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Premji Dec 2011
Who cares for her shattered dreams when she is
Brutally ***** on the very first night?
Who cares for her preconception health when,
For him, the only activity is making her pregnant?

Who cares for her repeated abortions
Which results in cervical damage,
Which in turn makes her unable to carry
The weight of a later pregnancy?

Who cares for not to satiate his excessive lust
When she is pregnant, which can cause
Abortion and maternal mortality?

Who cares for prenatal care that can keep
Her unborn baby and herself
Healthy during pregnancy?

Who cares to relieve her excessive work load at home
And her ever expanding stress to provide
High-quality child care for her five or six other children,
From earlier pregnancies?

Who cares for her signs and symptoms of anemia,
Her fatigue, increased heart beat or palpitations
Paleness of inside of eyelids, gums and nail beds
Desire to eat indigestible or peculiar foods?

Who cares for her backache, increasing weight,
Change in her centre of gravity and powerlessness?

Who cares for her malnutrition, poor health,
Lack of education, overwork, mistreatment?

Who cares for her dental hygiene, her broken teeth,
For the baby grows within is another tyrant
Who grabs Calcium, even from her teeth and bones?

Who cares for her cramps and muscle spasm,
Heartburn and indigestion , insomnia?

Who cares for her needs to go to the toilet frequently,
As the growing baby reduces her bladder capacity?

Who cares her inability to get comfortable
When she has neither clean water nor safe sanitation,
And necessary support either from health services?

Who cares not to tense her,
Already she is suffering from all sort of
Tension and high blood pressure?
And her mother-in-law terrifies her again
The consequences if the newborn could be of a girl!
Sad, woman is the greatest enemy of
Another woman, in the most needed times!
If she dies, none is worried...
For he can marry once again!
More dowries, more *** and more kids!

Who cares for her post natal depression ,
As none to take care of the newborn and other kids,
She has to run for office and other workplaces
With heavy *******, pain and bladder infections?

Who cares that every pregnancy weakens her a lot
As she need some time to recover her health...
And on the very day she can spread her legs,
By force, he starts his activities again!
He knows how how to starve the newborn
Just by emptying her *******!

When things are like this,
Every religious clergy flays
The limiting of the family size by birth control!
Christians wish for a Christian world
Muslims dream for a new world under Islam
Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and
Every religious fanatic dreams of the same!
They offer gifts for women for bearing
More and more children
For more children is their cheapest weapon!

When will they dream for a HUMANE WORLD?

Healthy children need healthy mothers.
Healthy mothers need healthy food,
Loving husbands (optional!) and caring society
For true world is made of love!
I.
My face resembles your face
less and less each day. When I was young
no one mistook whose child I was.
Features build coloring
alone among my creamy fine-***** sisters
marked me Byron's daughter.

No sun set when you died, but a door
opened onto my mother. After you left
she grieved her crumpled world aloft
an iron fist sweated with business symbols
a printed blotter dwell in the house of Lord's
your hollow voice changing down a hospital corridor
     yea, though I walk through the valley
     of the shadow of death
     I will fear no evil.

II.
I rummage through the deaths you lived
swaying on a bridge of question.
At seven     in Barbados
dropped into your unknown father's life
your courage vault from his tailor's table
back to the sea.
Did the Grenada treeferns sing
your 15th summer as you jumped ship
to seek your mother
finding her     too late
surrounded with new sons?

Who did you bury to become the enforcer of the law
the handsome legend
before whose raised arm even trees wept
a man of deep and wordless passion
who wanted sons and got five girls?
You left the first two scratching in a treefern's shade
the youngest is a renegade poet
searching for your answer in my blood.

My mother's Grenville tales
spin through early summer evenings.
But you refused to speak of home
of stepping proud Black and penniless
into this land where only white men
ruled by money. How you labored
in the docks of the Hotel Astor
your bright wife a chambermaid upstairs
welded love and survival to ambition
as the land of promise withered
crashed the hotel closed
and you peddle dawn-bought apples
from a push-cart on Broadway.

