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Mari Banks Poem
As soon as I convince myself that food is not my friend
This one-sided relationship will all come to an end
Each day when I arise I pledge an archetypal goal
To overcome the food addition pulling on my soul
But as the day goes forward, problems start to come around
The vending machine calls me and my love jones comes on down
Food shouldn't be my buddy, nor my solace when I'm sad
Not what to do when I'm alone or feeling really bad
I can't find myself in popcorn, there's no counseling in chips
This love affair's not working out (I see it on my hips)
Though I know it's not where I should go when looking for the truth,
I share secrets with my pantry - it's my confessional booth
For many years I've searched and searched for pairs of loving eyes
Those I find - are on potatoes or my skinny lover - fries
I look for comfort in the coolness of a milkshake's sweet embrace
It seems to be what I need but – it's showing in my face
I love the crunch of fried fish once it's bubbled in hot grease
But these rolls of fat upon my back just do not bring me peace
Sometimes I think I'll overcome but alas and alack
The smell of rising dough just seems to stab me in the back
This symbiant feeds off me as I gorge upon its flesh
And my attempts to conquer it are marginal - at best
The truthful path to happiness is what I most desire
But yet the path I choose to walk is paved with tight attire
Buying bigger clothes would be a way to make amends but
Money is a joke that I discuss with all my friends
Vanity keeps me from moving on to larger sizes
Self-esteem flees from me with my morning scale surprises
Pain becomes a part of me when I put on my jeans
Because of how the waistband cuts so deep into my spleen
Food. Not song, or dance, or even following my dreams
Not writing silly poems or saying funny things
Not feeling good, not working hard, not fitting in my clothes
Filling my gut with sustenance but not filling the holes
This relationship waits for me at the end of every day
It's never late, it's always there, faithful in every way
You have to ask yourself sometimes, “what kind of friend is that?”
Who gives me what I think I want no matter how I act?
My ankles swell, my belly too, my butt hangs kinda' low
I can sit in for the fat sidekick in any TV show - but
As soon as I convince myself that food is not my friend
This one-sided relationship will all come to an end
Today when I arise I'll pledge an archetypal goal
To overcome this food addition pulling on my soul
Copyright © Mari Banks | Year Posted 2013
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Mari Banks Poem
I won 1st place in the school oratorical contest
I got to say my poem in front of the whole school and they gave me a medal
I was proud that I was 1st
But he never told me.
Where was his medal?
When I found out, I told everyone and waited for the parade to begin.
Mother (who made much ado over my medal) said,
“Oh, really? I'm not surprised. Do you know he left breadcrumbs all over
the floor yesterday?
Didn't even clean them up!”
I was confused.
Do icons have to clean up breadcrumbs?
But he never told me.
“We just dug a lot of trenches for the ammo dump.”
He winked as he said the Marines kept him safe just for me.
He did tell me about "friendly" fire
from White boys standing over them as they dug ditches
but White men are always shooting at Black men - so I thought little of it.
As I rode his knee he used funny words like Guam and Guadalcanal
and he taught me to sing,
"from the Halls of Mon-te-zu-u-ma to the shores of Trip-po-lee . . ."
But never said he was the first to sing it.
He said, “We trained at Camp LeJune”, but never mentioned Montford Point.
As he tied his shoe he said he was a bit too young to be there.
“But I wanted to choose the Corps so I volunteered.”
When I had lived enough to navigate the oceans between
Camp LeJune and Montford Point - I asked,
“Dad, Do you know what you did? You never told me.”
Struggling to share memories clogged by clouds of time he chuckled.
“Yep, we were some of the first but I just didn't think nothin' about it.
It was just one of those things.”
Now I know what it means to be first.
Miss out on medals and parades - and think nothin' of 'em.
A silent machete carving ways through colored lines . . .
As we wiggle with impatience in our snow pants
while they bundle us up for the cold and put on our mittens.
Copyright © Mari Banks | Year Posted 2013
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Mari Banks Poem
Why can't I do it how I want to do it?
