#slam poems on Hello Poetry

Josie Patterson Feb 2015

I’ve been conditioned
like freshly washed hair
for years
do not offend
unless the end of the sentence is “im sorry”
let the shoes and boots and heels of many make indents on you
like blueprints of demurity swaddled in insecurity
kept alive by the blurry ideas i once held about femininity
because i couldn't be a girl if the words that flew from my chords
were anything but rosy
ring around the Josie, pockets full of suppose he was to compliment your ****
when walking down a thorough-fair
busy people back and forth and grandmas with wrinkled sweaters
thank you
muttered from chapped lips and an even more chapped psyche
why must i keep my wits about to not risk making him angry
that was not complimentary but i am fearful he might spit my words back onto me
in the form of fists and slurs and honestly
im tired
of being the sidewalk beneath the feet of creeps
i am the sky and the trees and the moon
but i do not speak with the wisdom of travelling seeds
i speak with the warmth and subtlty of freshly microwaved milk
like soft silk i wish i could tatter
i wish venom soaked words could be spit in response to your “compliments”
but i would rather let you diminish me for the few moments it takes to objectify me
than to risk angering your inner beast and suffering the consequences of meninism or masculinism
whatever the word is this week
i will not be another number
ink soaked paper red with the monthly bloodshed of the sisters
every second is another unspeakable act
i see women
with tongues as round and large as planets
and tonsils the size of solar systems
birthing new galaxies in the words they speak
and shooting comets like fiery ***** of comebacks
when that slack-jawed fool sat and wished and drooled
into his monthly issue of mens rights magazine
she tore down the even minuscule belief he could have had that he had the right to comment on her body
in three seconds his pride, and entitlement
shifted into shame
and embarrassment
and i envy these women
because the only time i can take back my power
is when i am standing in front of a room
speaking rhymes and metaphors preaching independence and strength
to a group of people who now think i am a hero
i am not a hero
i put my shoes on one foot at a time
and i still manage to forget a couple days of birth control here and there
and i cant stand up for myself
in the moments after an attack i retreat into my latte and pray today will not be the day the male dominated society takes my power away
because i am small
and though i am growing every day
i still can only pray
that one way or another
i will be able to be as strong a woman as my sisters
my mother
and take back my power
and speak not with the beauty of a flower
but with the sharpness of a bumblebees sting
and one more thing
your compliments
are not complimentary

#poetry #street #voice #feminism #slam #slampoem #compliments #harassment #standingup

Silence Screamz Feb 2015

Slam

.        In a thrown back setting of yesterday year. I sat and listened. A varying degree of items decorated the walls. A confused but organized look, this place embraced me, like a mother holding her delicate baby for this first time.
       The round stone table that I sat, held this feeling of cold steel. Hundreds of bottle of wines lined one wall, they reminded me of ranked up soldiers coming home from the battlefields of the world. The pinot noir from California to the sangiovese from Italy, all waiting to be greeted by their fellow countryman and I loved them all. The warm lighting was soft set, taking me back in time when life was good and simple.
       Across the room, a small group gathered to reminisce about times forgotten. Sharing drinks and food, laughter was plenty, with smiles inviting conversation. More drinks would follow, which meant more cheers. Drink to the bottom of the glass, I'd say. Then, there was this couple, sitting in high top chairs behind me. Well educated and enchanted talks from them, would wonder through the air toward me. Surrounding me with family stories and by gone times. Ado about nothing I would say, but for them it was their life. So I had another drink of wine, often interrupted by ladies walking through the small place, book club members I was told. They could never seem to close the door either. Because every time they opened it, the cold bone chilling wind from outside would whip through the place and smack everyone of us so hard our lips froze to the very glass we were holding.  Let's just say it was a frozen kind of night outside in good ole Highwood.
       Once the evening settled inside this cozy little joint, voices started to ring. From behind me, to the side of me and in front of me. Like the bells of Notre Dame rings through Paris, these hollowed voices enveloped my lonely soul. Encapsulating my senses with each syllable. I sat stone faced and amused at the same time. Here I was at my very first slam. Watching the Speak' Easy Ensemble take over time in a bottle.
        Poetry about life experiences, Chicago, and an Ode to Students chilled and warmed the very hearts that sat before them. Soft voices, loud voices, funny voices and serious voices and that was just the beginning. Laughter, smiles and cheers filled the air with every word spoken. These very simple poets drew on my very existence. I had never felt so enthralled and taken in from these words of spoken values. I saw poetry in its raw true form. There in front of me, so close I can touch their words. Names like Sully, Sherry, Joel and the woman in black, to whom I could not remember her name, are the professional poetic performers called the Speak' Easy Ensemble. My very first poetry slam in front of small and subtle crowd of everyday people.
Take a bow poets, well deserved.

