Elizabeth's Journal
"..when you look for a leader you can't look any place except in a mirror and look at the person staring back at you and say, 'My revolution starts with me, my revolution starts right now.'" - John Henrik Clarke
Why do I stand so tall?
When you look at me do you see just another pretty face?
same face, same face a different time, a different place.
What must I do to prove to you I'm not like all the rest?
I keep in focus and work hard at being above the best.
Is it my feminine features that give you many doubts?
I know this world better than the next up, down, inside and out.
Do I not have what it takes to suceed in your macho manly world?
I have the smarts and determination despite being born a girl.
Always I stand tall, chin up, and I may stick out my chest.
I'm plotting to strive ahead of you as you drool over my breast.
You like to look at my shapely legs while I do the work I do.
Prepare yourself for one day these legs will walk all over you.
You think I'm the secretary when I'm really the boss,
and you think I'm the one in this world who is lost.
I can run faster, jump higher, any time on any day,
and yes I can do your job better than you and only take home
home half the pay.
Why do I stand so tall is a question that you might ask?
Women are humans too, a concept few have often grasped.
© 1997
Born Again
My sleep is my serenity as I close my eyes on this problematic world.
I dream of a place far, far, away and listen to the silence that goes unheard.
I envision myself being free, from pain, from tears, from hate and from me.
I take on a new life, a new perspective and travel the new beginning,
where will this take me I cannot foresee as long as I am far from me.
I take what is necessary, pride and love, and the book of life,
in which I scribble my goals, my quests, and those of which I strife
I turn my back on what used to be someone who I knew was never me.
I may may not have all the wordly possessions that my set my status,
my mind and my soul are my only apparatus.
These may be all the tools I may need in order to find the real true
Me.
Please don't cry that I must leave you behind, but I must do this on my own and soon in time
I promise to return in a short while you'll see, a whole new person and a happier me.
If I'm not happy how can I make you happy?
Selfish a little it may sound, but after this trip I'll be happier all around
. I must leave now for its getting late my return you must not stay to await.
I'll be back soon and I cannot promise more, be sure when I leave you lock the door.
I'll keep you in my heart and remember what was true, a place in my life will always be there for you.
So when I awake and you notice I'm not who I used to be, be glad that I'm happy because I can finally be ME!
© 1997
A Poet's Affair
It is not with my eyes that I see you smile
I use my mind and imagine a while.
I see you laugh and most often cry
I see happiness and joy when I look in your eyes.
It is not with my hands that I reach out to touch you
and not with my arms that I wish I could hold you.
I often imagine the time, day, and place
where these hand of mine could caress and embrace.
It is not with my mouth that I tell you that I care
but with silent whispers that move through the air.
The thoughts I have I write them down
hoping to reach you in a different place
different town.
The senses I have are useless you can see
but I have within me a hidden ability.
It is with my words and feelings that you know I do care.
For with my pen and this pad I have a poet's affair.
© 1997
SUCCESS
Waldo Ralph Emerson
Success is a word that has many definitions.
Often people equate success with money.
The fact is that there are millions of affluent
"failures" and an equal number of "successes"
who have nothing in the bank.
One defintion of success is: To win the respect
of intelligent people and the affection of
little children, to earn the approval of honest
critics and endure the betrayal of false friends.
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others,
to leave the world a little bit better by helping
a person in need, respecting the poor and elderly,
and forgiving someone who has hurt you.
To have played and lived with enthusiasm and see-
ing with exultation, to know that even one life
has breathes easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
Social Commentary unknown
Allow yourself to think.....
Because a woman's work is never done and is underpaid or unpaid or boring, or reptitious and we're the first to get the sack and what we look like is more important than what we do and if we get raped it's our fault and if we get bashed we must have provoked it, and if we raise our voices we're naggin bitches and if we enjoy sex we're nymphos and if we don't we're frigid and if we love women it's because we can't get a "real" man and if we ask our doctor too many questions we're neurotic and/or pushy and if we expect community care for children we're selfish and if we stand up for our rights we're aggressive and "unfeminine" and if we don't we're just being typical weak females and if we want to get married we're out to trap a man and if we don't we're unnatural and because we still can't get adequate,safe contraception but men can walk on the moon and if we can't cope or don't want a pregancy we're made to feel guilty about abortion and for lots and lots of other reasons......
We are a part of the woman's liberation movement
My Favorites
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
.Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
For more on Dylan Thomas
Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why) Nikki Giovanni
I was born in the congo
I walked to the fertile crescent and built
the sphinx
I designed a pyramid so tough that a star
that only glows every one hundred years falls
into the center giving divine perfect light
I am bad
I sat on the throne
drinking nectar with allah
I got hot and sent an ice age to europe
to cool my thirst
My oldest daughter is nefertiti
the tears from my birth pains
created the nile
I am a beautiful woman
I gazed on the forest and burned
out the sahara desert
with a packet of goat's meat
and a change of clothes
I crossed it in two hours
I am a gazelle so swift
so swift you can't catch me
For a birthday present when he was three
I gave my son hannibal an elephant
He gave me rome for mother's day
My strength flows ever on
My son noah built new/ark and
I stood proudly at the helm
as we sailed on a soft summer day
I turned myself into myself and was
jesus
men intone my loving name
All praises All praises
I am the one who would save
I sowed diamonds in my back yard
My bowels deliver uranium
the filings from my fingernails are
semi-precious jewels
On a trip north
I caught a cold and blew
My nose giving oil to the arab world
I am so hip even my errors are correct
I sailed west to reach east and had to round off
the earth as I went
The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid
across three continents
I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended except by my permission
I mean...I...can fly
like a bird in the sky...
For more on Nikki Giovanni
Loving Again
Gloria Wade Gayles
Last night
we loved as if the gods
had announced only to us
that the sky would fall while we slept.
We loved
passionately
selflessly
thinking only of pleasure
giving pleasure,
and I knew I would not grieve
if life should end as you held me.
Daybreak.
The sun slid silently
into our room
kissed our faces
and lay softly
in our love bed.
The sky had not fallen.
The earth had not disappeared.
We were alive
to love again.
Still I Rise
Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise.
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
For more on Maya Angelou
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