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Jillian Baker Apr 2015
Tonight I realized I was very wrong
It came to me in the form of a dream
When music bleeds to water running long
Not nearly unremarkable it seems.

Tonight I realized I was unfair, dear
To think a need for more was ever there
All of my worries amplified by fear
I might be seen as too mundane to bear.

You, you see the value in the quiet
Inestimable bliss to be entwined.
Raise my pulse to reach a screaming riot
With any touch or trinket you could find.

I'll ask for no one promise to abide,
Just dance with me and fall asleep beside
Jillian Baker Apr 2015
What safer a place than below my bed
where no one would think to find you,
with things unused and wilted dead
no light with which to blind you,
So out of sight that one would think
you're kept there by neglect
but deep beneath my covers sink
the things best to protect.

How preserved a home, below my head
through pillow, mattress, frame
to keep a work whose letters bled
to the synapses of my brain
where fingers fleeting flashing flop
on a yellow aged face
black below but red on top
in a dark unnoticed place

Where more fitting a home than amongst my socks,
that housed my toes so neatly
with your friends the Shoe and the Kleenex box,
I have locked you in completely
So out of touch with all the world
you feel you've been dismissed,
your dusty coat and your edges curled
any stranger would resist

What safer a place than below my bed
where only I will enjoy your wonder
pages untouched and poems unread
We'll cast the rest asunder
Should the day some where someone knelt
To take one fateful look
Abashed the emotions flowing felt
of my favourite childhood book.
Written about a book of children's poetry by the same title, written by Eugene Field
Jillian Baker Apr 2015
Where marinated in our murky past
have we found justification for the travesties we do,
build prisons where our prejudice lasts,
and allow its prisoners to fester as they stew

I have felt this heat.
The flame which boils in the toils of others,
whose oils lick embers into wildfire.
And we fall back into the Dark Ages.

where minds who place burden on those with different skin
slink flicking flint to fire, raising from the earth
the walls we have spent decades taking apart one brick at a time.

one brick at a time,
comment by comment,
each passing moment
condone it.
ignore it.

passivity pays the builders of this monument.
who see no wrecking ***** to stop them.
passivity, fills the pockets of the petty
coin by coin collecting courage to speak
outwardly outrageous
slurred hate speech contagious
barbary amounts its fortress from our silence,
one brick at a time.

I have seen the origins of intolerance,
holding together the cinder blocks of utterance
all the moments we should have said something and didn't.
In my selfish silence I see senselessness slip past my snares.
In my hush I hear hate harrow the ventricles of hearts much weaker
than the speaker.

Loathing left untended like
loose mountain snow
will like an avalanche gain strength
in movement.

To you,
the architects of abhorrence
the creators of execration
I plead:  lay down your urban dictionaries.
Know that you lay a foundation
whose structure will build  up,
but whose existence will tear down.

To you,
those who watch the construction
and stare in silence sufferance,
know that although no sweat has fallen,
and no aid has been laid by your hand,
That this malicious monument is as much yours
as it is theirs, through your willingness to watch it go up
one brick at a time.
This was originally written as a spoken word piece.

— The End —