You say doctors will
make the best poets.
They will search your emotions
by the skin; cutting open to reveal
and revel
with surgical precison.
They will play with
heavy drugs and blades--
nothing shall hide beneath
the armors of bone and muscle.
They know the anatomy
of the heart too well.
They will find the things
you have hidden in your chest.

I say
doctors will never be poets.
They are too mechanical,
too fast with their edges
and ridges.
They cannot see the pain
as pain but merely as an anomaly.
That sadness is black bile
not melancholia.
They cannot sing to you
but only clammer in medical jargon.

Poets will use their imperfect words,
and perfect rhymes
to find the secrets of your rib cage
with ease.
They will find every flaw
of your broken body
and make it the best story
you've never heard.

Doctors,
they will put love to define as
a momentary rush of adrenaline,
an arrythmia for another human
caused due to an imbalance of the heart rhythm.

Poets will tell you
that love is the first jolt
of life for them.
They will say love is a state of euphoria
that takes those irregular rhythms to perfect symphonies.

Doctors say that
veins carry blood
devout of oxygen.
I say that they carry your broken emotions
to their feelings factory
to mend it within its beautiful catacombs.

All those doctors
will find and fix you
with perfect solutions.

And these poets
will do their best
to be your perfect solution.

A string of words that flow like the rivers,
Showing enough thought to provide the shivers.
Reflections of the poet within,
The type thrown out in the garbage bin
Or the type framed and hung on the wall.
There's a poet within us all.

Not all are eager to show their inner poet,
But would rather let it set sail
As rivers stream from their eyes
Due to the symbolic lie
They believe, making them pale
As, with their sorrow, they wallow it.

Patronizing executives and farmers
Believe their exterior would be shattered
If their inner poet let slip.
Once somebody gives them lip,
They harden as if it mattered
And equip their shields and armors.

The Spartan with the inner-Athenian
Would be killed by his friends
If they knew who he was on the inside.
This fills him with fear.
He keeps his ears open to hear
If anyone is coming as he hides
So his poetry will have its end
Before this war with the Peloponnesians.

Such beauty gone to waste
All because this facade of masculinity
Everyone puts on to protect themselves
From the beasts in this society
That would love to shatter those dreams.
Artists should gather in teams,
Ready to fight this anarchy
That would place our poetry on the shelves,
Collecting dust with haste.
*Collecting dust with haste.

Struggling inhaling
A swelling, current
Mix of malaise and
Iridescent rays
Whipping within my 6th
To 2nd -

Is this normal
It’s not
Meditation shouldn’t be
This ***** filling
Royalling current of **** -

God, what happened to the bliss?
The breathing in until peace
Amidst a storm
External;
What did I do to deserve this
Everything -

It’s all spread in;
Sins, loves, memories
The currents of the past
Slamming against my dammed
For too long
Now spring 4th

Only by being
Here;
May I come to

Know these pieces
Long repressed
In armors rusted shut;

