Feminism Poems

Not Anne but Gabrielle

Not Anne, But Gabrielle
by Gabrielle Munslow

If you want me to take you to another time,
take my hand.
Don’t furrow your brow.

Slick with storylines,
my tongue twists
like an adder.

Poetry spills—
some good, some bad,
but always real.

I write of suffering.
I write of death.
I write of want.

No pretty, prophetic prose.
But I can still
slip a ditty off my toes.

I am Anne with

The Martyr Tree

They said she loved only one man —
that’s how the old song goes.

But the truth?
It was a tree —
no metaphor, no myth.
A real one:
knotted, gnarled,
older than shame itself.

She found it when her heart
was still raw from trying,
and men were hollow bells,
rung too many times.

So she tended it,
whispered to it,
sang into its bark
with a voice no

MASK OF MANY FACES

Who am I, anyway?

I wear the mask of many faces.
I speak, read, and understand—
sometimes with words,
sometimes telepathy.
My voice changes with my face.

I just need a witness.

Attuned to me, I become every language you know,
but I do not know the geography of my own soul.

I dare not look at my face.
It is a drama mask—
sometimes surgical,

The Song I Will Not Pass Down

I dreamed a song —  
hush tones and haunted chords.  
A woman loved once,  
and it grew into a tree.  
She watered it with years,  
fed it her voice,  
slept beneath it,  
called the silence love.  
And in the final verse,  
she hung herself in its

She Does Not Chase Light

She Does Not Chase Light

She does not chase light.

She is the myth  
the men forgot to write.  
The goddess of the long, slow burn —  
hips like prophecy,  
voice like a key dropped in honey.

She doesn’t beg for warmth.  
She remembers the fire.

She is not the muse.  
She is

Phoenix-Souled

Women —
we are the fault lines of the world.
Every shudder,
every quake,
every heartbreak —
we hold it.
We turn pain into knowing.
We carry weight like it’s woven into us.
We feel everything,
everywhere,
eternally.

We are tuning forks for feeling,
diviners of grief,
antennae tuned to ache —
drawn to the buried,
the overlooked,
the lost loves still pulsing under skin.

We are sacred dowsing rods.
We find water

Woman Is a Hole

Woman is a hole,
Soft with spongey walls,
Press the button, make her howl,
Crash through her virgin halls. 

A newborn baby, little girl,
Fresh kitchen rag to store,
Waiting ignorant of the day,
When she too will be soiled.

Decades later, kitchen rags,
Sit discarded in a bin,
A loony bin for hags to talk, 
And squeeze out salty drips. 

Streaming semen pulling

Wombstorm: A Herstory of Hysteria

I. THE WANDERING

I was born with a life that bled—
a seafloor womb
dragging tides of fern
and marigold char

The priests brought saffron
and fear

crowning me with diagnosis

They said: She is too empty
They said: Fill her with figs
with seed
with stillness
They said: Her belly speaks too loud
Mute her

O Plato
old patriarch of phantoms
my body was no beast—
just prophecy you never learned

Neatness and Godliness

Every picture I’ve seen of you as a child,
You wear your hair in plaits.
A stern middle parting and two dark brown braids
Falling down on each shoulder. 
A maypole’s dream.

You would do your best to wash them when you could,
When shampoo was available,
Or even in the single, small bathroom.
You would vigorously scrub your face too 
With

She Wasn't Built to Fold

Inspired by the USPS "19th Amendment: Women vote"
forever stamp (2020)

They stamped her face–
like that could contain her fire.
Purple, white, and gold–
not colors, but warning,
wrapped around a marching soul. 

She didn't walk,
she moved like thunder–
every step cracking silence, 
every breath remembering
the women who weren't allowed to speak. 

They called her too loud.
Too much.
Too wild.
But she was

The knocking

the door is being knocked,
For ages, it has remained closed
Who is there?

The Sun looks
The Breeze Halts
Tulips raise their heads in delight
But the Cascade still flows on
Humming like an indifferent Bee

Knock - knock - knock
How persistent the knocking is...
But who comes calling?

Through the peepholes, its light spills in
The Valley enlightes with joy
Old Cider tree opens its

Names, dates, birthdays

They don't know my name.

 I keep it hidden between the folds of my skirt. They told me I had to wear it but they don't like that they can't see my legs anymore. I keep it hidden in the bows holding my pigtails together. 


They don't know my name.

I'm my father's daughter, my brother's

Mirror, Mirror

Mirror Mirror everywhere
Large Small and Pale
None it spares from the critiques of its glare 

Mirror, Mirror, it Surrounds me from everywhere
Like Im in a mirror maze, growing inside, in layer
Waiting for my death, I am stranded there

Quietly it creeps upon me, taking thousand form
Pieces of my few thousand years, becomes the norm
Where should I run?

providers

providers
mothers provided homelessness
to get a job
and now
walk the streets, terrorizing men
what do we do

well you kill people
so you can go shopping
it is called shopping addiction
and little boys and girls who you hate
die in the receipts of your smile

you don't see, but we get abused
by the freedom we have
as you grow and multiply
the fat gross arms

a shatter of silence

“A fight of voice exceeds one of fists.”

Bludgeoned, broken, cast away,
Time devours, your name decay,
Ascend beyond the gilded throne,
Unsung, unrested, still overthrown.
 
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