Been told my rhymes are sophomoric - at best
I may violate pentameter but I write what I like
Why must it pass some journal's vapid test?
Behind a block of writers I've been hiding
Cowed by thoughts of editing snafus
Trying to write deep, intensive tomes of valid lore
Only to be chastened and abused
There's elegance found in concise expression
Saying all the world in just a line
No matter that I know this, I belabor all my thoughts
Create elegies for elegance in time
Onomatopoeia is my best friend
And alliteration waltzes through my dreams
Thoughts chatter, clatter, chirp and clunk around about my head
Demanding that they be released in streams
And after I have done what I have done here
Exposed my heart by opening my head
I send it forth with hope that someone will enjoy my words
And get rejection letters only, in their stead
Won't you like my poem - just a little?
I promise it won't be a trite conceit
I don’t emulate the standard ways of any other writer
But you've called my words monotonous and cheap
But yet my writing keeps on remonstrating
That whether it be ballad or blank verse
It should be able to do, just exactly what it feels like
And it finds your journal editing perverse
It says it does not care if it is published
Doesn't want you to consider it profound
For if you did, it might become repetitive and common
And make cool people, like me, put it down
But won't you like my poem just a little?
At the least - you could be non-committal
Copyright © Mari Banks | Year Posted 2013
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Mari Banks Poem
This poem wants to make a change . . .
To be a strong yet silent raised fist in Mexico, 1968.
To stand at a window w/a shotgun writing the words
“By any means necessary”
To sit in at a lunch counter in Birmingham, Alabama
Until it is read
To start a breakfast program in Compton, California
In order to feed hungry minds
To stand up for its rights in Akron, Ohio and shout,
“Aint I a poem?”
To integrate an all white book store under protection of the National Guard
And when George Wallace says to it,
“You will not enter unless it’s over my cold, dead, body. . .”
This poem will gladly take him up on his offer
But now this poem feels that perhaps it is too militant,
Maybe it and Spike should just “Do the Right Thing” . . .
Take the hand of other poems deep in the South Georgia woods and lead them to freedom
Under cover of night-light
Take its brothers and sisters out of the man’s world and
Into Aaron’s “Boondocks”
Play its own music, live in Jamaica and
Grow Nappy Locs
Start a union with A. Phillip down at the docks
Be read by Martin while being pelted with rocks
Find out what would happen
“If Beale Street Could Talk”. . .
This poem will get accused of “Ego Trippin” but
will not take it personally, declaring,
“And Still I Rise”
It will invite other poems to a free concert headlined by
Marvin, Stevie, Chuck D, and Black Thought
It will do what it should, not what others think it ought
This poem will be munificent . . .
Will give because so much has been given to it
Will do because so much has been done for it
Will be able to sit down because so many others have
Stood up
But this poem can not sit still for long
Because this poem has been disenfranchised . . .
This poem was told there is no longer a need
For affirmative action
only to have it replaced with definitive inaction
This poem cast a vote in Florida,
only to be told that it did not count
This poem observed its commander in thief, fly over rising waters in the Lower Ninth Ward
just to keep his feet from getting wet
This poem watched its country expand our “melting pot” to include all types of ingredients,
Then scrape the black off the bottom of the pan . . .
and send it back to Haiti on a raft
This poem has been pulled over for being DWI
(drafted with intelligence)
This poem was profiled at Hartsfield Airport,
And made to take off it’s . . . blues.
This poem never planted any genus of Bush,
It’s not concerned with whom you marry,
Nor does it desire to trade the blood of young soldiers for oil, but look what it got
No wonder,
This poem wants 2 b a revolutionary . . .
Copyright © Mari Banks | Year Posted 2013
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Mari Banks Poem
I wonder what I am going to do.
I wonder where U are.
& I wonder why the cocktails, are no longer free at the bar.
I wonder why my ankles swell,
And I wonder if U know.
I wonder if the sugar’s sweet, and if ice really tastes like snow.
