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Timothy Ward Sep 2017
Louis Brown Jan 2011

The Old Magnolia Tree

Beneath the old magnolia tree
I used to hold you close to me
And there I carved upon that tree
That I loved you and you loved me

Beneath the white magnolia blooms
You cast a spell with your perfume
I believed those wooden words were true
Ingrained in hearts of me and you

But time wears out what boys engrave
Nothing's left of the love you gave
Except that old magnolia scar....
I wish our love had come so far

Yeah, I wish those words were still on track
Cause every spring I dream me back
To tender lips and sweet perfume
Beneath the white magnolia blooms

But time wears out what boys engrave
Nothing's left of the love you gave
Except that old magnolia tree
Reminding me.....reminding me......
Copyright Louis Brown
------

This was a poem I wrote to honor Mr Brown whom I sadly never got to know but was a brilliant poet on HP!
Miss his verse...

Ode To Mr. Louis Brown

We wish we knew you Mr Brown

The lights glow dim in Poetry Town

We stand beside Magnolia trees

And pray your soul is fancy free



I read your verse with teary eyes

And hope that I can be as wise

You were a gentle soul of song

The joy you brought is just as strong 



I'm glad your verse you did not brave
Upon Magnolias to engrave

Your words of wit are safe with me

For Poetry Town is your tree!



Unlike that old Magnolia tree

Poetry Town is full of spree

She was a fool to lose your crown

But we'll always love you Mr. Brown!
Mr Louis Brown has a phenomenal body of work on HP and plz visit his collection if you're searching for poets to read. He has great meter verse and rhyme in his poetry given that he was an accomplished songwriter as well.
Lisa Aug 2017
How are you?
are you looking for me how I look for you?
In between and around every person?
Waiting for me to pop out and I love you?
How many others have you loved?
Am I the first?
Am I the last?
Am I second?
I think you will be loving,
And smart and well as kind.
Where are you right now?
Are you with someone else, are you in love?
Are you with me?
Are you at the end of a bridge? Looking down the edge for hope?
Do you have brown hair, maybe blonde? I wonder what kind of quirks you have like walking only on the outside part of the side walk or holding my hand when you are nervous?
Did I know you? Were we friends or strangers just wondering past meeting just at the right time?
Are we still in love?
Were we every in love?
Or are you a dream?
Like me.
trinity Aug 2017
my mother once said,
"brown eyes are so beautiful,
but they're so sad, too."
my mom didnt really say this but uhh
Anthony Reynolds Aug 2017
How do you describe brown eyes?
Dirt, mud, earth, none of these suffice
Too much to beauty for most to realize
Too much depth for some to think why

Seeing them first thing in the morning,
Warmer than a cup of cocoa on a cold winter day.
Deeper than any earth on which we stand
They welcome you. They make you want to stay

Sweeter than chocolate, they'll relieve all the pain
One good look into them and those thoughts run astray
Like with a sweet tooth they are something you crave
Please make sure they don't melt away
When I first met you
you could barely stand
yourself

your words
not mine

It wouldn’t have been fair
asking you to stand with me

Unfair to me
not you


I see you question yourself now


“Can they see?”
“Do they know?”

You know you only hide
masks
shells
I laugh because you’ve even tried fur

Some see
Some know

And you pray
To see them before they see you

And you pray
To know them before they know you

I’ll say a French sigh instead of writing it
Anyway

You play a game called self
Id like to ask you some questions
but you already knew that didn’t you


© Christopher F. Brown 2017
If I ever become famous
I want to tell you

The Oakland that raised me
has changed

Its spirit is still the same
but
its body
its composition
-or at least the parts I knew-
are irrevocably different
from what I knew

The house that my grandmother lived in

for over 30 years

was fashioned to four bedroom
800k
two-story cottage
never mind the generations worth we had their already

Something similar happened to the homes my aunts lived in
Something similar happened to the homes my friend’s aunts lived in

The once cozy and comfy street corners in the
Black Neighborhood
began to be filled with **** attics asking for food and money
pulling fat bloated dogs behind them.

