ever been kidnapped
by a poet
if i were a poet
i’d kidnap youput you in my phrases
and meter you to jones beach
or maybe coney island
or maybe just to my houselyric you in lilacs
dash you in the rain
alliterate the beach
to complement my seeplay the lyre for you
ode you with my love song
anything to win you
wrap you in the red Black green
show you off to mamayeah if i were
a poet i’d kid
nap you
Nikki Giiovanni
I dream a dream
That will never come true
I hope a hope
That is never done
I hear the words of a song
That is never sung
& every day I die a little more
When my victory can’t be won
What more can I do
The real question is
Propaganda and lies
Mirror cross burning cries
On the executive Black House lawn
I sip surreptitious agenda in the morning breeze
Ponder the message it brings
Celebrate the death of those long dead
Congratulate the Head of State
?
Nah
State the nature of these endeavors
Distraction of the masses in the form of resurrection
?
Where are the photos of victims still scraping their lives off the side of the road
Vicious tornadoes
Egyptian foes refuse to let go
Japan’s nuclear blow
Forgotten Haitian and New Orleans homes
Chillean earthquakes in
Backlash of civil wars that riddle the sub-Sahara
The truth slips through the back door along with escaped slaves and hope
I’ll dine with all three
And anticipate
Tomorrow’s already written news report
I saw you
In a lilac grove of streets
Catacomb of buses
Comings and goings
Heres and theres
I thought about you as I paid my fare
Fairly certain of the where I was
And had been
Since you happened
I bare more of
Myself than I care to bear
I saw you
Sitting with kings
In my dreams
Spitting gold, telling them all there is to know
I saw your shadow
Old and gray
Bask in the presence of a thousand laughs
Surrounded by family
I saw you
Seeing me
That shit was deep
Deeper than anything I can conceive
Of accurately without explicative
Nervous, you know
I curse the day I discovered language was not enough
I knew
How to say whatever I wanted in poetry
Then I saw you
My black is silent as the core of an iris
is dark as an obsidian gem
My black is night
We move through it with ease
the woman with groceries didn’t hear our paw padded sneakers creep on the concrete behind her
We are hunters
The red heart beat flashes blood as we run, tracking mis-deedful prints
I dodge black bodies swinging in my night
jump fenced hurdles
while some turn and fight
refusing to become the hunted
We unload barks that reach to the moon, resonate through people’s bedrooms, and shatter darkened windows
My claws grip the bricks as I maneuver past them
down an alleyway
into the corner
keeping low
and to the shadows, comfortable like warm pillows
I am a… lone, quiet and antsy
listening to the sound of my night stained by blood and rain
I whimper to mother moon
Save me from this city
She doesn’t hear me?
Return to the prowl hungry
from unanswered howls.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.
-excerpt from Kahlil Gibran on Love
Sepulcher of negative images
And bad ambitions
Shut, locked
And burned
Releasing me from a world
Bent on dragging my
Self-esteem
Over a bed of jagged red, hot nails
A tool for my boundless dreams
Ripped from he seams
Of my imagination
Thrust onto the human race
So they can understand and feel
Liberation
The flow within me
Bled onto the words
Of which I speak
Enticing, spellbinding
Vocabulary
Grinding into the black hole
That is your mind
The sign of eternal literature
Giving a voice to those
Who are afraid to converse
With the devils of the deadly sins
And overcome them
Expelling the snakes with the tongue
For it’s mightier than the sword and gun
Emancipation
Freedom
Publication
Is
Poetry
I’m torn between holding on and letting go
selfish self-preservation is a main goal
but I’m scared to receive that one phone call
informing me that she’s gone
missing
one of my sisters, a cousin I haven’t talked to in years
It happened
Not to be nostalgic
but I remember how our ridiculous matching
indian prom dresses caused such a commotion
I found yours in the back of my closet
picture perfect
the anticipation of the high school crew disbanding for college studies
our lives at the tip of a new beginning
Time keeps moving her away, ripped like the pages of our friendship
Guilt motivates the guilty
as she
weighs down steps to purchase dime bags
laced with notoriety
the plight of bouncing through foster homes like basketballs
with substitute parents black as asphalt
Even now I can hear her clattering call
ring through the halls
I’m somewhere between
a past and current status of an aged friendship
tossed by life’s tests
We all need a helping hand
and maybe our paths will converge again
even though I can’t stand in the middle of the road
waiting in vain
for her to come home
“I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have out walked the furthest city light. “– from Robert Frost’s Acquainted with the Night
I have been acquainted with the night
I have seen blood splatters in splintered floors
stepped in them from the absence of light
stared at the moon until dawn won the fight
in the sky, I
have lied to the dark
insisting that I wasn’t afraid as knuckles met face
in this cuticle of space
how many nights will it take to break
the circle of family abuse
in full swing when the lights aren’t in use.
–A. Long
That smile dreams brightly of the future
You have the audacity to say
we
To boast carelessly of what we’ll have
When you’d give me spit to taste
before your heart’s embrace
There he goes
flying high off himself one minute
Then rips my throat out the next
I want a vampire
at least they don’t hide behind the guise of love
when they decide to bite you
The Poetry Corner 