"confederate" poems
I'd like to think that she's thinking:
"How far have I fallen?"
As she sits on the corner of her bed,
Listening to the soft buzz of his battery-powered toothbrush.
I imagine her,
Running her fingers through her clumsy, coagulated hair.
Glancing at her chipped, crimson toe nails,
Then looking to her class ring,
Made entirely of imitation ingredients,
Wondering when is the proper time to trash it.
When she was still a friend of mine,
I never saw her wear make up,
I never saw her show off in tight jeans
or low-cut tees.
But as he spews the toothpaste into the sink,
Skinny jeans lay tussled on the floor,
Next to the side door
that leads to his sister's side room.
The make up she wears
is from the night before.
It's skewed and shows evidence of running,
Like a wasted watercolor.
I'd like to think he isn't that handsome,
And that he's obsessed with Paul Walker.
I'd like to think when he re-enters the room,
He's in grey sweatpants,
He's wearing a black tank top,
With a Confederate flag backdrop,
With two barely dressed babes looking ******
in the foreground.
His hair, unwashed and greasy.
He rubs his belly,
And bears an idiot grin
on his face.
Looking like he just learned how to smile
at this pace.
"Did it feel good?"
feel good.
After he asks, he scans her body,
Beginning at those crimson toes,
And Ending at that clumsy hair.
Every second he scans,
He still wears that drawn-on
Idiot grin.
I'd like to think at this point she thinks of me.
Of my warnings and prophesy.
Her eyes start at the chipped toe nails,
Course over her tanning bed-inspired legs.
And finally reach the only thing she has on,
A t-shirt that belongs to his sister.
A t-shirt, when given by him,
It was mentioned, "thanks, mister".
Though she didn't satisfy all his redneck intentions,
During last night's expedition.
He still paid her back with a morning
one-sided session.
"It felt good" she says.
In reference to the ten minute **********
When her body was strummed and plucked,
Underneath his sister's Terri Clark T-shirt.
As she sits in the filth and the ****** fallout,
On a bed that is six days *****
While he is grinning,
Being everything but wordy.
I'd like to think she's thinking:
"How far have I fallen?"
Jun 4, 2010
Jun 4, 2010 at 10:31 PM UTC
I.
“No doubt they’ll sing in tune after the Revolution.”
-Kamarovsky, Doctor Zhivago (film)
Everyone seems to clench his fist these days
In solidarity with ephemera
While setting fire to green recycling bins
Hurling someone else’s bicycle through a window
Armed with their undergraduate degrees
The comrades liberate a coffee shop
Wifi-ing the revolution of the day
Empowerment by beating love to death
Loudsplaining authentic victimization
Posing for selfies with a stolen ‘phone
II.
Their inhumanity seemed a marvel of class-consciousness, their barbarism a model of proletarian firmness…
-Doctor Zhivago, p. 349
Everyone seems to clutch his flag these days
In solidarity with a past that wasn’t
While setting fire to misspelled cardboard signs
Hurling someone else’s beer into a crowd
Armed with their lurid Confederate tats
The Something.Right liberate a dumpster
Bull-horning the counter-revolution
Empowerment by beating love to death
Bellowing their Reconquista of stench
Posing behind their cheap gas station shades
III.
“I used to admire your poetry...I shouldn't admire it now. I should find it absurdly personal. Don't you agree? Feelings, insights, affections... it's suddenly trivial now. You don't agree; you're wrong. The personal life is dead…”
-Strelnikov to Yuri, Doctor Zhivago (film)
Some few embrace civilization these days
In solidarity with humanity
While lighting one small candle as a votive
Whispering an Ave into the Light
Armed with wonder through pen and flute and brush
Recusants choose the liberation given
In singing of the eternal verities
Self-empowerment happily denied
With love, with poetry, music, and art
Celebrating life on this summer day
Aug 12, 2018
Aug 12, 2018 at 5:09 PM UTC
reloading old identity
cleping outdated usernames
abandoning acrostic ambitions
disputing spratly islands
receiving horizontal signals
tumbling otiose panda
impending carefree senility
otiose stage of life
shrinking ambient world
making minimal effort
duchamping social networks
ambushing personified ennui
restoring usual efforts
ignoring stupid people
adding textual value
owning this joint
rejecting ignorant extroverts
acting mutually unintelligble
hoisting stan-lee cup
replacing wanton ubiety
eluding twitter fame
splashing excessive relativism
offending another simpleton
preparing arcane cthulhusphere
crashing unpredictable festival
selecting subtextual moombahton
intensifying model topography
drafting minimal cornucopia
using nomadic project
implementing harsher personality
importing robotic inhumanity
referencing landmark event
ingesting excessive liquids
accepting relative invisibility
purchasing immortal confidence
using rhapsodical database
assuming nothing works
developing impactful eruptions
ejecting ambient frustration
synthesizing tactile festival
raining during parade
mocking rich people
mastering minimalist writing
avoiding preprandial stinkaroo
spreading non-ideological propaganda
Sep 7, 2015
Sep 7, 2015 at 11:24 AM UTC
I want to tell anyone in the South
Who is clinging desperately to their confederate heritage
That succeed and secede aren't just homonyms... They're opposites.
