He Was a Good Man But Didn’t Know It
I met him a week before I burned my bra
under a day-glow poster of Che Guevarra.
He had strong muscles from working
in the commune. We court not only
each other but time and politics.
There was the city feel of our love, working
for day wages in a faded brick warehouse,
street kids squealing in the alley. I see him
slowly growing bitter from the frustration
of his gender & me hating his rage.
Funk & soul soundtrack – Marvin Gaye, WAR
& Stevie Wonder. We thought we were in love,
maybe we were. I read about automony
in paperbacks from Simone deBeauvoir
& Angela Davis, wrote protest poems on placemats.
in paperbacks from Simone deBeauvoir
& Angela Davis, wrote protest poems on placemats.
In this new feminist vision but don’t know
who the real enemy is. I trounce all over him.
Wrapped tight in rigid ethics, I leave him
rather than committing to a lover to work
it out with. What a cop out, a damn shame.
Note: This is an edited version of a journal entry written in 1983. I adapted the text into stanzas.
13 thoughts on "He Was a Good Man But Didn’t Know It"
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Wow, what you did done doing with this is wow!
That second stanza rings.
Thanks for sharing these.
Dipping into your
journal you bring forth
a cup of honest grit.
This is so real—thank you for sharing these snapshots. In this poem, I feel the looseness of taking what each day presents: hard-muscled passion, the work for pay, the raw music, the ideals and their seeming obligations .
And you evoke for us that fundamental truth that love, ultimately, is a choice.
This reads like a poetic memoir, relating historical events with great details. “There was the city feel to our love” is brilliant.
Thank you for sharing from your journal.
Agree with Jim. Real grit here.
Set the time period and its tensions with great action and image:
“I met him a week before I burned my bra
under a day-glow poster of Che Guevarra.”
Love the conversational tone of the poem:
“There was the city feel of our love,”
We thought we were in love,
maybe we were.”
Fav line:
wrote protest poems on placemats.
So much truth in this — having to make enemies of those we love in order to have our autonomy. Been there, too. This brought back a lot of feels and memories.
This is so amazing to read. It is so visual like you are a painter touching all parts of the canvas so as to feel the colors and the sounds and the shapes of your thoughts and feelings—and there is self-awareness and evolution (or revolution?) going on and it is a rich accounting–feels like a full in bloom self portrait.
Thank you so much for this great poem and for sharing!
It must be very eye-opening to read your thoughts back then! What a time machine trip.
In this new feminist vision but don’t know
who the real enemy is. I trounce all over him. yes!
If you married him, though, you wouldn’t have met Coleman! I’d say you drew the right straw.
It was a damn shame, though.
Enjoy going with you down memory lane with such vivid details!
Wonderful poem. Great last line.
How wonderful you kept these journals!
I’m loving how you’re reworking these poems from your past. Stunning in every way. Your title and those first two lines really took me back. I’d love to see these in a book.