Raise Up Competition
Submissions being accepted now, if you qualify, check it out!
Author: A. Long
NY Streets
Hosts of lonely souls coast through the streets
feel like desperation when I breathe deep
just trying to keep up with fast feet
if I stop my mind will catch thoughts that creep around my sleep
I am the gaping hole after the tower’s destruction
nothing but blood and hollow exoskeleton
hot to the touch so I must still be alive
But how could anything have survived
buch a vicious blow was so unexpected
It took my hope, structure, foundation when it crash landed
the phoenix reborn among these swaying rooftops
shake off ash and debris
where my heart beat stops is the location of the excavation
Dig me a new soul that’s not half-empty
with repatriation, false devotion, love and harmony
rebuild me in your eyes as how I’m meant to be
In memory of those who continue to die all around me
in these streets, malleable like hot leaded fingers
that grab at son’s sneakers
pushing him to the edge
the city barely gets by on integrity
push him inside, it’s dark down here
Broken back and crumpled spirit
I am the hole in the chest of concrete that can’t be fixed
Sublime in its suckiness
Does that make me beautiful as I coast through the city’s mist
brushing off unhappiness as the sun peeks from behind stratus clouds
ashy smoke bags hazy in their existence
as they hang in the sky over us
the sounds of sirens unheeded
so we burn our city to the bone with our music
The absence of those well-acquainted with the night
leave holes in already unfulfilled souls
When I had a mi…
When I had a minute or two, I’d throw a poem into the typewriter and try to work out a line or get a transition from one stanza to the next. But the business world gives you almost no time to do anything but business. You are selling your soul to the devil by day and trying to buy it back at night
–James Dickey
Books $4 Sale
Books for sale!
Won’t anyone buy black books for sale!
Come on now people, I’m just a homely poet with books for sale. I’m standing on this corner shouting out a dream, won’t you hear me? I’ve been in the bookstores, soon to be absolute. Might as well cut your losses and buy from me. Nothing in here but fancy decorum and inviting Starbucks sweets, coffees, and treats to dampen your palette while you read. But, needs all that extra when soon the sounds of crisp pages flipping will be replaced by e-note books clicking. Yes folks soon the only sounds you’ll hear are the slow screech of a printing press meeting its demise as newspapers and text give way to convenience. Technology will definitely be on the rise but there is still time!
Come on mister, listen, don’t go in. Beyond those doors is nothing but a heated space for people bumming through books, looking for their next fix, perusing the classics section like looking for loose change in couch cushions. Buying books to dangle on their shelves, framed archaic masterpieces.
If it means that much to you go to the library, it’s cheaper for the consumer. A three ring circus of literature attended by masked and costumed book jugglers with a 5 cent cover charge for the customer. Come see the mastery of tricks never performed before! In town a few nights only featuring an all-star lineup of authors and poets, death0-defying leaps into symbolism and motif threaded through sharp waves of similes and metaphor. That’s what you really yearn for. Go quick before it’s no more than a hollowed tent, a scraped out cantaloupe shell, a discarded and disregarded community center left for demolition. Save the libraries!
Lady, lady wait. Hear this! Haven’t you noticed the separation, the nicely parted Negro sections, labeled African American literature or urban fiction? Why the separation?
Come on guys, pay attention, these matters must needs some clarification, verification for that spark of truth gestating in the back of your mind. Decline what they feed you in search for better food.
But… while you searching, my book’s on sale $4 for 2.
Jazz Meets Poetry
Saul Williams performs his stunning poem, accompanied by David Murray and the Infinity Quartet in this live jam session at the Porgy and Bess.
Moving Forward
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.
–Maya Angelou
For Maya, Seven Ways To Look At a Black Notebook
1. Scribbled black ink drawings
forced knowledge
thrown to the ground
2. boyish hands
hold a black pen
jots down notes of legend
3. my black seam
never creased, his pages
never filled
4. poems spill from
line to line
juiced
with black sorrow
5. stranger to daylight
i, diary
to blackened deeds
6. white spaces mixed with black lines
unified on
one page
7. home to happy hands
and words
and black pupils
I Know You Rest In Peace
Maya Angelou, my hero, died at age 86 in her beautiful home in North Carolina today.
“She lived a life as a teacher, activist, artist and human being. She was a warrior for equality, tolerance and peace,” said her son, Guy B. Johnson.
Her poem “Still I Rise,” was the first I ever recited, ever memorized, ever performed, and ever loved. As a kid her words found me in a dark place when no one else’s did, and continue to inspire me to rise beyond who I was. My only hope is that she passed knowing that she moved countless generations to poetry, and that she fermented a love of language that could leap oceans.
Inaugural, outstanding poet, will never cover how much Maya Angelou meant to the literary community. Her life and works awe millions. So I challenge you this day, in honor of a woman who was always more than just a poet, to rise above and believe that words can make a difference. In truth, they are the only things that have ever infected and effected change.
Still I Rise
Maya Angelou, 1928
You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Does my haughtiness offend you? Don’t you take it awful hard ‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I’ve got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.
Poetry In Motion: James Brown and Pavarotti
The Godfather of Soul Meets An Italian Phenom in this amazing musical collaboration
Chaos.
story of life
The Poetry Corner 