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CK Baker  Jan 2018
pike place
CK Baker Jan 2018
who lit the candles
placed so eloquently
behind purple rock?
that sculpted radiance,
chapel grace
wound in a chosen
defined way
down the spiral
stone stairs

street cars dawdle
alongside
the packer slew
biding merchants
shuffle their wares
as the front man
and pock face
sing their
holy blues

cut jazz echoes
over the accompanying
gabble and drone
incense and haze
pour from
a lower trap door
sack fish, truffles
and splendid crafts shine
inside the stained glass fronts

a wide mouth snapper
with a bloated tongue
greets the
morning tide
(not camera shy
in the least!)
the fish traps
and beaneries
bring life
to the flourishing causeway

hula hoops
and circle ballers
join the
cobaine stage
favoured rogues
and mac jacks
speak easy
of the big daddy

beth’s triple by pass
taking firm hold on
tricky ****
and the nutcracker
maze ways,
taggers and
lost tunnels
of cu chi
strike a
nerving blow

a poised finger man
belts out his tune
(with a sniff sock
and iterating glare)
his nosey neighbors
cut artisan bread
(with a white wine
and jelly spread)
midwives push forward
for an afternoon
toddle and stroll
The Calm Jul 2016
So as fate would have it they would have it they would take us from our borders

They brought us in as slaves so that we could toil for the hoarders

They put chains on our wrists til we rose our fists

No longer would this pain make our children slit their wrists

Times have changed but some things stayed the same

Some walk around unaware that they’re just wearing a different chain

We became the entertainers, we became the “ballers”

While our slavemasters became the businessman, still the shot callers

Just a monkey with a ball, On the rise it seems, but still we fall

What more can we be?

Can our eyes still see?

Cause when I look at my people in the eyes

I see souls that are satisfied

I see souls that have been pacified

Dreams once in the air but now on the ground

Look around my people, see who wears the crown

Cause our people continue to die and no one makes a sound

Can you say their names?

Can you feel the pains?

Can you feel the agony of a hundred thousand black souls lost for America’s gain?

Will you stand and fight?

Cause a Black America United oh what a sight!

Imagine the might! That we would wield?

With a fire in our hearts that could bend steel

Only then could our 200 year old wounds heal

Only then could we appeal and be apart of this nation under God.
A little American history, Hopefully American Future
Impulzez Nov 2013
It was just a Kiss
It was a fellas hangout
Why I refused? Still don't know
We were all there, ballers and players
Ian was always there, behind
Never fails to appear a Lover
Tonight she is a drunkard
No hold backs; No barrier
"How long Adelaide, how long?"
You can't kiss me in public
I am not your side-chick
No more , No more, NO!
I've done it all, everything
Come dear can we go home
We can talk about this at ....
******* Adelaide! Sit down
These are your friends, aren't they?
Tell them who i am to you NOW!
She's now the Boss, I get Bossed
For your information, giggles!
I'm pregnant and I'm not terminating
Oh! Baby... Don't baby me...
Gabby should have kept quiet
'Hm-mm Sorry can i excused?"
Shut the **** up Gabriel!
Are you saying you aint in this?
Giggles! NG Gabby has a child ...
"What! SLAP! Jeez! ***!
Its enough Ian! SLAP! Silence
Long silence.....
Tears, agony, wailing, pleadings
Guess its more than just a kiss
It always is Stupid...
Ian and Adelaide got married 6 months after.... Please don't try this unknowingly, it doesn't always work...
Callum Krause Apr 2014
Hate is a red pair of Jordan's

Jealous of what they can't have
Swollen with anger
Hate derives from jealousy
Alway wanting more
To fit in with the ballers
The 7 foot giants that they'll never be

To be cooler than an ice
To hit the game winner
Crowd roaring
Adrenaline pumping and coursing
Through aching veins

To have swag
To be like MJ
To be D1 bound
To make it to the league
To get buckets
The string music
Composed by the ball swishing though the net

But it just isn't as simple
As a shiny new pair of shoes
New shoe smell
Fresh out of the box
That cause all this violence
Hatred and ruthlessness
Blood dripping on the cold dark streets

