#brown poems on Hello Poetry

Christopher F Brown Aug 2017

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

#too #many #people #have #your #name #poetry #christopher #f #brown

Christopher F Brown Aug 2017

Closure

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

#closure #christopher #f #brown #a1abwriterwordpresscom #poetry

Lisa Jul 2017

Coffee

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.

#coffee #black #dark #brown #perfect #eyes #love #real #dream #awake

Lisa Jul 2017

If I told you

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.

#brown #colour #color #ugly #beautiful #yellow #happy #smile #bounces #gross

Christopher F Brown Jul 2017

Charles & Frank

“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

#charles #frank #poetry #a1abwriterwordpresscom #christopher #f #brown

Naomi Hurley Jul 2017

Brown Eyed Girl

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

#love #confidence #brown #eyes #vanmorrison #song #envy #depression #selfconsciousness #selfesteem

Eiram N Jul 2017

Brown Eyes

harrowing
brown-eyed
darting into corners,
sweet stories
yourself
don't see
in the luster
of irises
forbidding intensity
stole twinkle,
kaleidoscopic looks and
now there's only
a testy glint left.

#brown #eyes #precious #life #depression #suicidal #pain #soul

q Jun 2017

Brown

Some swoon for emerald green
Others melt for icy blue
Stormy grey and midnight black or maybe amber hue
Blended colour of different fleck

In truth, these tones are beauty
Yet none tempt me like another
It is brown, that draws me in
Colour tears through me; comforting and promising.

Traps me in a stupor
The colour of mahogany woods
Deep, dark and enticing
Luring my body into nirvana

Mysterious and evil
Eyes of eagle leaving me blind
Spreading rampant, this fire you elicit
Clouding my mind, invading my thoughts

Colour deep within
Hints of pain and vulnerabilities
No longer can I pretend
It is you from the beginning

Stones of your eyes, they rope me in
Colour of earth-kissed by rain
The hue of life that wrecks my being
Though I try, lacking it seems
It is brown, with wicked glint
Every shade of brown you could imagine
Glowing with warmth, reflecting mischief
Sending me shivers, pulling me in.

#brown #poem #spilledink #color #eyes

Christopher F Brown Jun 2017

Morning rain in summer

That feeling you get

when you wake up to rain in the middle of June.

You can get rid of the people that make feel this way but

You cant stop the rain
You could move but be serious

There will always come a day when

When you wake up to rain in the middle of June

Smile hard
be the sun

© Christopher F. Brown 2017

#poetry #christopher #f #brown #a1abwriterwordpresscom #morning #rain #in #summer

Maitreyi May 2017

eyes mine know well but cannot meet

has no one ever told you that
your eyes aren't brown?

your gaze has borrowed from a hundred places
a colour i'd use to paint a million pictures
clay, i think,
soft clay from the hills and valleys
with the spring-kissed earth
on those postcards you send
only to the ones you love.
your eyes have every shade of colour i ever gathered
as a child from the old pebble beach,
and golden specks; i'm certain
the sun once danced inou.
the falling leaves of autumn
have swirled into the way you look at me,
teaching me new languages,
of storms, of sentiment, and of silence.
surely,
if the smell of rain was made of a colour,
your eyes would be its name.

did the fireflies learn from your piercing gaze?
i know i want to.
i know the stars slipped out last night,
with only your eyes as their excuse.
i've mastered the art of tiptoeing past
the crackle at their surface,
and into the beckoning flame.
a kind of candlelight;
searing at the edges, yet
gentle at the core.

#his #eyes #love #beautiful #gentle #colours #colour #shades #brown #gaze