My very first poetry slam in Highwood, IL at the Cellar Gate

#poetry #slam

Sarah Azar Feb 2015

Contradictions

Always... Always, the contradiction with you. Why is that? Both ugly and beautiful, And so very human. Creating art one moment, then burning it the next. Fighting wars to forget what for.
What is the point?

Raised in wealth or in the slums. Both born on earth, but two from two separate worlds.
If you have the means dropping a grand for a one year olds handbag, is good training for an early fashion sense.
While out there, kids starve, who have never had even a drop of clean water.
And which do you think is blown up for the cover of your favorite magazine?
But it's all good. Fill your house with pretty things. As long as you don't have to wittiness the deforestation.
Pumping the earth dry of its resources to use without conservation.
Using animals to test the latest hair treatment without reservation.
It seems... It seems so meaningless.

That we can waste our cash on such petty things, diet pills and diamond rings.
That some will never learn to read, because another's deluded belief in a high power.
But we won't have to pay, not yet
But someday someone will.
Future generation would condemn us.
That we can have the capacity to love so deeply and to **** so needlessly.

Born to die,
in a world of contradictions.

#poem #slam

jack of spades Feb 2015

Barbie Girl

I'm a Barbie Girl,
in a Barbie World.
Life's fantastic: I
feel like plastic,
aiming for an eighteen-inch waist because I can afford to throw my internal organs away.
I feel like plastic,
having to choose
between eating and breathing with not enough space for two tubes.
I feel like plastic,
a thirty-nine inch bust and three times the forehead.
I feel like plastic,
a size nine squeezed to a three, spending
three to nine avoiding mealtime because my weight loss book says
'Don't eat.'
I'm a Barbie Girl,
in a Barbie World.
Life's fantastic, but...
I'm not plastic.
I've sat here listening while you complain about society but I don't think you realize that
society is made by you.
You complain about masks but you're masked by your poetry and
trust me,
it's trendy:
Psychiatry.
A bottle of capsules captures your soul and your dreams,
fading
reality.
I cannot be defined because a definition leaves no room for change and I
am a flame,
ready to burn the cardboard box of priority you put over me.
All the cool kids are lesbians and thespians on about repressions
and I care,
I do,
I mean... I'm standing here among you.
But words are just air.
You can stand on this stage and tell me I'm beautiful, but
I am more than my face so
disregard my mild distaste for your
inspirational speech.
Now, this...
This isn't a call for help.
This is a call to arms.
This
is a battle cry because
I
am sick of waiting for a future that should've happened yesterday.
So use this air to live the words you say and
rally.
Do not soothe, because we've already been cocooned by soothed reality in
Shawnee,
Johnson County.
I'm a real girl,
in a real world.
Life's fantastic, and I
refuse to be plastic,
aiming for generic weight range based on content, not scale number.
I refuse to be plastic,
a neck moulded perfectly for both eating and breathing so I don't have to choose.
I refuse to be plastic,
a bust that you don't need to be sizing
when I've got eyes
a green not of romanticized meadows but of drunken
puke.
I refuse to be plastic,
a size nine foot in a size nine shoe,
spending three to nine
enjoying my meal times,
because my weight loss book is
chucked down the chute.
I'm a living girl
in a beautiful world.
Life's fantastic,
because I'm not plastic.

