Daughters Poems

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
...

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, 'Speak to us of Children.'

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
...

A woman waits for me- she contains all, nothing is lacking,
Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the
right man were lacking.
...

Broad sun-stoned beaches.

White heat.
A green river.
...

Already I am no longer looked at with lechery or love.
My daughters and sons have put me away with marbles and dolls,
Are gone from the house.
My husband and lovers are pleasant or somewhat polite
...

My daughter plays on the floor
with plastic letters,
red, blue & hard yellow,
learning how to spell,
...

You always read about it:
the plumber with the twelve children
who wins the Irish Sweepstakes.
From toilets to riches.
...

Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
And marching single in an endless file,
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
...

Happy is England! I could be content
To see no other verdure than its own;
To feel no other breezes than are blown
Through its tall woods with high romances blent:
...

Oh sharp diamond, my mother!
I could not count the cost
of all your faces, your moods-
that present that I lost.
...

They say I looked back out of curiosity.
But I could have had other reasons.
I looked back mourning my silver bowl.
Carelessly, while tying my sandal strap.
...

1.
WHO rides there so late through the night dark and drear?
The father it is, with his infant so dear;
He holdeth the boy tightly clasp'd in his arm,
...

January 1912, Mzansi brought forth a child 
In a harsh political climate 
Destined to free her people
Bound to cruel Fate
...

I WALK through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading-books and histories,
...

Millions of babies watching the skies
Bellies swollen, with big round eyes
On Jessore Road--long bamboo huts
Noplace to shit but sand channel ruts
...

My heart like a desert
My tears like a river
Shifting sands of sadness
My whole body shivers
...

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
...

On Mrs. W-----'s Voyage to England.

I.
WHILE raging tempests shake the shore,
...

But in the Wine-presses the human grapes sing not nor dance:
They howl and writhe in shoals of torment, in fierce flames consuming,
In chains of iron and in dungeons circled with ceaseless fires,
In pits and dens and shades of death, in shapes of torment and woe:
...

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
...

Cry with me, oh daughters of Zion,
For our land is torn and broken,
Our tears like rivers, endlessly flowing,
As the enemy's words are spoken echo like thunder.
...

Please, teach your daughters well
Tell them they don't deserve to be treated like hell,
If in trouble come home from a failed marriage or relationship
And always advise and support them for that trip.
...

The farmer's daughters work from dawn
To dusk to tend the fields so that
The family may carry on
Good life in the farm habitat.
...

Some religions teach that a women

Is property owned by a man.
...

by Freeyad Ibrahim

I like my Sons
But I like my daughters twice
...

When your ignorance insults a woman in power
They don't ever worry or shake or cower,
You know those women don't hear or recognize you
But, sadly sisters and daughters and mothers always do.
...

it is goota be light de waitin fire time agin
to get de hot water to get de hot water heated
so de women do do dem hour long showers
dat de 2 daughters do do dem hour long showers
...

Brothers of sand
Holding signs, I am a man
Daughters of dust
Holding signs life in her gut
...

O Daughters of Eve
Haven't you read the ancient script
Forbid the role your mother played
Be no victim of the slimy snake
...

A cruel mother
to her lovely daughters
never treat them decently.
Showing no respect and
...