Afrah

Jul 2016

The Lunchtime Poet

I fall to the ground
In a family of seeds.
Lying in the soil
Nature meeting my needs

Coming to life
Through the ground I will breach
Growing so fast
To the sun I must reach

On top of my stem
A bud it did form
Soon it will open
The weathers so warm

The time has come
For me to put on a show
I'm going to bloom
And let everyone know

My color is yellow
Like a lemon so sour
Never have I been
Such a beautiful flower

I smell so sweet
A magnet to bees
Just to get a smell
Humans fall to their knees

Soon my flower fades
The show coming to an end
Please don't be sad
It's just nature my friend

Then jack frost sneaks in
Not making a sound
Freezing my body
All the way to the ground

The snow it does fall
Quietly covering everything
Such a wonderful blanket
I think I'll nap till spring

#nature #flower

Afrah Jul 2016

Fear

we
as the world
are living in fear
we are
cradled
by its restricting arms
sung to sleep with
lullabies and hymns
of shrieking souls
and scorching tongues
our hair is stroked
by the claws
of fear
by the piercing nails
it sharpens
to pick the locks
into our minds
fear has erased our memories
it has made a place inside of us
it has set up its bed
it has turned out the light
and it has sincerely
wished us all
goodnight.

Day after day there is a new incident. Something needs to change.

#poem #poetry #poet #fear #america #politics #attack #issues #justice #guncontrol

Jul 2016

Maya Angelou

I know why the caged bird sings

A free bird leaps on the back
Of the wind and floats downstream
Till the current ends and dips his wing
In the orange suns rays
And dares to claim the sky.

But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage
Can seldom see through his bars of rage
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill for
The caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
And the trade winds soft through
The sighing trees
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright
Lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged BIRD stands on the grave of dreams
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with
A fearful trill of things unknown
But longed for still and his
Tune is heard on the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom.

Afrah Jul 2016

Freedom

Land of the free
you seem to call it
But the freedom
only seems to fall
on one end of the spectrum
one side of the scale

And when the scale tries
so excruciatingly
to balance itself
When it comes crashing down
in an attempt to be heard,
to make a sound,

It is met with cries of outrage;
With a selfish victimization of,
“what about us?”
“don’t we matter too?”

but that’s not the point,
now is it?

The scale
isn’t screaming out any less
for the importance of
one side
by trying to give an inch of importance
to the disregarded other.

**Black Lives Matter.

I am so ******* sick of this. #BlackLivesMatter.

#poem #poetry #poet #abuse #america #justice #racism #blacklivesmatter #altonsterling #sayhisname