"ancestor" poems
Went to my ancestor's home on a Spring season that year..
On a Holi day in the land of Chanchadari
A peaceful morning in Hoshiarpur, the doors to Himalaya
Happy Holli day!! The kids shout with cheer
Holi Hai! Holi Hai! Lets play Holi!!!
He woke up early morning that day..
With a bucket of colored water waiting for me
I stepped outside my grandpa's door
In a split second I was soaked in a coloured water…
From head to toes… red, orange, yellow, purple… the colors of Holi…
Ohh It's a Hoi Hai day alright…
Lets play Holi … Lets play Holi..
Hails spring with ecstasy and joy!
The trees smile with their sprout
of tender leaves and blooming flowers,
The land of beauty and greatness,
India, witnessing color of happiness and peace.
Nation come alive to enjoy the spirit
A celebration of color- Holi!
An experience of content, harmony and delight.
Holi colors of red, green, yellow and countless.
A day's canvas - a riot of colors.
Lively crowd running, dancing, playing
Rainbow of colors, Lets play Holi and splish and splash!!
Lets play with the frenzy colors .. play on Holi Hai day….
I am dreaming of playing with colors with you
It is the Holi celebration after all.
I can't play inside my home, the carpets will get tainted,
I cant' play it in the yard, the grass and outer walls will get painted.
I thought I would go to the secret garden of ours,
and play with you Holi hai day …
It's a colourful day just you and me..
In love on Holi Hai day…. Lets play Holi..
May 20, 2013
May 20, 2013 at 2:35 AM UTC
You lived alone in the solititude
Of pure hundred years in Colombia
Roaming in Amacondo with a Spanish tongue
Carrying the bones of your grandmother in a sisal sag
On your poverty written Colombian back,
Gadabouting to make love in times of cholera,
On none other than your bitter-sweet memories
Of your melancholic ***** the daughter of Castro,
Your cowardice made you to fear your momentous life
In this glorious and poetic time of April 2014,
Only to succumb to untimely black death
That similarly dimunitized your cultural ancestor;
Miguel de Cervantes, a quixotic Spaniard,
You were to write to the colonel for your life,
Before eating the cockerel you had ear-marked
For Olympic cockfight, the hope of the oppressed,
Come back from death, you dear Marquez
To tell me more stories fanaticism to surrealism,
From Tarzanic Africa the fabulous land
An avatar of evil gods that are impish propre
Only Vitian Naipaul and Salman Rushdie are not enough,
For both of them are so naïve to tell the African stories,
I will miss you a lot the rest of my life, my dear Garbo,
But I will ever carry your living soul, my dear Garcia,
Soul of your literature and poetry in a Maasai kioondo
On my broad African shoulders during my journey of art,
When coming to America to look for your culture
That gave you versatile tongue and quill of a pen,
Both I will take as your memento and crystallize them
Into my future thespic umbrella of orature and literature.
Apr 20, 2014
Apr 20, 2014 at 4:57 AM UTC
The wet sand, cools my
bare feet, my eyes look-
out as the sun sets
into the west, wresting
my tension, as small
waves lap at my toes,
tickling taking me
back to childhood day-
dreams.
A ship silhouettes
in the sinking sun,
I am sure, I see
the funeral pyre
boats, of every
warrior ancestor,
lit burning brighter
as sunlight becomes
night, and I am left
scenting smoke, my open
arms reach over the
present sea and great
ocean *that is the
past,* asking,
am I worthy?
Jul 6, 2014
Jul 6, 2014 at 1:51 AM UTC
Whan the turuf is thy tour
anonymous Middle English poem, circa the 13th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
When the turf is your tower
and the pit is your bower,
your pale white skin and throat
only sullen worms shall note.
What help unto you, then
was all your worldly hope?
***
Original Middle English text:
Whan the turuf is thy tour,
And thy pit is thy bour,
Thy fel and thy whitë throtë
Shullen wormës to notë.
What helpëth thee thennë
Al the worildë wennë?
