Category Archives: Poetry

January 20, 2014 · 5:10 pm

The Universe Smiled.

Avas New Feet

Sweet Mahogany Brown
Baby Girl
Tantamount to all that is life
Testimony that all is right
With the world
and My heart
Because You breath
You sneeze
You feel, touch, taste and sound
Delicious
Precious to all of Us
Who
Hopeful and healing
We waited on
You
We prayed for You
And. You. Did. Come.
Not as the light to fill
All darknesses
but a light to be
Her very own beacon
of uncomplicated perfection
On this your born day,
We honor the grace of Your
presence.
Today, tomorrow to always
Dear Child
Yes, Alive. You. Came.
Blinking and breathing
Strongest heart of small hearts
Beating tangible life into the world
And the Universe
Smiled.

Rachelle M. Turple
Jan.20/14 9:30am

Inspired by my beautiful niece Ava born this day at 6:28am
Love You Forever & Always & Forever Again…
~Antie

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August 5, 2013 · 12:25 am

Death in Silence

Shh

I would not go so gently
Down
None at all would hear my
Sound

Stifled silence alone I
Drown
Submersive waves to flood my
Ground

Choke me to the dark
Profound
Quiet carries way my
Crown

Loneliness in death be
Found
A silenced voice
A mind unwound

~Rachelle M. Turple

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August 1, 2013 · 3:07 pm

I Will Always Return To Zimbabwe

Baobab Beauty

I will always return to Zimbabwe
Precious jewel of Africa
Birthplace for my love of travel
And my fear of ignorance
First away from Neverland experience
Where I was never treated like a stranger
So far away from Nova Scotia
Welcomed and protected
Educated and informed
My exodus to a “home” I can never claim
But wish I could

I will always return to Zimbabwe
Bus rides to Bulawayo
To meet the Sandy plains of Hwange
On to Dete for a polite midnight Braai
and warm sadza
and Scud shared from a cup
Lazy train ride to Victoria Falls
Where my ashes will one day scatter
Forever flowing on the Zembezi
To mingle with the Crocodiles and the Hippos
Where being colored is just the state of being
Colored…

I will always return to Zimbabwe
She in all her Babobab beauty
Glorious sunsets and freezing cold mornings
Nachies for breakfast
The best fried chicken and tomatoes
I’d ever tasted
Non genetically modified foods
Still tasting Nando’s on my tongue
All these years later
Rich red Earth
Dusty sandals and toes
After a walk through Harare suburbs
Realizing suburbs exist beyond Canada

I will always return to Zimbabwe
Friendships forged through
Mbange conversations
About politricks and passion
And items
And way too much cheap alcohol
High density areas that taught me
District 9 isn’t just a sci fi movie
It’s a social commentary
“have and have not” mentality
I grew a whole foot in Zimbabwe
My 24th year of life
Naïve and
Newly born.

~Rachelle M. Turple

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June 20, 2013 · 2:12 am

A Mothers Journey

footsteps
The journey of a million miles begins with a single mother
Her weeping woes of wisdom seem to transgress like no other.
The open arms of honesty hold steadfast though they tangle
Her children cry obscenities as her love begins to strangle.

When toddling becomes crawling and walk turns into run
Every bump and bruised is kissed away still her grip becomes undone.
The nursling grows now a form independent of her plea
No matter of mere prayers or tears or pure tenacity.

Beyond the trials of motherhood she cannot bear to vision
But while she constantly constrains, her cubs become imprisoned.
Her love becomes ferocity and protection their division
The babes privately premeditate their eminent excision.

When soon her fledglings have enough and plan to leave the nest
She makes to mind a watchful eye in futility at best.
The world has opened up and swallowed all that she held dear
She cannot conceive a life without her babies near.

Space and time her allies yet she feels she is alone
Maturity and malevolence start to lead her offspring home.
They desire of the guidance and protection of their youth
Somehow she’s seen it all and they are honored by her truth.

A mother’s work is never done and seldom does she rest
She will worry when she sleeps, constantly in stress.
Her children will respect her when they learn that she knows best
For them she’d walk a million miles and for this she is blessed.

Rachelle M. Turple

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June 18, 2013 · 9:09 pm

Bad Mother

Do Better
Stop pretending that you’re deeper than you are
When your vocabulary’s bland and your vision
sub-par

Please believe that you will reap what you sow
When your children can’t read their
average below

Quit neglecting the ones you brought onto this Earth
It sure wasn’t my tax funds who
gave birth

How can you deny and take life for a joke
You think you’re a dime but you stay
on #teambroke

Steady in the hair shop and getting them nails did
But you don’t make the time and read to
Your kids

Knowing this about You should make You inflamed!
You’re too busy trickin’ to even
Be shamed

Your job is to teach them about their self-wealth
All you’ve been doing’s making them
Hate themselves

One day you’ll feel it, one day you’ll see
When the secret is out that your babes
Hate mommy…

Rachelle M. Turple
*From “The Bad Parent Verses”. More to come…

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June 15, 2013 · 5:23 am

Play Time

Play Time

Go on, talk black she told her

Show her how you sound

Say that funny thing you say

 

When No Body’s aren’t around

 

