For ages
Saddled with
Domestic chores
Confined indoors
With a traditional muzzle
Devoid of a voice
With fellow housewives
We were sweltering
Under the class
And gender yoke
Seen weak though
We were strong as a rock.

Things taking
A positive turn,
When people about
Women's potential
Came to learn,
Enjoying a level ground
And expertise,
An outshining
Women farmers
We have begun to enjoy
A handsome return.

After unremitting exertion
In a special way
Drawing attention
Investor we have indeed
Created job opportunities
For numerous in need
On their turn who have
Many mouths to feed.

We members of the fair ***
If not denied a chance
Could outsmart
Many a man, in a given
Task, grappling with his part.

In the Science
And political arena
Ladies that prove brilliant
Must come to the limelight.

In the military
And peacekeeping task
On the athletics track...,
There are also women
Who merit a tap on the back.

Breaking the double yoke
Must be the era's talk
Gender based discrimination
Should  no longer  pose
In development's wheels
A spoke!
Let  this volubly
Resonate from
North to South
And from Beijing
To New York!

That shy labour laden folk
stares in full force tunes
a dogmatic humour
of blunt double edged time
It's as if the tone of the skin
is an artist mix-up makeup
such an angry ignorant world

Dig the ground to depths
Ping the bells in the nights
Ding the **** in sight

In a world where right is wrong
the wrong that is the ethical truth
a shiny death bed with rotten caskets
masks of superior contextual ego
the masters sedated in the graveyards
the rulers selected in dark tunnels
such an angry ignorant world

Trick the graphs in halves
Move the lines in curves
Construct the earth as carves

Line up these thoughts and crunch
That a man is man, his deed maketh him
His action is his absolute character
the colours we wear makes us act
ruthless like dogs in the dead jungle
spit those words, eat the falsified values
starve to see the plentiful truth
Such an angry ignorant world

Paint the canvas of the time
The fallen sense of the mime  
*Un-cleansed humanity dime

Out of her own womb, him she bore
Growing up, finding himself, himself he tore
He told her his secret, and she made him sore
And still she's saddened when he can take no more

let me paint you a picture
in shades of black and white
in shades of those who ****
and those who fight
this is what racism looks like
black men with paper hearts
armed with cardboard swords
white men dipped in ivory steel
white men born armed with skin
it's a black man with hands
raised to the heavens
and seeing hell as his last sight
this is what racism feels like
it's your black breath
being ****** out of your lungs
by white hands of white men
dressed in blue gilded in gold
this is what racism sounds like
it's an 18-year old's last words
it's a mother's cry at a police station
it's a bullet racing through the air
this is what racism is
it is not poetry
it's a black man wearing a red shirt
and getting shot six times
this is no crusade
there is no holy purpose
this is the star-spangled truth
a flag drenched in black blood
this is the truth bared in ink
and no poetry can save it

the words that flow from my soul

to my veins and out through my fingertips,

to most are obstructed by either confusion, misunderstanding

or whatever other baggage they carry that won't let my abstract thoughts

penetrate their unfortunate heavy epicenter.



never have my expressions been powerful enough to break them,

i met you, spent half a day with you, and you left,

that was it, gone, just like that,

1,000's of miles away.



but however, whatever ill-fated scenario that was,

we speak to each others soul, lover we don't even have the same native tongue,

yet you understand my core better than any other that has ever entered my leading light.



i'm taken back to a child-like state,

i feel scared, forlorn.

i'm afraid just like an absent father,

you will provide me with certainty that it will happen.



sweetheart, i hate to break this to you but,

age doesn't pause for life, love or the desire to pursue you

as scary as it may be, if what is spoken to me is true

that dive, as deep, as dark as it may be, know i am writing to you from the depths.

i vow, i won't let you drown. please, babe, dive in,  

my skin is only withering without you.



love & art, 1991

henk holveck

This country was founded on the idea of being who you are in liberty, yet there are people stuck in closets because the monsters are on the other side and the darkness has become too comforting at this point. The face of death has become too beautiful to want to turn away. We are hidden, dancing around the idea of being hung as perfectly as that shirt that was “too gay”. We are wondering how to propose to the Grim Reaper because at this point, he is the only man who can “make us straight”, at least in my case. Others would give him a blow in exchange for their soul. The asexuals, though, are finding the words to ask death out on a coffee date. We’re all just thinking and wishing. We’re rolling out our blueprints and studying the structure of surviving instead of accepting that we’re different and actually living. The pride that used to live in us died a long time ago. Maybe around the same time we were in the closets writing our suicide notes. For me it was the day my mother said the idea of me having lesbian friends gave her headaches. Let me not even get into how high her blood pressure would rise if I told her she had a pansexual daughter. “Had”. Now I am but a corpse living among the resurrected by Christ and I constantly ask myself when God is going to baptize me. I ask myself when I am going to stop looking like a zombie from the Walking Dead because, ******* it, I never learned the script or signed up for any of this. I never even wanted to be an actress. I wanted to be a singer. I wanted to sing the songs of my love for her and let the paparazzi spread rumors of how I cheated because I’m that ******* hot. Mother, I wanted to be a singer, but you ripped my tonsils out and told me to smile for the camera and look pretty. But mother, have you ever thought of something? What if she’s the only one I want to look pretty for?

Burrowing, digging, feasting on us
A parasite using humanity as a host
Eating at the necessities and essentials
Stealing away your pride and credentials

What it is, is the all knowing dictator, the “man”
The one who points at everyone but himself
A false prophet propped up by influence and money
Got where he is through manipulation so ugly

A hard worker unrecognized
A leader tunneled on wealth
A family poor and despised
A nation swimming in its own filth

People’s portraits painted a certain colour
For other’s to see and blame without reason
Under a veil of justice there is corruption
Down below is the pain of separation

A world dictated by status and privilege
Equality is but a myth, a dystopian notion
The head is corrupt, parasite in control
A body in pain, paying the ultimate toll

A baby crying, now starving
A politician crying, now corrupt
A soul crying, now departing
A flower crying, now plucked

People may hurt you through mind,
yet mind will only gain.
People may say mean things,
yet if you persevere you will be stronger for it.
People may be kind,
yet hidden they may be.
People may change,
so chances you may give.
People may be different,
yet difference is strength.

In a perfect world, equal opportunity would be a facet of every society, not just a promise made and then recanted.  
In a perfect world, fixed annuity would be given out with staunch sobriety, and the cries of poverty would cease being chanted.

In a perfect world, the disparity of race would be forgotten, replaced with celebratory practice of traditions, preserved.
In a perfect world, discrimination would no longer be begotten, and nothing but compassion and kindness would be reserved.

In the perfect world, medicine would work like magic, with disease being left as a thing of the past.
In the perfect world, a diagnosis of cancer would no longer be tragic, and our bodies would be engineered to last.

Yet, the future’s uncertain, and the past’s all but gone
So the present must be where our battles are won
If a perfect world is what we desire
It must be done now
Where our bones are unweary
And our minds shall not tire