highlight of my career ****

#poem #girl #eating #society #beauty #body #perfection #image #slam #barbie

jack of spades Feb 2015

King Midas

I'm sad and alone and everything I touch turns to gold,
but that's the life,
amirite?
Money's the only matter that matters and some kids three worlds away are getting kidnapped and killed for quotas while these kids are worried about their quote of the day. And,
by kids,
I mean little girls at age three being sold on the streets and in between sheets in countries that aren't all that far away, and little boys whose coloring pages are filled with explosions and guns cause it's literal
war
they're waging. But down the way, parents are posting posters in their children's rooms prompting inspiration: it's something about peace and love-- I mean, that's what they all say.
Well, I've made my peace with the pieces of this prayer, a priest standing golden over me as I throw my diamond-encrusted hands to the air and scream, "Someone
save me."
But these people don't care.
I am a man of gold with a heart of stone and no one cares because, frankly,
Neither do I.
Statistically speaking, everyone in the States clings to the belief that if they just earned an extra fifteen percent wage annually,
then they could live happily.
But,
darling,
when everything you touch turns to gold, statistics don't
quite
fit
the diagnostics.
I
am the outlier, the outright liar, the purveyor of pride that cost me my life but
who cares? I mean,
I've got my money.
I've got my money in a capitalist country that feeds off circulation and circumstance that leads brains to short-circuit short-cut economic politics and slaughter chances, rather than enhancing the value of a life that money can't add up to.
Welcome to the slaughterhouse.
Welcome to the tolerance of intolerance of humanity. Welcome
to the closing scene, where we can be seen on the Globe, on William Shakespeare's pun-fully named stage cause that's what all the world is,
and so's
this gold.
It's a play,
cause some day the curtains will close and all my props will remain on the stage and I am sad and alone with my heart still fo stone but without any gold. I've
lost
my
touch, and
without this cash I'll be nothing but a ten second news flash announcing to the rest of these underpaid actors that I've been knocked off my throne.
I don't think I was ever a king to begin with,
just a man who could forge
fool's gold.

so Slam Poetry is my life.

#poem #king #capitalism #slam #midas

Ellie Martin Feb 2015

The Definition of Highschool

Highschool! Supposingly the “time of our lives” or where a study guide is more important than our mental state of being! It’s also the only place where you write thousand of definitions every year, but you can’t even define your self worth. Where you solve millions of equations, but you can’t even add up your life value. Solve for your life, school-health(life)= future. The definitive times of our lives are turning into the worst. Balancing your social wellbeing with the hell of being popular and skinny, even starving yourself for days because the queen bee bought herself the newest style, and it’s a size too small. Subtracting the calories from the equation of wanting to binge your heart out while cramming for the test of flirting with that new boy after school. Adding the new dress, new heels, and new personality to your already masked appearance because the party you got invited to is where the “prettiest” of girls add up your self worth for you solving for the simplest equation. Makeup(Skinny)(Big ****)(Tall)= PRETTY. The word everyone seems to have a definition for except you. A word that could try to define your schooling career, but you can’t find the correct sources. Then theres the nights where you stay up until the early dawn, sobbing yourself to sleep because you can’t remember how to do so on your own. The definition of sleep : A natural periodic state of rest for the mind and body. But who remembers that? How am I supposed to solve the equation of rest? These definitions make up your state of being, piercing to your brain like clothing labels, being ripped off when they are no longer needed. The equations make up your body, or what's naturally left of it. Memorizing everything a person says about you, adding up the looks you get in the hallways rushing to class, reading the syllabus to everyone’s expectations for you. Expectations. Expectations. EXPECTATIONS. They come as blurs, never specific or clear enough. They shove through your tired brain and ram your esteem up walls. The perfect image of a student and friend and girlfriend and PERSON. Applications come out, every question answered honestly, truthfully, a reflection of SELF. Self? Can you use that word in a sentence? Is there a way to solve it? You’ve thrown out the files to your internal layers, not seeming important enough to pass the next big history test or worthy of the SAT prep due in a week. You can’t pass the exam in your mind testing on the ability to stay sane and make it into the college in your brain because it’s been shut down due to: inclement conditions. Add up all of this and you get the equation of highschool and equation to pass the social barrier. Congradulations! You’ve graduated someones judgement of your self worth and now you have to define it on your own.

Self (n:) a person's essential being that distinguishes them from others.

