Tag: spoken word

Wait for Me

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Would you let me ribbon tie my waiting into your lap?
Take me dripping in mistakes like I got flaws for fragrance
Can you wait for me to get it right?
This belly
filled to the brim with passion
like I got fire clenched in my fists and a furnace in my throat
As if you’d just emerged from the safety of your mother’s womb
would you wait for me
to breathe life into your lungs
to breathe logic into your conscience?
Let kindness touch you gentle,
soft like pillow talk
or whispering prayers in a bowl of incense
Touch me endurance
and I’ll dip my hands into purpose
and feed you hope through a straw
So let the storms begin
let the winds blow
and the nations rage
let the heavens chop off pieces of ice for our tribulation
let hailstones come bungee jumping from the sky to put dents in our joy
and I promise you
if you wait for me
I’ll command my words to stitch you a smile
and in time
we will simmer tragedy
into the polished pillars
of diamonds in the ruff.

Wait for me.

Dear Poetry

Dear Poetry

I wish I can take your words
and carve them into the sky
as if you alone was the cement at the fingertips
of the Almighty
wish I can
breathe life into your nostrils like I held onto the strings
stapled to the backs of the wind
Dear poetry,
I wish I can copyright your metaphors,
& trademark your similes
Wish I could draw you away from every mouth
whose saliva has not promised to cherish your wisdom
like stomachs rejecting old food
You see I wish that your nutrition could be savored
only in the mouths of those who speak truth
I’m tired
tired of seeing Allegory’s
washed down the drain of unconscious minds who
seek only to dream fairy tales
bathed in rhetoric
to wake up wet with euphoric ignorance
I appeal to the relentless generosity of poetry
to drawback its compassion if it dares
and stop playing the violin on our hearts
like disobedient children that tap dances on their mother’s last nerve
cause
Poetry can change nothing if truth
can’t hit the concrete with a curve
I wish
Wish I could ensure that you are used only when truth spreads its wings like butterflies
nervously flapping inside the jaws of understanding
Like truth when it opens its legs to laws and commandments
and gives birth to obedience
In whose laughter resounds like the deadness of Sara’s womb
I wish
that deception can be buried inside the heavens
like the stars at noontime
that do not wish to be available
only so that our eyes may see something deep.

Audacity

Photo Credit: By Ali Arif Soydaş @aliarifsoydas

 

Concrete painted the color of our scars
red for the blood of every gangsta who died
believing that defending a street corner
was keeping it real
for every nigga who wears degradation
like it’s his first name
every rebellion
that hates nothing more than truth but a mirror
prissy pink for every woman
who thought her legs were the railroad tracks to femininity
purple for every woman who wore her hips like monkey bars
and her heart like a welcome mat to trample on
when the hatred is spread so generously across her breast
that she feeds this to every “no good man”
she can’t deny a place between her legs
for every tire streaking soot of alcoholic footprints
leading to 24 hour liquor stores
like “look how easy this money is”
green for all the trees whose winters are too brutal
to change from the boo-boo brown of its community
not when hope still hangs it’s strings in the crack filled streets of Harlem
where faith whispers it’s goodbyes to chains and locked doors
the ones with concrete style floors
and bronze heavens
and every prayer is polluted with “I told you so’s”
for every struggle
just remember
that the sun still has the courage to rise in the mornings
which means that the day still has the audacity
to be beautiful…

Psa 3:5 “…weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”

Outside The Box

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It is seeing the good

where good exist

and the bad too

without regard

to person or persona

It is passion

existing

in a universe

where truth is the only color

that matters

it is black balled fist

into the air

minus

the badge

of branding black power

to legitimize blackness

it is denouncing blackness

as a nation

it is a color

not a nation

it is nations

going underground

and bringing back a people

before slave ships

before slavery

before Africa

and America

before crack

and crooked laws

before history erased black Moses

and biblical laws

outside the box is back then

way back when

before the messiah’s eyes turned blue

back in the day

when his skin was brown

like you

It is keeping Saturday

when the world is Sunday

Sabbath

It is bible

outside religion

Faith

without being Christian

it is restoration

of a people

who ain’t been living

it is valley’s of dry bones

it is without waving flags

It is not expecting me to

celebrate freedom

in a land

where I ain’t never

been free

outside of the box

is honoring heroes

who were never

presidents

celebrating holidays

that ain’t on the calendar

it is rocking a fro

while penning proper English

it is nations brought in

while praising black skin

it is dred locs

without forged signatures

it is spitting salvation coated similes

to all people

without loosing sight

of who you are

it is sight

beyond the norm

call me anything but normal

this is life

outside the box

Erased

I dreamed in my mind

that the Earth seemed to never move

and the ships that sailed on it were slow and quite

they never sounded their horns

or went “Chu! Chu!”

the wind never blew

the stars never popped out of the sky

like silk sheets

and the thunder

never growled its teeth

the fish sat silent

still

alone

even they refused to move

just waited

until the land came home

all of it

everything was gone

the people were like zombies in every town

they went about their daily routines

but from sun up

to sun down

no one

made a sound

it was deception they decided to take it

either that or I’m lost in the matrix

surrounded by people that when they opened their mouths

it seemed they faked it

they would walk right through me

and then walk into the streets

as if with their eyes they could not see

I dreamed the worst dream

no more sun beaming down

no more dirt covering this hallow ground

instead I feel as though I am among graves

people who walk around as if with no brains

but as I stop

and I’m staring a dead man in his face

I realize that these people

have been spiritually

erased.

A Man

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I knew I would marry you

when I saw my dads body

lifeless and shriveled

when I saw his skin

crawl away from his bones

when I saw his soul

castrated

the angel of death standing over his head

screaming cancer in the loudest whisper

I’ve ever heard

bouncing off the walls of that apartment home

you see I knew

the kind of man I would marry

at just thirteen

when my Dad’s breath got up and left

didn’t take me with him

and left nothing

but the definition

of a man

If My Books Shall Die – Writer’s Quote Wednesday Writing Challenge

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Hello there love bugs. So, today’s Writer’s Quote Wednesday Writer’s Challenge as hosted by Colleen and Ronovan, is on the topic of OBSESSION (*imagines drum sound in head*). But, here’s the thing guys, I couldn’t really find, or think, of a quote on obsession I really liked. Soooo… instead I wrote a poem.

If My Books Shall Die

If my books shall die

I have labored in vain

I have swam through centuries

And ran years in someone else shoes

I have climbed mountains

And crawled under valley’s

only to bleed death

I have carved my obsession

Into paper using invisible ink

If my books shall die

 

I do not wish to live

on the tops of your shelves

Or faced down on kitchen counters

Or underneath your children’s beds

I do not wish to live

In the palms of your hands

Or standing next to Grandmother’s old picture

In the living room

Grandmother is dead

And I do not wish to die

I want my books to live

Not on top coffee tables

But inside of you

 

When I am dead

No longer among the living

Crack open a book written by me

And feel my breath on your skin

Hear my voice resurrect from inside an ancient pen

Watch my tongue dance

See my lips move

And witness passion soar from beyond the grave

 

I read James Baldwin today

And realized I was carrying his bones

In the crooks of my arms

 

If my books shall die

Then my words did not really contain life

But if my books shall live

What are you waiting for?

Go to your bookshelf

Resurrect me

And carry

My bones

 

******

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