Another bottle down,
Hoping it can distort truth
Maybe if the mirror’s fogged, it can’t reflect
Can’t show him the middle-aged wreck.

Another chug of warm swill,
Hops molded, no bubbles, flat
Looking at baby pictures and a bag of teeth
Mummy left them, he feels the pain in his jaw
Maybe with another swig, he’ll be rid of it all.

Father watches from his sick bed,
Colostomy bag overflowing,
The excrement covers the scent of shame
As eyes barely raise to see his progeny

No he’s clicking the button to call the morphine
Drips entering to send him to a new dream,
Unable to stand the sight of his kindred,
As the boy that became a man, indigent.

Bryan takes another swig of clotted wine
A Merlot collecting dust upon his desk,
The keyboard is crusted over, white film, flaky
As he tends to his perversions, hoping a spark can awaken

On here he can be anyone,
But his lungs fail to inflate fully
And the liver shrivels to a freeze-dried remnant,
It’s only been minutes, but he shakes
Begging with forgiveness
Needing something to wash down the pittance
One more swig’ll do her!
Another drink to soothe.

As father watches on,
Glazed eyes and singing Aussie songs
He’s ******* post the catheter bag
Flowing yellow rivers down his bedside

Dreams fill his head,
Hoping Bryan dies,
So he could mend and heal,
Watching as he sips forever,
With jaundiced, glassed-over eyes.

If he could write it,
Or murmur sound
He’d say he was disappointed
But all he does is frown

While Bryan,
Consumed with trauma
Caught in his self-made prisons
Drowns in a sea of sick
And cheap bourbon.

Forever a child in a man’s husk
Daddy’s little burden.

To me it's strange, the way they speak.
The poets of the ivory peaks.
The ivory's gone, but it's some other thing
I can't afford. That luck won't bring.

Their words are nonsense, their tales obscure,
and I endure
strange sentences and structures
to be a part, and perhaps procure
an understanding of the
heavy handed
application of articulation.
The inebriation of contemplation
of words and rhymes.
Perhaps it will come to me in time.

It is the story of my life.
An unavoidable,
like pain, like light.
The door is open, the hands invite
but the hearts are frozen, with hands that write
about love and romance, pain and longing
where is the tale of the brothers belonging
and sisters working the marathon strings
of shifts to pay to raise a child.
The horrors of a society gone wild.

Where is the working class writer of poems
the wordsmith trained on the limited knowing
where is the voice of those rarely heard?
Where are their stories? Where are their words?

Twenty-five cents.
To most, this insignificant amount of money is spent with little worry or care.
Twenty-five cents.
To me, it’s all I have. I worry I’ll die with a quarter to my name.
I care about the number I see on my phone screen as I check my bank account.
Twenty-five cents.
A trivial coin given to a child to buy a trivial toy.
Twenty-five ******* cents.
A pang in my gut as I see the history of every purchase,
every dollar spent, every card swiped.
Twenty-five cents.
It’s all that remains.

By Abpoetry

Suffered my whole life.
Tryna' keep a job , keep the checks flowing,
Keep the momentum of the ongoing,
I was a pawn of the unknowing,
35 jobs and still nothing felt right,
A black man can only build so much foresight,
Odds was always stacked against me too,
I needed a outlet , I needed to fight,
Then I soon realize being a slave wasn't really an option,
They want you to work til you still in a coffin,
Third eye banged and punched out of my Noggin,
**** prosecution and **** being an object,
A number , a gear in the cog wheel,
Meditate now , I could feel what nature feel,
powers been growing , I don't derive from guilt,
Ask me what I know , you won't believe in the matrix still,
Job / School / Prison , same thing,
Please , bare , witness, vibrate,
Everything , timelines happening all at once,
So in Another I'm probably rich for god sakes,
Been thru a lot , So if Another ***** Tell Me That She Don't
Want Me Cause I'm "Broke",
I Didn't want you anyway.

He belongs to it
As a citizen of the nation:
Another voice among the crowd,
A plebian shotuing outside the assembly.
Raise up your hands, my compatriots,
And let them hear your opinions!
Is the conduct quiet? Loud?
Have you dampened all other noise out?
Do you have an ear to listen?
It's a re-run made parody
Having been so shoddily done
From being so poorly conceived
By a lack of understanding.

King!
My coronation was a trial by fire.
A heavy orchestration of pain casted upon me was my test of ascension
mechanisms of a divine imagining
that which has stretched me beyond thresholds of innocent humanity presented me another edge to my identity
sharper
Cutting deeply into my flesh, that divides like the most tender choice
yet
teaching me equally valuable lessons  
furthering my progression, in life.

The throne is uncomfortable to me.
They lament to me, constantly, that I will “grow into it”
this, abominable seat of my dubious existence here
it’s vast backrest, comprised of a fallible love
petrified skeletal appendages – arms
and various metacarpal complete with long, gnarled, and bony fingers.
It does, whenever I should take a seat, reach into my back, to give a malicious massage to my soul, yet, it does become a shield, of sorts, protecting me from the multitude of tormented souls that fall behind me.
My back
it becomes stressed
all the while I am approached by the denizen of our lower realm.

In such
I am a mastermind to the humbled classes
the discarded region of society’s social classes,
wherein the poor persists, without fruition, in attempting to escape a den of poverty,
akin to the various ways that obstreperous children may try to exit a room secured by vigilant adults
just to reach a room filled with never-ending sugar.
This realm, it is where I am directed to guide.

My crown
oh
it is cumbersome and burdensome upon my crest
heavy is this appointed ornament
to me it is a compliment to the curse
to them – it is a highly important adornment.
Unbeknownst, however, to the masses that wander under moonlight shows,
it slows my pace
akin to stepping double-time through moonlit painted snow
cold.
At times, it causes me to perceive that I am entertaining them,
a frost king
it penetrates my flesh and bones
corrupting my other sanities
now, no doubting or second guessing
hands, that gripped my head many moons prior delivering me from my greatest vessel, were immediately replaced
Excruciating!
I can recall
the unfathomable pain that saturated my newly emerged head
crowning into light that glared proudly from high above - divine!
My departure from a blessed, blood and sweat drenched ***** concluded with them crowning me.

I stand triumphant still
Moses would smile feverishly upon beholding the liars I have killed
Souls that I have saved.

She graduated the highest of class
remove my concern and the drugs would have taken her away
he could have walked away
a worker with no employer
his jobless gains
were too weak to sustain.
The child was a storm between he and the weary lover
filthy, she always thought
lack of maintenance and how the sheets wore their stains
though, he never gave up
his loyalty to his firm – begotten her diamond rings
six mouths that, gleefully, devour his sufficient gains.
lo
remove my torment!
That he could behold my struggle
lo, if I had failed to set an example he would have walked away

Oh!
My throne and crown are brutal to me
agonizing
acknowledged
appreciated
in life I will persist to possess my position gracefully
children now grow as men of learned minds
therein those gloomy alleys of sordid squalor
I serve with, merely, the shards of a broken, yet, celestial knowledge
and, I pray, the most high father will accept my offerings, from my most meagerly harvests.

Lo
most high father
my coronation was a trial defined by struggles
of survival
of the most furious fires!
I am ready!
I think.

Jonah Singleton 2024 ©️