My Music Conveyed You To Me

Note:  A dahabeeyah is a kind of barge like boat on the Nile

 I wrote this poem in early 1993 to my husband when we first fell in love.

My music conveyed you to me
a sympathetic symphony
murmuring my heart's rhythm:
Love you I, you love I, I love you.
You are the still water running deep
through me. Effortlessly I glide along
on my dahabeeyah content to lazily
uncover you:  my life source.

I Pledge Allegiance To You, Chicago

I pledge allegiance to you, Chicago.
I pledge allegiance to your four starred flag
To your slanted streets and movable bridges.
To your buildings scraping the sky by and by.
To your park granting a water fountain space.

I pledge allegiance to you, Chicago,

To your wind swept politicians, newsmen

Rooted in subterranean taverns, 

Colorful mayors preserving disorder 

City that works for those willing to work it.

I  pledge allegiance to you, Chicago,

To your screeching el trains that loop around

To your crazy lake and backwards river.

A constant stream of ethnicities.

A tangle of flags, churches and eateries.

I pledge allegiance to you, Chicago.

This broad shouldered woman loves you.

Many faceted rough cut diamond

You've got combustible character.

My fiery city, second to none.  

Momma Don't Take My Grit Away

My grit is my scarlet lettered badge of honor.
It is the cross I scrape across the pavement
It is a boulder sized shoulder chip.
My grit is what I rub in your face when
You ignore my loud suffering.
My grit is my oh so pretty brand..
She has become incidental.
My grit has become soul powered,
Sending out puny waves of rage.

Momma Don't Take My Grit Away.
Momma Don't Take My Grit Away.
Momma Don't Take My Grit Away
From Me---ee--ee.

My grit grows exponentially with each
Retelling of things that befell me.
Glorious feats of fraudulent motherhood.
My grit lays out a magnificent feast
of falsehoods,elaborate lies I slurp up.
If it weren't for this self betrayal,
I would collapse in anguish
My grit isolates and insulates.
My grit nails me to a wall..  
Allowing me to rejuvenate.
So I can survive to equivocate
yet another day.