double-dutch, boston creme and hell

by Deborah White

it's in the crochet
of night when
he's at his worst.

understand,

it's his scent
that makes
my mouth water


aromas velcro
his progeny
beneath my arms,

saddle-bag my hips

spice-trails seep
through holes of
temperance
and control

saccharine comfort
is the burlesque of a man's
blue-balled dream

can tap a woman's
"g" time and time again

satisfaction


deadly is sin's
third son

he wakes me
coerces a quiet
slip downstairs

to pillage sanctity's
double-dutch fudge
no brainer

plunder purity's
boston creme circled
and dumped
promises


yet, gluttony
never once
mentions

-- this immorality against
myself --

in hell,

I'd be force-fed
rats, toads, and snakes

Yet I Do Marvel by Countee Cullen

Countee Cullen
1903-1946

I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
The little buried mole continues blind,

Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,
Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus
Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare

If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
To struggle up a never-ending stair.
Inscrutable His ways are, and immune

To catechism by a mind too strewn
With petty cares to slightly understand
What awful brain compels His awful hand.

Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
To make a poet black, and bid him sing!

harlem renaissance poetry

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