“Whan the turuf is thy tour” may be one of the oldest carpe diem (“seize the day”) poems in the English language, and an ancestor of Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” with its virginity-destroying worms. Keywords/Tags: Middle English, translation, medieval, anonymous, rhyme, rhyming, medieval, lament, complaint, lamentation, turf, tower, pit, bower, skin, throat, worms, note, help, worldly, hope
Feb 28, 2020
Feb 28, 2020 at 2:56 AM UTC
I dropped by my favorite place today, released another exhausted breath. My pants were bulging out and the fat kept me stretched out. I hate that feeling. My stomach turned into billowy waves of expectant marks, pinning through my outer skin. I hate that feeling. When I sit, my thigh provokes every nerve in my body. If she has thoughts, she'll be a demon whispering through the wind. My unkempt hair is spinning around like gravity does not exist. Somehow, I failed to sigh out the black smoke forming all over my body. My skin, when pinched, is like soft straps that cannot be withdrawn from their owner. My skin is like the skin of my ancestor—it keeps stretching widely, tirelessly, and unprovoked. My heart is tightening its grasp on me. God, please help me! My eyes! I swallowed all my tears away, but my reflection still reflects the dark hue of the moon. When it is sad, the moon exposes his true nature, just like rolled down skins on my neck. My hands go from gently holding my heart out of my chest to weighing the weight of my body. If I let out my thick heart, my body would be lighter and my skin would be a plethora of scars and clay. If I abandon thee and such a calloused body, art will find me beautiful, and that is one of the moon's other sides. It's thick and uncooked. The heavens may not forsake an insecure moon, but a woman hates her reflection when the moonlight lights on her flesh. "Mirror, mirror on the wall..." I called and they did not answer. I froze in my seat and waited until the sun bloomed and dried my tears. Yet I still could not breathe. I went into the sea and swam with the lonely whales. The sun reflected on the waters. I reached letter fourteen, but it was written by someone else. The ambience of the calm ocean washed over me. I released a breathy sigh, and the light went to take me.
Feb 1, 2022
Feb 1, 2022 at 1:28 PM UTC
Are we truly pure?
Innocent mortals that are attached
to the surfaces of Earth as if they
were are own....?
Are our souls truly filled with the
toxic sins that were passed down
to us from our ancestor so long ago?
The sins that have detached us
from the living or non living God.
The sins that have caused the flesh on
our bodies to decay once our time has come.
The sins that caused humanity to question
the true meaning of love and hate while secretly
we choose to go against the meaning thats
more important.
I guess not.....
we can't detached from something that
flows in our blood, and hides beneath our souls
no matter how toxic
poisonous
or infuriating it might be
its part of who we are
Mar 8, 2015
Mar 8, 2015 at 3:00 PM UTC
/
Many days
I do not read any newspaper
Even do not see television
At all
Many days have gone
After You
I do not read any poetry
How to feel that since this morning!
Repeatedly hear identifying tunes on the air
Your arrival in the sky,
The air reverberates
Looks like another day
In the Paradise,
In another song,
Which brings the soul
The Aroma
Everyone is coming out
From all sides
Young Old
Babies Boys
Women Men
Everyone
Everyone is clapping
Singing the song of the same tune
This song is not the song of Rain
Not even a lamentation
The Southern breeze whispering your words
Slowly Said,
The Little Tailor Bird
No, No,
Not such a summer afternoon
Not even a hurricane warning
Each of the human eye
Follow the Eastern Sky
Tireless Eye
Watching the sun,
The Red Sun,
You went to bring dreams for us
From the Sun
Hundreds of thousands of people
In his next question
Hand with Flower
Shoulder to Shoulder
Today will be the day of strangers,
The poet will come
We are standing in the flowers
Fist full of dreams to take
Float in the sky with white clouds
My dreams are calling again
Today is not such an Autumn
But Still feel like an Autumn
Indeed,
The poet will come,
A poem in the New
Where each word will be spoken dream
Love to be evacuated
Poems that will repay
The debt to my Ancestor
Take revenge on thee
For their injustice,
Torture
Poems that would bring the stars
For our next generation
A poem that would bring the red rose for my darling,
Would bring such a smile to my mother's face
As Moon that smile
And that is simply killed false dreams
Will we ever Released
Sing Freedom Songs
The Poet,
My beloved Poet
You will come,
Will surely come
And will recite your immortal poem
/
@ Musfiq us shaleheen
Jan 23, 2015
Jan 23, 2015 at 11:11 AM UTC
Maybe I got greedy.
Maybe it's in my blood.
Maybe I'm a descendent of Icarus, the Greek son who flew too high.
All I know is that while my
ancestor was trying
to escape Crete, I've been trying
to escape myself
and baby you were my wings.
But I flew too high.
