Best Skinned Poems
In our Asian-cum-Eastern land
No one prefers or admires
the dark-skinned or tanned
Gosh, as if the fair-skinned alone
belonged to the so-called fairer sex
And here, 'black is beauty' a phrase unheard
All falling for the light skinned almost in reflex!
Bachelors on the hunt for a non-fictional Asian 'Snow-white'
Even an ugly heart will do if the skin is white, pale and light
For them lighter skin tis brighter and better at beauty
even if superficial and skin-deep
The dark-skinned maidens thereby left single to weep
But while the ebony dark- pigmented
go on applying whitening and lightening creams
The white Westerners frequented
the sunlit beaches for dark tans from sun beams!
So in westerners females wish to look browned and tanned
Thus the opposite is preferred
so to that end they may sun bathe for hours on beach sand
Ah and though from the point of view of my motherland
I am luckier that God chose
to model me from a peachy whiter lighter clay,
I still feel this tug-of-war between complexions
needn't really join the fray.
For when you and I glance at Naomi Campbell
we know beauty can be white, brown and black as well
Like love, beauty knows no colour, creed or race
As proved by this gorgeous black supermodel.
Besides, we all have come across
both dark-skinned angelic saints
and fair-skinned folks with sinner's taints
Ah, Black Beauty, or Fair and lovely
Beauty has never known any bounds
For God He distributed beauty rather equally
No argument can last on these grounds
Oh, a soulmate's inner beauty ought to be earnestly sought
Too bad lustful passions fall for those merely outwardly hot!
Categories:
skinned, color, prejudice, race, ,
Form:
Rhyme
Oh to crispy skinned Cossages
those tasty morsels of the mind
may imagining their delicate flavours
help your busy days unwind
do they taste like asparagus
or is it peach
do they smell like running socks
or is it leech
To crispy skinned Cossages
those rocket ships of the mind
that can fly you away to near or far
wherever you’re so inclined
you could go to the circus
or just down the road
visit the rings of Saturn
or dine with a toad
Say thanks to crispy skinned Cossages
those gallant saviours of the mind
freeing you from mundane thoughts
where your life is entwined
do you cure cancer
or were you first to the Pole
a boisterous blustering braggart
or a quiet listening soul
Categories:
skinned, imagination,
Form:
Rhyme
It's minor keys that resonate, I'll stay up late and wait
then in between the silence I'll hear the sound
of steel and cedar, the slow rebound
wrapping around my reflective heart
and so it comes,this slow release
brings me peace in dead skinned fingers.
It's me who lingers unanswered and unsolved
even after prayer wheels have been revolved.
The answer is not to doubt at all,
to take our backs from off the wall,
but still these shapes take precedence,
a permanent tenement residence
of twos and blue toned cadence.
That perfection goes unnoticed
would be easier to bare
if there was someone there to share
the exquisite madness and requisite gladness
who's roots draw from melancholy
but the apple that fell on me
knocking sense into me
bruising my head
releases me, brings peace to me
instead.
Categories:
skinned, introspection, peace, prayer, peace,
Form:
Free verse
a small child
crouches
quiet
eyes taken
curious sight
brow creases
in question
it a new thing
these pink shapes
on earthy brown
face
fingers
backs of hands
throat
breasts
half covered
the same
familiar
patterned dress
she child
soft traces
them
on toes
tops of feet
calves
where flame's flowers
seared skin
pink thin
knees
knelt down
in plea
in prayer
kept brown
strange
new tattoos
alien
yet not unearthly
she
small
prods
lashless lids
pats
proud cheekbones
insistent
bows her head
dark hair
falls forward
silk waterfalls
stir shadows'
flit
over
sleeping face
eyes open
wide
fear drains
colour
then
warm
deep brown
they glow
for her
knowingly
Posted: 12-12-2018.
NOTE: No to Xenophobia.
Categories:
skinned, child, community, humanity,
Form:
Alliteration
Dark Skinned Lady. the ever poised legendary beauty, granary of compassion & culture whose stunning reign sparkles the night.
Dark Skinned Lady. comandress of matriotic forces, the earthquake that shakes the pillars of racism & sexism the stream that feeds liberating consciousness
Dark skinned lady. epicenter of the ripples of Africanism. Divinity of a soul tranced by a rhythm, a rhythm forged by the beat of a drum, the drum pumping life into the veins of my Africa!
Categories:
skinned, love,
Form:
Haiku
Six simpering thick-skinned shifty spinster sisters stiffly sit
Stitching sticky skid-marked scivvies of sixty sick stingy sailors.
Six sick from stitching scivvies of sixty sick scrimping sailors
Stickle over nickels; those insistent six thick-skinned spinster tailors!
