It's Time for Another Poem! (I Like to Say That)

Here is the first poem I wrote for a poetry class in college. The class changed my life!!


The Door Way
By: Lauren Murphy

Standing in a door way of a smoky room
I watch three women play cards
Cigarettes in hand
Trying to hold on to a little bit of their past.
Taking just a second to look at me
With intense dark brown eyes
Run fingers through coarse black hair
And smile with full dark lips.

They go back to their game
And begin to reminisce
Frowning
With looks of longing
On their beautiful mahogany faces.
As they sit in rickety plastic chairs
They put their cards down
On the old elm table
And begin to talk about the days of their youth.

I stood in the doorway
And heard about civil rights
And how they would boycott
And go around with picket signs
Demanding to be heard.
I heard about the lost
Uncles, brothers and cousins
That where punished
Because they wouldn’t back down
From what they believed in.
I heard about how they where attacked by dogs
Run down by fire hoses
Thrown in jail
Like they where criminals.

They paused for a second
To wipe the sweat off of their ageless faces
And rub arms with worn used skin.
Then went on to talk about husbands
That had made a midnight trip to the store
And had yet to return.
I learned about children
That had never made it to this world
Sometimes by choice and sometimes not.

They had been to a place where
it seemed that all were against them
And still remained strong their heads never hung low
They stopped to look at me with hope in their eyes
That day I decided not play with the kids outside
Instead I stepped through the door way and sat at the table
I wanted to play cards with my new favorite people.

© Lauren Murphy, All rights reserved