"doubling" poems
I am somebody
Shot in the Head...
Found the bullets.
Coroner Said.
A child of God struck dead.
Gang related disputing Fools.
Aiming cowardly bullets right at you.
I guess praying prayers just won't do.
There is no safe in these hard knocks realities' Truths.
Our Sista child!
Our mother child!
All the while the bodies pile.
Her body now adds to that 'the shootings aren't as bad as last year' body count.
Can't even stand anywhere in your city NOW?
Something has to truly give.
There's a plague of rigid legalities, relaxed moralities, and political realities stealing the 'safe' from our dying breed.
The Black man withering away in siphoning inequalities.
Doubling unemployment stretches outward like a statistical wild fire....
Our present fact.
There is a genocidal component to these criminal acts.
Copyrighted (C)
Published in the 2018 Edition of the Reconstructed Literary and Visual Journal at Governors State University.
Aug 19, 2018
Aug 19, 2018 at 11:30 AM UTC
Your love is always perfect, it is always real as well.
You have brought me close to some Great poets ever.
In fact I would say the greatest poets that live today.
I appreciate that I can really enjoy their beautiful writes.
So one thing that I am asking you O Saving God tonight.
You are already using them mightily double that portion.
In each of the make their poems twice as beautiful please.
Also make their poems twice as powerful as they were before.
Bless them with doubling their poetry talent in every way now.
Sep 5, 2019
Sep 5, 2019 at 1:56 AM UTC
Like a grain trapped under the eyelid
Impairing the vision, in heart and mind
Flush it out with rivers, woeful and turbid
This grain still there; rendering us blind
Tiny and inconspicuous; No one sees the grains
Everyone's 'gifted' with their own to nurse
Doubling over we see each others' pains
Hidden and embedded within the poetry laden verse
Sep 15, 2014
Sep 15, 2014 at 2:35 AM UTC
It is no night to drown in:
A full moon, river lapsing
Black beneath bland mirror-sheen,
The blue water-mists dropping
Scrim after scrim like fishnets
Though fishermen are sleeping,
The massive castle turrets
Doubling themselves in a glass
All stillness. Yet these shapes float
Up toward me, troubling the face
Of quiet. From the nadir
They rise, their limbs ponderous
With richness, hair heavier
Than sculptured marble. They sing
Of a world more full and clear
Than can be. Sisters, your song
Bears a burden too weighty
For the whorled ear's listening
Here, in a well-steered country,
Under a balanced ruler.
Deranging by harmony
Beyond the mundane order,
Your voices lay siege. You lodge
On the pitched reefs of nightmare,
Promising sure harborage;
By day, descant from borders
Of hebetude, from the ledge
Also of high windows. Worse
Even than your maddening
Song, your silence. At the source
Of your ice-hearted calling --
Drunkenness of the great depths.
O river, I see drifting
Deep in your flux of silver
Those great goddesses of peace.
Stone, stone, ferry me down there.
3.6k
And now emerges white bits of sunshine;
Eyes urged to wake, and tongues to pray;
To Lord of the worlds and of nights and days;
That we be pure in the heart and mind;
Feet saileth lower amongst one another;
With such admiration that lasts forever;
Faithful heads bow and touch the pious floor;
Pearls of rewards doubling behind the door.
And His beauty is deeper than solace;
More luminous than desire and grace;
He asks for love, chastity, and firm abstinence;
He longs for faith, modesty, and true penitence.
Praises and glory are floated to Allah;
Mouths recite and phrase la ilaha illallah.
And claim their very peace upon beloved Muhammad;
With dear respect from the deepest roots of hearts.
Winds might blow and grass might be green;
But we fear still, the restless Might of the Unseen;
He who watches and renders all our affairs;
He who breathes our blood and strands of our hair;
And do fear Him and seek His Abode;
For we shall cease and retreat to our Lord;
As this earth fades, where His end starts therefrom;
And sees our deeds since we dwelled in mothers' wombs;
But Allah is ever fair, filial, and loving;
He is the Keenest, and the Most Heroic king;
He rules perfectly the East and the West;
He listens to what flows within every chest;
And He is All-Forgiving and ever Merciful;
He is swift to both the living and the dead;
He relieves tears of the believing souls;
He lives and sparks, within our very breath.
And He is but ecstatic like the rainbow;
Nothing is more countable than His tomorrow;
His Warm Hands are what we all rush for;
His Words are a poem, like never before.
