“Of Althea and Flaxie” by Cheryl Clarke

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butch femme poetry, cheryl clarke

I love to read butch and femme poetry, it’s not easy to find, but it’s out there. This beautiful poem from Cheryl Clarke takes me back in history, to the hard times butches and femmes and other openly gay/lesbian people had. It takes courage to live the life you want to live. It still does for many of us.

In 1943 Althea was a welder
very dark
very butch
and very proud
loved to cook, sew, and drive a car
and did not care who knew she kept company with a woman
who met her every day after work
in a tight dress and high heels
light-skinned and high-cheekboned
who loved to shoot, fish, play poker
and did not give a damn who knew her ‘man’ was a woman.

Althea was gay and strong in 1945
and could sing a good song
from underneath her welder’s mask
and did not care who heard her sing her song to a woman

Flaxie was careful and faithful
mindful of her Southern upbringing
watchful of her tutored grace
long as they treated her like a lady
she did not give a damn who called her a ‘bulldagger.’

In 1950 Althea wore suits and ties
Flaxie’s favorite colors were pink and blue
People openly challenged their flamboyance
but neither cared a fig who thought them ‘queer’ or ‘funny.’

When the girls bragged over break of their sundry loves
Flaxie blithely told them her old lady Althea took her dancing
every weekend
and did not give a damn who knew she clung to a woman.

When the boys on her shift complained of their wives,
Althea boasted how smart her ‘stuff’ Flaxie was
and did not care who knew she loved the mind of a woman.

In 1955 when Flaxie got pregnant
and Althea lost her job
Flaxie got herself on relief
and did not care how many caseworkers
threatened midnight raids.

Althea was set up and sent to jail
for writing numbers in 1958.
Flaxie visited her every week with gifts
and hungered openly for her thru the bars
and did not give a damn who knew she waited for a woman.

When her mother died in 1968 in New Orleans
Flaxie demanded that Althea walk beside her at the funeral procession
and did not care how many aunts and uncles knew she slept with a woman.

When she died in 1970
Flaxie’s fought Althea’s proper family not to have her laid out in lace
and dressed the body herself
and did not care who knew she’d made her way with a woman.

by Cheryl Clarke

 

 

In praise of the never straight: Cheryl Clarke

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black feminist lesbian poetry, cheryl clarke

“I name myself “lesbian” because this culture oppresses, silences, and destroys lesbians, even lesbians who don’t call themselves “lesbians.” I name myself “lesbian” because I want to be visible to other black lesbians. I name myself “lesbian” because I do not subscribe to predatory/institutionalized heterosexuality. I name myself lesbian because I want to be with women (and they don’t all have to call themselves “lesbians”). I name myself “lesbian” because it is part of my vision. I name myself lesbian because being woman-identified has kept me sane. I call myself “Black,” too, because Black is my perspective, my aesthetic, my politics, my vision, my sanity.”

(“New Notes on Lesbianism” (1983)  in The Days of Good Looks: The Prose and Poetry of Cheryl Clarke, 1980 to 2005)

“I am calling upon bulldaggers, dykes, faggots, feminist femmes, fierce sissies, and other outrageous progressive queers to have a major multicultural sexual liberation confabulation to take our movement back from liberals. Because marriage equality with its rhetoric of sameness is not why we came out of the closet in 1969 or before. We came out to dismantle marriage as an institution.”

Greta Garbo and Christina the butch prince

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black feminist lesbian poetry, butch, cheryl clarke, greta garbo, history, queen christina

I’m always looking for and reading lesbian poetry on the net and I always find new (or old, but new for me) poetry. Yesterday I discovered the poem book ‘ Experimental Love’ from Cheryl Clarke, a black feminist lesbian. Reading through it I found this little bit naughty poem 😉  about Greta Garbo.

Greta Garbo

easter sunday, april 15, 1990

I imagine you left Hollywood at thirty-six

because you had enough money to live as a lesbian

and didn’t have to buy into heterosexuality

after Christina

I imagine you overlooking the East River

or in Saks in fur coat

and sensible shoes asking,

‘please, do you have men’s pajama’s?’

a life of guarded anonymity, autonomy, alcoholism

all over Switzerland, the French Riviera,

and Italy wearing pants, flats, floppy hats,

dark glasses, and

toasting whiskey with an Alsace baroness

who liked it in the ass

yearly on the Rhine

I couldn’t help wondering who Christina was and googling her name I found the right one, and what a nice surprise for a butch like me: she was a cool butch prince and queen (or king whatever she/he was called) from the 17th century, who ruled Sweden for some time and afterwards rode off on her horse on her own.

So she’s the Christina in the poem who didn’t have to buy into heterosexuality either…Cool prince(ss) story with a nice pink (and I don’t mean a pink wedding dress) ending. Thanks to Cheryl Clarke for dragging her out of history for me.

Queen Christina, the Swedish cross-dressing lesbian who ruled Sweden in the 17th century. At birth, she was mistaken for a boy because she was covered in hair and cried in a strong, hoarse voice. She was consistently described as masculine, and she preferred men’s clothes. She was also quite skilled as a horseman and at other traditionally male pursuits. Her father, King Gustavus Adolphus, was struck by his daughter’s bright intelligence—which, in that era, was not considered a female attribute—and ordered that she be raised as a prince to become the future monarch. She never married. When she abdicated the throne in 1654, she shed her regalia, left the country, and rode as a man on horseback through Denmark. Don’t you just love a swashbuckling dyke?

Greta Garbo, another queer Swede, played Queen Christina in the 1933 motion picture. The film did not accurately portray Christina’s life—which was extraordinarily eventful—but did offer Garbo kissing another woman on screen.

(thanks to blogger Sapphist Gazetteer for the historical facts)