Distinguish from others. Different? NO! Suspension has kicked you out of the brain and difference is a TOTAL reputation ruiner. You’ve spent your entire life hypothesizing the idea of NORMAL. Different is an old definition with a new sound, wanting to be sweet and free. But in reality locked in a detention classroom, waiting for it to be used openly. It’s like this: run multiple copies of the same person on the copy machine and then paste them around the school with imitating personalities and similar words. The word different doesn’t apply to this equation.

Can you even use it in a sentence?

Can I even be used in a sentence?

-e.m

A slam I wrote for my honors English class.

#poetry #word #depression #highschool #tumblr #spoken #school #slam

Miranda Renea Feb 2015

The Beautiful Resignation (Slam Piece Draft)

We live in a world of high speed wreckage, so much so that I fear our youth
Have been desensitized to the sight of death and destruction; It's only a
Few clicks away with our media addiction but, that's not what I'm here to
Talk with you about today. No, I think it's time we take a 3 minute break
Of high-speed mentality, to break free of swift reality if only for a moment.
Speaking of moments, I need everybody to close their eyes for a time. No, seriously, close them.
I want to tell you a story that sight cannot settle, no semblance of reality, for
Some things are meant for eyes, others for ears, still yet others are meant
For the mind. For the soul. Let us sail on a ship of sound, a journey, collectively.
Now sit still, and listen.

So what is it we percieve behind eyelids shut tight? Before we fall asleep at night?
On one hand, it is nothingness; no light to comfort us, such a solemn black.
I guess I can't speak for you but, at times I get sad before I sleep. I think back to
Every promise someone didn't keep, all the words I was too scared to speak; or
the whispers my lovers' lips never returned, like "I love you". In short, I
Was lonely. There is something in the act of cutting off sight that leaves me
With a crippling sensation of isolation. But something tells me I'm not the only one
All-too familiar with this sense of suffocation. Somehow I feel as though this is
Shared not only with you, but with the person sitting next to you, and beside them too.
But, I'm not here to depress you, and so let me share some words I once wrote with you;

Lost souls
Drink ink.
But only wither,
With the weather.
Like roses,
Red-
And dead.
But they're beautiful,
You know.

You see, it was a poem I had written around the age of sixteen, and I didn't really get it then but,
"But they're beautiful, you know" was a seed of thought that blossomed in the next few years;
The thought that sometimes the broken things are the most beautiful for they are perfect in the story
That they tell. The story of imperfection; of affection; of sweet affliction; whatever words you
Deem worthy of describing our time here on Earth. Put simply; we are stupid, pointless, silly, exquisite humanity.
Like shattered glass, we can never be what we once were but only arrange ourselves into a magnificent stainglass window,
Allowing the sunlight of our lives to paint a picture of whatever unique self-disciplined blessings we choose to give
And when the sun starts to set, allow me to remind you of this; being along has never hindered the beauty of a sunset over a meadow,
Visible by standing in the treeline on top of a gently rolling hill. And so I dare you, I dare you to live alone, yet married
To the aesthetics of one eye, instead of two. I dare you
to fall in love
with you.

If you haven't already, you can open your eyes now. Our break is coming to a close; soon we'll be back to tweets on twitter
Instead of outside our windows before the sun rises each morning. But after I'm done speaking I hope you can take something with you.
Specifically, the next time you feel like crying yourself to sleep at night; remember this poem. If not in it's entirety, remember just this;
You are stupid, pointless, silly, exquisite humanity and there is not one bone in your body that is not broken or incomparably beautiful.
Know that somewhere I'm out there, hoping that you drift with a smile into sleep.

Hey guys! This is a slam piece I just finished. I plan on performing it at a slam on thursday, so critiques/insights would be REALLY appreciated. Thanks so much!

