#laid
What is this sense
between my eyes
Do we aim to do our best
Imperfect form
Intentions less
Creative flows
Mixed in with work and rest
See the signs laid out ahead
Connecting lines in time
Progress starts from the chest
Apr 29, 2020
Apr 29, 2020 at 1:29 PM UTC
What failures
oh the failures of leaving home at seventeen
of living and thriving as a minority foreigner
of working and studying to post-grad levels
of maturing wonderfully and being up and decent
of loving and marrying and creating a good home
of no crime, no debts, not a drunk, not a player
of no stained reputation, no borrowing or theft
of being easy-going, nice and friendly, an all-rounder
what failures
the failure of being successful and capable in grace
the failure of doing so well a white neighbor burgled
the failure of saying that's not right, you're rotten thieves
the failure of standing up to bullying thieving mobs
the failure of being gangstalked and destroyed
the failure of being an educated professional black
the failure of being a solid, courageous, wholesome man
the failure of knowing you can't do wrong and get by
Ladies and Gentlemen
these are my failures
Its all there in black and white
its the failure of being a minority
In the british democracy of the Socialists
for it is greed to work hard and be successful
its a failure for blacks to aspire and do well when your white
neighbor is a drunken, welfare dependent waster and thief
And Blacks beware, for if you dare tell them to go change
you will be stalked, hounded, smeared, defamed, humiliated
harassed, bullied, slandered, sabotaged, and basically driven to
suicide or a breakdown
They manufacture Failures to reflect their own failures
They call it Trading Places and dish it out to 'Uppity' Blacks
Aug 18, 2019
Aug 18, 2019 at 7:40 AM UTC
Nights Are For Stuff Like This
It's 3am.
The city's sleeping and I'm not.
Lights like scattered dots burn dim outside my window.
People are dreaming and I'm awake thinking of the
life that's been passing through me like second hands-smoke
lingering in the slowed-down traffic of my DNA.
Nights are for stuff like this;
stuff like silken roads through ragged hillsides,
feelings blacker than night that disappear in the
day light, prisms bouncing off grey ash, tiny sparks
falling through trap doors, never again to be seen
nor heard, nor taken for granted upon the long
laid train tracks of this ongoing dance.
Memory like loaded simi-trucks taking me all
the way back through corn fields and hay, through
old hard hitting rain that goes clank, clank in my brain.
Scars cutting through my skin opening again and again
like songs that you hate but can't stop singing on endless
streaming highways-hitching a ride inside my mind,
pitch-perfect pristine and off-key in the dark,
on a night like this blue black over amber gold.
I'm a million miles further away and one mile closer.
Signposts loud and large selling big hopes for
happy dopes, emerging eyes now gone from me
peering through clouds because they can, because
they probably always will.
Because who knows how far they've gone and how
far I've come on this night of all nights awake in the
grid of passing stars and dividing lines, now merging into
my lane for better or for worse where gratitude needs no
promotion, because it just is or is not. Because it can't be faked.
nor pimped. Because it has no need for
patronizing nor apologizing.
Because it's outcome, a side effect of nights like this where
everything makes sense and where nothing makes any sense
at all in this gigantic freeway of time that will eventually reach
a dead end. Where sleep will come 'cause the poetry will have
run itself off the bend.
Ah yea nights are for stuff like this.
Jun 26, 2019
Jun 26, 2019 at 9:29 AM UTC
All her doing
her bickering what a snicker
All her fancy peanuts
Charlie Brown you
gotta be nuts
How he met
Lucy and Sally met
Billy Crystal red
heart tunnel of love
In Seattle rules of Gin
Heavy rain above
Playing Rummy
In the sky dating
E-Harmony
My ear is getting
tinnitus she's color blind
You're so vain
Like everything became
about me without
asking her
The Grandeur Greek mythology
It's her the Owl no apology
The Gods of Zeus
With permission to guess
Moving truck like Hess
She's all hummingbird
To paint her to roll over
Her mouth like Beethoven
The high funds we love the
classic look to invest
Without asking her Boss
So crossed her legs
Readers Digest
The Southern belles
The Pink Illegally live
Fox 5 graduation hell
The coffee club persuasive
The southern ring my bell
To the rescue James Dean
Don't Sponge Bob his mail
So wet set with residue
They are drenched
with words money is due
No angel sponge cake
Those love affairs collision
Watch out stop her brakes
I need to be examined
Not by the Twins Hollywood
Emmy doctor
Why do they get trophies
special privileges
Like Mozart without asking
His piano hot seat many loves
The doves were flying
backward
Like the composer slower
without asking her designer
Devil made Prada or
Cruella Dalmatian she
was spotted
With her smudged
Chanel eyeliner
Wanting Tom and Jerry
Ice-cream Chunky Monkey
Salted caramel core so hard
This diamond ring doesn't
shine for me anymore
Did I need to ask Batman mask
To see what you did before
Their holding hands
