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Mhelaney Noel Feb 2019
The American people are lotuses
Grown out of the murk
We’re periwinkle pretty, but we have residue on some of our petals
And one could drain the swamp, but we’d still be in it, withering in the harsh sunlight
They could select only the fairest lotuses to be preserved, but nature would be disturbed, mutated
The indigo birds that drink our nectar would be betrayed
Then they too would leave us
And leave the aphids without prey
In the absence of deep pink flowers nature would start to cave in on itself and white-hot turmoil would fester and procreate
So invaluable to us is our gradient of flowers
They were meant to be part of our roots, their magentas and mauves keep us balanced
Keep us from turning over into the muddy water where sunlight cannot grace our petals.
This poem was first published by the America Library of Poetry in their 2019 student anthology, Futures.
Amoy Feb 2018
Midnight!
Midnight!
Midnight!

The burning sensation of those word were hard to digest
Sorrow, Tear, How ugly can I be
Black is Beauty I say…to whom they say

Midnight! Midnight!.. you are as dark as Midnight
I'm haunted by those words, As they stuck to me like fresh sap from a tree..
I’m drowning, I’m drowning, I can’t get free, those words will forever trail me..

They trailed me; they jarred me, Blackie Tutu! Blackie Tutu!
How can kids be so cruel using skin color as a tool
I held my own and stayed cool for I knew has long I was in this school my fate was doom.

Pickey-Pickey head! was the melody of the song
I listened allowing the word to sink into my soul
The beat made me sick and I knew this one would also stick
I Looked up to the sky wondering why
No! No! No! Woman don’t cry
Be an African and hold your pride…

Hands by my side, I held my head up high
I found the fight within me, Stone faced Killer bee
I faced the music and it set me free
On the attack I had them flee…using word to conquer thee
I carried on knowing freedom wasn’t free and then
Like bolt of lightning it occurred me  
To defeat them I had to BELIEVE in ME
Sara Kellie May 2018
Leave my Nan out in the rain, it'll be right.
She's having veg later with some meat, on a bone but meat.
No gravy, she's too lazy. She will not thread it.

So what do you think? Shall we fold it the other way?
Do it tonight, it won't be today and not quite black but definitely not grey.

If it smells like cheese, just wear one and keep one eye open!
Then, we may even finish third.
Remember, listen for the sound.
It's crucial, like a twenty pence piece.

Dust! Always dust. Grams and ounces of the dustiest dust.
Never before six and never after six.
Just continuous with no bends, bubbles or any of that material you really like.

Because when he'd finished speaking (The Italian) I didn't understand a ******* word of it!

"Sorry, I don't speak Italian", shrugged my shoulders, did that thing you do with your bottom lip and ****** off.

THE END
(FINITO)
A poem describing the problems we encounter through language barriers.
The solutions we create to overcome them!
Especially the English
Brent Kincaid Jul 2018
My child doesn’t need to behave.
Yours can be consigned to a grave.
My child is a bully, and that’s OK
Yours shouldn’t be in public anyway!
My child should go to any school he wants
Others only if they don't choose to flaunt.
Too bad if yours suffers misery,
We whites will just re-write history.

We prefer blacks go away and roam
Because we won’t finance their home!
We point to ugly days like Attica
Then tell them to go back to Africa.
Don’t bother with a Freedom Bus!
Equal rights is only for us!
Interracial relationships sicken,
Just a case of the plot thickens!

None of this outrage would be true
If it was what whites get subjected to!
All that crap about White Supremacy
Has not one claim on legitimacy.
It’s totally wrong down to the ground,
Just an excuse to keep others down.
Criminalizing rights protestors
Is a social outrage altogether!

People at this stage in history
Still so unevolved is tragedy.
To even utter these hateful words
Are among the ugliest ever heard.
They only have themselves to blame
That they still remain the same.
It’s up to them to accept the challenge
And work to put mankind in balance!
Brent Kincaid Jul 2018
They chose to call it The Freedom Tree
Because in their ultimate wisdom
They felt it represented all of mankind
And their famous bid for freedom.
But all the while they didn’t really intend
For all the people to enjoy it.
They meant the right people in their laws
And selectively chose to employ it.

It stood in the center where battles were
And where some patriots had died
And from the beginning they ignored many
And abused them far and wide.
They argued that they were not really people
These of color or unaccepted belief
Then subjected them to the very horror they
Themselves had come here for relief.

So this was The Freedom Tree so named
By some kind of patriotism that chooses
Who gets to live, and love and prosper
And in the end, decide who loses.
Maybe they should have chosen a name
That said what they thought was right;
Maybe the name should have been
The Tree of Freedom For Everyone White.
Brent Kincaid Jun 2018
Freedom only exists
When everyone is free.
It cannot be called freedom
If it only refers to me.

I have watched people lie
And say all men are equal,
And ignore that they believed
It didn't refer to black people

Or gays, or Jews or Latinos
Based on centuries of shame.
When we start to fix all that
Bigots see it’s not a game.

It’s time we humans grow up
And stop acting the heathen.
There is no word more loving
Than that one word, freedom.

We’re a different sort of people
Than we were living in caves.
We need to rely on more than
A sign that says “Jesus Saves.”

We suffer from maladies now
That have been here all along,
To think a latecomer ideology
Can fix things is just wrong.

We need to focus on how we
As humans have make errors
And agree to stop doing them
And become the standard bearers.

Freedom only exists
When everyone is free.
It cannot be called freedom
If it only refers to me.
Brent Kincaid May 2018
If every black person disappears
you will not be any richer.
If every Jew disappears from the country
you will not be any smarter.
If everyone brown person disappears
you will not lI’ve any longer.
If every yellow person disappears
you will not be any holier.

It wasn’t righteous then,
it isn’t now.
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