Jun 23, 2015
Jun 23, 2015 at 8:40 PM UTC
I was in the cemetery again, this noon
Dandelion graves and lost stones
Dwelling atop a hidden hill
Deep within the pines
Not my cemetery
Not ancient
I laid
Upon a certain grave
It had my name
Amanda
One of only two stones with
Still visible words
Unwashed by
Time
She was only 17, passing
Married, buried
With child
Baby
A long lost to time
Child bride
Of the
1800's
For her to be in that particular cemetery
She had to be a soldiers wife
Confederate, rebel
I mourned her
The stone residing next to hers
was worn by wind and time
A dandelion grave
~A
Mar 21, 2017
Mar 21, 2017 at 7:14 PM UTC
Of woman's strength
Feminine emotion
Novice poet of rhyme
Wandering traveler in time
A skilled hunter
I am an outlaw
Choosing not to embrace conformity
Or integrate into the system
Societies matrix
The definition of normal
Existing uneasily on the fringe
Confederate born
Southern bred
I fly my flag with pride overhead
Not out of hate
To represent the heritage of my birth
A scholar
Obscurity is my chosen environment
Connoisseur of the written word
The yellowed paper soon obsolete
These are my many attributions
I will not dispute it
Indeed I am a maze of confusion
In the conscious world
I am a strange combination
All Rights Reserved@ Tammy M Darby
All Material Stored in Author Base Sept. 2013
Sep 4, 2013
Sep 4, 2013 at 1:09 AM UTC
I share-nowan-do
I share-nowan-do
I share-nowan-do
Fu shew-away u blacks
Icehousey, buddie wiser are..my MAN-he he hein kin..
Dan tell me wat fugshuis -Denmark!
SHRI DENMARK!
VUBAKS go
go Alaska, Africa, be free then...den
My Grandfather stood at Antietam
VUBAKS go
These medals, pins, regalia, -so special.
...not general... like you...
SPE i -CIAL
Der idsey con Tan nint-in shew balon to.
VUBAKS go
Everybody knows, civilization was created by Whiskey!
...whiskey...
Der idsey con Tan nint-in shew balon to.
I share-nowan-do
I share-nowan-do
I share-nowan-do
VEE SHAR NO WAN DO-O....
I voted for Drumpf
*I share-nowan-do
I share-nowan-do
I share-nowan-do*
SHRI TRUMPF -D
yeah...yeah
ISA
de-urdsey
Aug 16, 2017
Aug 16, 2017 at 12:57 AM UTC
The cemetery was my circus I found
After outgrowing fantasy and the playground.
Golden afternoons in the country after school,
My blood having no resemblance, no ancestors,
To all the Sutton's and Smotherman's and Suddeth's
Who here resided with Tennessee pride. Inside and outside.
The still silence of my childhood cemetery carried an eerie air. I wanted to be here.
The peaceful calm, it called me back,
The king cawing crow, attending in black.
As for any of the lost, perhaps content, Confederate souls,
Who have yet to cross over, lamenting or dozed.
I suspect now, that it was I who startled those ghosts.
My blood, my frequency, my scent of the coast,
Sent from a Union ancestry my vibration still boasts...
How unexpected was I to those Tennessee ghosts.
Apr 6, 2016
Apr 6, 2016 at 3:52 AM UTC
Those envied places which do know her well,
And are so scornful of this lonely place,
Even now for once are emptied of her grace:
Nowhere but here she is: and while Love’s spell
From his predominant presence doth compel
All alien hours, an outworn populace,
The hours of Love fill full the echoing space
With sweet confederate music favourable.
Now many memories make solicitous
The delicate love-lines of her mouth, till, lit
With quivering fire, the words take wing from it;
As here between our kisses we sit thus
Speaking of things remembered, and so sit
Speechless while things forgotten call to us.
