from Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends
These books may have been meant for children, but I still love them
poetry
Poetry Is
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
Call me a marty…
Call me a martyr today. I accept my ticket to die as long as those that I die for keep living a life– K(c)onscience
Waiting in Vain
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 on…
“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
The Intro
The Intro
Hi.
Your name is Chocolate
the sweet underside of your Father’s thighs
the resonant color trapped in his eyes
your his laugh
cradled in a blue blanket
his words etched on the finest parts of your DNA
Lullabies sung from ancient Sanskrit he sang to you
while you were in the womb
but more importantly
you are everything he’s not
I apologize for the worry lines
that will plague your eyes
From the cries he will not hear
The hugs he’ll miss
Your name is Strong, spirit
that will not be broken
like the canvas on your Father’s stomach
or the pride across his wide back.
If I should have a daughter…
Spoken word poet Sarah Kay, in a talk that inspired two standing ovations at TED2011. She tells the story of her metamorphosis — from a wide-eyed teenager soaking in verse at New York’s Bowery Poetry Club to a teacher connecting kids with the power of…
Who am I !?
I am that crazy drunk dude
standing on the corner spitting looney tunes
I was there as soon as you
came out the womb
embedded in you nursery rhymes
those synchronized lines were me
I am the original motion towards emotion
never outdated
I am the escape
so powerful I
breathed the Bible into light
and it went, eternally
Now I shine
infinitely
lighting your domes
when you go home maybe you’ll scribble a few of my children into existence
So I may live on happily
having impregnated a new generation
of poets.
Short Poem
I miss you
the way writers fiend for inspiration
the way a wick wants the flame
I’m here
working on putting the picture of my future
in this frame
Waiting in Vain
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
The Poetry Corner 