This is spiritual lubricant
                       It’s ******* me hard

I am tired of being scared to walk home in the dark-
to step outside once the sun has faded and yellow lights are barely bright enough to
light the way.
I am tired of being scared that every time I look
down or away
it will be the last time.
That every rustle in the bushes is a predator stalking their prey-
that every set of footsteps behind me is bigger sounding,
louder with every intake of breath,
and it will be the last thing I hear.
I am tired of having to carry myself with less dignity than I have,
of being stared at with less respect than I deserve,
because a man has decided that
because I have
*******
and
wide hips
it is my duty to be objectified and sexualized
like I am less than
human.
I am tired of holding my breath until I am behind my locked door,
of being afraid to take the bus when there is only one other human on it besides the bus driver and
he stares at me
the whole time, gets off at the same stop I do, tries to
walk into my building behind me,
until I tell him
with steel in my voice and iron in my spine,
"you need to leave. I haven't seen you before".
And when he looks startled,
like a deer caught in my headlights,
I get angry
because he was expecting a
scared little girl
but instead he got a
strong, resilient woman.
Because I am nothing if not
strong.
When you're a size
14
and the other girls laugh at you
when they think you
can't
see them,
when they whisper about you in the bathroom when they don't know you're there-
when you're a little girl, all of
10
and crying because you'll never be a
size 4
and those other girls,
the ones you played with on the playground not a year before
have turned against you,
laughing
and
pointing
because you hit puberty before any of them and you have
body parts
that they don't-
you have to learn to build yourself a backbone.
To build yourself a
spine of iron
and
a mouth of steel.
When the entire world has bet
against you
and the house has the game rigged,
you must stand for yourself because no one else will.
You must walk in the night
anyways,
you must keep your chin held high
and your mouth set with
defiance.
You were not built like other girls.
You were never
soft
and
pliable.
Because you were forced to forge your own path to succeed.
You do not have the luxury of being built
to fit the mold.
When they made you into what you are,
when they shaped your confidence with their
words,
sharper than scalpels and hurting
just as much,
they tried to
break
you.
But you-me-
we are not easily broken.
Because we have a
mouth made of steel
and a backbone made of iron
and though their words still sting,
their words still hurt,
you have built yourself an armor
to defend.
It is coated in wax so their words slide right off,
it is made of titanium so their weapons will never hit their marks.
Even still,
my heart races when I walk alone at night,
my mind whirls and my world tilts when I see
a man
walking towards me in the dark.
It does not matter, in this moment, that I was
reborn
through trial by fire,
It does not matter that I
survived
against all odds.
That fear sits like a stone in my stomach,
weighing me down and freezing my muscles.
It does not stop when he walks by and nothing happens.
It is the fear that keeps me rooted to the spot.
I should not be
paralyzed
by this irrational fear.
This fear, with such a wicked face-
not born by experience,
but born by
statistics
and the fact that I am a
woman.
Why is it that we are trained to
throw stones
against each other?
Why is it that even as
children
we feel a primal desire to shove one another down
and hold each other by the throat,
as if we are
feral wolves
poised to attack?
We are the only thing standing between the world we live in now,
and
change.
It is only if we stop stabbing each other in the
back
that anything will happen.
It is only when we truly
believe
in each other that the world will
believe
in us too.
And maybe, if we do that?
Our little girls will not feel
my fear
when they walk alone in the dark.
Maybe our little girls will never be
paralyzed
when a man walks past them on a dimly lit sidewalk.
Maybe our little girls will not need to build such extreme
armors to keep the
hurt
out.
Maybe our little girls
will have a chance that they do not need to
fight
to be given.

The dark castle of Bebbanfarne glare with remorse. Trelleborg surrounded by flames gyrating through the air like coryphee in a corps de ballet. Tyranny ended together with ash of demise with a glint of red curse.

The growling sound from their throats remind me of dogs howling. A sound of victory chortled that means, the flag of Vikings remain. Pillage in the land will no longer stand, no more heads to slay in the Valhalla. War has come to an end, seafaring to the West they'll send.

As the music and festive noise invade the whole space, I, Valka, need a drink. No more sceattes left in my pocket since the dark throne burnt our town including the Byre, because we only have cows where long houses built near the brink.

The crowd mobbed in this old dusty tavern. Norsemen guzzle their beers, for today, is something to cheer.

Scythe and horn helmet suddenly dived in my pub table where Asvard, the head of Varyags appeared. I covered my face with kerchef and proffer him a drinking horn. For he is alone, and looks torn.

The moon is blue, which is true. There's no stars, but only the giant moon trapping the sky. The Vikings will tomorrow rise as they sail their knarr away from the ground where new quest bound.

Asvard lunged the drink and gulp down leaving a froth. 'Ahoy, Valka Lindqvist.' I should've worn my two braids as the Varyag guard acknowledge a partake.

Asvard apprise the journey takes time. He looks at me, and said 'stars are hidden in your eyes. That's why there's nothingness tonight.' A fleeting moment of merry in my life.