A society where
Shoe game is more important than personality
We pass the
walled incline
of Barbour Park

during the day
a foreboding
patch…an open
air market for
the slave merchants
hustling crack and
**** drippin ****
that's been stepped
on so many times
its a wonder the cut
can still chide a high
out of a wrangled soul

the park’s
modest elevation
is an advantageous
lookout for
runners dealing
dimes while
petty ante
gangstas
daydream
gun blazing glories
of their next big job

not long ago
the park was
refurbed with
an industrial
strength plastic
Jungle Jim,
soon after
the park was
condemned
as a no go
zone for kids,
the litter of
hypodermic
needles and
mounds of
lead spiked
soil, deemed
a public health
risk for youth...
quickly
repurposed
as a crib
for ballers…

back in the
day, the shady
pocket park
lifted Paterson’s
citizenry off
the heated
pavements of
a bustling
thoroughfare

a respite from
the pulsing
tensions of urbanity,
a secular sanctuary,
balancing the urgent
industry of commerce
with the propriety of
residential life

compacting a
brief escape
from the clanging
metronome with
a viewing stand
offering elevation...
a heightened
perspective on
life’s parade
marching
up and down
Broadway…

this urban
oasis planted
at the center
of Silk City’s
grandiloquent
boulevard,
occupies
the most
democratic
equidistant
transit point
between opulent
Eastside mansions
of livin large tycoons
at one end….
and the
industrial district of
The Great Falls,
rising at Broadway’s
western terminus,
assiduously
manufacturing
dollars for the darlings
of fortune and
subsistence for
workers yearning to taste
the crumbs of
prosperity that may fall
from the tables of
opportunity

the park once a
pleasant face of
the landlocked
4th Ward filled
with homage to
a nation's greatest
citizens, Hamilton,
Rosa Parks,
Lafayette,
Madison, Fulton,
Montgomery and
Franklin has
denounced the
virtuous pursuit of
their aspirational
yearnings

now playas
feast on
the mead
of sustenance
harvested from
emaciated streets

commerce has taken
up full residency...
the wards cottage industry
cannibalizing
homes, hoods and
homeboys

as the
4th Ward
grows ugly,
the healthy
matrix of
bustling
street life
breaks down
the peeps
weakened
lay prostate
offer veins
to blood *******
predators
roaming
distressed
going south
neighborhoods

wise guy
knuckleheads,
get busy
gaming
the system
short changing
themselves and
hustling game
to get by
in the sweet bye
and buy of life

at night
a back lit
Barbour Park
floods with the
yellow haze of
blinking Fair St.
lamp posts
and the pulsing
halations
crowning the
Baptist's
of St. Luke's

sentient figures
shift between
park benches
flitting among the
black torsos
of skeletal trees
blending into
the faded
complexion
of abandoned
swing sets

I swear I see
Hurricane Carter
shadow boxing
dancing
around a gangling
Elm, jabbing
away, lifting
a sweet uppercut
working combos
of left hooks
and right crosses
hoping to drop an
intractable
presence
banging away
at a body politic
forming the walls
of taunting
inequities

Hurricane stays
busy delivering
body blows
to burst
through the
prison bars
surrounding
Barbour Park

Music selection:
Bob Dylan, Hurricane

Paterson
01/30/13
jbm

A fragment from extended poem Silk City PIT.  
Published today to honor the death of Rubin Hurricane Carter.
May he find the freedom in eternal rest that eluded him during his lifetime.
A fragment from extended poem Silk City PIT.  (Part 4: Funky Broadway)
Published today to honor the death of Rubin Hurricane Carter.
May he find the freedom in eternal rest that eluded him during his lifetime.
Autumn Mar 2014
Four Years.
Four years
of high school basketball:
has come to an abrupt halt.

You see, we'd swag into the locker room.
Pump up the tunes.
throw on the black air Jordan jump suits
and whip out the pre-game moves.

The three coaches walked in
We listened to the pre-game speech
Popped a couple altoids to "keep it fresh"
then slugged a bit of water

The warm up commenced
Lay-ups
Three on Two
Shooting

One more locker room run.
Jersy's on!
But right back on to the court
Where the fans anticipate.

Just a few more shots
Now one minute left
Time for the National Anthem.
"Gentlemen remove your hats."

Pre-game nerves suddenly sink in.
"Oh say can you see."
Thoughts about the game fill my mind.
I look at the crowd, and my loving team mates.

"And now for tonights starting line-up."
Names announced.
Team has last minute words
one. two. three. "swag" ....Tip-off!

We were so good.
So athletic.
A team with 8 returning seniors
we were such ballers

Conference Champs
District Champs
But we couldn't beat them
"The best team in the state."

We weren't sad about the loss though.
We were sad that we had to leave this team.
This team that we'd been with for four years.
We loved each other more than anything.

The final moments in the locker room were bittersweet.
Tears of sadness, tears of joy
We accomplished so much, but above all
It was about the memories we made together.
ohh I'm gonna miss this
Ayeshah Dec 2013
I never been on

Verses & Flow or Poetry Slam

don't get me wrong

I'd love to be

but me sharing like that on "mic"

scares the ******* life outta me

yet I admit

I want to in fact would love it

But right now-

I can only tell you how I feel
&
this is how I let **** out

express me&sometimes; let you in

so this is a poem I've made about this dude.