I should have noticed
the burning in my lungs,
the smoke suffocating my windpipe because I was getting too close
to your fire and with every
"I love you"
I could feel the wax
in my heart melting,
dripping down through my ribcage but when it finally fell to my feet,
I ignored the burn.
And here I am,
f
a
l
l
i
n
g
Waiting for you
to catch me.
Maybe the smoke
is in your eyes.
Maybe you're scared
of the flames.
Or maybe
you can't handle
the
heat.
Jul 3, 2015
Jul 3, 2015 at 12:32 AM UTC
On the land of our family
Are the ashes of generations.
Each generation planted with the saplings of the trees
The Cedar, The Fir, The Larch, and The Mountain Ash
Standing regal in the sun's early light.
It is a new day
Standing under their boughs
Comforted by ancestral arms touching
In a circle of Love and Light.
What is emerging?
Sprouting up from under the Sphagnum
It's a seed! Raising its head
Peeking up, and stretching towards the sun.
Ever upward it expands
Though nights of rain and clouds.
Through days of heat and seeming drought.
Yet the seedling grows and endures
Bent by the late summer winds
The fiber of wisdom ever increasing within its core.
At the end of Indian Summer
The frost begins to unleash its chill
The young sapling freezes
As the blanket of white thickens across the land.
With the weight upon it's back
In humility the sapling bends low to kiss the earth.
Bravely holding this asana in the coldest of the winter days.
Today by my window
I am basking in the sunlight of a very early spring,
Bright are shimmering reflections of sunlight snow.
Squinting, with eyes half open and eyes half closed
The small rainbows begin to dance
Between each pair of lashes.
A delighted inner child
Chuckling with joy.
I can hear the sound of water running
And ice falling from the rooftops above.
The snow is finally melting!
The tall cedar boughs dance with the wind.
Up and down, releasing their winter coats
As Ice crystals floating on the air.
Gazing across the white wonder
To the very spot where I last saw our little tree
What of the little seedling?
Is it still alive?
Or broken and crush by the ice and snow?
My musing over the Cedar Sapling
Shifted with a gasping surprise
It sprung up!
Announcing "I am still alive!"
And my inner voice giggled with delight.
Hum, I wonder
Do trees have a heart?
Do they perceive beyond their bark?
Do they remember?
In this very moment the sapling's sudden appearance
During my musing seemed to express, "Yes!"
Is it just a deep enduring feeling
That the elders of this world
Are the 400+ year old Cedars
Keeping their long record of time?
My dear little sapling
may you continue to grow into magnificence.
I will only see your first 100 years.
For your last four hundred
Allow me to lie at your roots
Under the Sphagnum from which you sprung.
And my children will water flowers at your base
That you may grow as the guardian of the ancestor
Who planted your seed and watched you grow.
Yes, the very one who is now delighted that you
Have popped up from under your blanket of snow.
Jan 24, 2019
Jan 24, 2019 at 2:46 AM UTC
*“If people bring so much courage
to this world the world has to ****
them to break them, so of course
it kills them. The world breaks every
one and afterward many are*
strong at the broken places."
A Farewell to Arms,
Ernest Hemingway
<>
struggling with so much,
then this scripture of writing sent
by some unfamiliar, a providential
provider; and I am realized, this man
is broken in ways you have no idea,
can~not comp~re~hend
understanding floods, healing
required, for I too have been killed,
my trust and beliefs, trashed,
too many fools who think that
moral equivalence is a thing,
that the unspeakable is justified,
hatred makes me so broke so low,
how,
justification is not justice,
nor an excuse to do whatever
cross the street, and believe,
that drivers will honor a red,
a stop sign, but plenty think
this don’t apply to me, not me
getting on the back of a line
is for fools, people who cannot answer
the arrogant question of the insistent
“Do You Know Who I am?”
I know who I am, yet the ponderance
of evidence says that is not enough,
I
am insufficient,
I am less
than human,
I am
undeserving,
because of my
ancestry
And I will spare you the precise definitions of these statements,
for it should be unnecessary, you should be nodding in agreement, clear eyed understanding, intuitive, in your own broken bones felt!
