To reread until words sink in

Sep 2020

Clayborn Todd Wooton

If those young men had looked like me,
how diff'rent everything would be.
There'd be no blood or teardrops shed.
Had they been white, they'd not be dead.

If Mike Brown had been Michael White,
he surely would have been alright.
"Don't shoot!" would not need to be said.
Had he been white, he'd not be dead.

From Ferguson to East L.A.,
we hear the stories every day.
"Protect and Serve" til streets run red.
Had they been white, they'd not be dead.

Call it racial immunity,
where skin-tone is impunity.
Don't let yourself be so misled-
had they been white, they'd not be dead.

As more and more young ones are slain,
and protests are met with disdain,
you may debate what I have said,
but were they white, they'd not be dead.

Wrote this when Mike Brown was killed in Ferguson. I'm sad that it maintains relevance today.

#racism #mike #brown #george #floyd #breonna #taylor #rayshard #brooks #etc

Aug 2020

Bill Adair

Playground

Even though they were smaller than me
They made me feel very afraid
As they roamed the playground together,
With the smell of over-boiled cabbage and nicotine
Clinging to their clothes and hair,
Their small, hard hands and *****, sharp finger nails
Grabbing at the lapels of your blazer.

They had white dinner tickets for free school meals.
Our tickets were blue and cost a shilling.
They sat, bunched together, in the middle of row four,
And if you were moved to sit beside them,
Your friends pointed at you and laughed,
Like when you had just had your haircut,
Or you wore glasses for the first time.

Their uniforms were ragged, hand-knitted jumpers
And wellingtons, even in the summer.
When you had sweets they would corner you in the playground,
Demanding their tribute share.
And you always handed over the best of your sweets, because,
Even though they were smaller than me,
They made me feel very afraid.

Aug 2020

Tom Shields

Meltopsy

PAINT!

A cacophony of colors oozing forth
brushes tied to snails, trailing down the walls
gently leaving, grieving, berea ing, absent-minded
flooded buckets returning gravity through a hole in the ceiling
an uplifting sort of sinking feeling
rapidandvapiandtepidanddesperatesoundingthoughtsalarmingandtoofasttokeeptrackofnolove
one peace, not yours
no one's peace

manically depressed, laser toting showboating unknowing
shiny-newborn robots

Genius
not in this species
not I, nor us
no, not in any branch of these trees
tiers sprout from the infinite and looping possibilities
reforming and collapsing in on themselves in an endless artful expanse
of compounded implosion, colonization, conquering power of far-reaching negativities

DEATH!
to the sound of a dozen different solos all playing in isolation
all masterpieces in their own right, all together sensory devastation at once
beat this worshiped slime to a pulp, beyond recognizable satisfactory sensation
make noise mean something by making a void contain value,
to cross the stranglehold of you for unreason, ****** the future nobody wants,
the future is dead and we killed it
the future is dead and we killed it
I saw its corpse
now I feel it!

The future is dead the future is dead the future is dead the future is dead the future is dead and the future is dead and the future is dead and we and we and we an d w e k i l l e d i tomorrow

more as usual.

write
please read and enjoy

Aug 2020

night unkind

“my poetry to protect me”

an ancient lyric, come to haunt,
no longer a shield, now thinner,
of gossamer consistency,
a tissue-thin papyrus,
“my poetry to protect me”

the poem words always were
a clarinet reed, capable of singing,
a highest pitch voice for turning
blades of clean steel clean away,
now blunting paper bunting, penetrated.

re-formed my shield, re-purposed,
into a stabbing instrument offensive,
my poetry pricking tearings in my worn
thin fabric tapestry, woven from linen
excuses of why I can’t, why couldn’t I.

this is life. moats becoming drowning
pools, castle walls reversed to entrapments,
wrecking machines, boulders hurling,
medieval defenseless against modern rhymes
giving away to free verse horde onslaught.

too late to apologize to myself, alas, my words,
my protectorate, island redoubt, now ruined
by doubts treachery breech birthed from within,
these verses hollow point bullets engineered,
Caesar’s words clarified, you, et tu, are Brutus
too, two, for the price of one, betrayer and betrayed.

#night #unkind #poetry #to #protect #brutus #betrayed #betrayer #httpshellopoetrycomtagnighthasbeenunkind

Aug 2020

Akira Chinen

marigold tears

The sun wept marigold tears
  and we were too busy
   in the toil of our own grief

     to notice

     to pause

     to ask her why

nor did we bother
  to pay attention
   to the splitting seam
    in the sky
or how all the colors
  bleed that day

but Death in all her gentleness

   paused

sat quietly with the sun
  gently wiped the tears
   from her cheek
    held her hand
and waited while the sun
  mourned what needed
    to be mourned

then Death pulled a thread
  from the fabric of her robe
   and stitched the tearing seam
    in the sky

and then with all
  the bleeding colors
    painted a long overdue sunset
     on the never ending horizon

Aug 2020

Robert Frost

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.

