two Poems by Jamal Hodge from The Dark Between the Twilight
INTENTIONS
I see my intentions
I see your actions
I judge
You.
I condemn
You.
I forgive
Me.
Attracting
The heartbeat
of life’s
disappointments.
My life
Is wife
to mayhem.
I fear
I banish
I blame.
Shame does not
Touch my pride.
Eyes wide
Seeing everything
But mercy.
I hide
Inside
Behind
Moral disdain.
Hating
Nameless faces
Conceptualized
In blame.
This shame,
O, this shame,
If they could
Only see
My
Intentions!
Forgive!
Judge me not,
as I
have judged
You.
PINK BANANA
Observing similarities
in the phallus
and her favorite fruit,
she gripped the root,
With the fruit knife,
peeled skin
to hanging flaps,
at the side
of bloody pink.
Screams, ceaseless.
But for her, a smile.
This would be unlike
any smoothie
she’d blended before.
These poems are from the Stoker-nominated book, The Dark Between Twilight by Jamal Hodge. The poems have been published with gracious permission from the author, Jamal Hodge.