For Joe Sandler's Tongue Twister Challenge Poetry Contest
Categories:
skinned, funny, sick,
Form:
Alliteration
“Thick Skinned – What it Feels Like for a Girl”
When you speak
it’s as if stars cascade
out of your mouth
galaxies you produce
musical incantations
that I listen religiously to
I watch your lips
form glistening cupids’ bows
they spread wide open
like the subtle legs
of a forgotten nun
whispering vesper wishes
before priestly sermons
and John Donne
your hushed and salient
remonstrations, you now
plant me in your
sentence,
no, that this should
never have occurred at all
we are irreverent
in our choices
forming new begottens
you usher from the
pulpit of your world
eloquent reasons
to justify wrong from right
right from wrong
as if your internal fortitude
consists within a
mirror universe
deep and soulful
it promises
more than heaven
those curves
and waivers
contracts we signed
some time ago
souls sunk in a
bad marriage
and hushed assurances
of ‘til death do us part weatherin’
kissing the skin
against my throat
the very place
my comeback is primed
to be launched, yours
deliver that kind of
loose compensation
lathered in snake oil
and a clear path
to redemption
that tie my hands
make me mute
I was launched long ago
from safe harbour,
now
off sure
to lay down all my
naked vicious antigens
I have grown in
the petri dish of my
muddy life to fight your
viral love
like diamonds
your words
they sharpen and glisten
cut through
the thick tempered
glass of me,
through the epidermis
of a close-packed woman
you laser your refined tongue
eyes viscerally undressing
you address the wide open
tableau of me, knowing
you adroitly twist your points
penetrating through
to the now
all too familiar
subcutaneous
safe base chakra of me
within a short space of time
I am sold
into
your chicanery
wanting little of the
life that was before
the unfortunate
taming of me
(LadyLabyrinth / 2021)
"What it Feels Like for a Girl"/ Madonna , Paul Oakenfold (Remix)
https://youtu.be/tbtt0WTKqnQ
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/8-steps-that-explain-why-_b_9143360
http://www.hiddenhurt.co.uk/domestic_violence_poems_1.html#learned
https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/7940/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_It_Feels_Like_for_a_Girl
Categories:
skinned, abuse, dark, muse, symbolism,
Form:
Free verse
What happens to all the brown-skinned girls?
Sitting on the stoop waiting for the ice cream man to come
20 plats in their hair
Turning the double dutch rope
Sitting in the middle of the classroom
You know, that one girl . . . what’s her name?
ponytails neither pony nor tail
Who aren’t allowed to wear their hair down
or sport Brand X Jeans
Who can’t wash that Diaspora right out of their hair
or erase their royal heritage
The ones that pop their gum the loudest
Run the fastest
Fight the hardest
Dream the most
Ones who don’t wear pants and go to church all day Sunday
got tattoos
wear makeup
or slide into their short skirts on the way to school
Who are picked first for the team
picked last
or never picked at all . . .
Girls - who don’t have time to hang out ‘cause they “gotta go to work!”
for their new dress
or in their old car
to pay the light bill that momma “forgot”
Girls who roll their neck
and their eyes
their hair and their hips
to the rhythms of the Congo, Bronx, or the Swats
Girls who sing in the mirror as they glue, braid and towel on that
long . . . wavy . . . hair
Who, “hate that stupid light-skinded girl” because
“she thinks she’s so cute”
or hate themselves because they think so too . . .
Some may have never had him hold their hand
call them beautiful
take them to the father/daughter dance
come to their rescue . . .
See he was
in jail/out of town/in denial/out of time
insane
to forego all the love that just one little brown-skinned girl has to give
Girls. Not little Halle, Beyonce, or J Lo
But young Angela, Carol, Michelle, and Alek
Those awe-inspiring girls who don’t yet know
that they are
Elegant, intelligent
engaging
enchanting . . .
Who don’t see themselves
On movie screens - in magazines
The eyes of the world, little boys
Their own
Who buys them a bomb pop when the ice cream man comes?
Tastes the sweet undertones buried in dark chocolate
Loves them?
Loves them for themselves
Who loves them
Loves them
Who loves
Categories:
skinned, black african american, tribute,
Form:
Free verse
The tall girl with skinned knees hair of straw
Shirley ‘the hag’
Her voice cracks when she talks
Skinny torn knees knock when she walks
She will flavor all Shirleys to come
Her face above left or right of any Shirley
When the hag skips rope
She clacks like a bag of bones
Dirty hair flops
Singing a school room tune
“The frog he would a wooing go’
It fits…….ho ho
Just wait for the rope to tangle
Frog voice break
The descent like a tinkertoy tower
Knees all mangled
Feel sorry then
When tears streak her bony face
Shirley ‘the hag’
Poor skinny baby
To the office run with broken stilts
Stumble again
Ripped to the bone maybe
..................................................................................................
