Excerpt from a poem from "Early Embraces"
Alyson Publications

To Annie, I Remember...I Remember
 

...I thought I must love a man,
marry
and have sex.
But you were not a man,
(nor had any been who had caught my heart before)
you and I could not marry,
but...
"I want to lie naked with you."
was all I could say.
Words clumsy and raw
accurate and simple
honest.
That I was all I knew.
I felt stupid for lack of eloquence
exposed by my passion
resigned that you would call out my sin by name
and leave me
embarrassed,
broken.
Gently you said "yes."
My pulse quickened.
Desires like mine?
I was in awe.
I drove us back to the dorm
away from the chilled night's eye
to the warm comfort of your room.
"Shh," you said,
"we don't want to wake Colleen,"
snoring softly
roommate,
friend,
what will she say to this?
Witness to our indiscretion
"She sleeps through everything" became our prayer.
You took my hand and led me to the bed
old, iron workhorse of a thousand dorms and hospitals.
The floorboards creaked beneath our feet,
heralding our intent,
freezing us in step.
Colleen slept on.
We did not know yet
the tears, the guilt
that lay before us,
the mate of truth and lies
that would take us years to unravel.
All we knew was the passion,
the burning Lava steaming into hidden pools
calling
begging
for sacrifice.
Do you remember, my friend,
that first night
when we slipped hot beneath you covers,
anxious
hungry
alive
two bodies fitting together,
two explorers charting each other and ourselves?
I remember.
I remember.

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WU TSAO

Untitled

I have closed the double doors.
In what corner of the heavens is she?
A horizontal flute
Beyond the red walls
Blown as gently as the breeze
Blows the willow floss.
In the lingering glow of the sunset
The roosting crows ignore my melancholy.
Once again I languidly get out of bed.
After I have burned incense,
I loiter on the jeweled staircase.
I regret the wasted years,
Sick, afraid of the cold, afraid of the heat,
While the beautiful days went by.
Suddenly it is the Autumn Feast of the Dead.
Constantly disturbed by the changing weather,
I lose track of the flowing light
That washes us away.
Who moved the turning bridges
On my inlaid psaltery?
I realize--
Of the twenty five strings
Twenty one are gone.

For the Courtesan Ch'ing Lin

On your slender body
Your jade and coral girdle ornaments chime
Like those of a celestial companion
Come from the Green Jade City of Heaven.
One smile from you when we meet,
And I become speechless and forget every word.
For too long you have gathered flowers,
And leaned against the bamboos,
Your green sleeves growing cold,
In your deserted valley:
I can visualize you all alone,
A girl harboring her cryptic thoughts.

You glow like a perfumed lamp
In the gathering shadows.
We play wine games
And recite each other's poems.
Then you sing `Remembering South of the River'
With its heart breaking verses. Then
We paint each other's beautiful eyebrows.
I want to possess you completely –
Your jade body
And your promised heart.
It is Spring.
Vast mists cover the Five Lakes.
My dear, let me buy a red painted boat
And carry you away.

"Laura and Lizzie Asleep"

Golden head by golden head,
Like two pigeons in one nest
Folded in each other's wings,
They lay down their curtained bed:
Like two blossoms on one stem
Like two flakes of new-fall'n snow,
Like two wands of ivory
Tipped with gold for awful kings.
Moon and stars gazed in at them,
Wind sang to them lullaby,
Lumbering owls forbore to fly,
Not a bat flapped to and fro
Round their nest:
Cheek to cheek and breast to breast
Locked together in one nest.

Witch-Wife

From Renascence:

She is neither pink nor pale,
And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs;
In the sun `tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of coloured beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can,
And her ways to my ways resign;
But she was not made for any man,
And she never will be all mine.
 

From A Few Figs From Thistles:

Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow!
Faithless am I am save to love's self alone.
Were you not lovely I would leave you now;
After the feet of beauty fly my own.
Were you not still my hunger's rarest food,
And water ever to my wildest thirst,
I would desert you--think not but I would!--
And seek another as I sought you first.
But you are mobile as the veering air,
And all your charms more changeful than the tide,
Wherefore to be inconstant is no care:
I have but to continue at your side.
So wanton, light and false, my love, are you,
I am most faithless when I most am true.
 