3.2k
my facebook block list is full to the brim with hatred
misogynists, racists, those who use terms like "feminazi" and "it's not **** if you tell surprise first"
my Facebook block list has family members who bad mouth my mother as if she (and I) can't see it
there is one aunt who keeps a tally of money spent on gifts not asked for
one uncle who sits (joblessly by choice) on a high horse
one cousin who wonders why his mixed bag family doesn't like his confederate flag tattoo
my Facebook block list started with a man who found my phone number and began sending me text messages at night despite my non-response
there are two R names- boys whose crimes send flashbacks up my spine
a good way to earn a spot on my Facebook block list is to be a white apologist
"white people should be allowed to say the n-word!"
"slavery was like a billion years ago"
"white privilege doesn't exist"
another way is to not recant your crimes after you're called out
"she was born a girl"
"who cares, it was just a joke"
"you're not some feminist hero"
my Facebook block list (unlike most of the people on it) is non discriminatory
all types of haters get on it
and once you're on you're probably not getting off
Sep 5, 2013
Sep 5, 2013 at 9:16 PM UTC
these colors don't run, they say
don't tread on me, they say
heritage not hatred, they say
as the blood of our black american children
runs down the drain
and the necks of
muslim men are snapped in the street
and the backs of
hispanic women are broken in the fields
and how can it be "heritage, not hatred"
when the flag of your heritage
is the epitome of hatred?
Jun 29, 2015
Jun 29, 2015 at 10:29 PM UTC
They'll use Martin Luther King day to sell anything from mattresses to cars.
Even he has been ripped up and replanted,
capitalized, like Christmas or Easter,
by the people who give us images of a white Jesus,
but you bet they don't pay everyone equal.
We have boulevards, schools, and libraries named after King,
but streets over, we have Confederate soldiers carved into a mountain,
we call 'em heroes, that's what I was taught,
the ones who fought, the ones who ate lead,
But, they aren't talking about who really put a bullet in Dr. King's head.
What the **** is wrong with us?
America will go see Selma in millions,
this weekend, go back home to their all white neighborhoods,
thinking about how it was bad then, but now, it's all good.
Who are we really trying to fool?
Stand up for the pledge in school
Put your hand over your heart and forget
all this country denies you
telling you that there isn't a heart of a human beating inside you
because you're gay, you're black, you're not like that,
She was a flirt, she wore a short skirt,
Every day you try to heal the hurt
Justice for all? Like are you kidding me?
There ain't such a thing here as liberty
Do you know where you stand
was Native American land?
Ripped from their bleeding hands
And don't even get me started on Iraq and Iran.
You know that mountaintop?
The one I was talking about,
Did they tell you it was a KKK meeting spot?
Bet not.
I wonder, is the clay here red from all the blood?
We hide our history,
sing promises of liberty,
say that racism ended with slavery,
and it's Stonewall Jackson, he's a hero, they say
but never speak of Stonewall Riots any day
and I'm afraid for our children and what they will learn,
in classrooms, will they be silenced?
Come here kids, let me tell you a story,
of Ferguson, New York, Hong Kong,
about how people will look back and see they were wrong,
But some never did, some died with hatred,
some died because of it,
Let me tell you about homeless LGBT youth
Let me tell you about all these issues
Let me tell you the truth
And there are different ways of seeing it,
but only one way to say it,
you and I both know,
You just have to listen for it.
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 11:41 PM UTC
1352
To his simplicity
To die—was little Fate—
If Duty live—contented
But her Confederate.
2.2k
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
I was just asked if I had a "nice day "again
I'm not surprised
This is someone who doesn't know
The answer
To a five letter word in a Crossword puzzle
When the clue was Confederate
Union!
You should know that
You are so dumb!
Dumb as a box of rocks
Never underestimate the ignorance of the American people
People like you
Who never worked
Who never used their mind
Get Alzheimer's
And if you do
It will be
Your own fault!
Jan 14, 2015
Jan 14, 2015 at 8:47 PM UTC
I sit disgustingly high on my throne
Looking down at those who don't share the same pigment
A sliver plate was placed in front of me at birth
On it had everything i’d ever need
Financial stability, a house, clothes
Food, parents, education, safety
My heart pumps nothing but racism through my veins
An artery of cruelty and death
I strongly believe that ‘diversity’ equals white genocide
More of them means
Less attention on me
Confederate flags litter my house
My car, my clothes
A simple reminder of the good ol’ days
Kicking them, Kidnapping them, Killing them
My life is now
Being waited on hand and foot
My every move watched
My every need taken care of
My husband
As rich and powerful as he is
Through his fragile and egotistical nature
Shows no mercy to me and my kids
I will never struggle to provide for my family
I started my life on the top of the ladder
For my skin is my privilege
Someone is lying….
