Girl, my little pearl
you swirl in golden waters
when you wear the highest heels
when you show your slim body
when you put on that lovely dress
when you wear that perfect make-up
when you exhibit those expensive earrings
when your fingers and toe nails are so carefully painted
when you completely remove all your hairs
(except those on your head)
when your hair is dyed accordingly
(never forget to dye it when you grow older,
you should always look younger)
Girl, my little pearl
you still want to swirl in goldern waters
when you exhibit those piercings and tattoos
though they are not still enough,
so you will want to have some more, perhaps
some botox and breast size operations too.
And girl little pearl says:
I do not want to wear high heels,
they’ll ruin my feet and back forever.
I was not born with a slim body so
why should I want to have it?
I do not want to wear that lovely dress,
it’s terribly uncomfortable, unpractical,
has no pockets and it’s too cold now,
so why should I wear it?
I do not want that make-up made of chemicals affecting my health.
They always want to sell
and so they never tell.
The same with nail polish. I do not want it
unless I buy these things at the organic shop
just in case I changed my mind.
I do not have earholes for earrings.
Why does almost every girl have them
to mark their gender as soon as they’re born?
My mum has those earholes and wore once
some unexpensive pair of earrings, bad metal,
and ended up with red skin, red spots and allergy.
No, I do not want earholes to mark my gender differentiation.
I want to choose if I want them or not when I grow up.
As for my hair and its natural color,
I am perfectly satisfied, well, perhaps
some streaks to highlight a bit of color
together with shades of greys and whites.
I want to look my age, why younger?
I am getting older and have grey hairs.
So what? Will I be less of a woman
if I don’t dye my hair anymore?
I refuse irreversible things
like piercings and tattoos.
Some other women and men
may like them very much.
Perhaps they’ve been the luckiest ones
who had no health problems so far
after piercings and tattoos
marked their bodies
forever.
I do not want this on my body
I do not want to be obsessed by esthetics
I do not want to do something just because
it’s fashion, everyone does it.
I do not want to be who I am not
I want to be myself
I want to be appreciated for who I am.
And if somebody wants to love me
I’ll say, please, look first at my inside
and then you’ll be able to decide.
I am no girl, little pearl
to swirl in golden waters
I am simply who I want to be
now you just take me or leave.
© February 2019 Marta Pombo Sallés
And more power to you girl.
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Thank you, Pranab!
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Sheer brilliance, Marta.
No need for golden waters
around here. Mother’s of pearl,
and their matching daughters,
display it all down and around
the supermarket aisles …
in a swirl of ink and bling.
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Wow, as always a beautiful poetic response, David. Love it!
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To be even handed, Marta . . .
perhaps;
Boys, playing
with all those boy toys.
Splashing and swirling
in life’s muddy puddles.
Showing off those inked
and pumped up muscles.
Orthodontic smiles that sparkle
behind maticulous stubble.
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Wow, another beautiful response of yours,
which always brings me immesurable joy,
just be yourself whether a girl or a boy
or a trans, everyone deserves open doors.
Fight cultural gender discrimination,
boy toys, girl toys, such absurdity annoys;
look for a better equality education
something you, me and someone already employs.
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Yes, peer proof pressure,
and cultural baggage
. . . can be a real killer.
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Exactly, that is the real problem.
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That simple self is worth thousand times than a puffed up one with hundreds of masks!! That’s a great way of promoting simplicity and natural beauty, Marta!! 🙂
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Thank you, Newton. I just wanted to write this poem as simply as possible precisely to show this, and also to reach people who never read poetry. I am glad you got the message.
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You are very welcome, Marta!!
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Excellent Marta
You are pure of golden heart
A woman’s skin is beautiful unmarked
And the signs of age earned are a glorious gift
Not everyone has the privilege
I too enjoy these things
My wrinkles don’t need filler
Without them I have no story
——
As always I enjoy your blog!:)
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Lovely poetic response, Stella. Thank you so much.
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It was my pleasure!:)
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Absolutely love this Marta!! So powerful and compelling. Beautiful inner strength.
Well done my friend!!
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Thank you, dear Bill. Your comments always fill me with joy. Love your spoken poetry!
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My pleasure Marta!! Well deserved!!
Glad you enjoy the spoken word. Thank you! Have a wonderful evening!
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You are welcome and you too have a lovely evening and day.
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😊!!
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Reblogged this on David Redpath and commented:
Meet Marta Pombo Sallés from Barcelona.
