Chocolate Ritual
The Feminist Peace Network is dedicated to building an
enduring peace, with the ending of violence towards
women and children as a first priority. This group is
dedicated to the urgent need to immediately work
towards providing shelter, food, education, and a
safe environment for women and children in all parts
of the world, as well as creating economic conditions
to ensure these rights in the future. A strong bias
towards matriarchal thinking is assumed.Submitted by Deb Three Feathers
Midwifery in Arkansas
About.com's index for woman's Issues
Song for My Daughter
There is a space both small and vast between
your offspringing and your womaning that is my life
that has in it Hunger Strikers
those words you echoed from the evening news
and bread that I baked that was no answer
to the hunger, although it tasted good with butter
Your mother was Hans Holbein in the basement
I was Erasmus in the study. You, the child of artisans
of shadow and shortage, rode your Bat Cycle
through the vast corridors of the red brick dormitory
we lived in having fled rents and Reaganomics
for the ceremony of serving by standing, waiting
I was the lay minister and JV football coach
to the stars: Kennedys and mesomorphic debutantes
with temperatures to be taken, Jewish
Mandarin-speaking middle linebackers
L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets in training
You grew up in the late renaissance
and then it was over. Money had won
and the brothers multiplied in prisons
like black hermaphroditic rabbits
Time was stage fright — afraid we'd miscarry
the persons we were and all the etiquettes
that gave us an agitated space
in which to live would become the bad likeness of the time
that middle class lie that tasted good with butter
I strapped you in the car seat and drove to Boston
a small space to witness the scrimmage of memory and desire
like two Hindu deities vanishing or appearing
with a million brilliant eyes
I practiced my sheer contemporary and my absolute present
in a scarf and a work shirt on which your mother sewed a fritillary
when we loved each other and we did
in our house inside a school, a miniature, Socratic life
worrying as a form of longing
as the bread was rising
* * *
The odd old country of my father
patched, wool gathered, clocked in musical time
slow, larghetto; calando, gradually diminishing
he lived in the evening news — an island that exported terror
and nightmare where there is no art
where they do everything as well as they can
I did not know if he were dove or Strangelove in the basement
where he went for his darling
prisoner of what muffled and thrilled him
Rummaging I found a shoe box
with a single syllable and a photograph
of time as he knew it
hostile, bewitched, anticlimactic, miraculous
When he went dead
without telling his desire
his language was the ash of
failing to be the great god
of love, the great god of details
His song: sforzato, forced; rubato, robbed
of time and so freed from being a man
odd, a woman in the eyes of the world
What he was was a nervous realist
in a sentimental domain, a lover
not a fighter, and I was surprised
he knew the terms and would put them
with pencil on paper fixing me
when I would be moved by his flowing hand
Logos living and changing like the snake
that vacationed from school with us and died
in his closet in a shoe box
Bruce Smith
Songs for Two Voices
The University of Chicago Press
Girls Rights of Passage
Hi, I'm twelve years old,
and my hair was long and kinky
My Momma's comb she used on me,
was really small and dinky
Momma really hated to comb,
through my long and kinky hair
She told me Blacks have bad hair,
and for us it just ain't fair
A hot comb she would use,
to make my hair real straight
But Momma said it's time,
to make a hair perm date
I thought it to myself,
I hope it won't hurt and burn
Cuz I heard that this would happen,
which caused me much concern
"This perm would be my first step,
to start my passage," momma said
"No more hot combs and burning hair,
or greased hot fried up head"
Momma told me she don't wanna be,
embarrassed by her nappy head kid
And the time for my nappy head,
was definitely time for her to rid
The day had come for our trip,
so off to the shop we went
The owner beacon for me to come over,
but my face showed fear and torment
"Now don't you worry baby,"
the owner said with a smile
"My hair was thick and messed up,
just like yours is for a while"
"We gonna make sure you look pretty,
just you wait and see"
"We'll give you a perm that will do this,
and it'll be done in just a breeze
As she started to rub that cold cream,
into my awaiting hair
I couldn't help notice her thin hair,
as I sat upon the chair
I thought to myself,
it won't hurt at all
To get her hair combed,
if her comb is too small
She covered my hair,
with cream and stepped out
At first it was fine,
then the pain hit my scalp
The pain it grew sharper,
like needles in my hair
I started tap'n my feet,
grab'n hard to the chair
As it burned on my scalp,
I felt like screaming and leaving
One lady said it's working,
when it burns it's straightening is achieving
But my head was hurting real bad,
and was dizzy from the chemical fumes
I couldn't stop the tears,
nor get'n dizzy in the room
She came and said to me,
" that's the price you pay for beauty"
"And soon you will learn this,
that it's every young girl's duty"
Priestess Jywanza
10-27-01