so in love been iced
Ben and Jerry tough dough
Way under Seinfeld's breath
Please let me watch the
late show Johnny
She will never make it
To her own wedding
Bigger Brooklyn bridge
I dare you to jump potential
She's the seductive high
skydiving factors
Overly Black and Under
the desk Vanna white
Zebra Monster Inc
Movie Little Women
horse track wheel
of fortune
Her recital the prose
Why do I have to say
I'm sorry the rose
That's just the way I am
Speaking about vocabulary
She is Vodkaulary, Ms. ******
Mary how does her garden grow
Women like Flowers Scarlet
milkweed giving blood
She's been greased like
imported Italian Olive oil
Her mighty exported
legs all spoiled and coiled
Working in Arizona what a
snake crawling near her desk
Arnold not the bread
I'll back help
Albert Einstein said
Genius has its limits
Cheerleader like egg-beater
She thinks she has a master
degree
Nickel and dime
deodorant of degree
Without asking anything
I do agree_________sign sealed
And she failed don't deliver
She is always being bugged
Sitting shiver
White teeth say nothing
meaningful
Spanish Fly Internship
Ladybug dots red lace and
black fishnet stockings
You're guaranteed frequent
flyer trip you are well stacked
but wed dress white
What good intentions bad habits
What does holding
hands say
Without asking her
To really know her
Understand women's
personality
Comes with
Love stability and
Robin responsibilities
Don't be Beverly Hillbilly
Be the Oscar Wilde
Money like a female fertility
A female business piece
Pineapple upside down cake
The first year many times
the breakup
your lover made up
and eventually
time was giving up
No partners in crime
On Valentine's day,
a+++ women payday
should be loved
Just the way she wants too
Jun 14, 2018
Jun 14, 2018 at 1:36 PM UTC
I'll keep you close
Dont stray too far away
From me
I want you to be safe
I know you can handle yourself
But you have to let me make sure you're okay
We're a race going on an infinite relay
I'm a hotel that doesn't want anyone to pay
I'm just laid back
I like it when you lay on your back
Mhmmmmm
May 19, 2016
May 19, 2016 at 11:40 PM UTC
beside your brother-in-law, they placed you in the ground. they buried you by my great grandparents in an unpopulated town. by early September, the grass was cold; but they made a spot for you, so they wouldn’t be alone. dressed in black, i took a step forward; i grasped some courage, then reached for a rose. there were tears in my eyes; there was hesitancy in my step. they lowered your coffin as i took a deep breath. i swear i tried; i tried to be strong. but i remember you healthy, and now you’re just gone. so here i am; i’m faced with a choice: cry quickly, move on, & live, or socialize and listen, & try to forgive. they’re all here, grandma, your friends and your family; they came. you have no idea how great an impact in these lives that which you have made. i didn’t tell you that i’d been halfway lying, about the mistakes that i’d made. i regret not sharing my poems with you. i’m sorry for the excuses i always made. i’m sorry that i didn’t just sit with you to visit and crochet; i tried too hard to be busy until it was just too late. and i live with that regret everyday. grandma, i miss you. i love you. i know where you are lain. your beautiful soul is flying with angels, but your body’s in this dying grave. unrelenting overthinking causes a heart to stop its beating, and this gut-wrenching under-eating has got to STOP. my stomach’s bleeding from the constant hunger to feel needed. to be heard & to live in peace…once more. because grandma, i went back to your grave on September 7th this year, but i could not find your site. and i started to cry as i wandered aimlessly; to try to lay down the letter to you that i started to write. they told me that you’re better off now, but i’m not so sure i can go on living like my heart didn’t get torn out. my hands shake as i hang my head in shame because i cannot bear the thought of someone looking at me and finally noticing that i am broken..and hurt. frankly, i ache inside because, though i was there when you were buried, i know not where you lie. i forgot to pay too much attention to the site of your grave. maybe it’s because i was afraid to admit that this would turn out to be a familiar place, a desperate space, an earth-shattering, sob-crying, soul-dying, terrifying thing! grandma, i am afraid. because this…this is where you are lain.
© Melissa Carlson 2015
Nov 12, 2015
Nov 12, 2015 at 8:23 PM UTC
The night before was painful,
As I came home from work.
Took my greasy clothes off,
No shower..
It was so late then,
No bathroom open.
I sigh.
I put my pajamas on,
Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the lord my soul to keep.
If I die before I wake,
I pray the lord my soul to take.
Only tears shed,
From my grey eyes.
Their vibrant colors gone.
Now I am in disguise.
This pain always repeats.
The night before.
I get no sleep...
Aug 22, 2014
Aug 22, 2014 at 5:18 AM UTC
As I laid in my bed,
So many thoughts encompassed my brain;
I couldn't fathom the concept of myself.
Why was I put on this Earth?
If everything truly does happen for a reason,
What was the reason of my existence?
Mar 25, 2014
Mar 25, 2014 at 9:28 PM UTC