But,
my bones are broken, and the healing needs a source, a “see here”
directive, explain me how my insane madness is not a proper
responsa to the
weight of hate
my eyes see, seen,
and that my own
eyes
are not lying,
but believed.
but intuitively understood
that my broken bones can be
healed, each in their own way,
so I will retire, perhaps return
when, even if not fully recovered,
sufficient to care enough,
ready to be rebroken, again,
for this! this! is my
true poetic ancestry
thousands of years have not broken us,
and never will, for it is not fear that will
prevent our resurrection, for we immunized,
for what unimaginable have we not known, and yet recovered,
this,
I believe,
my healing will be quiet, solitary, removed
from the distractive noises of invective infecting,
but I will be present,
for my children, and my children’s children will
look to this ancestor and learn that his blood
and bones deeds them the self-healing properties
that always has and always will defeat those
who seek to destroy your future
1) the DNA of your ancestry
inherited inherent in your bone marrow
and bone tissue is continuously remodeled
through the concerted actions of bone marrow cells
2) Stem cells in your red bone marrow
(hematopoietic stem cells) create red and
white blood cells and platelets, all of which
are components of your whole blood.
so here is our truth:
when,
***The world breaks every
one and afterward many are
strong at the broken places!***
our whole blood will replenish us
Nov 17, 2023
Nov 17, 2023 at 10:09 AM UTC
~~
All had been removed
one by one
Take all!
But do not take away this little light
Open the window
Let the wind come
I will not protest any day
will not say against you
Even when I got empty I do not want to
Those yellow crops,
Fertile barren fields
all yours
Do not want to
Never ask you for anything expensive
But in return
I want to see those yellow marigolds,
The silver moonlit of the lonely moon
And a newly bloomed red rose,
The aroma of gardenia in the air
For my awaiting beloved,
So Let the wind come
I'll give you more!
The Hidden gold pitcher of my grandma,
The Saved Silver coin of my ancestor,
Gold, precious locket,
Antics-
The Diamond Crown
– All -
But want to return
My beloved's smile which has taken from
The golden shining day where I had left her
The very Sweet Southern wind where my Spring plays
My lost grasshopper
Lost love Song
My mother's simple smile,
The paper boats of my springtime,
My grandma's fairytale
And a piece of open sky where I take a little breath
Where my kites of dreams fly
Dances with Seven colors of love
~~
@Musfiq us shaleheen
May 25, 2015
May 25, 2015 at 12:28 AM UTC
Matrilineality is the tracing of descent
through the female line corresponding
to a societal system in which each person
is identified with their matriline;
– their _mother's_ image –
and which can involve the inheritance
of property and/or titles. A matriline is
a line of descent from
a common female ancestor
to a descendant of either ***
in which the individuals in all intervening
generations are mothers –
in other words, a "mother line".
In matrilineal descent,
individuals belong to the same
group as their mother.
The matriline of historical nobility
was also called the _enatic_ or _Uterine_ ancestry;
From Middle English wombe, wambe,
from Old English womb, wamb
(“belly, stomach; bowels; heart; womb; hollow”),
from Proto-Germanic *wambō
(“belly, stomach, abdomen”),
from Proto-Indo-European *wamp- (“membrane (of bowels),
intestines, womb”). Cognate with Scots wam, wame (“womb”),
Dutch wam (“dewlap of beef; belly of a fish”),
German Wamme, Wampe (“paunch, belly”),
Danish vom (“belly, paunch, rumen”),
Swedish våmb (“belly, stomach, rumen”),
Norwegian vomb (“belly”), Icelandic vömb
(“belly, abdomen, stomach”), Old Welsh gumbelauc (“womb”),
Breton gwamm (“woman, wife”),
Sanskrit वपा (vapā́, “the skin or membrane
lining the intestines or parts of the viscera,
the caul or omentum”).
Aug 22, 2018
Aug 22, 2018 at 10:37 PM UTC
I am like a lone wolf who hastens across the tundra of Northern Hemispheres, with stealth.
Our temperature has risen and the Chinook boldly reveals her austere formation across the vast expanse of alpine variation.
I understand that your customs may be nomadic, as they roam across the treeless plains of baron socialisation.
But will they lead you beyond the West coast of Ecuador?
Therefore, always remember that layers of permanently frozen subsoils are designed for terrestrial corridors of arctic sojourns.
Nov 17, 2013
Nov 17, 2013 at 12:41 PM UTC
Consanguinity: A Commissioned Poem
(How Well Do
You
Know Me?)
This request, from wolf spirit aka quinfinn, accidentally hit the spot of what was foremost on my mind.
Cosanguinity: A relationship by descent from a common ancestor; kinship (distinguished from affinity). A close relationship or connection.
Poetry, mine, yours,
Ours,
Invades my consciousness.
We write poems on the same subject,
Even the same title,
But a few days apart.
