
Or for you to open your mouth
And prove her right?
Which is better?
A sistah with long hair
Fresh from the salon every other day.
Or a sistah with a strong. Black mind
And an inner beauty
That can’t be dyed, processed, or cut away?
Which is better?
A sistah with eyes
Of green, blue, lightest brown,
Or a sistah that sees
Through the madness, to your soul
With eyes in which you could drown?
Which is better?
A sistah caught in
The weak, frail, thin
Eurocentric concept of beauty.
Or a sistah of strong mind, body, and hip
To bear conscious babies for a Black resistance?
I iVonder
by Delfrieda Hudson
In a comer I sit and wonder
What the world would be like without me.
I often thought how life would be.
Will trees grow, rain fall, and will there still be thunder?
I guess I will never know.
As I look from my comer.
It is as though, I can’t help but wonder
Will anyone notice me when I go?
Now my life flashes across a screen.
Is there any good to remember?
Or am I just a moment here left to ponder?
I don’t know if the gray screen
Will ever be lifted? I wonder
If life will pass me by while I’m in this comer.
Poetic 'fiabe
by Nahsed
Poetically flowing. Slowly-tip-toeing
Into my mind, heart and soul she’s stowing
Away my reality, visions of my ftiture—family,
Try to stop the rising inside me of insanity.
Slowly realizing, consequences-she’s implying.
I step back nervous-perspiring,
A gleam in her eyes I catch
The smell of eros as she leans and mbs her neck.
Her lyrical style subdues me—not sex,
Doors to the soul-more than flesh
The fantasy includes her and me.
To another promised love and loyalty,
Still the longing inside me leads to possibilities.
Often I wonder if I’m in love or greedy.
Am I really in need of another?
My beautiful, poetic soul lover
Which is better?
For a sistah to think you ignorant.
Or for you to open your mouth
And prove her right?
It is not your Masculinity
I wish to appeal to
In fact
I’m not quite sure
I wish to appeal to you at all
And if I did
, I am not concemed
With the rising of natures
the rising of temperatures
I am concemed
With the coupling of minds
the coupling of souls;
Something you can’t understand
you can’t understand
It is not your Masculinity
I wish to appeal to.