A dude whose comforting and new

a dude whose lenient

and beautiful inward & outward.

He talks to me of so many thing

and he has a mind that speak more

volume then money....

I've been know to deal with them  baller's

those who'd spend on me-

the moment I call em.

He's gentle and kind,

mindful of me & my needs

even

funny even at times

when he's joking round with me.

He lights my way and makes me see

not of everything physical,or ****** either

but of inspiring dreams

for me to do better

than what I've been told I could barely achieve

from listening to past assaults

and dead weighted-ended relationships...

To opening the ******* door

& letting me just be ME....

My hair weaves

he complimented

and my braiding techniques too

from my beautiful big lips

plus this luscious **** hours glass phat *** shape

he says baby your amazing

then kisses my forehead

like Taye Diggs did in both The Best Man movies.

When he touched my breast- not in a ****** way

I felt finally safe-

cuz I asked did you feel the lump there

he kisses me on my cheek

tells me it's ok even if my hair falls out

and all my weaves went away,

he's seen me without em,

seen me with out makeup too.

No need to worry since there isn't even a lump,

so he says & I smile widely.

but if it was I'd still be the most beautiful

this he promises me

and looks me right in my eyes.

This dude says he watched me sleep

sometimes until the early morn

and looked at me like I've never

looked at myself.

Mind you I know I'm fine

but barely was I ever able to know my wealth,

to even ******* know myself worth

or who I really was.

Sadly so beautiful but yet I'm so tainted & insecure

He's seen this about me long ago

yet I thought before him-

that love had to hurt

that the pain I've caused me-

from dealing with other types of "love"

from dudes due their share was somehow real

Other dude's who'd spend

and who'd **** me deep & put my *** to sleep

was what love meant

this "love" I was so used to-

was pose to be fist knocking back my head

eyes black in their sockets,

clothes ripped off

and me being slammed to the ground ******

and left bleeding

Left, deserted, abandon

and me sore bruised-

from ever part of me

cops coming once a month

or when he ****** his boss & I went the *******.

Or love was him- telling ole girl in Chi Town

how much he couldn't live with out her

while sitting on the toilet in my house-

in my bathroom after ******* me

and calling it making love.

Or love was pose to be in my head

when he let his cousin get away with ****** me-

yet I was the who got her *** beat.


I thought from

the age of 6

that I was pose to lay there

just spread wide for you

and let you use me

pinch

poke and rule me!

I didn't know this kind of man

so every time dude came around-

I'd chase him away.

telling him

NAW man I don't date white boi

(that's slang for boy)

but
I've dated the Italian and he liked them easy women

the ones he could change and manipulate

I've dated the Natives born of this "America" land

he showed me what my mother tried to hide-

like a drunkard father beating her at night

this was the Native

who wasn't taught how to eve3r be a man

Then there was Paul-

a mixed up race/breed Native too-

Apache yet Mexican and yet American

in New Mexico they're called Chicano's

so guess that what the **** he was

he had the short man complex

and couldn't bother to talk

he thought *** would be pleasurable

but sadly for me & him

his baby toddler *****

just didn't do the trick.

So hurting worded voices loudly spoke

caused me abuse,

I guess it's still my fault-

I allowed them to hurt me.

The smooth talker,

Casanova,

The Ballers,

The players with the nice whips

(That means cars y'all)

The man who could **** out my mind & my brains

get my ***** wet before he even got to my house


The Mr. Fix it-

whose good at fixing ****

but not for being committed

cuz his check wasn't enough to even put a dent in my rent

and his habit of scathing his *****

and calling me ***** just didn't work.

So these are them type motha fuckas

I'm used to-

like ole boy

who'd carry my books

and help me with all my assignments in college

for a peek yet talk and brag about the *** he hadn't ever hit

not me but that's the story he told

lying since his reputation depended on it.

Sorry but this was my thinking this was how it went

& how it was meant or pose to be

yet
the Egyptian had it best

on top of all these dudes.

His was the ultimate

because his lies where centered

by half truths

which I know

know were more lies

than his word sworn on a Qur'an,

he'd **** his best friends wife

then beat me into submission,

**** me- buy me....

BUY Me,

Bought me

like a slave from way back when

buy me

love me

then buy me some mo

He'd buy all kinds of **** to keep me claiming for me

houses, cars, jewelry,

and name brand items- I'd have a black eye,

ribs smashed to pieces,

but **** I looked real cute

limping round  in my new **** from

Sax 5th Avenue, Dolce & Gabbana, Prada & Versace.

**** name it & I maybe already had it


this is the same man who saved me from

being ***** by my foster father,

yet he became like the foster father

he saved me from

seemingly

after we've became husband & wife...

