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Graff1980 Jun 2016
Death is not fair.
It does not care
or breath.
It does not take
what bleeds
leaving seeds
to spring into
a lighter view
of the heavenly
some days.
It discriminates
against the poor
taking them more
other day it plays
with the wealthy.
It does not balance
or think
grow or shrink.
It is not a tangible being
or a solid thing.
It will not make a deal
no matter how deep you feel.
It is not your enemy or friend.
It is simply the end.
Graff1980 Apr 2018
The wind bends the tall brown stalks
of some unknown plant that I
am unable to identify.
Graff1980 Nov 2023
Sometimes we slip through the cracks
fall down a hole or trip into the looking glass
and never manage to find our way back.

Innocence is betrayed as it is parlayed into
the whole growing up thing that
we don’t want to do.

Playmates fade away as we lose yesterday.
Their faces blur then just disintegrate,
along with the games and stories we made.

Time becomes the anchor that weighs us down
as we struggle and drown in deadlines.
Playful pixies dust fantasies are lost to these
important and emerging responsibilities.

Teddy Bear hugs and fairytale love
become the stuff of forgotten hopes,
and with each romantic advance rejected
the dreamer dejected retreats to
the safety of a stale and scheduled reality.

Till the mirror reflects the inner sadness.
Our shoulders slump, skin sags, and wrinkles,
as our eyes lose that sly Peter Pan twinkle.

-2023
Graff1980 Dec 2019
Welcome to another year
of pursuing my supposed
state of physical and mental
superiority.

Welcome to another year
of watching the world
dissolve right before me
as morons run it straight into
another apocalyptic attitude.

Welcome to the cessation
of deep and thoughtful creation
as each heartbeat breaks down
and each friend falls flaccidly
to feed this already rotted ground.

Welcome to the fruitless
endeavor to enlighten the clueless
as I become the best useless artist
of my dying generation.

All ego and fluff as I stuff
each page with my grand intent
to pursue the betterment
of every single human being
that could be served by my creativity.

Then, I welcome myself
right back to this reality
remembering that nothing I do
really matters to the universe.
I am just a speck in the cosmos
with a slightly bigger ego.
Graff1980 Mar 2020
The universe may be
infinite as the
collective mind
of humanity,
but my current portion
of understanding
is barely measurable.
My place in space and time
makes me the opposite
of valuable or special.
Graff1980 Mar 2018
People retreat
further and further
into religions,
politics,
consumerism,
or chemicals
to avoid
confronting
painful truths.
Graff1980 Dec 2015
The light changes
Shifting shades
Slip across
His weary face
Shadows sweep
The sun away
Leaving the cool day
Under the tree
He rests peaceful
With one eye open
Just barely
The breeze hits
Just a bit
Leaves flutter
In unison
The sun returns
To my skin
Now he is wide awake
Again
Graff1980 Apr 2016
It is a miracle of desire
That flesh fits
That evolutionarily
We came together
Lust and pleasure
Temporary companions
In this temporary life
Graff1980 Aug 2016
The silence says so much.
Nothingness scratching at
my stream of consciousness.

Valued for the vacuum
that ***** the soul
from the bottom of my shoes
giving me sapphire shades
of sorrow,

Velvet and suede
silk stalkings
that float, fading away,
as I dream of filling the silence
with love,

But like always
there is no one there.
Graff1980 Mar 2016
There was a man sitting at the docks with a boat as he watched a young boy drown. The drowning boy cried help me in gurgled tones. The man with the boat at the dock sat and said "I will pray for you." He prayed patiently waiting for an answer while the boy drowned.
Graff1980 Dec 2016
I am a magnetically charged vessel
of negative spaces
attracting shards
of dangerous intensity,
while spitting out electricity
only to find my passions
fading in the delusion
of this *******-up ether.
Graff1980 Dec 2017
I've been chasing her. Though she is final, the ultimate mystery. She is the darkness. The final bliss and such a release. In uncertainty she is a comfort. In happiness she is a spider ******* at my flesh. I know not what will happen when we finally embrace. So I wait and try not to waste the days between my fate and her ****** lips. She will love me as she has loved all who have come before and all who come after. No one will escape her embrace.
Graff1980 Aug 2018
Pretty eyes,
pretty smile,
pretty hands,
pretty ***;

She handles
all those
compliments
fields all those
unwanted stares.

