Poetry Quotes
Here’s to Leonard Cohen and Sylvia Plath
Author: A. Long
I Will Wait
Janette Ikz shares her personal experiences with religion, relationships, and men through the spoken word.
Are You There
Deep inside are you there
looking back at me
What are you thinking
Who the hell are you
Where’d you go
Do you know you
Yes or no
Do you want to know me
Does that make me special or convenient
What do you want with yourself
Who are you fighting
Are you lying
Why would you lie
Do you not know what special means
Deep inside I have no reason to hide
so why cry
Are you here with me
or are you there
To Be Found
We stumble in darkness
warm bodies fumble at frilly things
like love’s cold hands
Feeling for a place to pour into
Trust is reckless
and we’re all strangers here
close enough to touch
desperate enough to connect rushed
relationships to broken parts
We’re bats blind at birth
hugging the walls to get a reading on self-worth
The id & ego are jokers
bouncing around with sneering red pokers
Who were you rigidly tapping
betting on to be your eyes
in this life long search
We’re more afraid with every breath
waiting for that little death
screaming a language unspoken
just hoping
to be found
Nigeria’s 223
She jumped
hurling her body onto the tumbling street
cartwheeling into a cacophony of broken limbs
She sprinted
driving the crests of her knees into her little chest
praying to not fall prey to self righteous Allah sadists
gathering freedom into her lungs
as she fled her captors
The captives
276 little girls kidnapped
TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY THREE CHILDREN STILL MISSING
Taken under the baking sun
from their classrooms for learning western ideals
for learning
Yanked out of beds weighed down with soft dreams
shoved onto the back of trucks in streams
like chattel cattle
Sell them.
Sell them?
hundreds of small human beings
all brown skin, frightened eyes, and quivered lips
Nigerian. Muslim. and Beautiful.
Like my sister and brother
like lavender blood moons
like a call to prayer at sundown
like wind kissed desert sand dunes
I hear you
The Real History of Twerking
Three young female artists express their dismay about the national phenomenon of “twerking” through spoken word.
The Cypher
The Cypher with Mos Def features freestyle raps from talented musicians Black Thought and Eminem.
White Bracelets
we all have old scars
and sometimes in winter
I can still see what was
white bracelets
(let’s call them white bracelets
just as my grandmother used to say
when we fell down steep stairways,
stop crying or you’ll miss hearing
the stairs–they’re still dancing)
what was once white bracelets
what before that showed pink
what before that was raw & festering
what before that was agony
down to the bones
what before that was
almost blacked out
& being dragged by the tractor
in the barbed wire
what before that was
surprise & yelling:
can’t you STOP STOP
what before that was
lying in the grass
reading a blue letter
looking up into sun & clouds
that were riffed
and quiet like white bracelets.
–by Colleen Thibaudeau
Eclipse
surrounded in darkness under the sky. the moon and sun intertwined. i hum a wish to the passing eclipse. and hope i always have someone to share them with
Same
Everyone goes against each other
honor thy father, love thy mother
raging wars are all the same
to the girl who sits alone
in the dark with no name
hearts filling up with hope and despair
making you so crazy you pull out your hair
looking for loved ones
finding they’re not there
forever gone and lost to you
feeling sad and blue
your pain is all the same
to the girl who lives alone
in the dark with no name
dying in the fields of war
is only another score
to a leader who relaxes
while the country rots to the core
revenge is all the same
to the girl who cries
alone
in the dark
with no name
The Poetry Corner 