I'm going to start off by reading
because I had just met someone from St Louis who grew up
with me.
Not with me, but in the same area that I did.
So she-- I wasn't going to read this poem.
So I'm going to read this poem about my mother
and then read one about my father.
To start off.
My mother is 84 now.
So I wrote this poem first and you'll
learn a little bit about me.
It's a kind of poem that I don't write usually,
but I had to write this one for my mother.
"Mother: for Dorothy Smith Marshall".
"When I was growing up, she used to sit
in the bathroom each and every morning smoking
cool cigarettes, drinking hot coffee,
reading newspapers, a hard toilet
seat caressing her derriere.
Reading glasses in place, serious as cancer.
The way her eyes devoured everything,
finished old newspapers stacked up high as her waistline
when she stood proud, erect, defiant,
all of 5 feet 2 inches tall in high heeled shoes.
Petite, she was a pistol when she was young.
Eyes blazing, boring in like bullets
when her temper squeezed the trigger of her ire hard.
Her rage angry scars she raised on me
and my brothers backs and legs dealt out
with ironing cords that hissed through the air like
whips, coiled snakes about to strike.
It was her mother's influence.
She was scared to death of her mother, mama to me
and my brother Timmy, who believed in retribution,
payback, fear, to the bitter end.
We watched mama slap mother around hard once or twice
for some perceived transgression or indiscretion
but we loved them both deeper than fear itself.
Love mother, mama too because we knew we were a lot to handle.
My brother and me born to do mischief
in a neighborhood full of young thieves, malcontents, murderers
to be, you name it.
They thrived and flourished there.
The good and straight we rejected out
of hand as past tense, Negro, square as
blocks we played with once until we wrapped our hands
around straight razors.
So she'd crack the whip hard, raised welts on our backs
and hardening butts, legs, and arms, kept fear alive in us
to keep us in line and alive.
She always had books around the house,
introduced me to poetry and novels,
wanted to be a schoolteacher.
Raising me and my brother got in the way of that
and as we grew older, she left a string of glassy eyed suitors
in her wake my father being the first who didn't make it
all the way home.
Where her sweet perfume trailed through the air like flowers
blooming fresh in springtime, gardenias
of lady day, sometimes jasmine or roses.
It depended on her mood but there was always
something about her that kept them coming back for more.
Time and again, whatever she had bewitched them with,
her charm maybe that could be as dazzling as the smile flashing
above her sensuous walk that beckoned,
her step so light she seemed to float through air,
meriny yellow in skin tone, plum cushiony lips splashed
bright red and full, smooth.
She called herself a party girl though she was always
much more than this, though she was this too.
With a great sense of style, dressed to kill, cock-robin,
could press pedal to the metal out on the dance floor,
she caused heads to swivel on necks like spinning tops
whenever she passed, her fragrance tantalizing
nostrils trailing behind her like a sweet smelling invisible
plume.
She's in her 80s now, still sits on the toilet stool
each and every morning repeating the same ritual.
Only now she doesn't smoke anymore.
Everybody's gone to the other side on her side of the family.
Mama, her brothers, Garfield and Allan, aunts and uncles,
cousins, her daddy, mine too, men her age
still sniff behind her, glassy eyed whenever she honors them,
when she looks their way.
Still a fashion plate, the best of her time.
Her smile remains dazzling, her skill
to squeeze copper from a penny, squirrel away money -
a survivor of the depression, she is tenacious
- for rainy days.
She's softer now.
Tells me she loves me every time we speak over the telephone.
Tells me with regret she could have done better by me,
but that's hogwash because she did the best she could
with what she had and that was more than enough to get us
through all the madness.
She is still a pistol at 81, has all her real teeth too.
Has outlived all her suitors except this last one Biff
who she says is slowing down at 79.
She still walks with a bounce in her stride
seems to still float across and through the air,
her eyes blazing bore in on you still like bullets whenever
she squeezes the trigger of her hot temper
and I love her more than I could ever imagine.
Love her far deeper than fear itself.