Does an image of return
wealthy and triumphant
warm your chilblained fingers
as you count coins in the Manhattan snow
or is it only Linda
who dreams of home?

When my mother's first-born cries for milk
in the brutal city winter
do the faces of your other daughters dim
like the image of the treeferned yard
where a dark girl first cooked for you
and her ash heap still smells of curry?

III.
Did the secret of my sisters steal your tongue
like I stole money from your midnight pockets
stubborn and quaking
as you threaten to shoot me if I am the one?
The naked lightbulbs in our kitchen ceiling
glint off your service revolver
as you load     whispering.

Did two little dark girls in Grenada
dart like flying fish
between your averted eyes
and my pajamaless body
our last adolescent summer?
Eavesdropped orations
to your shaving mirror
our most intense conversations
were you practicing how to tell me
of my twin sisters     abandoned
as you had been abandoned
by another Black woman seeking
her fortune     Grenada     Barbados
Panama     Grenada.
New York City.

IV.
You bought old books at auctions
for my unlanguaged world
gave me your idols Marcus Garvey Citizen Kane
and morsels from your dinner plate
when I was seven.
I owe you my Dahomeyan jaw
the free high school for gifted girls
no one else thought I should attend
and the darkness that we share.
Our deepest bonds remain
the mirror and the gun.

V.
An elderly Black judge
known for his way with women
visits this island where I live
shakes my hand, smiling.
"I knew your father," he says
"quite a man!" Smiles again.
I flinch at his raised eyebrow.
A long-gone woman's voice
lashes out at me in parting
"You will never be satisfied
until you have the whole world
in your bed!"

Now I am older than you were when you died
overwork and silence exploding your brain.
You are gradually receding from my face.
Who were you outside the 23rd Psalm?
Knowing so little
how did I become so much
like you?

Your hunger for rectitude
blossoms into rage
the hot tears of mourning
never shed for you before
your twisted measurements
the agony of denial
the power of unshared secrets.
Tita Halaman Jan 2023
Us, our lives in hard mode
Born unlucky to grow in a hard way
Systems, eating us alive
Folding us, wrecking our wild
Unbalanced, restless, uptight
Some systems, do not nurture creativity
And i’m a fiercely enduring candlelight
Here, we’re set to overwork,
Until,
We’re up there
A poem for a painting
Remi Leroy Apr 2017
Sheets of white piling up on my desk
Red alerts with red flags flooding my mail
The little ping, ping, ping of incoming messages from various correspondents
Demanding my attention

"You should learn to say no; stop doing everything by yourself."

Once, my insides would clench and I'd feel like I'd been
Kicked in the shin whenever I see something that reminds me of you
But now, search as I might, I can no longer see your face
Even down memory lane, you've vanished as suddenly as you did in reality

Other events flow like running water, with the clarity of a clear lake
Yet when I try to recall the words you said
It was as if a mischievous kid decided to mess with the tap
On; off. On... off. On... off. On; off.
A buffering in my mind like chopped up notes of a song when a video wouldn't load properly
1991. 9893. 0306. 162. 0341. Numbers are all I remember.
How did
Your smile look like?
How did your voice
Sound like?