For Robert Dufresne, my humor-loving friend
Categories:
skinned, childhood, funnyvoice, hair, voice,
Form:
Free verse
My black Skinned knees
I woke up to this misty gloomy morning
with a scene setting unobtainable dream
a dream of impregnable God given justice
shared in a impartial world
never are my emotional
scrapes and scratches neutral
but are occupied upon this scorched earth
have i found that my abuse
is but a mirror placed on my caramel brown skin
with dancing sugar coated lies that the world
can't see due to reflecting lies
that blind you with the light of misdirection's
to the gifted indestructible young
trust not the marked famous
or these who are not there yet
but find safety in research
and know you(r) beautiful enemy
Categories:
skinned, abuse, business, celebrity, international,
Form:
Bio
Not everyone see it
Not everyone wants it
Dark skinned
Born with it
Bleach it
Looking in the mirror and sees no beauty
Look at her friend
And see her end
Won't be seen as pretty
What a pity
She cries cause she's dark
Her skin so african
So brown
So fair
She is a dark skinned girl
Her beauty conquers that of a pearl
Society claims she doesn't do it
So all they do is spit
Spit right in her face
Society says she's dark "how can she be beautiful"
And I say she is a dark skinned princess
Her beauty is priceless
Cause she has the beauty of a dark skinned girl
Categories:
skinned, africa, beautiful, black african
Form:
ABC
He grasped my fingers and I took a breath,
I counted to five and allowed my palms to sweat...
I stood, Converse clad feet turned inwards towards my opposite knees and thought about the
irony of plaid, I looked to rabbit ear shoelaces with tugs in the bows, and wondered...
how to make decisions.
Here we were and ankle length white skirts held the past in their hems, I fell beyond the
boat docks that became swallowed by the sea, once, twice, and someone told me, on a warm
afternoon in September where trees sheltered us from pouring rain, I spun on concrete as
if it couldn't break me....
I replied in a grinning whisper, words that danced through raindrops and giggled through
clouds,
“No, it shatters.”
I shook in the moment I remembered with my heart first and my mind later, because I loved
him so much on that night that the words didn't matter and I spun as April melted
inbetween us and sheets held the skin that told my secrets, the tattoo who heard
everything, and she heard me sigh, she heard me...
smile when I slept...
the sound of him, the days flooded, I fell...
on concrete...
and skinned my knee, I studied the shade of my bruises and the tiny drops of blood, I got
up and wiped the dirt off my hands, I studied my palms and my fingers and counted to
f i v e...
months later, I swallowed his voice, I attacked the shame I had in holding onto him for so
long, and I changed my shoes, untied the laces and zipped up boots, whose black leather
hugged my calves, whose toes were scuffed from all the miles I had walked, ran, and bumped
into him...
and the hems of my jeans, frayed, and stained with the dirt that settles on...
concrete...
rubbed up against his as I took his hand and looked down at the intricate patterns of the
way we held on...
I kissed him, then, when the rain stopped, and counted, as my teeth ran across the lips
that still tasted of his breath...
to one, and closed my eyes, to two, and opened them, and underneath the shadows that broke
the sky with my lashes, I reached...
forever.
Categories:
skinned, life, love, time, words,
Form:
Prose Poetry
prejudice,
mental jaundice,
distorting personal perspectives,
corroding humanity's noble objectives,
bigotry!
Categories:
skinned, social
Form:
Cinquain
Always later than I'd like, richness in their cells when ripe
Backberry with Apple pie delight, once to taste is not my style
I've also found them there, at times and whiles, and tasted also before
I'm home.' and now I've opened up the tome, the one on puddings; basin filled.'
Mullberry and plum, raspberry and kiwi, gooseberry and Logan
Make pages of colour, that one could dote on' But I'll admit and without
Duress, blackberries in August are the very best, their deep rich taste
Is always smooth, enhancing many mealtimes; theyre comfort imbued.'
The pot is on; the apples peeled, blackberries tender swiftly yeild
Aroma rich, perfumes the air; there are paintings of them on my spiral stair
All in all, I must profess they are a real forte; in culinary prowess.'
Categories:
skinned, appreciation, beautiful, celebration, food,
Form:
Rhyme
Stay away from a rough-skinned newt
Their poison skin is deadly, it will make you toot.
Better to linger near an angry bandicoot.
Or go to Sam’s house and watch him play his flute.
If the newt comes near you, run off and hide.
His poison skin is deadlier than cyanide.
Categories:
skinned, animal,
Form:
Rhyme