TWO POEMS

By Dee Allen

FOXY

You never forget your first

Infatuation.

Mine was the big thing

Decades before

Other honeys

Entered the picture.

Soul Cinema action queen

Did her own stunts,

Did her own Afro,

Wasted no time

Kicking ass on the big screen.

First of her kind.

The baddest one-chick hit squad that ever hit town!

Mine had no issues

Getting grindhouse

Balconies and seats 

Filled on Saturday nights in the 1970s.

She made the scene as Coffy,

Friday Foster,

Sheba Baby—

Foxy! Superbad! Outta sight!

Was a rebellious prisoner for 3 flicks straight:

The Big Doll House, The Big Bird Cage,

Black Mama, White Mama—

Foxy! Superbad! Outta sight!

Battled the Romans in The Arena

As the gladiatrix Mamawi,

Stuck it to The Man in Bucktown & Foxy Brown—

Foxy! Superbad! Outta sight!

She booted down the door, so many more could pass through:

Tamara Dobson, Teresa Graves, Gloria Hendry,

Jeannie Bell, Vonetta McGee, Jayne Kennedy—

Foxy! Superbad! Outta sight!

Her deep brown eyes

Met the male gaze

From pictures, seemed to say:

“You can look at me, but respect me—or else.”

Of course, I was a small, twiggy boy

[ “The Starvin' Biafran”, as my cousins called me ]

When all this happened.

Black America

Had a stone cold

Love jones for that foxy

Mocha tough mama from the movies

And I was no ways immune.

You never forget your first

Celebrity crush.

Have no fear! Pam Grier is here!

                                                                                  

DOMINO EFFECT

Tami Sawyer—

Another famous woman from Tennessee—

Met her biggest adversary in a park,

Sized him up good with tearful eyes:

Slave trader,

Confederate Army General,

The first Klansman

Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Something had to give.

Correction: Some things.

Tami Sawyer

Made loud, sufficient noise

In her home town of Memphis

In marshalling together youth & elders

In removing the toxicity of ages,

Graven blight,

Cleared the pedestals 

Once and forever

Of racist trash.

THE SOUTH SHALL RISE AGAIN!

Rednecks curse.

THE SOUTH HAVE LOST AGAIN!

Anti-racists curse back.

Tami Sawyer 

Knew, as her allies did, that

Rule by fear must end, starting when

Certain venerated idols cease to stand.

A single push 

Toppled over one,

Then the rest

Fall like bronze and stone-carved

Dominoes.

                                                                                  

Dee Allen (he/him/his) African-Italian performance poet based in Oakland, California. Author of 7 books—Boneyard, Unwritten Law, Stormwater, Skeletal Black, Elohi Unitsi, Rusty Gallows and Plans—and 50 anthology appearances.