Aug 2020

Me and You

The Thing

...
Write it yourself, I say. Write it yourself like you write it into being with every single facet and fibre of it.
Write it like you know you are writing it.
A shape, form, emerges in front of your eyes,
your fingers are not still now, cannot be still
for they are at the same time describing and creating what you see with your own eyes.
They move, in constant motion because you are in constant motion, and you want it to be clear.
You are not running from it, but it is not easy.
It feels - it pulls at you rather strongly rather like this is the thing that is not very patient anymore not feeling like it makes sense to wait everything out - the thing that sent flashes of bliss into your fingers
in the first place, the thing that makes your very own chest sting and pound hard in turns, like a ship in the most childish of storms.
You do not dare to breath out fully, and when you do it sinks down right into your stomach and there feels
so much more profound and physical.
It stretches out into your hands and feet, your fingertips.
You do not look at your words because you are the one who’s already seen them before they came into being. You are not quite
daring to free the full power, the
full
spell of the word that lay under this thick layer, but you feel it fully, feel that already the word is out, uncovered, hovering - getting to know you better, getting to know your condition,
the multiple points of connection already apt and willing,
and the ones that still push - push away.
There is time.
There is time for sure. But the thing is as sentient as you are.

...

Aug 2020

Kyle Dal Santo

"Nostalgia Is The Best Drug..."

I know pain
By it’s first names, intimately
The pain isn’t even the hard part
But the hole it leaves when I don’t feel it
Even though it’s always there
A phantom with no pain
Asinine, pointless
You learn to make pain feel
Get used to it, make it part of you
Made my pain an edge, an advantage
Kept it close like my enemies
Put it there for safe keeping
And it’s kept me safe, at least the feeling of it
But now I don’t need it anymore
Awkward, once you can’t turn it off
It's been concealed and carried for way too long
become a part of me
latched to my ribs
Right between my lungs
Becoming another pain within
Sticks to the skin and itches inside
Built it up for the bad days
Without them, I feel unwanted
No purpose, and that’s worse than… everything
Loneliness, heartache, pain, loss, hunger, all of it
If you don’t need me, do I need to stay?
I can’t help because I need it
Wiping my own tears
No game to win, no story to tell
Suppose to just… live with myself?
After everything I’ve become
So much life wasted
Used as a stepping stone
Wandering and wondering, for…
So many regrets I should regret
Too many regrets I should forget
Pain because it’s all gone
Good and bad, I can’t have it back
The past is my sickness
Regret its diagnosis
Now the future seems darker
And I fear I’ll be useless

#nostalgia #lonely #alone #depression #pain

Aug 2020

Grey

I Am

I am dawn.
A rising sun, its rays barely lighting the horizon.
Gentle swaths of yellow illuminate blurry figures,
their shadows intertwined but their hands empty.

I am the day.
Golden hair cascades down like a waterfall, reflecting beams of light
filtering through rainbow-painted trees.
She wanders alone towards emerald fields still clothed with morning dew,
her only company the flaxen creature gently howling through the silence beside her.

I am dusk.
The sweet scent of roses mingles with the crisp air
as the last whispers of light fade from the sky.
Four people are silhouetted against the dying sun,
grass tickling their feet as their laughter fills the air
and sugar-sweet strawberries fill their mouths.

I am the night.
Light spills out an open window
and a small figure gazes up at the glittering sky.
"I wish..." she breathes so softly that her words are lost in the wind, "I wish."
Then the curtains draw closed and all that's left
is a handprint on the fogged-up glass
and the promise of tomorrow.

8/24/2020

#dawn #day #dusk #night #shadows #wish #tomorrow #sun #light #hope

Aug 2020

Graff1980

To The Painter

You can paint infinity
on a set of plates
that lay here before me,

share a season’s story
leaving out what is gory.

You can dance in skewed
perspectives,
make rainbows cry
while a little child
staves off this painted rain.

You can make manifest
the spirit over which
you give dominion
to all who live in
this little world.

Let lovers walk
from pools reflecting
many shades
that illuminate
the end of days.

Can take the infinitude
of every instance
that made you, you
and summarize it
in multiple tints
of blue;

Take the beauty
and wonder of
a stranger’s face
lit by inspiration
as she reads
by a windowpane,

while I can take apart
and break the art
you made with your heart,
to write this silly little poem.

#painting #art #artist #painter #poetry