Poet Wanda Coleman: tough as Watts, soft as cotton

Like Wallace Stegner, I am in the 'universal' tradition of writers who concern themselves with The Truth -- never mind that it is apt to hurt someone, in some way, most likely me.
--Wanda Coleman

Poet, columnist, poet laureate nominee, spoken word artist, winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize (the first African American to receive the award), Wanda Coleman was born in Los Angeles in 1946 and has spent much of her life in Watts, known for the “riot.” She has written several books for Sparrow Press, including: “Mad Dog Black Lady,” “Bathwater Wine,” and “Mercurochrome.” Two of her more recent poetry collections are "African Sleeping Sickness" and “Ostinato Vamps,” which is with the University of Pittsburgh Press.

"The California Crack" is not about an earthquake but a woman watching a man at the end of the road, the end of despair. Note that she doesn't throw him out, although she make him sleep out on the porch once in a while. It's like she's in a relationship with walking death...But she takes her time to give us the truth, however bitter or sad that may be.

The California Crack
by Wanda Coleman

she didn't know he was so shook

it started in his system/an erratic prance
some mechanism gone wet
codeine induced cellulitis, acid trails and flashes

he had nightmares about his mother pinching him in his sleep
his youth authority internment
the scar up his ass where they removed some thing
the lesbian he loved in Yucaipa
the black bird smashed against the window
of the stolen car

he began to sweat out his nights
when he woke his long dark brown hair was plastered
to his head. he was always dripping

it got so she couldn't stand laying next to him
the stench nauseated her, caused her to vomit
sometimes she made him sleep outside on the porch
so she could get an occasional night's rest
but most times she took breath by mouth

he went to the hospital
they took tests and found nothing
he went to the police
profuse sweating was not a crime
he took daily showers
the water bill went up
the seams in his clothes began
to mold and erode
the sheets and comforter would not
wash clean

his septic sweat permeated everything
seeped down thru the mattress into
the earth beneath their bed

one summer's midnight as they slept in
his dampness there was an earthquake
it measured 8.2 on the Richter scale the
bed split open the soft moist mouth of a scream and
she watched with mixed emotions as he fell thru.
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But Wanda Coleman doesn't just give it to you hard and straight. Sometimes a sun peeps through dark clouds and a hard-edged understanding shines through. In "The language beneath the language," Coleman waxes lovingly about the complexity of sensuality and love.

The Language Beneath the Language
by Wanda Coleman

under your belly
there’s gnawing in the bones
subterranean & abysmal
the bite that’s more the unsratchable/coldfire
now he penetrates me against the landscape
of my own blood and demands escape from
the rotting tongue in which he’s caged

This is the form i wear

out of my pernicious reason
and my slam-driven mind
comes the clay i shape into pleasures
for your knowing
the angles of his body
cut at my grasp-starved hands
his bone hard as young granite at my softness
the authority of his beauty demanding
the familiarity of my flesh

thus you hold me
frozen in your doubtful vision
in your study of my brownness. believe
my curious fingers. trust my
daring fingers
as they probe your opened wound
to find a roundness