Some people show love
and some people fake love.
Some people complicate love
And others demonstrate love.  

Love is just like a flower
That'll always need water
And not a tiny bit of lie
Which will cause it to die?

Love cost Romeo his Life
Although Juliette wasn't his wife
Is it just to say he died for free
Oh, Romeo, your life was a tree.

©IvanBrooksPoetry
19/09/2018

Learn to say yes to no situations,
Do whatever you dare.
Look beyond the constellations
And learn never, ever to compare

Success is not about Intelligence
For some people are very wise
So they combine hustle with patience
Yet, others will do anything, otherwise.

Some people have extreme gifts
That'll help them to the very top.
Some will kiss butts and accept fists,
Others will pray and work with the mop.

Some people have super crazy skills
Just be quiet and listen to the call.
A hunter is not how often he kills,
So learn to fight and give it your all.

Someday you'll hear your name
Horn in and identify your area.
Talents and gifts are never the same,
Give lights and wings to your idea.

Work each day, of yourself, be proud
Let every decibel of your voice be heard.
Amplify the power of your words, let it be loud,
Your lens is the everyday tears you shed.

See the world with a new meaning
And strive to be the very best.
One day you'll hear the birds singing,
Signs that you've arrived ahead of the rest.

©IvanBrooksPoetry
15/9/2013

I'm not a writer trying to share a story,
I'm a survivor telling you a true story.
I'm not just a poet having fun and living,
I saw bad things when I was younger.
That was when things were harder.
when women and old people were helpless and young people were hopeless.
It was that time when good parents were powerless to protect their underage girls from **** and molestation at the hands of drugged-up child soldiers with bloodshot eyes.
I did something other boys were too scared to do,
I turned into a man
and took survival into my hands.
It was that time when men and women used the same place to bathe and go to the loo.

I saw many many hungry people
eating palm cabbage and wild grasses
malnourished children and dying people.
I saw hands chopped off with cutlasses.
I saw thousands of families separated
and fathers killed or incarcerated.
I saw silly young men pick up arms
and chopped off people's limbs
like hideous things were their aims.

I saw really bad things
and cried to God for wings
like an angel to fly away
because I saw no other way.
I saw people running to God
and getting murdered in his church.
I don't know, but he didn't say a word
It's like He just sat down and watch?

I saw bad things
I planned my escape from poverty,
from a war-torn country.
It was that time when your parents, who come from the same generation as I, were looking up to their mom's for breast milk.
It was that time when no one wore silk,
it was a time of fear,it was wartime.
It was that time when bullets determined eating time and bedtime.
It was that time when pretty boys had nothing in their wallets.
It was that time when PYJ ate dinner
and played gospel on his guitar like he was our savior and not a sinner.

© IvanBrooksPoetry
12/9/2018

You can try to shame me
And call me all sorts of names.
You can try to persecute me
And accuse me of false crimes.

You can publically undress me
Parade me around like a clown.
You can mercilessly flog me
And chase me out of town.

You can scam me in transactions
And take away my only home.
You can take away my possessions
And put in the streets to die alone.

You can behave to me like the devil
And speak in an unknown voice.
You can show me you're very evil
And even treat me like a sacrifice.

I'll someday again rise and shine
I am unbreakable, I'll survive!
I'll live to tell my children the story,
And testify and speak of God's glory.

©IvanBrooksPoetry
9/11/2018

Hail Mary full of grace
Hear the noise in this place
Several hundred million decibels
Of spoken words ringing like bells.

This place is alive with words
powerful like samurai swords,
Yet Preached by enlightened poets
And unknown future laureates.

©IvanBrooksPoetry
6/9/2018

(Inspired by and dedicated to John Edward Smallshaw, and his "Spice")


I am a summer-man,
Because I'm blessed to sit by the sea.
Let it and the other two Musketeers,
boon companions to me,
Sun and Wind,
erase my discomposure as I
reside in the Poet's Nookery.
Let them have almost
all that troubles,
but not all.

I am a summer-man.

On the bay, on the beach,
I see birth, I see death,
osprey nests, carcasses of
mussels and horseshoe *****.
This, somehow reassuring,
the cycles,
this circularity,
the tides and inevitability.

I am a summer-man.

Student of languages seasonal,
Peaches, plums, cherries, poetry
and loving Woman.^
This, the  summer alphabet-soup
of my multiple tongues.

I am a summer-man.

Sancerre and Pinot Gris, super cold,
Paul Simon, Nina Simone,
with proper aging,
getting  hotter,
Salsa and Afrikaner hints,
super louder,
Even "Still Crazy After All These Years,"
that-who-wud-be-me,
chills outer.^^

I am a summer-man.

When ever this lad's writes appear,
it proves once again,
there is no truth that his  
name was once Dr. Seuss
In a prior life, even if
each is signed by
Ogdiddy Nash

I am a summer-man.

Disrespectful of the calendar,
if I can, try to make
summer season stretch-marks from
May to October.

I would add April,
but the IRS is already
****** at me.^^^

Though the cherry blossoms of May
now gone away,
the lilies of June
arrive, but but for a week or two,
soon, like my mom, withered away.

Acorns in August^^^^ have arrived too swiftly.

This summer, beloved,
and love of summer,
deep-rooted.

Season of my Peter Pan Poetry Galore Festival.

A love,  incapable, impossible, of ever
growing old, ever growing cold,
it cannot wither.
It is summer heat reminders exposed,
how it misses its man,
that hide in the flames of
the teasing, popping, reminding
Winter fireplace's crackling popping