#depression #life #lonely #loss #happy #beautiful #inspiration #live #slam #resignation

ahmo Feb 2015

Untitled

The apples tumble down the tree
We swim in the green sea.
That idyllic place
where the camera lens reflects
the sunlight against your eyes.
And doesn't predict our demise.
Or any little fights in between.
No arguments
about the shirt on your back
or the ***** you lack
or the picking up of the slack.
Who wants to hear that?
I want to be back on that picnic day.
No way.
No way anyone this perfect could love me.
No one so free.
No eyes as clear as the sea.
And that one time you pretended to be Ashley.
(How fun was that night?
You got us into bars,
played guitars,
and brought me to Mars?
****, what was in that?)
Don't ask me again,
why you think it isn't worth it.
The touch of her nose
some witty verbose
her hips like a rose
and that little way that she hiccups if she's had a little too much to drink and she starts to laugh really, really hard and it just kind of comes out and then you laugh harder and it just gets worse.
(I can't make this stuff up.)
I'd like to think of all of those things.
And I think you would too.
If love wasn't what we are fighting for,
then do we even have anything to lose?
Some green bills,
some overpriced pills,
a trophy for us today,
a sense of narcissism to stay.
So just try to love.
Because despite anything above,
We have this.
A dauntless, morning kiss.
a star upon which to wish,
a euphoria close to bliss.
Something to always miss.
And the pancakes at that place
and that look on your face.
Erase.
Erase anything else you need.
Trust me.
When you find her,
it won't matter.
You'll fight, and you'll tire,
there won't be any fuel for the fire.
But man,
those eyes that are clearer than the sea
are clearer than anything to me.

#love #hope #rhyme #wish #purpose #search #meaning #slam

PrttyBrd Jan 2015

Undercurrent of Everday

the clock chimes
but no one counts
the days move at will
forward, backward
days stand still
the ticking of seconds
lost in the minutia
of the everyday
endless mind chatter
and negative self-talk
heart in a vacuum of speculation
what if -
coulda, shoulda, woulda
WILL NOT
DO NOT
STAY IN THIS PLACE
strain to listen
can you hear it
it's there
in the undercurrent of life
lost beyond yourself
tick tock
a shadow of a sound
tick tock
time never stops
tick tock
feel the minutes turn to days
a sense of time thrown away
on nothing
it's easy
so much easier
to wonder
what if -
why me -
than to take a deep breath
and realize
the world does not revolve
around a solitary soul
and no one is ever
the reason someone makes a choice
choices are made of free will
or they aren't choices at all
good or bad
tick tock
tick tock
tick tock
can you feel it
tick tock
tick tock
tick tock
it's the minutes of life
left behind
in a cloud of never was
tick tock
the clock chimes
but no one counts
the days move at will
forward, backward
days stand still

11915
spoken word

#word #time #spoken #slam #spokenword #ticktock #chimes #performancepoetry

Blind Aesthetic Jan 2015

This Is Me

You would think that judging by my demeanor that life was fit, a bit pop, bubbly, all is good, feel good, real good, rainbow, gum drop, sunny side up, clouds never here, lets sit down and enjoy the never fading sunset, cheers.

But no, that's not really me, see, I struggle just like we all do. I fight just like we all do. I cry, I bleed and I try just like we all do. I travel down the beaten path often with the same people who assume I segway my way through life. No, I wish but i don't. I trip some times like you don't. I've been hung up to dry. I've let me tears fly. I've screamed at the top of my lungs **** LIFE like the rest do. Off the top of these concrete mountains but I'm careful not to fall off like some do. I've walked with a limp, asked for change for a change while I wait for my check just like some do. I look happy not because I want to hide, to put up a front and sell my good pickings. I have no shame in who I am and how I came about. I have no shame in the ladder I'm climbing or the shoes that I wear though when it comes to the latter it's not really a choice, I swear. I'm not a liar or a fake what you see is what you get.

I'm up front and what I said is what I meant, I'm up front. I dwell but I don't set up camp that's why im happy. I dislike but I don't hate that's why I'm happy. I sulk but I keep my back straight that's why I'm happy. I examine but I put the magnifying glass away that's why I'm happy. I'm happy but I'm not ignorant I know my place. I'm happy because life is amazing just look around. I'm happy because of the things we have. Check out this site, look what I found. You don't have to go far to find something amazing in this world. Just open your eyes. This is why I'm happy.

This is a slam poem I wrote. I'll get around to recording it one of these days.

#poetry #life #happy #me #slam