Insanity,
Coincidence,
or
Consanguinity?
Perhaps we are reading each other's stuff
Too much.
But that's crazy,
Or
Consanguinity?
Yet,
And yet,
We see the same things
So incredibly different.
That is the answer.
We see the same thing and I am
Struck down.
A billion sights.
A billion words.
Yet, the human computer,
Sorts, collates, and generates
A billion different writes
In a similar spirit,
Employing the same phraseology.
All right.
Alright.
Malaysia.
Minnesota.
East Coast.
West Coast.
Geographical differences.
Time differences.
No difference.
A billion differences.
The stylistic differences enable,
No, correction,
Ennobles us to coexist,
Value each other,
Learn.
Observable differences.
But more interesting,
More pleasurable,
are the incredible, visible, signs of
Consanguinity.
Mere affinity?
Kinship.
A poem?
Nah.
But at 1:11am in my location,
It's what's on my mind.
Now that I know the meaning of
Consanguinity.
Nov 4, 2013
Nov 4, 2013 at 1:21 AM UTC
Hail in peace wherever you abode now, dear Nadine Gordimer
You white daughter of Africa, the pen-mistress of July’s people,
You are the lover of July, your holy months of literature
That similarly gave a ****** grave marriage to Maziz Kunene
The African saint of orature; And Okot P’ Bitek, the lion of Gulu,
July have wedded you to the sombre grave in the Jo’burg,
As its apparatchik, the menacing jaws of death feel humdinger!
O! Dear little daughter, cursed are the jaws of death
They have kept on wooing and wooing you relentlessly
They have yearned for your betrothal with mad jealous,
For your iconic position in white African literature,
In which you stand with soldierly embrace a Nobelite,
They have now taken you to their inner chamber nuptials in death,
Before anything; let them now pay dowry to your bothers;
J M Coetzee, Alex La Guma and Dennis Brutus,
For there’s is a competent herds boy, a black shepherd;
Ezekia Mphalele, his living soul will keep the cows
Off down Corner B of the troubled African Image.
Say hello for those you are with in the current realm,
Say hello to foremen and fore daughters of Africa
Those that chose to visit the realm of ancestor precociously;
Say hello to them; Angelo Maya and Doris Lessing,
Let their caged birds and blooming grass sing uproariously,
Marriama Ba and Margaret Ogola, African girls,
They had a long letter and the source of the river from black dialectics,
O! Dear old baby Nadine Gordimer, stand firm in face to face with nothing
Other than the present time you’re in; the Africa’s realm of living dead
To sing the ballads of anti-apartheid both in heaven and on earth,
The only true testament of your footprints on the global sands of times
That Nadine Gordimer, July’s white-African daughter is deadly alive!
Jul 20, 2014
Jul 20, 2014 at 9:18 AM UTC
I would like if I could, to venture out
into a baroque cave where the walls are translucent
and all that surrounds it are rivers of coherence
and incoherence
where I can scream, and when my echoes
radiate they bounce off on me and touch
the spaces in between my fingers
bizarre and ornate
rococo chimes lift my spirit
progressive, regressive
subliminal rising, into the sea of whispers
and final decisions
and crazed hands
and melting lips
and bruised knuckles
and fighting wrists...
I subsist to consist
of the fluid that makes me up
lavender barely breathing
flowers/continue/endure
hang tough, low by lakes of conspiracy
and hate/ block eyes/ shed those ill states
I carry this entity/essence/life gentely
in my arms like a ancestor. mother .
press its head against my skin and give it everything
in my blood filled hands, sinful/blessed/ tiered creatures
I feel beautiful in these worlds.