I stare at the excel sheet I've been populating
I stare at the values I've been entering
One after another, work requests come
One after another, the traces of you go
17.03.30
Di Oct 2020
Can you try to keep these daily reminders
I know it's hard but I know you can do it
You are beautiful even if you don't realize it
You are alive for a reason
No matter what they say to you
You are valid and loved
What you have to say matters
Don't let anyone take your happiness away
Don't stress yourself over the little things
You are only human don't overwork yourself
Always remember to take care of yourself
Drink lots of water & eat properly
Sleep as much as possible
Stay strong no matter what
Don't be ashamed to cry
Take time for yourself
Don't let anyone push you around
Try to stay calm no matter what
You don't have to bottle everything up
Other people are there for you
<3
brandon nagley Dec 2015
There is a poet
And poetess
That writeth;
In the slums
And the ghetto's;
In the suburb's
In the meadow's.
There is a poet
And poetess
That prophecieth
In the mountain's
In the city, neath
Their graves, in
Tomb's, free one's,
Slave's, some known,
Many doomed, in
Heaven's gates, some
Art poor, some telleth
Of fate, some art lonesome,
Some speaketh of amour',
Some linger in the shadows,
Tortured by demon's, anguished;
Fighting hellish and earthly battles.
There is a poet and poetess that writeth in blood and in ink:
Some feareth death, death to some doth succumb when these artist's speak. Some hath wealth, some with naught, some groweth their own food, whilst other's stick to store bought. Some art peasant's, some art farmer's, some poet's preach and teacheth; whilst other's want to alarm us. There is a poet and poetess in this life and the next; some looketh down on loved one's, whilst the living is blinded by material net's. Some art lost, forgotten, some speaketh Spanish, Hindi, English, Arabic, french, lost languages, or Latin. Some just want to love, whilst some seeketh to findeth love, some want to flyeth away, as if a falcon or a dove. Some thinkest their better than most, others thinkest they art not better then noone, feeling dead as if a ghost. Some jotteth poetry to make them remember living, some art charitable, whilst poet's in prison sit and rot from killing or stealing. Some passeth time staring at the ceiling, whilst some overwork, some casteth their ten percent to worldly lusts, whilst other's pay to God in church. There is a poet and poetess that writeth, being dead or alive; O' poet's were all distinctly different though the same, in God's poetic eye's..............




©Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
Asominate Feb 2019
I can’t stop
Another day I starve myself

I can’t stop
Another day I abuse my body

I can’t stop
Another day I tear pieces of my flesh away with nails and teeth

I can’t stop
Another day I lose myself to my voices

I can’t stop
Another day I won’t let myself rest

I can’t stop
Another day I inhale toxic gases

I can’t stop
Another day I write a poem because no one would listen

I can’t stop
Another day I cry and break down, all alone

I can’t stop
Another day I can’t bear my own reflection

I can’t stop
Another day I realise that I’m all Daddy has

I can’t stop
Another day I think about his death

I can’t stop
Another day I claim to be fine

I can’t stop
Another day I sacrifice my being for someone who’s not me

I can’t stop
Another day I scold me for my imperfections

I can’t stop
Another day I give myself the things I deserve

I can’t stop
Another day I feel drawn to a knife’s sharp edge

I can’t stop
Another day I think of falling off a cliff

I can’t stop
Another day I think of the inevitable

I can’t stop
Another day I collapse due to physical and mental exhaustion

I can’t stop
Another day I overwork myself because of expectations

I can’t stop
Another day I wake up to find I’m still alive

I can’t stop
Another day I believe my delusions

I can’t stop
Another day my train of taught halts

I can’t stop
Another day I think of how disappointing I am

I can’t stop
Another day I feel out-of-place

I can’t stop
Another day I wish I wasn’t born

I can’t stop
Another day I try to put you out your misery

I can’t stop
Another day I scare myself

I can’t stop
Another day I use my fists and a wall to inflict damage to my skull

I can’t stop
Another day I enjoy peace in my concussion

I can’t stop
Another day I have an existential crisis

I can’t stop
Another day I wait for my healing

I can’t stop
Another day I wish my heart wasn’t beating

I can’t stop
Because it never stops
Repeat daily
Realeboga M  Feb 2018
2018
Realeboga M Feb 2018
2018

I gained merely  two Kg, the people I considered friends looked at me and said “If you keep doing this you’re going to be fat”, he laughed
The other said “I see you’re on the road to obesity” he smiled.

I only weigh 48 kg.

So I wonder, how long will my insecurities get to me, how long will I break and crumble and stop eating and overwork myself at the gym?

How long will my heart be anorexic and my mind bulimic.
How long till this nervosa be one with me?

