Can you imagine what it feels like
To live in fear at night
And even in the daylight
Worried about getting hassled or shot
By local or state cops
Just cause you got
A brown pigment in your skin

lines of malice are penned
within ancient tomes
black and blue ink bruising
the human psyche beyond recognition

stunting our collective imagination
with fantasies of castles
among the clouds and intergalactic
beings who sculpted us from dust

intermittent smears
of crimson declarations
lingering in blood-soaked texts
painting portraits of putrid prejudice

the image of an illusory deity
devised to explain a cosmos
that defies codification and categorization
we mythologized and told tall tales like Arachne

spinning webs of misinformed misfortune
we're severing the strings of our imaginary enemies  
silencing lives with rusty shears
utterly convinced by the edicts of idiots

how might we disentangle ourselves from mental
cobwebs and embrace reality's promising veracity
each of us an accidental miracle
captains of our own fortune's vessels

so weigh anchor and set course for distant shores
unfurl the sails of reason and hold fast
after weathering millennia of insipid beliefs
we'll sojourn ever onward with omnipotent minds

raze these sycophantic fantasies  
and raise hell so high it becomes heaven
we will build a new city in the shell of this cold
dead society predicated on misanthropic religion

Greed is a slippery assassin
That slips in
To insert itself
Into the core
Of our society
Pushes us ever forward
Towards
Our self-mutilation
And eventually
Our self-destruction

Between you, me, and everyone in this society
I am not currently smoking leaves or burning trees
But if I was puffing up smoke like the Beatles
Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, and Bob Marley did
Not snorting coke like our former president
But if I lit up at home when I was alone to get ******
If I had a pound or more of natural plant goods
The kind that Mother Nature made with her green wisdom
The kind that help chemo’s patients and other victims
Of social, physical, emotional, and spiritual ailments
It is not the state’s or the patrolmen’s business
They shouldn’t get me locked up then put me on parole
Then on some list so I can’t get government assistance
When I was just trying to ease life’s tension
And I have to mention we need freedom
From prison as a profit type business
Locking up children for drug offenses
Turning young men into harden criminals
While people making a hundred grand or more
Do not get punished for their narcotics store
Cops keep picking on the poor when they should hunt for
White supervisors who run and ruin other people’s lives
Those punk ******* telling lies
Using the law to steal other people’s houses and pensions
Making drug offenses look like a pittances
But the poor have poor defenses
And the rich ***** our lives like it is a business
Because it is their business to make money from our suffering
So why don’t they go on a hunt for the white rich ***** punk
And leave the poor *** smoking people alone

It may hurt to tell ourselves the truth
To seek out our imperfections
And mark them not for reproof
But for the chance to self-improve
It may sting to hear the facts
May cause our spirits to crack
But we can build our foundations back
And be better for the truth
Cause we are never better for its' lack

The broad brush is poisonous
Still you paint painful pictures
Red, yellow, brown, white
Forgetting the sweet minutia
Unlearning the shades and variations
The beauty in our treasured tints
I look closer at your simple statements
Even in your wheel of colors
I can see the potential
Life is sunburnt, light
Bache, pink, jaundiced,
Dark and lightly tanned
Plain or with flocks of freckles

1.Today I am  not celebrating the greatness of one nation but the wonder of humanity as a whole, and the hope that the illusion of borders, nations, races, religions, genders, and all other distinctions used to classify and separate will dissolve in order to form a more perfect union

2.You do yourself a disservice when you forget that we are not separate and in competition, but part of a collective that spans more than hundred thousand years in the past and hopefully a hundred thousand more in the future. Lifting up the weak strengthens the whole, educating the young enhances the potential future. Kindness and wisdom our the gift of the human.

3.Sometimes I forget the heart of me; that little boy who dreamed of love and fairness. Sometimes the road darkens, the heart is broken, but eventually I come back to the core of me. I am a child of light and love. So come dance the dance of humanity with me, grow and live to see the beauty in truth and our potential. We can be better.

to all with love

Your humble human scribe

Joshua Amos Graff

I’m gonna get a little bit *****
Before they bury me
Before the coffin carries me away
I am going to play
I am going to laugh
Makes others laugh
With one foot in the muck
Holler what the ****
As I splash like a child
Dancing in the mud

I want to write a song that flowers in the darkness
A tune that smiles under the moon
Swelling sounds that swoon and confound
Singing hymnals of love that astound
Hands helping the healing start
May not be able to restore broken hearts
But maybe I could write something
That eases suffering
Perhaps something to make them smile
Or something that makes them laugh
With words I tare myself in half
To give those sentences back
And do something good

Injustice should makes us seethe
Writhing angrily
Seeing someone else’s sorrow
Should make it hard to breath
Buried in grief cause we believe
That their pain is ours
So I don’t know what hurts me more
That fact that I feel their pain
Or the fact that you don’t anymore

A man is measured by his work
Stressed and struggling
Gasping for a breath of relaxation
A daily compounding of suffering
Dignity sacrificed
Life
Judged poorly if he is poor
A person should be measured better
Perhaps not judged at all
Could be judged by his kindness

It is a story maybe a prose piece
I know these lines are what I need
Not to be rich but to succeed
Poke a hole in your mind
And plant a seed so deeply
That you won’t forget me
Or what it means when I say humanity

Everybody is nobody
To somebody
A homebody
Aged female
Children gone
Wrinkled skin
Brown eyes
Rotten teeth
Holds tightly
To old memories
As they slip like mercury
Between her fingers
To be forgotten

Tired old veteran
****** back
Body sore
From the last fall
Hurts to breath
But at least
He is still alive
Holding down
The old folks town

The sidewalk ***
Hungry and lonely
Looking for nothing
Affection forgotten
Joys lost to the
Ravages of time

Little boy bruised
Abused
Miss-used
By angry adults
Tormented by other teens
Hazel eyes hold no light
Only finds hope in
Razor blade delights

The middle aged sage poet
Stumbling through life
Half awake
But more alert then others
Wrinkles of pain
Under his eyes
Those bags are full
And sag so deep
That they burn

Not movie stars
Or pop divas
Nobodies
Forgotten remembered
And lost again
Fragile beauty
Breaking with time
People who I claim
As mine
My brotherhood
We are all beautiful nobodies