Tag: poetic

Words Are Worth It

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Corroded behavior reveals the unpolished stains left dangling from the heart
Brimming from the mind and falling from the mouth
A surge of power tap dancing in the air and building meaning on the ground
A melting pot of consonant sounds and vowels finding way to my skin
Seeking to build homes in the goosebumps on my arms
Making noise
Unnecessary sounds like the mimic of my own voice
But you do not live here
Have not walked on top the coals that once found residence between my toes
to know what this ground taste like
a skin black leather like strength
I was not born among glass
and will not break easily
I doubt then that this impression will go successful
Sneaky words
Empty tongues
Idle existence
a reverberation of shame creaking against emotion is your birthplace
dare you seek to give of me a world of illusion
a day dream of fairy-tale hopscotching around in my mouth
an elusive sleep walk
a collection of letters too light to gravity the ground
too corroded to fly
bouncing off the walls of thought
dare you pretend the taste of burnt ash that fell from mouth and consumed a life
did not first have a home in heart
all these bodies collecting black and bruise
bruise and black
and bone and stitch
I am no fool
Dear Words
I choose to choose you carefully
To examine your wings before deciding that they should take flight
To taste your essence one syllable at a time
Seasoning as needed
You see words,
I’m on to you
I know how powerful you really are.

If You Forget Me | Pablo Neruda

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I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine

Guest Feature – The Earth is a Living Thing

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is a black shambling bear

ruffling its wild back and tossing

mountains into the sea

 

is a black hawk circling

the burying ground circling the bones

picked clean and discarded

is a fish black blind in the belly of water

is a diamond blind in the black belly of coal

 

is a black and living thing

is a favorite child

of the universe

feel her rolling her hand

in its kinky hair

feel her brushing it clean

– the earth is moving, Lucille Clifton

Princess

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Didn’t know the whole world was mine…my princess self….

didn’t know bout this crown on my head,

just death and pain till the winds got tired of blowing on me….

said it was time for the branch to be lifting my chin from the ground so lest I could see what the sky looks like…

held me in his arms like orange autumns in September…

fresh air, cool and breezy like.

There’s a Poem Somewhere

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There’s a poem somewhere waiting to be heard.
There’s a child out there confused and afraid so he waits and she waits to be heard.
There’s a man out there who wants to know truth
but this world is so tempting that his dreams he’d rather pursue
there’s a poem out there somewhere that speaks to you.
There’s a student out there who refuses to sit still in class because he refuses to accept that his people are at the bottom of the social class,
he refuses to accept that his history goes no further than the days of slavery’s past
there’s a young lady out there whose virginity didn’t last.
Because see,
somewhere,
there’s a young woman who was taught that her materialistic was much more precious than her body so she sold her body,
for cash.
somewhere out there a young man’s innocence didn’t last…
Somewhere a young boy is told that it didn’t matter who he shared his love with
that it didn’t matter if he sexed ‘em young or old for the rest of his days…
there’s a young man out there who can’t understand why and how he’s got AIDS.

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There’s a false prophet out there waiting to get paid.
There’s a couple out there who just can’t get along
there’s a father out there who can’t leave his home, the home occupied with bars for far too long.
There’s a mother out there who can’t sing her song,
her song of new life that has lingered in the air for far too long.
And a grandfather who can’t take depression for much too long and a…
there’s a…
poem somewhere…
out there……that sings these songs.
There’s a brother out there who’s tired of being alone.
There’s a sister out there in search for a home.
There’s a nation out there that just does not belong,
in this world.
But there’s a Power out there who hears these cries
and a Truth out there that squashed those lies
and there are many prophets, they too have cried.
Somewhere now,
somewhere……
somehow …..
somewhere here,
this poem right now
There’s someone out there who hears these songs…
and their poem is right now,
so to say somewhere……
I guess
I was wrong.

Guest Feature: Waiting for Someone – Lamar Jorden

“Somewhere
In the Northwest region of Seattle Washington
There’s a homeless man, armed with a beer can
Trying to drink away war memories
Waiting for someone
Self-less enough to lend him an ear
He sits on the side of a Pizzeria on the corner of Queen Ann and Mercer
In a chair, they probably kick him out of after business hours
His skin
Has grown all too fond of the concrete beds that he rest his shell-shocked head on
His braggadocios body
rocks back and forth showing off to the world the only gifts war veterans ever receive
He addresses me, “Ey lil Bra, you got a dollar?”
Without even checkin my pockets I tell him, “I aint got it”.
Having anticipated this appointment he responds with,
“That’s fine, cause I really wanted a 20.”
Amazed, not that he still knows what humor is,

but that is one of the few possessions that the war actually let him keep, I laugh
Before digging into my coat pocket filled with a ton of change I’ll probably never use
He lets me know that more than a 20, what he really wanted was a conversation
And takes my 75 cent donation as an invitation to start one
Without offering much space for me to converse,

he lets me know how in this country,
war veterans are rarely anything more
Than patriotic flies on a wall
And that for all these people to ignore his request
Is just as second nature as swatting at a pest
I guess
None of them realize that here lie their tax dollars at work
His body jerks
To the percussion of his bones
Dancing to the song of post-traumatic stress syndrome
How wrong
Is it of humans to lack humanity
Demanding he keep his lips locked but
Possess the audacity to ask where he got his army cap on
To think it’s a trigger you can purchase at a gift shop he tells me
That they’ve labeled him as crazy and they say

he has to take medicine called percadine but the one time he took it
It made him high so why would he continue when it makes his mind worse with time
It seems like the perfect crime
Having people fight for a country that won’t fight for them
The goal
Was for one of those countries to take his life from him
And the opposing country failed when he
Returned to civilization but
The home country would succeed by stripping him of his home
How long
Will this be the standard in this country?
Where if war doesn’t kill you
They distill you
Sending you back home just to rot and mildew
the phrase
“War is good for absolutely nothing”, is still true
Before he lets me go,
he tells me
that he wants to die.
And I see the tear-shaped white flag surrender from his eye
I give him a pound
Before digging back into my coat pockets surrendering

the rest of the change I found.
I tell him I have to go
Cause there’s a white man, screaming at me through traffic
Waiting for me to end this conversation
There’s a young lady at a bar and grill across the street
Waiting for me to join her for dinner
And there’s a poem
Scratching at the insides of my soul
Waiting for me
To tell this story.”

Copyright Lamar Jorden