Poems Rethabile Likes

Homosexuality by Frank O'Hara Homosexuality by Frank O'Hara So we are taking off our masks, are we, and keeping our mouths shut? as if we'd been pierced by a glance! The song of an old cow is not more full of judgment than the vapors which escape one's soul when one is sick; so I pull the shadows around me like a puff and crinkle my eyes as if at the most exquisite moment of a very long opera, and then we are off! without reproach and without hope that our delicate feet will touch the earth again, let alone "very soon." It is the law of my own voice I shall investigate. I start like ice, my finger to my ear, my ear to my heart, that proud cur at the garbage can in the rain. It's wonderful to admire oneself with co...

The New Religion by Chris Abani The New Religion by Chris Abani The body is a nation I have never known. The pure joy of air: the moment between leaping from a cliff into the wall of blue below. Like that. Or to feel the rub of tired lungs against skin- covered bone, like a hand against the rough of bark. Like that. "The body is a savage," I said. For years I said that: the body is a savage. As if this safety of the mind were virtue not cowardice. For years I have snubbed the dark rub of it, said, "I am better, Lord, I am better," but sometimes, in an unguarded moment of sun, I remember the cowdung-scent of my childhood skin thick with dirt and sweat and the screaming grass. But this distance I keep is not divine, for what was Christ if no...

The Sign of Saturn by Sharon Olds The Sign of Saturn by Sharon Olds Sometimes my daughter looks at me with an amber black look, like my father about to pass out from disgust, and I remember she was born under the sign of Saturn, the father who ate his children. Sometimes the dark, silent back of her head reminds me of him unconscious on the couch every night, his face turned away. Sometimes I hear her talking to her brother with that coldness that passed for reason in him, that anger hardened by will, and when she rages into her room, and slams the door, I can see his vast blank back when he passed out to get away from us and lay while the bourbon turned, in his brain, to coal. Sometimes I see that coal ignite in her eyes. As I talk to her, trying to persu...

Beauty by Warsan Shire Beauty by Warsan Shire My older sister soaps between her legs, her hair a prayer of curls. When she was my age, she stole the neighbour's husband, burnt his name into her skin. For weeks she smelt of cheap perfume and dying flesh. It's 4 a.m. and she winks at me, bending over the sink, her small breasts bruised from sucking. She smiles, pops her gum before saying boys are haram, don't ever forget that. Some nights I hear her in her room screaming. We play Surah Al-Baqarah to drown her out. Anything that leaves her mouth sounds like sex. ...

Guidelines | Poems Rethabile Likes Guidelines A note from Poems Rethabile Likes Welcome to Poems Rethabile Likes , the personal blog of Rethabile Masilo — a writer, reader, and lifelong lover of poetry (well... from about 10 years old). The purpose of this blog is to share poems that I admire and love. These may include poems I’ve written myself, and/or poems by others that speak to me in some meaningful way. When possible, I ask for permission before sharing someone else’s words. But there are times, due to circumstances or unavailability, when that isn’t possible. If you are the poet or rights holder of a piece featured here and would prefer it not to appear, I completely respect your wishes. Please don’t hesitate to send me a message at , and I'll remove it and apologise as quickly as possible. ...

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