If you think my sugar’s sweet,
And ice really tastes like snow,
Then I wonder if when you remember me - you’ll call home and let me know.
It would be better for both of us,
If you’d call home and let me know.
Perhaps then, I’d know where to go.
I wonder if U love me,
I wonder if you’re true.
I wonder if the yard guy we hired is really out with the flu.
I wonder what happened to last night,
I wonder why I didn’t know.
& I wonder if you will spit in my hand,
And try to sell it as snow.
If you believe you will spit in my hand,
And try to sell it as snow,
Then I ask if when you remember me you will help me, by letting me go.
It would be the best thing for the both of us, if you would let me go.
I’m alone when I’m with you, alone when I’m not
I swear babe, I just don’t know.
I wonder why I give a damn,
Because clearly you do not.
I wonder when I’ll get a life, and stop wanting the one that you’ve got.
Wonder if I will grow some cajones,
I wonder where mine are,
And I wonder if it’s after five cause then cocktails - are free at the bar.
Copyright © Mari Banks | Year Posted 2013
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Mari Banks Poem
Haiku 2 Do About U
Should I tell U how
Love 4 U within me sings?
Swinging scatted tune
Haiku About U
Sound brought me 2 U
Feelings for U clear and pure
Dulcet notes on glass
Haiku II About U
Time always 4 U
Time 4 Me? When U want 2.
Metronome off cue
Tru Blu Haiku
Customer Service
Counter for unwanted things
Symphonies in blue
Haiku What U Do
U caused me true pain
My heart a minor etude
Composed in lieu of rain
Blue Haiku N Rue
Silence with me now
Heart pacing on shards of glass
Strewn beneath its feet
Copyright © Mari Banks | Year Posted 2013
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Mari Banks Poem
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
Copyright © Mari Banks | Year Posted 2013
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Mari Banks Poem
The phenomenal essence of all that I am
Is what you have made me
I trail in your wake
A vapor,
Remains of a constantly blazing star
You burn through the heavens and fall to the earth
Becoming rock upon which I stand. . .
Rest. . .
Raise myself to the level of forever.
Letting go the hand of the child I was while
Standing on my toes peering into the face of the woman
You enabled me to be. . .
Copyright © Mari Banks | Year Posted 2013
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Mari Banks Poem
Testing overload
Small brown kids with no recess
Racing to the top
Copyright © Mari Banks | Year Posted 2013
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Mari Banks Poem
If wishes were horses
We’d all take a ride and possibly this time
We could come inside
Without picking up a VD-in-the-box
Or a latent addiction we just can’t detox
Mind, body, soul, heart, head and feet
imprisoned deep
in a concrete complication of humiliation and revelation,
Pushed off bridges that cross
Dreams, desires, expectations . . .
Only to land in reality where we sleep with the fishes.
But who can sleep with the noise
Of bombs overhead
Dropping charges of illumination into
Each and every head
Casting shadows of scattered bones
That litter floors of our closets
Fears placed on display like
Vegas at night - Psychotic.
Riotous images of
Things left unsaid,
Things we wish were undone
Resonate in our heads - but
Let us pause to give thanks that only Pandora has the key to our
Recriminations and capitulations
Discriminations that inhibited associations
Humiliations that induced devastation
Prevented cross-pollination & stopped maturation
of our soul – God's creation . . .
As we view it through the keyhole of an air-tight little box
Reminders of the past the price we pay if it unlocks
The reminiscing turns broad highways into vicious stumbling blocks
With ghosts of roads not taken swarming round our heads in flocks
While blows of our poor choices, rain around our heads like rocks
But it is said that every virgin stoned has a chance to receive paradise
So we wish . . .
Hoping that God will swoop down in one big duex et machina with a
Diamond in the back
Sunroof top
Diggin’ the scene with the ability to save all the virgins
And through we sacrifice our happiness on altars of regret
There's no absolution
Because we won’t let go of our
Dirty little secrets
Copyright © Mari Banks | Year Posted 2013
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