Some young guy
says something nice,
but when she doesn’t
acknowledge him
he calls her a
stuck up *****.

Some one
grabs her ***.

Someone
presses her up
against a wall.

Someone
raises her blouse.

Someone
intrudes
where he is
not meant to.

Now she is awkward.

Now she is uncomfortable,

Now she is untrusting.

Now she doesn’t
want to be beautiful.
Graff1980 Dec 2014
Used to be the poet’s pen
Was his soul mate
Then the typewriter came
Like a bitter lover
Then the computer came
And I dropped my second lover
For a better one
I hope that she will be my last
Graff1980 Mar 2017
With the voice of eloquence
and precisely placed poetry
she asked her love to be
a being of stability.

However, I longed to be
the one she looked too to see
love’s gentle eyes reaffirming
turning life’s truths
into reassuring simplicity
making a promise that I
could never really guarantee.

It is a good thing she did not look to me
cause all I could promise her
is this moment in eternity
all I could give her is my passion
and gentle but attentive curiosity.
Graff1980 Apr 2017
Two petite pretties 
pranced before me
paragons of the 
impoverished society
that values surface 
over depth

The dancing debutantes
Dangled their dangerous
And dubious dispositions
Directly in front of me

Enter stage bad boy
Blustering buffoon
With a silver spoon
So far up his ***
He spewed silver polish
On his nice Polish pants

Cash in hand
He passed around 
His affluences
Like it was influenza
Vomiting vague
Platitudes with 
So much attitude 
As if he had 
Anything valid to say

But this crowd was rapt
With the vapid vocalist
He drank expensive ****
To prove he was valid
No valor just vain vagaries
On display to frustrate me 
Greatly

They celebrated the success of a 
Failing millionaire who was premade
By the fortune that his father made
To bail him out of all of his mistakes
As he played society like a broken violin
I was trying to bring talented art back in
But society placed me in the trash bin
Before I could even begin
To purge the poison
The incurably incurious
Perpetuators of 
Shallowness

So I bow out of this
Cause I thought 
We were working together
To make each other’s life better
But it turns out I was 
Running a race 
I did not even know about
Graff1980 May 2015
I’m letting go to let you know
The snow that grows
By loads and loads
Till frosty feet
And frozen toes
Are merely frigid memories
Till all the trees are barren of leaves
Till April fools is but a foolish memory
And memories of you and me
Are dust I let you know as I must
With little strength left
I am letting go of all I left
But still keeping a little life for myself
Graff1980 Dec 2017
If your dad set you on fire because you ****** him off. You would have him arrested right. So why is it acceptable to tell little kids that they will burn in hell if they don't do what they are told?
Graff1980 Mar 2016
Can you see beyond
What you believe is a sea
Though in reality
Is a tiny trickle
Expanded only
In the minds
Of those who were fooled

Cross that tiny gap
Break the barriers
Of the past
And find the truth
Of our human connection

We are not a small
Band of ****** brothers
Or a class of kin
Classified by our borders
And the color of our skin

We are a collective
Cut from the same cloth
Of history
The same chain
Of DNA

We are human
To be loved and accepted
Not feared or rejected

We are children
Living within
The limited life span

We are not one clan
Against a million
But one tribe
That counts seven billion
plus
Graff1980 Jul 2017
There is no release
from this vile disease
that affects a society
that claims it owns me.

I watch in disgust
as fools drool over the dust
of our most recent bombing.

The mother of all bombs,
the biggest ballistic *******,
killer cadre of collective bombardments.

Even though I have not looked at
the pictures yet,
you see them and then
still embellish with inflated sentiments,
claim the explosions and armaments
are so beautiful.