Do that little thing you do

Though Some Body’s here

No Body is around today

 

I’m sure that she won’t care

 

Play that little game we play

The one where you act your color

Where you talk ghetto

 

And you forget your mother

 

Go on girl be a monkey

And put on a little show

Some Body won’t be offended

 

It’s not like Any One will know

 

Let’s play lose your dignity

So I can have a smile

I’ll grin and laugh it right on up

 

As you shrink all the while

 

She’s another “sista”

She’ll understand the joke

She’ll appreciate the humor

 

She can’t be that easy to provoke

 

Alright save it for another time

When it’s just you and me

So I can laugh at all you are

 

And you pretend that you don’t see

Rachelle M. Turple                                                                                                                  **Written after visiting a bi-racial friend whose girlfriend wanted her to show me how she “talked Black”.    

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June 4, 2013 · 8:45 pm

She.

symbols

She is a Woman who is who she is

Does what she wants and lives how she lives

She is a Woman with so much to give

Open and freely she wonderfully gives

She is a Woman who wears what she wears

Treasures her body and looks as she dares

She is a Woman who sensually shares

Erotic to all she evokes to ensnair

She is a Woman who openly cares

Loves who she wants to and faces her fears

She is a Woman who believes in herself

Takes risks and chances because she trusts herself

She is a free spirit who knows that to Be

She must exist in a veracious pure state of She

She understands that she can’t possibly Be

An underrated cheapened shallow version of She

She is a believer in diligent prayers

Knows God is listening and comforts her tears

She is a warrior her victory clear

Always ready for action never caught unaware

She knows her lover must honestly be

The truest most masculine version of He

She submits to her man because she trusts that He

Will do what he must to take care of She

She respects her virtue and knows her true worth

Understands that as woman she mothers the Earth

She is crowned royal because of her birth

And celebrates life with a tangible mirth

How dare that Woman feel at home in her skin

Accept who she is both outside and in

If only all Women could beautifully be

Her truest and honest authentic own She

~Rachelle M. Turple

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June 4, 2013 · 8:02 pm

The Black Woman Cries

Black Woman Cries

A yellow woman approached me

Slanted were her eyes

And asked why she had never seen a black woman cry.

I could answer not her question

And was taken quite aback

Does not every woman cry no matter yellow white or black?

We absolutely do cry.

What else consoles our pain?

We pray for our oppressors and then we cry to calm our shame.

A black woman’s tears are sacred.

They cleanse her as she weeps

But sorrow sends to soil her soul and steadily it creeps.

She cries when she’s with wisdom

There’s none left to do but cry

Her lament surrendered honest, it needs not an alibi.

After pondering the ponder

I believe I’ve found reply

I know why it is you’ve never seen a black woman cry.

Seldom are her whispers heard

Far too often she’s invisible

The world around her seems to think that she’s somehow invincible.

She runs nowhere when she’s wounded

Pain enough to want to die

Silently she suffers as she finds the will to try.

Perhaps you’ve never noticed

Truly coming eye to eye

Maybe that is why you’ve never seen a black woman cry

She cries because she knows

People think she doesn’t cry

And she doesn’t need

or feel

or think

or know

or want

or die.

~Rachelle M. Turple

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June 3, 2013 · 6:01 pm

Hatred

Hatred

Picture the ugliest ugly

Even uglier

I’ll make it heavier

Multiply it by 10

So that it really

Sinks

In.

Imagine something

Grotesque and unpleasant

Repugnant and monstrous

Ominous and loathsome

Sordid and horrid

The revolting stench

of something repugnant

Rancid and rank

Disgusting and putrid

This is the reeking

Reality of hatred

Impetuous rage

Riotous maniacal

Uncontrollably vicious

Passionate

Powerful

Hate is

Turbulent

Wild

Biting and ruinous

It’s gonna ruin US

It’s screwin’ US

Poisoning US

Nauseating US

Devastating US

Killing US

Rotting us from the outside in

And they say that sex is

THE

Original sin

But way back in Genesis

Abel was slain

And for what?

The jealousy and hatred

Of his own brother Cain

Wickedness

Envy

Terror

And

Evil

Perverse illegality

Leads to certain

Peril

The assured extinction of humanity

PEOPLE!

Hatred is ugly

But I want you to see

That

Immorality fiddles up our

Chances at

Immortality

If that ain’t an incentive to be

Just a little bit righteous

I don’t know what is

But hopefully

This might just…

~Rachelle M. Turple

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June 3, 2013 · 3:40 pm

What of words?

Words

What of words of grandeur

Who knows what the hell they mean

I am writing for my company

Not dancing for the queen

Oh what a pretty price we pay

On big words like constabulary

Most education in this day

Is a waste of good vocabulary

Leaned people teach us

All we need to know

For tending joy and living life

And finding ways to grow

My people didn’t go to school

And learn a fancy talk

They merely lived and freely gave us

Lessons on the walk

They spoke to us in dialect

A language understood

A native tongue of wisdom

Spoken intellect and good

For what good are words of grandeur

Which fall upon deaf ears

And who defines the boundary

Of who even gets to hear

~Rachelle M. Turple

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