Pat Jacobs

Rapunzalene

Rapunzalene was a ghetto queen
She had the biggest Black hair I’d ever seen
There were always questions when the day was done
Because underneath that wild wig she carried her son.

He had no Daddy, or at least none we knew
He wore loud clothes, usually red white and blue
He spoke to her in tongues, she smiled a silly grin
And every single morning, he’d crawl back in.

In the big fat pockets on the side of her dress
Lived the other two children – Rapunzalene’s private nest
Sometimes they were heavy, sometimes they were light
Sometimes they would hum and keep her up all night.

Rapunzalene the queen walked the streets all day
People stared at her but people stayed out of her way
Sometimes her hair was down, sometimes piled on her head
Sometimes she danced thru daytime streets, sometimes she
sat instead

Change your life Rapunzalene said all the people in the hood
You aren’t living well and you can’t be living good
Just take off that big hair, get a job, don’t do your thing
This is the US, you need to hustle and see what it will bring

And that son on her head and those fighting children on her hip
Sometimes became so heavy she’d walk with a ghetto dip
But as she limped around alone with a smile on her face
You’d look very closely and see a certain grace

That a hard life in the ghetto could never ever bring
And she’d open up her mouth and clear her throat to sing
I’m a ghetto woman, Rapunzalene is my name
You can look and you can laugh but  we all are just the same

On a bright Friday morning she walked around a little queezy
And was spotted by a  thug who thought that robbing her was easy
So he backed her in the corner to try to take what he could take
But when he reached into her pockets his head begin to shake

For when he pulled his hands out there were no fingers there
And the eyes glaring at him came from underneath her hair
As the glaring eyes grew closer, Rapunzalene began to rant
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair” was her chant

And the hair punched the  robber  one time and then two
So that crawling away quickly was all the robber could do
And the people all around  watched in wonderment that day
As they gathered their accoutrements and quietly walked away

Rapunzalene and her children became myths in that town
And nobody would ever bother them, noone would come around
For no one would ever tell what they had really witnessed there
And no one ever questioned Rapunzalene and her hair.

© 2017 Pat Jacobs

Pat Jacobs is a DC poet with southern roots, 3 children, and an appreciation of diversity. She writes from life’s experiences and really does know Rapunzalene.