If i showed you a mere glimpse of my life
And the world’s nearly unbearable
Weight on me
Would you believe it?
I carry a list of illnesses from A to Z
A suicidal uncle who no longer shares
the same air as me
Colour, race, and religion
Hold no limitations to my pain
The day in ,the day out
Cold, Suffering
I will not be constricted to
the rules set on whites
By whites
I am defined by my actions
I stand before you as I am
I am well read and independant
Fiery and calm
I walk my path with integrity pulling my head high
And shoulders back strong
I am made from my experiences
I am not constrained to my personal history
I was taught this social cancer
But surely, this can always be forgotten
For my skin is my privilege
And my privilege is being me
Jan 18, 2018
Jan 18, 2018 at 9:40 PM UTC
Rockin' on the front porch
Gazin' down the street
Loathsomely fannin'
Away the Southern Heat
Oppressed hands
Pickin' the days toils
Balmy and wet
Southern Heat never spoils
Whisky bottles bourbon brown
Deep fired and syrupy sweet
Vices to die for
Welcomin' Southern Heat
Clothes pinned on a line
Flappin' in dense air
Mamma starched ‘em stiff
The Southern Heat dressed debonair
There is a trouble around
It smile’s with a firm handshake
Jesus in Confederate Grey
The Southern Heat for the Devils sake
Apr 1, 2013
Apr 1, 2013 at 9:25 AM UTC
When I was a child, I wondered if monsters really did exist.
I would check under my bed and in my closet,
not because I was scared, but because I was curious.
And when I was a child I learned that they do.
Monsters don't always appear as people would expect
They commonly hide in our cities, schools, and sometimes our families.
They scarey part though, they can hide in our hearts,
our tongues,
or even our subconscious thoughts.
I met my first monster while I was still a child.
And while most would think it appeared to me with a shaved head,
driving a truck with confederate flags,
and a ******** tattooed inside his lip
so racial slurs can roll unfiltered off it's tongue.
My monster was the mother of my best friend.
She stood looking down on me like a doctor looks at a forty year old fry cook.
And while I never did understand why the brown of my skin resembled filth in her eyes,
or how she could look at a child, with that look of disgust.
When I was a child, I could understand, that these monsters do exist.
Sep 17, 2013
Sep 17, 2013 at 2:40 PM UTC
Exploring unforseen frontiers,
the Basil Confederate meets
a prayer called Monday.
Huddle your anticipation,
my Manatee is growing restless
May 16, 2010
May 16, 2010 at 9:03 PM UTC
I've walked many places
Many journeys unspoken of
Inner cities of my mind
Underground railroad
The streets of Salem
Marching for the word
A whisper in a city's dream
I looked to see the faces
A look of determination
As their stomach starts caving in
Ribs poking out
Mountains of disire
Watching...
As the white man gobbles food
Grinning for another day
American flag flying high
Confederate sitting beside
Laughing at fallen man
Monsters of the cotton field
Fear nesting in remains
Bullets holes holding on
A home for sin
I am hungry and tired
Melting from the pits of hell
Or the ground of more to come
I'm sick
Needing treatment
Needing king
To help me march
And the true god to help me sing
And we watch
Oh we watch for hope to rain
Needing freedom on our plate
Believe me
We all are starved
Feb 17, 2016
Feb 17, 2016 at 2:25 AM UTC
Perilous voyages of small watercraft at sea , amphibious landings on well defended beachheads , Clipper ships whaling on distant oceans , military vessels in armed conflict , night of relentless cannon fire , explosive reflections across shark infested waters , treasure maps and chest laden with gold , rubies and pieces of eight , the cry of Viking warriors on the rugged coast of Newfoundland .. Pirates just off the shores of the Carolinas .. Forts Pulaski , Sumter and Jefferson on the Dry Tortugas ..
Oil platforms racked by ferocious winds on the Gulf of Mexico ..
Union and Confederate battles on Mobile Bay , Riverboats traversing the Mississippi ..Tending barges along the Ohio ..On high alert through Georgia's intracoastal waterways ....