Answer: it already happened.
I don’t think people understand how hurtful their comments are. My entire life I’ve been trying to be skinny or be what people think is appropriate and for once I’m happy, I’m healthy but it’s not good enough. It ******* hurts, I still wear the same sizes but I’m on the road to obesity? I’m too fat? **** those people, I can’t eat without their words lingering, I just don’t want this, I hate this because now I need to do a double take of how I am.
Danielle Rose Jan 2013
Vengeful souls demand recognition
as the blood fills the cracks in our foundations
and our genetic code is the biggest cop out ever known
As the media sells out and buys into the latest solution
Predicament home grown
When the problems run deeper than the sewage
they run deeper than the refineries and plastic seas
Tho they all serve as an example of the lacking
The lack of a proficent economy
and if someone is capable of defaecating where they eat
Whose to say they care for whats on your plate?
More and more we see the collaspe socially in our race
So what I dont understand is the shock when a man
brings a pipe bomb with intent to displace
Everyone is afraid of the yellow flag of terrorism
yet neglect the true issues when it turns red
Neglecting the many motives of an internal suspicion
So next time you go to stomp your former man
To dehumanise and overwork him
Remember your local postal hand
and how even the sanest can be pushed over the edge
Just a reminder to stay kind and empathetic because it could stop a disaster from taking place. =)
Ayeshah Mar 2010
i am proud to be will maybe do a poem about it as well let me know?
btw how many of my dear friends here pn HP are Leo's?  if ur not let me pls know what sign you are! thanks........

Leo - The Sign of the Lion
The people of this sign are natural leaders and chiefs. In reality the supervising position is what the majority of people born under the sign of Lion aspires to. They are really intelligent and magnetic people. That fact attracts others, but they should not try to dominate everyone. Lion frequently called "The sign of the kings" according to his intelligence and graceful manners. Their astrological symbol " Lion" is considered to be the king of animals. But, as well as all governors, that people should learn to wear the crown modestly. They should remember their large sin - vanity.

Friends
It isn't always easy to be friends with a these people. They are best in a one-to-one friendship where their ego is less likely to intrude upon the relationship. These people can find their most lasting friendships with people born in their own period or from March 21 to April 19-27 and, strange to say, all those people who were born on the 1st, 10th, 19th, or 28th of any month, for the reason that these numbers accord and have a sympathetic attraction to the number of the Sun which is the number of this period.

Health
People born in this period should have more time to sleep than almost anyone else. They usually overwork their brains, and are inclined to suffer from headache, trouble with the eyes and other things concerned the head. And they are liable to get cuts and wounds in the head, and they usually run danger from fire. Such people usually demand a constant medical attention.

Color
Their most suitable colors are all shades of yellow, orange, pale green, and white.(PURPLE)

Stones
The birth stones for this period are topazes, amber, and rubies.
Miriam Sep 2013
i fear i feel
too strongly
too much

i fear i overwork
my emotions
and heart

i fear i won't
be able to stop
these emotions
drenching my
crooked soul

i can hear the wind blow;
tonight i'll stay up late just to watch
the sky glow with bright orange

there are people in this world
that i'd like to know, but
i'd never meet, i'd never see
somehow that really saddens me

my mind is clouded with thoughts
that stream on and on and on and on,
sometimes i don't know what to do at all
other than turn up the volume of the radio
to play a terrible pop song

these are the days that must happen to you,
a wise man once said

i just wish, sometimes,
i had someone special to experience it with.
rambling at 3:27 am. i hope you're all having a fantastic day/night. :)
Elizabeth P  Dec 2013
Lately
Elizabeth P Dec 2013
Relatives expired
Mind overtired
Body worn
Heart torn
School
Feeling minuscule
Lack of art
No sweetheart
To hear my cries
No good guys in disguise
Homework
Overwork
Hormones
No gemstones

Even though,
all this I show.
I know I'll get through
wipe off the residue
and be anew.

Thank you.
I'm sorry if some of the rhyming is rough, but life's been rough lately.

— The End —