Our youth line up
to sign up
and support
this reckless endangerment
of humanity,
while I write to plea
begging that they see
this violence is degrading
the quality of our
American collective.
Graff1980 May 2017
Language is the way i love humanity with an outsiders affection. Listening to the language of their stories, as they slowly reveal the essence of who they are, tentatively exposing just enough to intrigue but not scare strangers away.
Graff1980 Mar 2021
I don't need any emotion regulator.
I am the poetic pain appropriator
reading stories and saving
the suffering for later
to share with my fellow agitators
and other hopeful aspiring humans.
Graff1980 Apr 2017
My skin is
black and blue,
a tender bruise
that matches
my nightly muse.
Darkness
silently expands
beyond my
understanding;
So I sit
and observe
as my vision
blurs to
completely obscured,
then finds an even
darker universe.
Graff1980 Nov 2016
Broad generalizations frequently decrease the fluidity of human understanding and growth.
Graff1980 Feb 2018
The folds of
burnt black metal
pinch his skin,
breaking the flesh
that slips within
tiny gaps.

The knight gasps
as pain explodes
and trickles of blood
start to flow.

To this
his page says,
your forgot your
aketon.

The newly knighted fool
stares and drools,
stuttering “what?”
and the page replies
your underpadding.
Graff1980 Mar 2019
Some days
I wake
in tears,

Some days
I wake refreshed,

But today
I woke
a blank space,
nothing to emote
I’m just a still pond
with a small wooden boat
afloat.
Graff1980 Apr 2016
There are smiles in the past
That bleed through to the present

Hugs and tickles
Running and laughing
A wooden swing
Puppy dog love

Journeys
Began and ended
Pathways merging
And parting
More than once

They play in my memory
Treasures
Better than a golden ring

Perhaps they are the parts
That make me
A decent human being
Because I hope that I am
A good man
Graff1980 Oct 2021
Who's to blame
for the fact that
this world is gone insane?
Is it run by the inane?
I need to ascertain
if they have an *** for brain
or are they snorting aspartame
like it's *******?
Graff1980 Dec 2016
I feel like I have been writing the same poems over and over. I would welcome a writing prompt from anyone.
Graff1980 Dec 2017
There was a time
when the Beltane fires
blasted, the massive
crowds face
with orange heat,

when women danced,
swirling and singing
in an orgiastic fury.
When a poet’s tongue
could raise a lover’s skirt,
and with passions
unparalleled part
a ******’s legs,

when well written words
would stir adventurous hearts
to grand feats,
and the poets would be seen
and remembered.

Now black hole brains
and shallow stares
sink solemnly
onto their blinking screens.
The poets are not seen.
Their truths are no longer gleaned.
Their words are not heard.
Dull faces are lit
by other people’s
facebook, twitter,
and instagram *******.
The fools have forgotten
the former passions
of this existence.

Thus, the poets dies,
unmourned
by the unmoved masses.
Graff1980 Sep 2017
I feel like a strange man of contradictions As a rational human I want to aproach every thing logically, but as a dreamer I want to live life with such amazing zest and passion. I want to be consumed by the beauty of life and lost in its wonders drowning so deep in the moment that I can not escape it, yet still be able to focus and do what needs to be done to acheive greatness.
Graff1980 Feb 2017
It is a world of randomness.
Photos play in
their digital displays.
Soft impression of
Of wet and salted sands
leave an imprint
of her sacred dance.

Another photo
catches her
soft features
strained in
fantastic effort.
Like a perfect sketch
her legs
are outstretched midair
in opposite directions.  

A gray cement cylinder
with open circles
cradles her soft body.
She is a changeling
that bends with
it’s hard contours.

Switching with
a finger’s flick,
finds two black ropes
that hold the hopes
of the young dancer
hanging down
unbound
as she is.

With the fierceness
Of Artemis
this bare foot goddess
sweeps her feet
across the
white winter grounds.
Her steps are
hot enough
to melt the snow.
Later she
enshrouds herself
in a transparent veil.
The melody does not stop.
She moves
like the figure in a  
faberge egg music box,
never allowed
to rest until
she breaks.

Beautiful and powerful,
she blooms like the flowers
her admirers plucked
to place pink petals
at her feet.

She is eloquence.
Arms outstretched
to open the doors
that lead to a
warm summer dreamland
which all her devotees
wish to explore.

Folds of blue fabric
fill her tiny hands,
rippling like water
hit by strange skipping stones.
She ***** the fabric forward
up, down, and back,
trying to soar  
with the fury of her dance.