The stillness of the early morning scene row the vessel smoothly until out of sight. The vow of me and Asvard is carved in the rune stone that midnight. 'A full moon where lovers kiss, spell of eternity will bliss.'

Every full moon, I wait. It's been years since the vessel went home straight, the wind lost their track from navigating. Vikings board one by one. This is the day.

Brynjar, the warrior with tough armors came to say hi. He told me Asvard is no longer inside. The huge waves of tides wash away some men and die. But a message from my Asvard he declared this time:

'Valka, my dereworthy heart, the sail has been taking forever as the moon so full and bright, the waves are getting higher. I miss the drink of that half-horn of rye. Remember, the vow in stone runes will never die. I will see you very soon. If not now, tomorrow or in the future, maybe in another life. Look up in the sky, so I may see the stars in the cruel earth hidden in your eyes. Valka Lindqvist, this is not our goodbye.'*

(a.k)

I learnt today that things hidden between the shadow and the soul are the most precious of all. Maybe there’s something about darkness that keeps, that stays, waiting for light to leave but still doesn’t reveal itself. I learnt today that somewhere, between the shadow and the soul is where dead things live.

Maybe in the dark we can both lay down our armors and no one will know. Maybe we can strip our bones of our skins and bath in the shimmer of night till we belong.There’re two lovers at the bottom of a well somewhere in the middle of nowhere with their souls dancing to the sound of sinking water.

There’s a rotten corpse that serves as a home to an earthworm and a field mice that know they shouldn’t be in love, but they come back to the dark everyday. There’s an alley that dances with its shadow every night when no one is around to judge. And I’m somewhere in between, between dancing alleys and sinking water, spread over the different shades of dark, between the shadow and the soul.

But with all this dark, nothing compares to mine, where I have hid me, somewhere between metaphors and mirrors. Cos the brightest of lights make the darkest of shadows, so we hide in plain sight, a dozen fake smiles away from sunset, waiting for night to come.

Let me give you my armor
Take my sword and shield
I'll be your knight in skin
With only my words to wield.
When the armors worn and broken
You can take my skin as well
Tattered, scarred and broken
But for you I wouldn't yell.
And with you every word
That you picked from my throat
Melted in your hands
And filled your empty cup.
You drank a part of me
My words upon your tongue
They trickled down your mouth
But your heart had already sung.
The tune of someone else
Your song it wasn't mine
My heart was already shattered
But it broke differently this time.

- N. Morin

Women, bearers of warriors' marks,
You're the tough layers of the baobab's barks,
Best of the portraits that nature paints,
and Catwalk models of baggy pants.

You have been misled and misused
Your bodies and souls have been abused,
Yet, like a rose planted in a concrete
You majestically rose on your feet.

Women, flawless skins, lipsticks queens.
Fresh like shades of master's greens.
Big bones babes, skinny jeans chicks,
Gorgeous women, with kitchen tricks.
                            
You are every woman, universal mama,
Rest in peace to the mother of Obama.
God bless every woman from Uganda
to the outskirts of the land of Wakanda.

African woman, Mother of humanity,
Thou are endowed with enviable beauty.
Eternal goddesses, brides of great kings
Multitasks babes, doers of great things.

Oh, Woman, givers of selfless love,
Sent to us from the great man above.
Oh, Woman thou are blessed,
You shall slay, was long prophesied.

This is a tribute to Maya Angelo's mammy.
Bless your lyrically poetic womb.
 a solemn tribute to Mother of LeBron,
The NBA GOAT, King James of Akron.

Curvy Women work your gorgeous hips,
Smile with your Luscious rogue lips,
Thou are the pollen grains of biology,
and the specimen of perfect anatomy.

Eve of Eden, the apple of God's own eyes,
You gave every woman bedroom eyes
that pierces to the core of diamonds,
Like hardened bejeweled armors.

Woman, thou are truly nature's bounty.
Showcase your freaks and sexuality,
For which your petals toast monthly...
Slay dear queen, slay perpetually.