eyes closed in sleep, palms spread forth
oceans cleansing, I feel like an infant
stomach twists and hearts bat burnt wings
and learn to fly
I radiate.full hearted. eminence spoke to me
through her portal of solid grass and dieing trees
in the outskirts of the vagabond, slowly unraveling
like a child speaking
slowly growing like new love
stricken instantly
I am in
between Cleopatra and Mark
between Orpheus and Eurydice
between Odysseus and Penelope
between Elizabeth Bennett and Darcy
between Salim and Anarkali
I shiver in that love
that breathes in determent
and breathes out fragrance
temperate plasma hooked onto
the grind of my woman I beat like
the robins breast/ trembling in awe
like a living leaf blowing in the winter wind
resisting/giving in/ perishing/ breathing
to the sound of this beautiful life
Apr 29, 2011
Apr 29, 2011 at 5:53 AM UTC
his ancestor a coolie
laid the rails many long years
but returned to Peking
to fight white devils
this, the tale
passed through the generations
with the jade necklace which
never left his mother's neck
first born son
spawn of two doctors, expectations
were high he would practice
honorable healing arts
early in his years
he fueled their fears, and ire
coming through their sterile door
with bloodied knuckles
black eyes, fat lips
they tried various exorcisms:
confinement in the temple, lashings
and hushed cabals with head healers,
but none could shrink his will
much to their dismay
Stanford rejected him; he landed
at a community college, where he spent
an indolent year, before vanishing
a thousand tears and fears later
the PI revealed what a hundred
billable hours had reaped
the son was so far west
he was east, in a village on the Yangtze
stooped over paddies, his feet firm
in the mire the generations
had yearned to escape
Dec 3, 2015
Dec 3, 2015 at 3:06 PM UTC
i care, i really do...
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...
no, i do...
i'm trying...
ha ha...
i'm just imagining what
that one word
looks like in Hebrew...
the...
ha-shem...
i.e.
the-name....
laughing, but at the same time
saying the definite article
over, and over, and over again...
the the the the... v'eh v'eh v'eh...
"point"?!
what point?!
calling a cactus a *******
cactus?
or calling it
an semiticl headscarf?
which is which?
a skirt just covering
the knee?!
better ask your women
to wear gloves...
i seem to enjoy the fact
that the most ****** part of
a woman, are her hands...
geisha hands...
and wrists i could look
at like i might an enjoy an hour
with a bottle of wine...
aha!
tell me...
what's the difference between
a didgeridoo...
and a modern, nordic shamanic chant
akin to to the berserker warcry
in one of
heilung's song,
notably
alfadhirhaiti
where the audience go mad
with fervor & fury...
because didn't you know,
they say:
don't take to d.n.a. ancestor testing,
watch what you absorb culturally...
from what i heard...
the ugly vikings founded
the city of Kiev,
so they must have passed past my parts...
hidden Baltic -
grazing mother of soured milk
that intermediates
a stasis prior to yogurt -
no wolves in england...
i'll pet a a fox therefore...
scoop and swoon -
the baronical patience of
a shadow admirer.;
even if the Jews have abandoned
Europe...
what the left?
is beside the origin of what
the crucifix constitutes...
even if the Jews abandoned
Europe, what they pressed was
the antagonism of Greece -
they pursued ancient Greece -
until the world, and all matters Latin -
stood to understand -
the Jews left Europe,
abandoning the pursuit of Greek -
penitent people, noble people...
until the library of Nag Hammadi
emerged from
the sands of both time,
and Egypt...
noble people... penitent people...
these Israelites -
these Jobs of disgruntled time -
Hiob, Yob, Hiob, Job...
i am barren in wanting to "forgive"
the Jews...
how they pursued ancient Greek
to avenge the emergence of
the Second Troy in Rome...
with Rome...
no Greek will stand on these words
with an Achilles heel...
the Jews pursued the Greek
revisionism of their testament
long enough...
as what Nero found hilarious...
i take to wind and soul with
a drunk mind,
but a sober heart.
Sep 7, 2018
Sep 7, 2018 at 8:38 PM UTC
It is my belief, that at our core is a connection
with a deep “Inner Knowing."
It's abode resides within each of us.
At the point of deep silence.
Between our inhalation and exhalation
There is a point of stillness
In the quiet of our personal eternal now.
The Dove sitting quietly on her nest.
Do you call her an Angel?
Holy Spirit?
Or the Self Actulizing Higher self?
Or someing else?
A quiet knowing warms the heart
A scream or a shout you will never hear!
A quiet tender voice
Calling.
Without a doubt!
Do you understand her deeper nature?
She is the Ancestor,
The Guru, The Teacher, The Guide, The Witness
The maintainer of Life itself.
Lovingly, tending to the questiions of your heart.
She comforts the destressed soul.
Tames the racing fears.
Dispells the wild winds of assupmtions!
Vigulant, never ceasing
Always enduring to the end.
Raising us up!
We are a unified whole
Layers upon layers of energies
knit kindly togethter
With Her Love.