One knee rises.
Unfeathered arms open,
flowing back, up, and away.
This long legged
blonde blue eyed child flys,
a canary in the coal mine
barely concealed
urging us to feel;
Frozen in time
on Instagram
to be seen
and soon sidecrolled away.
A queen like Titania,
fairy winged,
a thing of dreams.
Nature’s surroundings
obfuscate her
transient existence.

Her body bends and sways
with the wonders of
old orchestras and concertos.
Till, eve falls
and December takes the dancer.
The soft swimmer shimmers
in the soon to be frozen water.
Feathers fall from the Swan’s
long lost daughter,
and the well used
dance shoes
refuse to move.
Graff1980 Feb 2015
Depression is a hydra
Of loneliness
Head lobbed off
Replaced by a friends suicide
Memories of child abuse
Children Soldiers in Africa
I lob off the head of child abuse
A relative dies
A cop kills a kid
Military state
On and on it goes
For everyone cut off
Another one grows
Another one grows
Another one grows
Leaving me heartbroken
Sobbing alone
Facing a beast
I will never defeat
Graff1980 Oct 2017
A flag is not a holy relic. I pledge allegiance to the human cause for all my brothers and sister living or lost, for every person in every nation. Nk matter what flag you live under I pledge my love, and respect. My allegiance is not for strange abstract symbols or old patrotic ideals. A flag is not nation and a nation is not automaticly rightoues. No one dies for a flag. They die becuase no one could find a better solution.
Graff1980 Oct 2015
Weird words of working men
Collar wearing ******
Peacemakers clanging swords
Breastplates of hate
I watch us all get churched
On the ways of cruelty

I can’t stop crying
Cause love used to be
So beautiful to me
Two men holding hands
To friends kissing publicly
No shaming

Now there is violence
We break the silence
With days of silence
But it never seems
To stop the screams
And suicides
Children hang out
Flailing lifelessly
The memory haunts me
Even though it is not mine

Pale boy loves a brown boy
Sweet proclamations
Of their affections
Poetic exultations
Holding each other
As their salvation
To be loved is a wonderful thing
To be touched is a mercy

But fire burns to close
To the core of fury
Angry faces hide behind
Masks
We ask
For love
But brutality
Is their response
And now the saltine sorrow
Overflows
The ocean grows
As one more love
Is demolished
And the world becomes
A lot darker
Graff1980 Oct 2015
I can’t say what day the knots gave way
To full blown anxiety
When the hopeful parts
Gave way to the broken heart

Was it when my withering heart
Took one to many blows
One rejection stacked upon
Another broken promise
So on and so on and so on

Was it when I lost a job
That I really loved
To an *******’s misconception
He can stick that thick
Jagged and dangerous attitude
Up his high blood pressure
Sphincter

Was it when I gave up
Retreated to the dark corridors
Of a dead and dystopic
Fantasy world
Where even my daydreams
Became dark things

Was it just now
Cause I don’t know how
To reverse my pain
To get back the good things
Find the old me
And be better

I just can’t say
Graff1980 Sep 2017
Let me write you
a smile that
shines through
the gloom and doom
to get you through
this dark time
that is hounding you.
Graff1980 Jan 2017
I have never loved a truth
only partial lily lips
blushed with life,
a life that was projected
from previous experiences
tid bits of passing familiarities
extrapolated, fragmented,
then placed into an impossible puzzle.

