Living on Resilience-Poems published November-December 2015

By: aromaproductions on 1:52 PM

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I am always very thankful to share the pages of literary journals with widely published writers whether in the Caribbean and elsewhere. I am always honored that an editor of a literary journal accepts my work for publication. Getting published is among many things that I am grateful for.


http://issuu.com/kerry36/docs/poui-16-2015








Last month I shared with you poems ,“Like Mami Water in Hiding,”Kaleidescope, Writers Abroad, 2015, “New World Bouillon,” and “Now Massa Loved Some Hunting,” The Caribbean Writer, vol.29, 2015,  and earlier in fall, poems “Departure and Arrival,” Persimmon Tree (www.persimmontree.org/v2/summer-2015/international-poets ),“The Vengence of Gods and Spirits,”Caribbean-American Heritage Month Literary magazine, 2015 (www.issuu.com/instituteofcaribbeanstudies/docs/cahm_magazine_2015).

During the months of November and December, poems “Moon Dive,” Streets Not Paved with Gold,” were published in POUI: Literary Journal of the University of the West Indies, 16 Edition, Nov., 2015 (http://issuu.com/kerry36/docs/poui-16-2015), “Lost Love,” Women in War, Advocates for Gender Balance, Nov., 2015, and "Sinners and Saints" in Kwee: Liberia Literary Magazine, edited by Othniel Forte (http://liblitrev.wix.com/llmag).

Moon Dive

Life is a rain-forest river.

My love, a boa

I slither behind.

He has shed his warm voice.

It no longer cuddles.

It is not poisonous

yet there is venom

in hissing words.

They are vile to

the heart they strike.

I am suffocating

under the weight

of his beguiling ways.

Our nest is flooded

with my tears.

Love drowned,

Eden lost,

there is nothing left

but malice.

 © Althea Romeo-Mark (POUI, December 2015)

 Streets Not Paved with Gold

The streets in our quarter

are dust clouds without rain,

are ravines and rivulets after rain.

We are sentenced to this shanty-town

by class and clannishness,

and bullets and mosquitos

bet on our longevity.

Mosquito squads make lances ready

in bunkers of rusty tins

camouflaged by clumping bush

resistant to shoppers’ trudging feet.

Bullets are marked

with our names at birth.

We try to survive the lottery.

The uppity blue sky

looks down at the sea of shacks

between which we  hustle,

between which we speak

the language of haggle.

Those who understand

our pulse are golden.

© Althea Romeo-Mark (POUI 2015)

Lost Love

I have left you, was forced to leave you,

`cause you pushed me away.

Had I remained, I might be speaking

from a shallow, leaf-draped grave

somewhere in a forest in the company of the dead

who did not wish to flee, could not flee your side.

There are those who survived the bi-polar rage

that boiled in your blood and corrupted bones.

They subsisted on cunning, prayers and small miracles.

This conflict was not of your making.

The clashing voices within tore you asunder.

And you fell apart, unable to pacify warring schisms—

old souls rejecting a tainted new, new souls subjugating the old.

Scarred by your fury, many do not wish to replant their loyalty

only to be felled like unwanted timber.

Many who live in your shadow still reel from the fear

that became their life.

Some spin senseless tales on how to make you better,

on how to cure your ills.

And there are homegrown carpetbaggers

playing chess with your future,

ready to flee at the first signs of fire-storm.

Perhaps I will visit, skirt around your tantrums,

but I have been burned and will not stay. 

I chose life over deadly love.

I am in the arms of another

who brings calm to my spirit.

I will not throw this away.

© Althea Romeo-Mark (Women in War)

*Carpetbagger -Today, the phrase, carpet bagger refers to someone who moves to a new location for opportunistic reasons.

This poetry collection, Women in War, edited by Mutiu Olawuyi, (Nigeria), Heather Burns (USA) and Chryssa Velissariou (Greece) is an anthology published in protest against gender violence, It is dedicated to true mothers around the world.

An excerpt from the Foreword.

Women, children and men suffer from domestic violence, but the vast majority of victims are women and girls. In armed conflicts, violence against women is often used as a weapon of war in order to humiliate the women themselves or the community to which they belong. 

Violence against women is not confined to any particular political or economic system, but prevalent in every society in the world. (Prof. Chryssa Velissarious, Poet and Physicist) 

Sinners and Saints

Play-mamas were distant kin

in the next village,

in Miami or New York

who took us in

when mothers shunned

pregnant daughters

as they were spurned

and papas professed

they had never sown

wild seeds in their youth.

Shu-shued.

The Scarlet Letter H

that branded  hypocrites

the first to cast stony words,

and banish sinners in their midst.

Our “aunties,” had hearts bigger

than their religion allowed,

and forgave those deemed unforgivable,

opened doors to prodigal sons

and fallen daughters.

They are our surrogates,

when life’s cup runs over,

they are our surrogates

when life runs us over.

*Shu-shu-to keep quiet or something to be kept a secret.

© Althea Romeo-Mark  (republished inKWEE: Liberia Literary Magazine, Dec. 2015, first published in WomanSpeak; A Journal of Writing and Art by Caribbean Women ("Voices of Dissent: Women Speaking to Transform the Culture.")2014.