ROMAINE WASHINGTON
  • Home
  • Events
  • Community
    • ARTICLES
    • Blogs >
      • On the Write Side
      • Ro's Reflections
    • GALLERY
  • Books
    • PURGATORY HAS AN ADDRESS
    • SIRENS IN HER BELLY
    • SIREN'S LESSON >
      • POETRY TERMS
      • DIVERSE WRITERS
      • SOCIAL JUSTICE >
        • SOCIAL JUSTICE LESSONS >
          • STANDARDS
          • BIAS
          • RACISM
          • WHITE SUPREMACY
          • POETRY ANALYSIS
          • EMPOWERMENT >
            • DEBATES >
              • FREE SPEECH
            • TED TALK
      • MENTAL HEALTH >
        • MH LESSONS >
          • AWARENESS
          • MINDFULNESS
          • STIGMA
          • MENTAL HEALTH: SUICIDE PREVENTION
          • ANALYSIS
          • MH RESEARCH >
            • Mind & African Americans
            • Mind & Asians
            • Mind Indigenous
            • Mind & Intersectionaltiy
            • Mind & Latinx Community
            • Mind & LGBTQ+
            • Mind & Middle E.
            • Mind & Police
            • Mind & Racism
            • Mind Special Needs
      • BEAUTY >
        • BEAUTY LESSONS >
          • PERCEPTION
          • BEAUTY BIAS
          • BEAUTY
          • UGLY?
          • HAIR BEAUTY
          • POETRY ANALYSIS >
            • BEAUTY RESEARCH
      • RELATIONSHIPS >
        • RELATIONSHIP LESSONS >
          • POETRY ANALYSIS
          • CROSSING BOUNDARIES
          • HEALTHY
  • Contact

On the Write Side

Writing and reading in community:
I share my observations and experiences on writing, reading and listening. Venues include: open mics, Zoom readings, workshops, publications, book clubs and beyond... because everything has a story, it is open for interpretation.

Empty Nest

6/25/2016

1 Comment

 
In the spring of 2015, a group of my Souljourner Sister Friends decided to go to a poetry writing workshop. The theme was flight. This poems was a response to one of the prompts.

Empty Nest
These feathers
Weren't meant
To be eternal.

I shed daily.

Eggs hatched,
Gurgling breakfast
into baby beaks
Nudged to the edge
And out.

Winglets
Flutter and drift
Into
Silhouetted horizon.

Bare tree-limb
Chatter
Sings
Me back
Brown feathers,
Lift Memories.

I fly away-oh glory - I fly away

2015
Picture
1 Comment

Requiem for the Living

6/25/2016

0 Comments

 
I wrote this poem in my mother's hospital room.

You sleep
With eyes open.
 
You listen
With eyes
Deciphering
The movement of lips.
Braille hearing.
You scream in whispers.
 
My son is a stethoscope
Of listening.
 
Plastic vein for pulse.
Tremor of tiny fingers
That used to sew quilts.
 
This is not how
We thought it would be.
 
We stand around your bed
As though it were an altar.
Brother lays at your feet
Seeking absolution.
 
The room is vinegar and hyssop.
 
There are no prayers
In this mausoleum.
 
Perfunctory keepers
Of serums and charts
Tick us off
Clockwise,
Counting
One more thing to do.
 
Is this a job?
 
The tying down
Of need-to formulas.
Sucking blood
From arteries.
Puncturing tendons and nerves
As though you were a quilt.
 
This room is a foreign language
I do not want to learn,
But must understand.
 
Holding my breath,
I watch you swim
Looking for an exit
Other than the sealed
Window and open door.
 
The room is a neon halo box
Of oxygen-less air.
 
Effort is an anti-
Biotic in a bag
Crying into
Your sinews.
A transfusion of dream
And time will tell.
 
Do we want to hear
What it has to say?
 
 By Romaine Washington, May 2016
 
0 Comments

    ​Categories

    All
    Aging
    AWP
    Black History
    Blues
    Book Club
    Claremont
    Dasan Ahanu
    Eric Devaughn
    Family
    F. Douglas Brown
    Friends
    Garcia Center
    Illness
    Imposter Syndrome
    Inlandia
    Lesson Plans
    Museums
    Music
    National Poetry Month
    Nature
    Poetry
    Poetry Out Loud
    San Bernardino
    Students
    Submission
    Teaching
    @twhpoetry
    Venues
    Win
    Women
    Workshop
    WWS

    Archives

    November 2021
    February 2018
    December 2017
    July 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    June 2016
    December 2015

    RSS Feed

Community
Events
Gallery
Books
Articles

Siren's Lessons
Content in Sirens Lessons is free and for educational purposes. Lessons may be used to compliment poetry books by Romaine Washington or as stand alone lessons or with other writing.
POETRY TERMS
MENTAL HEALTH
SOCIAL JUSTICE
BEAUTY
RELATIONSHIPS
© 2023 Romaine Washington
Photos used under Creative Commons from aquigabo!, vhines200, kennethkonica, Edgardo W. Olivera, vhines200
  • Home
  • Events
  • Community
    • ARTICLES
    • Blogs >
      • On the Write Side
      • Ro's Reflections
    • GALLERY
  • Books
    • PURGATORY HAS AN ADDRESS
    • SIRENS IN HER BELLY
    • SIREN'S LESSON >
      • POETRY TERMS
      • DIVERSE WRITERS
      • SOCIAL JUSTICE >
        • SOCIAL JUSTICE LESSONS >
          • STANDARDS
          • BIAS
          • RACISM
          • WHITE SUPREMACY
          • POETRY ANALYSIS
          • EMPOWERMENT >
            • DEBATES >
              • FREE SPEECH
            • TED TALK
      • MENTAL HEALTH >
        • MH LESSONS >
          • AWARENESS
          • MINDFULNESS
          • STIGMA
          • MENTAL HEALTH: SUICIDE PREVENTION
          • ANALYSIS
          • MH RESEARCH >
            • Mind & African Americans
            • Mind & Asians
            • Mind Indigenous
            • Mind & Intersectionaltiy
            • Mind & Latinx Community
            • Mind & LGBTQ+
            • Mind & Middle E.
            • Mind & Police
            • Mind & Racism
            • Mind Special Needs
      • BEAUTY >
        • BEAUTY LESSONS >
          • PERCEPTION
          • BEAUTY BIAS
          • BEAUTY
          • UGLY?
          • HAIR BEAUTY
          • POETRY ANALYSIS >
            • BEAUTY RESEARCH
      • RELATIONSHIPS >
        • RELATIONSHIP LESSONS >
          • POETRY ANALYSIS
          • CROSSING BOUNDARIES
          • HEALTHY
  • Contact