A poet partisan of Catalan Independence,
and as an accomplished belly dancer, a deft
hand with scimitar or fan … So watch out!
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Wow. You express EXACTLY what I feel. I am 70 years old, and do not care a hoot about all those things, and I am STILL a woman. Great great great poem
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Thank you so much for this great comment, Lorraine. So glad you empathise.
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Oh I DO. So much x
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Absolutely gorgeous, beautifully worded…. simplicity and it’s extraordinary rarity , ofcourse women like us don’t care about powder puffs and patches!
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Thank you for this great comment, Tanya.
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My pleasure Martha🙏
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Yes. Oh this beautiful poem will resonate with so many. Thank you.
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You are welcome. So glad it resonates with you and with many more people.
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‘I want to be appreciated for who I am’, ‘Look first at my inside’ touched my heart. Beautiful at its core. Someone once said to me, why ‘try’ and look as beautiful as a diamond when you’re already a treasure. I love this piece. Well penned.
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Thank you, Susan. I never thought this piece would be liked by so many of you. This is really encouraging!
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I saw this reblogged on David Redpath’s page. I just wanted to say that the poem is beautiful and I feel so strongly the essence of this poem. I am not a pearl, though I am as mother of pearl; I am crystalline, but not a crystal; I am precious, but not a treasure trove. I am a fractal, fractured and fragile personality that elicits others to drape strings of pearls upon my chest, wrapped around my neck. I am thankful for all gifts I receive, but am seen as ungrateful because such gifts do not satisfy me. I am seen as unappreciative because I want more. It is not that I want more tributes, but that I want it to mean more than what it simply just “is what it is”…
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What a marvelous poetic response! This is sheer prose-poetry. Thank you!
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Thanks. I’m… I’m just trying to express my gratitude to you, by showing you what your words have roused in me. Thank you.
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You are welcome. So glad this simple poem of mine has inspired you such beautiful words.
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The last line says it all. Perfect!
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Thank you!
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I very much enjoyed reading this, and thoroughly agree with you. I have always thought the cosmetic industry is a massive con game and too few see through it. My wife looks so much better without makeup, but I don’t think she believes me when I tell her so.
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Thank you. I guess she probably feels the pressure around her, mostly from other women.
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Reblogged this on By the Mighty Mumford and commented:
YOU GO THERE, LIYYLE PEARL—BE YOUR OWN GIRL—NOT AN EXPRESSION OF SOMEONE ELSE’S!!!!
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Thank you for the reblog. Much appreciated.
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FOUND this delightful poem via David Redpath—he featured you so I assumed–perhaps wrongly (?) that you wouldn’t mind my feblogging it and spreading your established talent ever wider. Is it gtrue—as David suggested—that you are as able with a scimitar aswith a fan?
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Thank you again for all the reblogs. I never thought my humble creations would interest so many people. I guess David means this scimitar and fan dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDI4gRfUY9U
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There ya go…..fault me to not know much about exotic dance. But—will check this out. 🙂
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‘Tis fine, just because you asked.
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I very much enjoyed this poem – and the spirit of resisting, and holding to who you are
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Thank you! So glad you enjoyed this.
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I really enjoyed this poem. It’s good to be who we are. Inspiring poem.
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Thank you. I never thought this poem would attract that much attention. You are all very kind and encouraging!
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YES!!! Here here! I agree. Thank You and Cheers! Found You via David Redpath’s link. 🙂
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Thank you. I am glad you see the point in my poem.
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Absolutley! 🙂
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A triumph!
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This is fantastic! Something after my own heart. I am so glad David shared it on his blog.
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Thank you!
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My pleasure!
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Wow amazing poem loved it… great answers by little girl too…keep blogging dear ❤️
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Thank you for your encouraging feedback, Ravindra. So glad you liked this.
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Oh thank you so much!!! This needed to be written for sure! I agree with so many of these other ladies. I am who I am and not because of surface things. I want to be seen and appreciated for who I am and what is inside me. Thank you kindly.
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You are kindly welcome, Anne. Your comment summarises my poem perfectly. So glad you and so many others have enjoyed it.