That is the tragedy.
Though I love humanity
I have never loved the truth of her
only the illusion that she can never be
plastered in poetry
dedicated to me.
The lie fits perfectly into my dreams
so I sleep with
the hopeful heart of humanity
because that is the only love
that is true to me.
Graff1980 Apr 2017
I am not lazy when I do not finish a book.
If it does not snag
and sweep me up in revelry,
explode my soul with inspiration,
or cause new insights to flood from me,
if I am not immersed to the point
that the I of me ceases to be,
if it is not for learning or
these other things,
then it is not for me.
Graff1980 Oct 2017
This world can be a dark, crue,l and hateful place. That is why we must be ever vigilent against the tide of racism and hatred that overshadows the land. Where there is cruelty we must bring compasion, where there is darkness we must become the light, and where there is hate we must be love. I hope all of us can live as shining example of the goodness within the hearts of human beings.
Graff1980 Jul 2019
Right now, I am dealing with
all of my insignificance,
the pittance that this peasant
employs to avoid
complete depression.
Graff1980 May 2021
It's so futuristic
and mechanistic
those fatalistic
mystics of nihilistic
behaviors
that seemed to mirror
the feudalistic years.
Graff1980 May 2017
The best artistry enraptures its creator in a fugue of furious activity that is almost beyond his/her control. They are overcome with inspiration and must follow it. It is the unconscious mind ripping and taring at the fabric of the creators mind, and it is is the closest thing to ecstasy I know.
Graff1980 Apr 2016
Dear, your dainty dandelions
are dancing daringly across
the dirt path way
straight up to my driveway
and it is very creepy.
Graff1980 Mar 2019
I’ve been baking a cake with
the bad ingredients
we stocked in our cabinets,
sugary and chocolate bits
to rot our internal organs
and stain our already
brown and yellow
broken teeth.
Graff1980 Jul 2019
Break it down,
cause we all
deteriorate;

We all go to pieces
under pressure,
no coal to diamonds here
just freaking fools
following each other
deep down into
the dark pools.

If this doesn’t make sense
you haven’t been paying attention,
cause order collapses
under scrutiny
while logic leads us to social mutiny.

Wouldn’t it be cute to be
a reasonable crop of humanity.

At this point of my life
I am two drops of insanity,
and all the best conversations I have
are with a mirror man.

Let’s be clear man
I don’t want to wait,
but I missed the bus
and its all a bust
cause I am too late
to make anything great
in the face of this climate.

So, I am going through
the motions,
making my last late-night grooves
as I get ready to do
the blue to black move.
Graff1980 Apr 2018
The words are my gift.
Like water skins
of wine
I drink them in,
drunken
with their delight.
Intoxicated,
I stumble.
Inebriated
until I am woozy
with their wonder.

They lift me up
on wax wings
whipping me wildly
around the world
in a whirlwind.
A tornado
of fury
felt,
a furnace
unleashed
in literature
and speech.

Oh, how I love them.
Though they
dally
with other lovers,
who are more gifted
then me,
I do not cheat.

I sing
in poetry,
and like a drunkard
fall with broken wings
swept away
in the melancholia
of knowing
no one will ever love me
like I love this language
you read.
Graff1980 Apr 2017
My bifocals reject me.
Reality is not made for focusing.
It is made for massive blurriness.
There is no true form of clarity,
just varying degrees of disparity.

One man cries out to me
about how he is so hungry.
He has a bloated beer belly
that bulges out of his jeans.
He is crying about the purity
of his country, so angry
about the brown Muslim,
and so close to a stereotype.

Another man is merely weary.
Thin and drawn lines run down
wrinkling his withering form.
Each one that is found
is like the rings on a tree
reminding us all how he is aging.
His shirt is torn and holy as the mother Mary.
His calloused hands are as harsh as
the sandpaper he has been wielding.
While other yielding tools
play in digital pleasure palaces
of instant gratification
go on week long vacations,
he is working, fifty-something
going on seventy-two.
What is a Brown Muslim
supposed to do to prove
he is a good man?

Sister says it’s all gods will.
She loves all strangers.
She has faith and says that I should feel
the divine energy flowing through me,
but life is way more confusing
because more of the faithful
pledge their support
to the greedy and hateful

I can’t see through to the truth
The bifocals might have worked for you,
splitting life into two points of view,
but for me they are pointed askew.
Perhaps I need to find trifocals,
so I can focus on more varying perspectives.
Graff1980 Mar 2021
Unaffected but afflicted, convicted
of the crimes my people have committed,
and all the pain of history that was inflicted;
Sometimes, I get white cisgender guilt
for a system that was already built.
Graff1980 Feb 2017
For the art of poetry
the city streets
stir slowly
waking with me.
A multitude of cars,
follow in front
and behind me.
They look like
that illusion
when two mirrors
reflect eternity
back and forth
between themselves.
They look like
a thousand
distorted reflections
of me
driving at a parallel pace
in different cars
with different faces
going to different places
for the same reason.
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