Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven - William Butler Yeats

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.


[sharon]

The Landlady – Margaret Atwood

This is the lair of the landlady

She is

a raw voice

loose in the rooms beneath me.

the continuous henyard

squabble going on below

thought in this house like

the bicker of blood through the head.

She is everywhere, intrusive as the smells

that bulge in under my doorsill;

she presides over my

meagre eating, generates

the light for eyestrain.

From her I rent my time:

she slams

my days like doors.

Nothing is mine.

and when I dream images

of daring escapes through the snow

I find myself walking

always over a vast face

which is the land-

lady's, and wake up shouting.

She is a bulk, a knot

swollen in a space. Though I have tried

to find some way around

her, my senses

are cluttered by perception

and can't see through her.

She stands there, a raucous fact

blocking my way:

immutable, a slab

of what is real.

solid as bacon.



[sharon]