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I just reread this, and loved it even more. I did put my hair, which is now turning white, into red, but nothing to do with other people’s perception of me. It is me being my alter-ego, Anne of Green Gables. I loved the way she was who she was, even in historical times when women were so conscious of being correct and proper so to speak. I always want to be remembered the same way. I do not want to be perfect, or to have anyone see anything I do as perfect because in reality, I am not perfect in the eyes of others. But I am perfect in the way I was created from the very bones of this earth. Whether I arose over millions of years from some amoeba or perhaps a grain of sand, I am what I am and I too feel exactly the same way. If I do something to my looks, it is for my own mind and soul, and to signify who I am and what I believe in. It has been a good walk on this earth – filled with all the emotions that I can imagine, and all the thoughts that I have held. I have been beaten down to the ground so many times, but still I arose back up and today here I am 77 and still standing. Although the world around me is full of issues that cannot likely be resolved in my lifetime, when I look at the earth without all of those things, it is still a good place with so much potential for mankind in general. We could do so much with all the people that inhabit this plane if we could just get along and think for the betterment of all of us. I hope that when my ashes fall to the earth, I can help to enrich it again to the incredible habitat it once was. Thank you once again for an excellent statement that shows your integrity as a human being first and foremost.
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Wow, thank you so much for your thorough and well-reasoned comment. Couldn’t agree more with all you said. At the age of 77 you are a very wise woman. So glad to have crossed paths with you.
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Well said, indeed!
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Thank you!
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Wow! This is brilliant and so timely! Brava!
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Thanks, perhaps it is ideal for International Women’s Day next Friday 8. So glad you liked it. I am humbled. There is a much better writter than me, my friend Mario Savioni, who is posting chapters of his novel “Pickles and Tarts” which I strongly recommend you and all of my followers. Mario deals with the relationship between two people, Frank and Nicole through the internet. They meet virtually through a dating site. Mario’s writing is simply excellent, intriguing, thought-provoking about issues like illusion-delusion, dream-reality, evils of the Capitalist system… about what one dares to dream but cannot always accomplish: “Frank thought about this. Was he looking for a partner or someone to have sex with? He did not think beyond that simple, single transaction — the satisfaction of his baser needs, not realizing that his needs might go on given the possibility of this opportunity and mutual attraction.” Excerpt from here: https://savioni.wordpress.com/2019/02/27/pickles-and-tarts-chapter-8/
Please, check it out!
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Will do!
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Thank you!
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My pleasure.
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Ah! in my case
I look in the mirror at an old me I see
I dress to suit her, she smiles knowingly.
Personas are useful as I role-play each part
With maturity comes wisdom
I console my young heart.
Sibyl X
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Yes, that is a beautiful and wise response. Thank you for commenting!
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I have nominated you for the Sunshine Blogger’s Award
https://thesnehaganeshblog.wordpress.com/
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Thank you so much, Sneha! I have already seen it. You are very kind. Please, do look at Mario Savioni’s blog. He deserves more attention than my humble endeavours: https://savioni.wordpress.com/
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its my pleasure!
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I love this. Thank you.
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You are welcome. So glad you enjoyed my poem. I really appreciate this. However, there is a much better writer than me, whom I strongly recommend you and all your followers. It is my friend Mario Savioni. His novel “Pickles and Tarts” (very short chapters, easy to read), is a story where 54-year-old Frank has been selected by 19-year-old Nicole through a dating site. Frank looks at Nicole’s photos on the site and is attracted to her beauty. Nicole tells him she has a boyfriend and is not interested in a romantic relationship. She adds: “It’s fun to talk to different people sometimes.” The only apparent thing Frank and Nicole seem to have in common is their interest to write stories. Perhaps they want to meet just to write one together? Now Frank has already started to imagine this story, a story-within-the-main-story. “Pickles and Tarts” is a lovely story of illusion-delusion, dream-reality, non-conformist with the Capitalist system, reflective on love, sex, drugs and human relationships in today’s world. It is profound and highly intriguing. I recommend these two chapters:
https://savioni.wordpress.com/2019/03/15/pickles-and-tarts-chapter-10/
https://savioni.wordpress.com/2019/03/24/pickles-and-tarts-chapter-11/
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well said, beautiful!
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Thank you again!
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Absolutely beautiful. Love this!
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So glad you do as I have just read your poem “Confessions of a Feminist Thinker” which pretty much connects with my poem here. Don’t you think so?
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Definitely! Society puts girls into this hole and tells them, ‘This is how to be a girl: You must be slim, you must wear high heels, you (and only you) must cook…’
It reminds me of what Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said: “The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are”. This is why I really love the concluding lines of your poem: “I am simply who I want to be/ now you just take me or leave”.
Thank you for sharing this amazing poem!
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My pleasure.
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