So when dude comes calling

I hold back built higher walls,

push him away,

fight and get in his face,

waiting for the monster to come out

waiting for him

to slam me to the floor or ground

I never believe a word he says

always looking for a reason or excuse

calling him lair and fake

telling him to ******* & go away

never really given him a

chance for him to be my man.

I be mean and I make him wait

but he says I know your pain

and together we can make it

just let's take it day by day.

He kisses me lightly,

caresses me tenderly

massages me to sleep

listen to my every word

and gives great advise,

has been a friend and part of the family

he has opened me

to expressing his own

pains trails & tribulations


never judgmental or abrasive

not even abusive

not even a little bit.


But
my ****** up mind is so scared

so afraid and ****** I'm worried

.

Honestly my hearts succumbed to his un-willful ways

but I can't fathom

once more being hurt

and I don't know if I even want to

yet I think I do.

So tell me help me please

explain

give advise and tell me

how do I say no when for many months now

he's been making me the center of

His Universe?!

Always Me Ayeshah ®
Copyright ©
Ayeshah
K.C.L.N 1977 - Present YEAR(s)
All right reserved ®
This has a lot of cussing/swearing in it so if you're not into it or any other ****** language please do not read it thanks.
Redshift Jun 2013
finger-paint yourself a picture
on a canvas destined for nothing more
than late-night
one-night
kisses

arrange fabric on a doll
that was store bought
for perfection
owned by jealousy
mocked by
lessers

stain lips
to never speak
gentle words
train lips
to reside
in perfect pouts

school eyes
in fluttering
slitted
hooded
gestures
arrange toes
into smooth, unbroken shapes
to be molded
in a set of high heels
high ballers
high flyers
being higher on the food chain
only makes you
more likely
to be consumed
and if we are anything
we are
consumers

limited
to materialistic consumption
we dress ourselves up like
a sweetshop-confection
topped with gucci
and laced with victoria's secret
lucidity

it's not hard to see
what we're about
if this is a judgement
of clear intentions
we are the clear
winners

our faces are perfect
optical illusions
standing on an assembly line
waiting for someone to take a shine
to the curve of our hips
lips
chest
there is nothing to confess
our cards are laid
only after
we
are
oh, humanity.
Broadway B Dec 2011
Never from streets

So I don’t know what it’s like
To fight for every bite
To **** for my steals
To sell dope for hope

Naw I’m not tryin to be mockery
I’m just starting to realize that democracy
Is just plain Hypocrisy

See I’ve never been a fan of the man
White, Black, any of them

I’m so caught up being an individual
That I’ve become delusional

How can one day we’re all about supportin’ each other
And then the next
We’re all vexed
in each other’s faces
Throwing out words about different races and old time cases
Can’t we just erase this?

Times are changing
But what about our foundation
Under the words of our Nation
And all things by His creation

Have we forgotten about that?

I feel like I can’t connect to my neighbor
So honoring them doesn’t fit my favor
To my left to the right
By day by night
I feel like I don’t know ****
About this:

The Election
Personifying my Perfection
Finding a Connection
To myself to us

Can Obama STOP the drama?
Can they end all this trauma?
Of young girls being ***** out of their virginity
All these little boys out here actin’ all hard
Because they forgot about unity

Wishes
Broken dishes
Fame
Not getting’ paid

600 Billion Dollars?
All to support the white collar
****…they must be mad ballers
Sittin all high livin fly
Not even worrying about how they gon get by

Half of ‘em don’t even have to try

I want to reach out and hold my brother
Let me be his cover

Thru the brush fires, quakes, shakes, and floods
Not one blood
Our bloods

Coming together in a place of Brotherhood
Shaking every other’s hand
Construct a band
Of Solidity
Of Strength
Of Loyalty
And With this
We cannot foil
And the black oil
Bleeding into our conscious streams
Will find a way to cease
If we increase
Our bond

I just want to be United
And be in different States

I just want to be One Nation, under God, Indivisible
Having the Liberty
To give and have Justice
For all.

*God Bless.…I guess…
Matthew Harlovic Oct 2014
On the paint chipped pavement we went over the rules:
NO cherry bombs, NO bobbling,
NO lower-ballers, spin-tops,
chalk walkers, twenty fingers,
and especially NO  skyscrapers.
So for a few minutes we played as raw as apple skin knees,
it was the roughest, toughest, hard-nosed game
of four square any fourth grader has ever seen.
But it was all over when someone crossed the line.
There was fussing, cussing, and an accusation of the mustnt’s.
Eyebrows adjacent, we argued and clawed like kilkenny cats,
we were breaking rules, we crossed the chalk.
We took sides and worst of all,
the one crucial act that we regret,
we slammed the ball down.
It towered overhead like window washers
and landed on the school’s roof.
We stopped arguing. Nobody won that day.  

© Matthew Harlovic

— The End —