Subscribe: by Email | in Reader
Showing posts with label Submitted by: Mukul Hinge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Submitted by: Mukul Hinge. Show all posts

Preacher, Don't Send Me -- Maya Angelou

Guest poem sent in by Mukul Hinge
(Poem #1435) Preacher, Don't Send Me
 Preacher, don't send me
 when I die
 to some big ghetto
 in the sky
 where rats eat cats
 of the leopard type
 and Sunday brunch
 is grits and tripe.

 I've known those rats
 I've seen them kill
 and grits I've had
 would make a hill,
 or maybe a mountain,
 so what I need
 from you on Sunday
 is a different creed.

 Preacher, please don't
 promise me
 streets of gold
 and milk for free.
 I stopped all milk
 at four years old
 and once I'm dead
 I won't need gold.

 I'd call a place
 pure paradise
 where families are loyal
 and strangers are nice,
 where the music is jazz
 and the season is fall.
 Promise me that
 or nothing at all.
-- Maya Angelou
Just thought I'd submit a poem by Maya Angelou that I really like because its
extremely soulful (especially the last verse. I think it reflects the trauma
that she faced in her childhood and adolescence...

More information about Ms Angelou can be found on
www.mayaangelou.com

Cheers,
Mukul Hinge

[Martin adds]

This poem has a beautiful, swinging rhythm that despite its apparent
simplicity has to have been carefully crafted. I loved it until the last
verse, which was disappointingly trite (though it ties in with the 'nothing'
references running through a few recent poems).

martin