From Second April:

Into the golden vessel of great song
Let us pour all our passion; breast to breast
Let other lovers lie, in love and rest;
Not we,--articulate, so, but with the tongue
Of all the world: the churning blood, the long
shuddering quiet, the desperate hot palms pressed
Sharply together upon the escaping guest,
The common soul, unguarded, and grown strong.
Longing alone is singer to the lute;
Let still on nettles in the open sigh
The minstrel, that in slumber is as mute
As any man, and love be far and high,
That else forsakes the topmost branch, a fruit
Found on the ground by every passer-by.
 

Sonnet: VII

From Fatal Interview:

Night is my sister, and how deep in love,
How drowned in love and weedily washed ashore,
There to be fretted by the drag and shove
At the tide's edge, I lie—these things and more:
Whose arm alone between me and the sand,
Whose voice alone, whose pitiful breath brought near,
Could thaw these nostrils and unlock this hand,
She could advise you, should you care to hear.
Small chance, however, in a storm so black,
A man will leave his friendly fire and snug
For a drowned woman's sake, and bring her back
To drip and scatter shells upon the rug.
No one but Night, with tears on her dark face,
Watches beside me in this windy place.

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Modern Poetry exerpts from the book "Key to Everything".
 

Love Poem
     by,
    Audre Lorde

Speak earth and bless me
with what is richest
make sky flow honey out of my hips
rigid as mountains
spread over a valley
carved out by the mouth of rain.

And I knew shen I entered her  ~  I was
high wind in her forest's hollow
fingers whispering sound
honey flowed  ~  from the split cup
impaled on a lance of tongues
on the tips of her breasts  ~  on her navel
and my breath  ~  howling into her entrances
through lungs of pain.

Greedy as herring-gulls
or a child
I swing out  ~  over the earth
over and over  ~  again.
 

Of Athea and Flaxie
   by,
   Cheryl Clarke

In 1943 Athlea was a welder
very dark
very butch
and very proud
loved to cook, sew and drive a car
and did not care who knew she kept company
 with a woman
who met her everyday after work
in a tight dress and high heels
light-skinned and high-cheekboned
who loved to shoot, fish, play poker
and did not give a damn who knew her 'man'
 was a woman.

Althea was gay and strong in 1945
and could sing a good song
from underneath her welder's mask
and did not care who heard her sing her song
 to a woman.

Flaxie was careful and faithful
mindful of her Southern upbringing
watchful of her tutored grace
long as they treated her like a lady
she did not give a damn who called her
 a 'bulldagger'.

In 1950 Althea wore suits and ties
Flaxie's favorite colors were pink and blue
People openly challenged their flamboyance
but neither cared a fig who thought them 'queer'
 or 'funny'.

When the girls bragged over break of their
 sundry loves,
Flaxie blithely told them her old lady Althea took
 her dancing
every weekend
and did not give a damn who knew she clung
 to a woman.

When the boys on her shift complained of their wives,
Althea boasted of how smart her 'stuff' Flaxie was
and did not care who knew she loved the mind of a
 woman.

In 1955 when Flaxie got pregnant
and Althea lost her job
Flaxie got herself on relief
and did not care how many caseworkers
threatened midnite raids.

Althea was set up and went to jail
for writing numbers in 1958.
Flaxie visited her every week with gifts
and hungered openly for her thru the bars
and did not give a damn who knew she waited
 for a woman.

When her mother died in 1965 in New Orleans
Flaxie demanded that Althea walk besided her in the
 funeral procession
and did not care how many aunts and uncles knew
 she slept with a woman.

When she died in 1970
Flaxie fought Althea's proper family not to have her
laid out in lace
and dressed the body herself
and did not care who knew she'd made her way with
 a woman.
 

For Willyce
    by,
   Pat Parker

When I make love to you
  I try
 with each stroke of my tongue
    to say I love you
    to tease I love you
           to hammer I love you
           to melt I love you

  & your sounds drift down
         oh God!
            oh Jesus!
         And I think --
  here it is some dude's
  getting credit for what
         a woman
         has done,
             again.
 

I Offer you Persimmons
     by,
     Elizabeth Randolph

                     this persimmon
         in my mouth offered like tea leaves
     to  be  read  or  tarot  cards  lined palms
  pure immutable  longing  just  beneath  the skin
 traces  of  desire  like  fingertips  blood stains
 DNA  I  want  to   make   this   offering to  you
  pure    unblemished    fruit   arching  swollen
    with   silent    prayer   soundless adoration
      silent  golden   fruit  sliced  to take
          between     your    lips    that
                  hallowed    plalce
                      I've yet to
                         find
 

Jealousy
     by,
     Naomi Replansky

From five hundred miles away
jealousy can hear
the crumpling of a pillow
beneath two heads.
 

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