Mar 30, 2020
Mar 30, 2020 at 6:26 PM UTC
Let me apologize to begin with
For the way I have to say this to you
Instant and digital with the flawless
12 point form in a unison moment
All these words flow like lies from a child
And flawed, a 1984 Brave New World
Jacked in and online, I swear to God
Microsoft is a virus in my veins and the
Side-effects leave me nauseated and yet
Comforted with the connection I feel
With everyone under this epidemic
And Mac is a twisted strain of my particular
Insanity. Glossy and chic in my pocket, on the go,
Steve Jobs is the ancestor of Doctor Wily
Making *** some bandwagon that needs jumping
Like SkyNet will make me safer, I’ve heard it before
I wish this paper was yellow and crackling
With the orange firelight it was written under
On a sofa, pipe in hand, with the Raven tapping
Melodramatic to the point of genius
Rather then the cliché that emotion has somehow become
And abbreviations become acronyms and symbols
Who has killed the fair maiden of language?
Beautifully laid and strung, pearls upon my page
Folded into my pockets and on the margins of reality
Like a child unwilling to wait to show his parents
The words escape and flee and I panic, pen trembling
Mind to tongue to hand and nerves in the ink
Like meter and scheme trying to restrain this infinite
Strand of DNA that is the flawless combinations of letters
And letters! Curved like a woman tempting and pleasing
To round my pen and finding sanity in the corners and points
Or the cursive dribble of calligraphic art practiced endlessly
By the scholars, monks, orphans, or even the X of a slave
Bearing his mark, leaving himself branded on the page
But I most apologize, I will get carried away
And that is not the way Times New Romans likes it
Mar 15, 2011
Mar 15, 2011 at 7:23 PM UTC
What does it mean to be free?
I look down to my hands and my feet and what do I see?
Not shackles, not chains, not confederate flags,
not the fields and not the pains
Of my ancestor who were slain
Who worked in the sun and in the rain
What does it mean to be free?
Does it mean to go to college and get a degree?
Does it mean to live with your head held high and your eyes wide shut?
To live with that uneasiness way down in your gut
To keep your mouth shut and your head off the platter
To many, it seems they’d rather do the latter
What does it mean to be free?
Momma never told me, that’s something that in her lifetime she probably never got to see
Something in her lifetime she never got to be
You can take the shackles off a person and they still won’t be free
Because you destroyed their minds years ago to an insurmountable degree
You, you wretched system
You took my culture, took my last name
You try to steal all my remakes but that’s all in vain
You hate me, and you wish I’d fall
You wish I never find freedom but I got the wake up call
You keep chasing me, like my name’s David, and yours is Saul
Because for decades that wretched system put the necks of my people up against a wall
But I got my hands up, I’m ready for a brawl
Yeah I’m ready to do it all
I’m ready to throw you like a football
But best believe I’m coming for you last like an 8 ball
Because you see, for far too long I’ve been trying to be free
And all along you keep promising me
All the freedom I could want at just a small fee
The fee Martin Luther King jr, he paid in blood
The fee that Malcom X paid in blood
The fee that Emmit Til paid in blood
The fee that Trayvon Martin paid in blood
And now here we are, trying to get what’s been promised
And what will it take us, more blood?
Aug 3, 2016
Aug 3, 2016 at 6:29 PM UTC
Areas of knowledge answer: How do we know?
Looking for the origins of our knowledge flow.
From mathematics to the ethics,
History to the arts,
These are the ways we tell types of knowledge apart.
First of these eight categories is math.
From axioms to logic it takes a very exact path.
Deals with conjecture and theorems; creating laws about the world.
Sometimes this complicated topic makes me want to hurl.
Next comes ethics with many complicated questions,
Using morals and values to give the proper suggestion.
Depends on people's views that differ by culture,
Questions from "Theft to save your family?" to "Killing a vulture?"
Areas of knowledge answer: How do we know?
Looking for the origins of our knowledge flow.
From mathematics to the ethics,
History to the arts,
These are the ways we tell types of knowledge apart.
Up comes history dealing only with the past;
It is only concerned with evidence and the facts.
Studies government propaganda to the plight of the peasant.
Deals with any kind of knowledge from creation to the present.
Fourth on the list are the human sciences,
From many loaded questions to our stream of consciousness.
Observations to conclusions, free will to determinism,
Deals with our knowledge of the world from the atom to reductionist
Areas of knowledge answer: How do we know?
Looking for the origins of our knowledge flow.
From mathematics to the ethics,
History to the arts,
These are the ways we tell types of knowledge apart.
Religious knowledge systems deal with people's beliefs;
Knowledge of God and the heavens to the world beneath.
