Fontella poems on Hello Poetry

SeeNhlanhla Moment Sep 2013

Inspire me. ****** me. Serenade me.
Send to me ******* rhythms and let
the ****** hymns play... And then the songs play as we lay.
Frank Sinatra has us on the road, Irma
Thomas telling us to be ourselves...
Love me like Aretha has never loved a
man, move me like Nina Simone, just
you and I alone. Dinah Washington says I should teach you, Etta James
warning me not to tear your clothes.
Let's play some Sarah Vaughn and
Fontella Bass. Ease me with some Diana
Krall and Dianne Reeves, swing motion
with Chris Boti. Tell me you love me Inside Out as does Shara Nelson. Let's
fall in love to Cassandra Wilson. Let us go the jungle and listen to the
bears sing, the legends of love lore...
Sing and groan; Some Isaac Hayes,
Barry White, Teddy Pendergrass,
Marvin Gaye, James Ingram, Gary
Taylor... Let them play, let them sing. And some love bees; some Betty
Wright, Angela Winbush, Regina Belle,
Sade, Marsha Ambrosius... Tone it
down on a spunky blue with some
Meshell Ndegeocello, Janet Jackson,
Laurnea, a bit of Floetry, some Incognito and Karyn White. Max it up with some Maxwell, Rahsaan,
Ralph Tresvant, Glenn Jones and Tevin
Campelle. Let's jazz it up with some Fourplay,
Brian Culbertson, Quincy Jones, Euge
Groove and Marion Meadows... Lounge
and spice it up with some Prince Alec,
Hed Kandi and Kalliope. Funk it up with some Rick James, Ten
City, Brothers Johnson and Billie
Ocean... Let us ****** and swim in the
love ocean. Making love in a Time Machine,
fading through timeless scenes
listening to stimulating music
searching for a combine that is our
fusion
Biting on some dust and swallowing colour
lush are the strips that are dripping
from the trees of chemistry
dancing to music lively, singing to
blues puzzling
beating to jazz dubbing, responding to ethereal loungy sound
music and our souls will be one
in a time machine, learning
combinations orchestrated through the
ages
We will evolve and be sages Until time linear is more sincere and
eternity for us is here. Let the music play, my bed will be a
time machine, shut never your ears
listen to the music that does play and
wipe them tears
all the drama you've been through all
these years in a second we'll be naked and
climbing stairs
we'll be invited to the kingdom of
Romance and Serindipity
You can be the Queen, I'll be King
Poetry painting neverending pictures surreal
in a world ethereal and the real will dull
feel
and forever you and I will be, if we
journey in the musical time machine.

Helena Lipstadt Oct 2014

Que Sera, Sera

I
What I meant to notice was
your fine hands drumming
on the wheel, the air like grapes
through Danbury to New Haven.
But we were singing, not
the famous song your uncle wrote,
but "Lay Lady Lay" and something
from Fairport Convention.
Like every other Friday at 3 p.m.
you had taken your Compazine
and we were nearly to the hospital
with its halo of elms

II
Long and thin
as a clock hand
ticking twelve
your body lay on our bed.
I place my fingers on your chest,
on the hollow batons
of your ribs.

III
We live north of our fate.
Snow cakes on the porch steps
dense as the air upstairs when I bake
lead bricks and call them bread.  Generous,
you eat thin slices with butter and banana.
It is so white in the bedroom,
snowlight cast up from the road.
Your dark brillo hair is like
live wires searching for a signal.
We throw your economics
books to the floor.  On the cold sheet
we lay together.  The melting snow
is my evidence.  Once, you and I,
in a sweat of sexlove, here.
I close my mouth now.
I have confessed everything
to you.

IV
Your mother never played
the grand piano in the living room.
But you played
Rock and Roll radio
and when I called you
on a bet with my friend
Mary Ellen, you knew
Fontella Bass sang "Rescue Me"
in 1965 and how long
she was in the Top 10
and who was #1 before
and after her.  Facts like that,
I could count on.  Facts like
when you died
you were 29 years old.
"The Harder They Come"
by Jimmy Cliff was at the top
of the charts, followed
by Neil Young "Heart of Gold."
I don't know
what these invisible facts mean.
They comfort me.

V
We tell no one of your prognosis.  Cancer
was contagious then.  We don't
even say the word.  Not to your best friend
Elliot or your mother or my parents.
While you lie in that floating bed
visiting with ghosts,
I sneak out,
have burning ***
with a Viet Nam vet
who knows about death,
and bodies.

VI
I am on a crowded sidewalk.
I think I am dreaming.
It is Sixth Avenue and like two
vast rivers of fish,
people press urgently
north and south.
After seven years, I see your dark
head above the others.  You are
looking down, but steadily move
toward me.  I am helpless
with hope.  You come close.
If I could lift my hand, I would
open my palm on the long
plane of your chest.
Very slow, you raise your head.
You look into my eyes.
Your eyes are brown,
as always.
Like rain you speak to me.
"I will meet you,"
you say, "in the Andes."
Then you disappear.

— The End —