I Belong To Pan
The god Pan overtakes me
In a scarily erotic
Dance.
Erect, always at attention,
He caters to my every desire –
Both known and unknown.
I know not where these
Feelings stem from
That he generates from me
Each time he touches me
Or follows my movement
With long glances -- when he stares
It is always
My eyes that look
Away first.
This lust – this passion
Bubbles up inside of me
Like volcanic overflow –
I crave his godhead to enter
Me and wear me down
Until I lie in a whimpering
Mass at Pan’s feet.
I want
To be his concubine
His whore, his wench
Don’t judge me.
If you had known Pan, like I have known Pan
You, too,
Would willingly lie underneath
The weight of his manhood
Without fear of reprisal
Or sadness in the unexpected disappearance
Of your '60s-inspired, bra-burning,
Gloria Steinem Ways.
Real Talk about Back in the Day
Today I offer you real talk. I’m not going to blow
smoke up your ass with some bullshit poem that
makes it seem like the world back in the day was
all sunny and gay because it wasn’t—least ways
not all of the time.
Yes, I had happy days but enough poets
have written rhymes about hot Alabama nights,
magnolia blossoms, and cotton fields with joyous darkies
singing the night away. Like I said,
today I offer you real talk beginning with my
first time.
I have no happy memories of the day my virginity
was taken away from me by an old man called Uncle
who smelled of Old Spice, stale pork rinds, Budweiser
and piss.
On that day there was no candlelight or mood music
to soften the pain of that first thrust or dull the
humiliation and repulsion I felt when he told
my eleven year old mouth to take it all in and
feeling there was no other choice
I did.
Imagine—if you will—a girl child still being spoon fed
Disney tales where white men on white horses
would ride in and whisk the blue eyed blond Princess
away to a land of happily
ever after.
Forget the fact that I did not resemble those girls
in the picture books that my father read to me in
a slow stilted voice each night—sometimes sounding out the words
because field work called louder to him than the chiming
of the school bell so words for him did not
come easy.
He—with all good intentions—convinced me
that Prince Charming would overlook those traits in me
that society deemed shortcomings. He promised that
in spite of my nappy head, dark skin, big nose and wide ass
Prince Charming would still one day ride in on his
trusty steed and ride me off to a land of happily ever
after too.
But this was a lie that all daddies probably told
their little girls particularly if they lived during a time
when they were colored. Suffice it to say the Prince did
not ride in on his horse in time to rescue me from
the evil beast who ripped wide girl parts
I was saving for that first night on the day
I would wear white and lovingly give my
virginity away.
He broke in and plundered and rearranged
dresser drawers that had been packed by a
benevolent Mother Nature and strew my
belongings onto the floor with no regard
and no plans or suggestions on how I could repack
and make those drawers neat and orderly
like I’d been taught to keep them by
the nurturing father who had been more mother
than the one who wore the title but never really
owned it.
So what did I do? I did what I had always done. I fought
back. My daddy once likened me to Joe Frazier because
he said I could take a beating and still get up
fighting swinging. So that is what
I did.
I scratched and clawed and fought back the demons
of the night who tried to pull me, drag me, trap me
in the shadows of that first time with the man
who was allowed to walk free because mother said
not to tell. The one lesson she
taught me.
So silence was my mantra but that does
not mean that I remained unprepared. I trained
and grew stronger so I would be ready
for that next time -- so that if another or
the same came back for seconds or thirds
of my virginity, which was used up and of
no worth to me and in my mind anyone else,
I would be prepared to personally take him
out myself.
Play Me One of Those Old School Joints: And I’ll Be Yours Tonight
Baby, you know me.
Music
gets me high. And when
you sing and play for me,
just for me,
for a moment,
for a solitary moment,
it’s. like. I. can. fly.
When you let loose with one of those
old school joints,
I can’t think straight.
And your guitar, baby.
When you strum that guitar,
when you strum that guitar just right,
making melodies hard, fast and divine --
Well, when you do all that
baby, when you do that,
there ain’t no doubt
i. am. yours. tonight.