From polytheism in Athens to life after death,
Knowledge coming from religion concerns us to our last breath.
The natural sciences, knowledge of the natural world,
Explaining how things work like biceps d'ring a curl.
Hypothesis, theories and all sorts of paradigms,
Knowledge so revolutionary that in the past it was a crime.
Areas of knowledge answer: How do we know?
Looking for the origins of our knowledge flow.
From mathematics to the ethics,
History to the arts,
These are the ways we tell types of knowledge apart.
Indigenous knowledge systems, the customs of the tribe,
Using folklore and storytelling to spread ancestor's pride.
Knowledge or tradition and customs of the ancient nomads,
Anything about the indigenous from the good to the bad.
Last on the list, the final area of knowledge,
Is the arts, all the way from elementary to college.
Dealing with aesthetics, forgery, kitsch and catharsis;
Without this types of knowledge we'd be stuck in the darkness.
Areas of knowledge answer: How do we know?
Looking for the origins of our knowledge flow.
From mathematics to the ethics,
History to the arts,
These are the ways we tell types of knowledge apart.
Mar 31, 2015
Mar 31, 2015 at 12:33 PM UTC
I know not from whence my inspirations cometh
I believe I was chosen from the time of my birth.
Alone and undisturbed, I have strange visitation
Embellished with beautiful stories delivered via imagination
Even the mental drought known as writer's block
Goes away the very moment the spirits knock.
Thanks to my late Queen mother who told me stories
And tales of our ancestor's conquest of adversities.
I am the last of the great Grios from my tribe.
The spirits will always be my source of inspiration and guide.
I come alive at night when the entire world sleep,
That's when the best ideas and loose words creep.
These words I process as part of my solemn obligation.
As custodian of Ancient history and its dissemination.
Call me a poet because of spoken word and great poetry
In actuality, I'm the last Grio sent to write our ancient oral history.
IvanBrooksPoetry©️
Jan 31, 2018
Jan 31, 2018 at 7:31 PM UTC
I just finished texting you on December 31st
Sunday night, or maybe you consider that a Monday morning
and a country song just came on the radio
I couldn't help but to think about how much I hate country music
I hate the stereotypical voice the singer always sings,
the predictable pattern of strung guitar strings
So, at 2:24 am, on a December 31st, Sunday night/Monday morning
I started to wonder if you liked country music
Or believed too that it's tacky
I wonder if "tacky" even exist in your vocabulary
Where did you get your vocabulary?
Did your mom raise you to believe words would be your greatest ally
Was she raised with more than one language
I wonder what your ancestor's native language sounds like
And if it was ripped out of their tongues
Like culture in our history books
what stories were told from those tongues that history books could never tell
I wonder, what kind of stories you've carved in lover's mouths
with just your, tongue.
I wondered if you've ever lost someone
I wonder if you've ever lost yourself
If you did, where did you find yourself?
Did you find yourself in your palms over bent knees
That kissed the ground that at one time
kissed your feet.
I wonder when we'll meet
I wonder if I'll meet your best friend. If shell ever get scared
You'll replace her with me
And if I'll have to tell her, she's irreplaceable.
I wonder what's your favorite places you've been to
The places that made you smile to your human anatomy's most potential
And I wonder how much you know about your own human anatomy
I wonder if you know that an average heart beats 100,000 times a day
Pumping almost 2,000 gallons of blood through its chambers
Over a 70 year lifespan, that adds up to about 2.5 billion heartbeat
And sitting here, just wondering about you- you made me skip a few.
It's now 3:07 a.m.
And I'm wonderin' if you've ever wondered what it would be like to be loved by a poet
To have your body be put words and your words be put against my body
To have lips match figurative language to the figure of your body
And write love poems on your cheek
And I wonder if you even consider me a poet.
What are the events in your life you consider poetic?
If your life was a poem, what kind of poem would your
8th grade English teacher categorize it as?
If you were a curious child and if now
You're ever curious about me
If my mind ever wanders while I wonder about you
And if I could ever weaver it back
At 3:21 a.m., December 31st, Sunday night, Monday morning
I'm wondering if you're wondering about me.
Or if you ever wonder if I've ever lost myself, but more recently, lost my mind writing poetry
I wonder if you wonder if I consider myself a poet.
I wonder, if at 3:27 am, if you're awake too,
Wondering if I like country music.
Jan 26, 2013
Jan 26, 2013 at 11:44 PM UTC