The once cozy comfy street corners in the
Black Neighborhood
that use to be outposts for Muslims selling newspapers and bean pies
turned to base settlements for those in need that had the cleverest sign

They tell me now that I’m from

“Old Oakland”

The smells from the Granny Goose and Mother’s cookie’s factories
still fills Stonehearst’s playground when I dream that of a time gone by


Old Oaklanders Remember

When you could hop on the bus and get a hotlink from Flints
We Remember taking the BART to the colosseum station and seeing
Our Mural
on hallowed ground.
Panthers, Politicians, and everyday People
Reflecting Us
By Us

That’s gone now

Across the street is the
New Mural
on capitalist ground
Patriotic Propaganda
Reflecting someone miles away
By someone that’s just getting paid

There is even a shuttle that takes you directly to the airport now
No more interacting with the locals

Old Oaklanders Remember

When Raiders moved to LA
We welcomed them back
Now they are moving to LV
Its an Oakland thing
you wouldn’t understand


The New Oakland wants to Fight The Old Oakland
Its want to take Laney away
(a small part it says)
and build
The New A’s Stadium

The Small Part it wants isn’t Big enough
to do the new thing they want to do
Us Old Oaklanders know how this goes
the small little part
for the new little thing
gets bigger and bigger until all

The Old is Gone


If I ever become famous
I want to tell you

The place that manufactured the mold of my making is under new management
Even the surrounding areas have transformed


Downtown Berkley once had a cornucopia of bookstores with blocks of one another
Crystal and smoke shops
mom and pop knickknack shops that sold real Ethiopian coffee
40 year old pen shops
30 year old record shops

All gone

They have restaurants now

The strip of Telegraph or University where you could once see
Rockers with 8 inch spiky green Mohawks
Getting high with
Burnt out hippies
and Keeping the peace and spreading the love with
North Oakland Generals

has all been replaced

Conservative A type international students studying
STEM or accounting and finance that all
“hate it here”
But want to make a lot of money
and will when they are done
and will make more when they build their empire back home

That is the Downtown Berkeley you see.

If I ever become famous
and someone goes looking about the places where my feet traveled
and the body of my youth laid
I want to tell you

You wont find it

“Old Oakland”

Only exists in the hearts of the Old Oaklanders
Living in parts far and wide

They have even stopped calling North Oakland
North Oakland

Now its

Temescal,
Some far reach of Emeryville
or even a direction of Berkeley

but its not
Its Oakland

And it will always be Oakland




© Christopher F. Brown 2017
Lisa Jul 2017
You sit at your table and stare at your Coffee
it's black
because if you add coffee creamer it stops looking like her dark brown eyes,
so you just sit and stare and wait.
For someone who doesn't exist to pop up because for you she was perfect,
she was outgoing and fun and loved the same music and the same colour,
yellow,
That was the colour she wore when you met, it was at that moment you two fell in love but it was short lived, she was the sun and you a sunflower following her, but she was an idea, a dream and when you dream, you wake up,
And You woke up and went
To sit at your table,
at six in the morning,
to drink your coffee,
No longer black.
Lisa Jul 2017
If I told you my favorite colour was yellow would you believe me?
Even if I was smiling and bouncy and happy as could seem.
You would believe my lies in yellow that happiness in it beacuse i truly love brown but you would question it cause it's ugly and gross and not smiley and bouncy and happy as could be.
But separate brown take it apart peice by piece and see the colour it took to make brown see the yellow and greens the blues and reds the purples and orange and see all, all the effort put in to brown pick it apart and see that I do want you to pull me apart too,
see me like brown,
see what I took and place to make it me to make me seem happy as could be seem look at the yellow colour i say so I seem like me
My favorite colour is brown but you wouldn't believe me beacuse it's ugly and gross and doesn't seem happy as could be.
“You wanna go to the crystal shop with me?
  Maybe some coffee?”

First things we said

Buying matching bullhorns
for later


I’ll show you how to wrap sage
leaves
You can show me how to build
a fire

Lucky
Blessed
Charmed
Happy

We didn’t have to wait
long


We’ll make a pact


We’ll promise to grow old
Side by side
We know we’re already
Dead

This was the first time
We understood


Oui



© Christopher F. Brown 2017
Naomi Hurley Jul 2017
Van Morrison wrote a song
about me.

And yet the beachy, surf-rock
guitar and loving lyrics
couldn't convince me
that I
was
beautiful.

I envied those with light eyes
Blue,
Green, or
Grey
I saw mine as being
Flat,
Dull, and
Dark

And found yet another reason
to wish that I was
someone
else.

But then you came along.

You saw more than just...
brown.

You looked at me with those
bright baby blues
those shining windows
of a clear summer day

You told me they were brown...
but also
Hazel
and
Auburn
in the sunlight
with specks of gold
"Big love crumbs"
as one of our favorites
would say

I always wanted to be
someone else.

Now, I dread the thought
of being anyone
but yours.

And now, I hear
Van Morrison singing
for the
First Time.
Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da
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