You came from Adams's ribs to give life
Woe unto any man who mistreats a wife,
Thou are indeed a blessed assurance,
Behold your grace, strides, and elegance.

For Sarah Brooks, my deceased mother,
and Sarah Ivana Brooks, my daughter,
For white, yellow and Brown women,
and all beautiful black African women.

 This poetry, I penned for women is a tribute to everything.
For those nights you stayed up to sing,
Those prayerful songs only God heard,
Lying on tears soaked pillows in bed.


#IvanBrookdpoetry© Bassapoet©
August 16-2019

You can't fight yourself without losing.
Lost in this haze of constant confusion.
Are you human? So you know what I mean,
fighting temptation is as hard as it seems.

So this is the battle between emotion and logic.
Rewinding back like, "Is this real or a card trick?"
Oil slick. Static seeping in my mental navigation,
refusing to cut the ties to your connotation.

You read the last chapter now read the beginning.
You can't figure out if you're losing or winning.
Are you kidding? You lost track years ago.
Inattentive, glazed eyes pointed out the window.

An ultimatum emerged knocking on your front door.
Your words used as weapons caught in civil war.
Killing floor. Visual spectacle merely invented.
Armors the shell of your steam-powered persistence.

These days the wind blows so turbulent,
Natures influence forms dramatic events.
Circumvent. Form yourself a fate of your own.
Discard your words; pick up sticks and stones.

See her glances enchanting,
And rich scales set beautiful eyes,
Now who may breathe fire?

Long graceful neck,
The girl’s too,
Slender limbs,
Smooth,
Inviting
Even as a tail guards

Will hands caress you?
Their appearance neither coarse nor scarred
Never mind, other talons will tear
Like others pushed away

A fair maiden’s decidedly worth saving
Damsels are so often distressed,
Though, you see no tower?
Still, sword gleams!
And your armors match.

The dragon’s now slayed,
Yes I bid you to,
And she fell

How tall and stout were those who wore big armors?
I wondered at a museum of heroic ancestors.
In self hypnotism I look through future.
find machines are giants, people- pygmies,
products outnumber their creators,
most inhabitants follow train of thoughts
set by  few scientists and technicians,
brains control sentiments as machines monitor hearts.
The stance is broken as the closing-bell rings.
Slowly I walk out of the empty hall.

1st. Feb. 2017

Sardonic savory armors against midnight shift,
Scrapbooks made from scrawny writings,
Wherein science is religion,
Some are hit and miss!!

Scowling, surely overcrowds happy intentions,
Noone mentions the fetal positions overthrow!!

Window peepers gaze between one another,
Serpent sermons drumline strong to song's of shipment sufferance,
Where thine utterance is grieved more than thou has ever felt!!!

More than the fall membrane beneathe your feet you shall blow!

Doth thou roll amongst forge stone?
Amongst the shows that made thou the mime thou art today../

A smile upon your cloak,
Yet thy finest of coats is in all disarray...

Perforaters try harshly to subdue our mother like peons,
Formulaic bringons,
Or turn one to sickened ones alike!!!!

Chasers of cognizant, bringers of fatality,
For doth thou chooseth to have life?

All the snails
have hard shells
like coat of arms
of pachyderms.
Beetles' hard sacks
save attacks
just as armors
of old soldiers.
Our safeguard
is to make skin hard
to let us glide
in ebb and tide.