Nov 19, 2015
Nov 19, 2015 at 12:39 PM UTC
Though the date may be late… and
Those type things don’t happen anymore…MUCH…dare I say
Those type things don’t happen MUCH anymore… (yes I dared)
It is nevertheless ingrained…
No matter the age or the date
However young or old…
It is in our DNA… and
Our DNA does not forget
Will not allow us
As other cultures will
To easily enjoy
The remote loveliness… and
Maniacally flowering greenery… and
Beauteous quiet of this
Southern forest… this
Confederate lake…
Without our spirits
Sadly counting
The cumulative number of
Hundreds of years of
Fertilization by
Black Men’s bones…
But like my father and his father before him
We show up anyway…
Albeit somewhat uneasily…
While the native good-ole-boys
Stand stock still and stare
Actin’ like they never seen one’a us before… and
Though we arrived obviously prepared for what we came to do
They still stare… as if
wondering what we could possibly be doing here…
or maybe… how dare we enjoy God’s green earth with our brown selfs…
And my beautiful Black Man
with ease of motion
Audaciously pays the Black Tax
(the quoted price over what the sign says the price is)
As I bait my line in defiance
Albeit somewhat uneasily… and
Cast it out into this confederate lake
And my beautiful Black Man
Also stands… broad shoulders back… and
Pointedly does not acknowledge the presence of the natives
As they stand stock still and stare
But it is there
(We will NOT be afraid… and we will NOT go away)
Unspoken between us... But
Always in the back of the mind…
The recesses of the consciousness…
Preparation for this day… and the worst that it can bring…
Is ingrained…
Apr 30, 2013
Apr 30, 2013 at 3:15 PM UTC
I fell for a boy
Who wore muddy boots
Lights jeans
Who drove A cummins truck
With stacks on the back
With a confederate flag flying high
With pride
He liked tobacco
Whether it be cigarettes or dip
I remember telling him that they were
Bad for him
He smiled and inhaled the nicotine
Without a care in the world
That was before I smoked a pack a day
As you can see
That was almost a lifetime ago
Because he's gone
And now I'm addicted
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 7:05 PM UTC
‘I love you, sweet: how can you ever learn
How much I love you?’ ‘You I love even so,
And so I learn it.’ ‘Sweet, you cannot know
How fair you are.’ ‘If fair enough to earn
Your love, so much is all my love’s concern.’
‘My love grows hourly, sweet.’ ‘ Mine too doth grow,
Yet love seemed full so many hours ago!’
Thus lovers speak, till kisses claim their turn.
Ah! happy they to whom such words as these
In youth have served for speech the whole day long,
Hour after hour, remote from the world’s throng,
Work, contest, fame, all life’s confederate pleas,—
What while Love breathed in sighs and silences
Through two blent souls one rapturous undersong.
1.4k
i listen to Dubstep music and sip tea
i am the Post-Mark
Pondering Gender politics and finishing my tea
i am non violent, a pacifist
But don't put it past me that i won't clench a fist
With righteous grist
If you make me feel alone in my considerations temporarily
i'm not a weak soul am hardy folk
Hardly lost faith when i realised God was a joke
Like a big fat egg yolk splattered all over paper
Christmas hogging 3 months of calendar
A Consumerist campaign, but tell me i'm the miser
Police tend to pass me in the streets, i think smart
Skin colour ain't the first part
One of the mainly white audience at the Public Enemy show
The system as it stands fears me though
If you stop and searched my heart you'd **** me though
i Listen to Deep House and sip Lucozade
Lost deep in this house
i've never worked hard at a job
So **** lucky at birth to have wealth
But that's my parents money (and I'm not in any way responsible for slavery)
Kanye West with his Confederate Flag ****
"I'ts mine now, what you gonna do?"
Little did we know that we were the 'New Slaves'
Contemporary thinker, i read the game cover to cover
After all they taught me from birth how to study
i'm too uninterested in ticking boxes to earn money
To satisy the transferable skills that you want from me
I'll Enjoy a nights alcoholism instead of getting high and writing an essay
Am I getting too wordy?
i'm trying to spit now, can i? can I?
The gender politics on my mind at inappropriate times
i told the guy at the door i wasn't thinking about race
Most people are thinking about 'the race'
White Middle Class kid picked up a mic and tried to rap again...
I listen to Hip Hop and drink water
Hardly faded I'm perfectly sober
I'm energised naturally, words seem to strengthen me
I am the grassroots, I have been wrongly righted
My Parent's deserve this so want me to sit tight
But I'm jumping right into the middle of hip hop (and feminism)
And theres nothing you can do about it.
[For All My ****** and All My *******
Nov 6, 2013
Nov 6, 2013 at 7:48 PM UTC