1st Dec. 2016

There is a place
It is heaven and it is hell
The place inside my head
Where no one can reach me there

I can imagine butterflies
I can imagine dragons
I can see me as the princess of Albion
Or see me fed to the Lions

With books, in my head I imagine
A world with fairies and armors
Garden with daisies and arbors

With pain, in my head I imagine
A world with cries and tears
Rivers of lies and fears

If I find myself sliding into my head
With a frown on my face, and a heart that aches
Do pull me back
As the dangerous den to be
Is a place, called my head

Khayrsouf|Aplacecalledmyhead

It would be sweet to **** a dragon~
and save a princess fair~
Riding by the monster's corpse~
smoke drifting from my hair~

To cut the ropes that held her~
snugly to the pole~
and not to find her satisfied~
as a living goal~

To see her nod her thank you~
and turn from me to find~
within the dragon's treasures~
a great big axe to grind~

To see her sift through armors~
of knights the dragon dined~
To see her eyes light up upon~
a set that suits her fine~

And then to bid me forward~
And as her partner I obey~
To render her assistance~
In other dragons for to slay~

Thou must deny thy power
To enlighten hearts, they're pure
What thou should behold
Is thy help to stay that bold

Hath thou ever believed in chastity?
Then it hath been too late to be
When thou dissed grieves in levity
It is better not to forget history

Legions, armors, protections, sieges
War bugles, tear drops, bloodshed
Orphans, widows, maniacs, cages
Rapists, religions, trials, are been led

Until no white flags are raised
Immobile fingers and legs scatter
In the dirt by swords ablazed
Wish doves with mint leaves matter

Its such a shame to lose beauty to the lack of emotional intelligence

Especially when beauty comes with the responsibly to uphold

One that must be guarded and protected
And never misused

It's such a shame to not hold the confidence reflected in your smile nor can the fortitude of your conversation be rectified by the mere reflection of charm holding no true class

Depicting shattered shallow Armors of glass

Broken under the least bit of pressure

Rise, brothers,
Freedom calls us.
Grab your guns
Wear your helms

This day all tyrants
Will turn to our servants
This night their hearthstone,
We will own!

Army of the horde is on the way
Warriors, line up!
Standby for battlecry
Bloodlust has conquered our minds and our souls.
Rip off their hearts,
Break their skulls!

Trenches made of corpse
Armors made of bones
Slaying the horde is our goal

Taunts and cry-outs
Sounds of swords and shields
Is our music

Their throats and their backs
Sounds of the bones break
Injured warriors are bleeding
It paints your soul

Stand up and fight
Drive the lance of light
Into the eye of the night
Free the world from the rage of this dark hate

Army of the horde is on the way.
Warriors, line up!
Standby for battlecry
Bloodlust has conquered our minds and our souls.
Rip off their hearts and break their skulls!

Rise up!

Leaving my solitary wandering in a world unknown to me…
Leaving my castle, and keeping my secrets locked there…
Leaving my shelter and shielding my soul with thousands of armors…
Leaving my serenity, looking to what is missing back there…

All those years…
I thought I was right!
All Those years..
I felt I was in peace!
All those years…
I sensed I was wise!

But

After All those years, I realized I was Alone!
After being the prince of that castle for all those years, I found that love was not in every corner of that palace!



Loneliness became my companion in that drifting!
Mystery was the scarf wrapping my whole being!
Fear was the pain endured in the wilderness!
It is a journey of an old spirit that didn’t rest!

I passed by a garden not covered by my sight…
I smelled every smell was not known to me…
I saw the blossom of each flower…
I touched every leaves and stems in secret…

Bunches of roses called secretly… Invited me unintentionally to rest…to live…to love.

All those years wiped out…
All those years became meaningless…
I’ve been fulfilled, transformed roughly with them, unable to leave…
The eager is to stay, but the love I met took me to places where I found something beyond the boundaries of human!!

Stranger in the wilderness surrounded with their aroma!
The bless is there touching deeply and leaving you with everlasting scar that won’t cure

Growing up I held
A sword as shield
Fighting every day
To just be me
Submissive with my equals
But never giving dominance
To those throwing
Their weight upon my Being

Unfortunately
I learned to stab
At the tender parts
Of my father
As I sliced
Off the cancers
Growing amongst my friends

When I tried to quit
The fight for peace
Distance from false family
       (My love for them
         An open wound)
My father turned
His sword upon hisself
And finally stabbed at me

My sword my shield
My fire shattered
Cold steel
Became my skin
I hid in here
Until I couldn’t
Until I couldn’t
Escape.

To shatter cold steel
Mix amphetamines with pixie hearts
Let simmer for months
Then superheat yourself
With mushroom stems and drums
Until collapse
Careful now your armors gone
Careful now take two
Sublingual
Make three
Of equals
And open up the heart

Careful now
Careful now
Careful now

I've wanted to dive
the deepest ocean;
explore its wonders
no eyes hath seen

I've wanted to dive
its every corner
to feel how it feels
the love it never gave

I've wanted to dive
and have a piece of it
I'll take the mem'ry
and leave my prints

I've wanted to dive
the deepest ocean...

but the waves' crest,
the coldest wind,
– its armors,
and my sail

won't allow me

They just wouldn't.

The paralysis,
the agony of unresponsive muscles,
the coward voice that barely moves the air,
the hesitation that confuses
what we are and what we are not.

This fear that makes me avoid
discomfort, pain, the unknown,
this fear guardian-torturer,
does not fit me no more.

The fear of the unreal,
the fear of the impossible,
the fear of breaking myself,
the fear of the fear,
the fear of the uncontrollable wills,
this petty fear that serves only itself,
that hits palaces, and houses and slums,
the fear of a dingy past,
or of an obscure future,
of the prophetic images of possible apocalypses,
professed by notorious atheist scientists,
or the fear of the science propagated by unbelieving priests,
or the fear of the starvation I never had (that made me obese),
or the fear of the accident I never experienced (that locks me home),
or the fear of the policeman and the thief (that armors my car),
or the fear of rejection I never suffered (that fuels my social life with happy pictures),
and the sum of all these fears, the ultimate fear,
the fear of never come to be what I dreamed to be.

Today, none of my muscles will obey them.

I was just a damsel in distress.
Lost and tired of the cruelties of my past.
At night, I would dream for a knight,
in his mighty horse and golden armor.
To rescue me from the dull castle,
with thick walls I myself have built.
Then, you set foot at the threshold of my castle,
riding no horse, wearing no golden armors.
You fought no ogre nor trolls
You just brought me words,
Beautiful words I haven't heard before.
You made me your only star in your galaxy,
your kryptonite and your pixie dust.
Your poetic words under the setting sun made me blush and giggle like a kid.
You whispered songs in my ears
and made the fairies dance like splattered glitters in the night.
You have given me wings,
You have treated me like a Queen,
your only Queen.
Oh love, you already have my heart,
from the moment our eyes made contact for the first time.
And so here I am, breaking every brick, every stone of my walls.
Walking step by step into your direction.
No matter what odds may be,
I will be forever your Queen bee.

Staring me down across seas of iceburgs
Sifting through the flakes of snow
Looking for the key to you but finding none
A forgotten memory of the armors fault
The shield still to protect fell to the hands of a foe
The fault split between your fingers
A hollowed knight upon a sea of blood
Peaking through the mire
Don’t abandon me on my lifeboat
The wood is cracked and rot
The shield is a dagger to stab the ship
Sinking beneath the waves till tomorrow

Poets wear armors
Of labyrinth words and
Moistened nibs

Faces encased in
waters of written ideas
and recorded feelings

Time does not
show in wilting paper
years do not
matter in ideas passed
through generations

Poets will not
age unless
the human race do

Whoever told you I am
          invincible must
                    be dreaming. Dreams
aren’t real. Reality, realities.
          Invincibility is an illusion.
Knights in armors live
          nowhere but in fairy tales. Behind
                    the shining shields, little child
                    warriors shiver in fear,
                    aching for a mother’s hugs
                    and a father’s cheer.
The crowds don’t see tears streaming,
          only true friends comfort the weeping
                    each nursing each other's wounds
                    together toward healing.
Survivors are butterflies
          emerging from hiding chrysalises
                    themselves survivors
                              from embattled caterpillars.
Invictus -
                    still the victor recites
                    favorite lines.