Dec 22, 2013
Dec 22, 2013 at 6:01 PM UTC
The sirens blared that 4th of July
Officer Duncan gave Mammy a ride
An emergency dash to the hospital
He’s 2 months premature Mammy cried
Deaf, dumb and blind is what the doctors said
To our mother when Sammy was born
But none of us kids ever were told
Until Sammy was stable and grown
Pappy declared that they’d both be fine
Not believing dire news doctors gave
We happily named him Uncle Sam
Trusting in him to be strong and brave
His 1st 5 months in an incubator
Hooked up to every device
In Newton Wellesley Hospital, 1959
A miracle saved his life
Reaching gloved hands through holes in the side
Weighing just a bit over 2 pounds
Looking more like a spindly ET
I was amazed to be hearing breath sounds
Sam worked on doubling his weight by Christmas
Nothing seemed easy or fast
Still Mammy survived the eclampsia
And Sammy went home at last
Returning a few years later
Sammy’s doctor she would find
To show off to all the nurses
Her son NOT deaf, dumb and blind
I so love my brother Sammy
Always felt like a sister and mother
I’d give all I have for the time
Just a minute more with my dear brother
I’d speak to you of those 57 years
Of the great whirligig you carved with your hands
All the times you showed up for me
Through the good and the bad our love stands
You wasted no time hating anybody
Children and dogs always your friends
Quick for a laugh despite any lack
I draw comfort that all your pain ends
The sirens blared once again for you
The ambulance came, the paramedics tried
Racing you trying to save you
All in vain, in the OR you died
Like Tommy’s rock opera is over
Perhaps you paused to speak to a stray dog
While keeping your divine appointment
By reaching right into the hand of God
Dec 30, 2016
Dec 30, 2016 at 9:12 PM UTC
My uncle slit a man's throat with a box cutter in my childhood home and didn't apologize.
Sitting in a circle filled with crack smoke and stale beer breath.
This is a shining example of what I've lived with
and the lengths I've had to go to escape the thing people call "destiny".
Thievery, lies, pressure, and violence
has been calling my name for the longest.
But I know the voice too well to be taunted.
Words are my freedom and words are my piece of mind.
There is not a single substitute.
Whether poem, prose, or paragraph,
This is the only calling I've ever had.
I've lived with a hoarder, addicts, senility, and ignorance
in a variety of different combinations and forms.
At times, power, water, freedom, money, necessities, have all been an unachievable thing to me.
Lost to the vile goals of those folk I love.
I am the only one who sees the beauty in the fragile and odd.
The others see only a mess on a paper, and move their eyes to the nearest glowing box.
My father drowned when I was six.
My grandfather followed soon after.
My mother felt the stab of this and caved so many times.
I witnessed and shared the burden of her pain and grief.
My grandmother forgot everything she ever loved or knew, and short after passed as well.
Pets and possessions,
friends and followers.
All gone with a drastic breeze.
I am the one with the vision, but I am trapped in a shell of a city,
covered with that wretched stink of refined soy.
Will I be able to unburden the world from myself?
You all give me such great courage and allow me to share the beauty as I see it.
You all have such great skill with symbols and it makes me feel like home isn't far.
I want this. I want this.
If I keep breathing like the rest of the world
I feel I may miss the sound of the world's heartbeat.
But my death would not bring a solution for the ones I love.
Only a warrant for more death.
I need this. I need this.
With my words, I conjure up hell.
And hell brings with it the familiar.
Run little kitties, run.
The Doubling House and The Sequential Church will not hold forever.
My havens are temporary, but the craters are forever.
I will struggle till the pain becomes all I am
and I buckle under the weight of what I shouldn't have taken
from the mighty Atlas.
I do this for me.
I do this for you.
Sep 5, 2013
Sep 5, 2013 at 2:58 PM UTC
Early June in Calcutta
means packed streets
of decaying carcasses
and forlorn bodies
pulling rich people in carts.
Record-breaking heat
amplifies the smell
of curbs doubling
as urinals,
and pungent sweat
soaks our shirts
before we even leave
the rickety roof
we called home.
But when I think Calcutta
I picture sunshine
and warm masala chai,
Suporna's smile as she chews
a mashed banana treat
and Rosie's tiny hand
twisting the gold band
on my middle finger.
I remember thank you songs
and walking songs
that we sang at bus stops
and busy streets,
where the glisten
on our skin
was only outshined
by the sparkle in our eyes.
Feb 21, 2016
Feb 21, 2016 at 1:22 PM UTC
I LOVE him, I love him, ran the patter of her lips
And she formed his name on her tongue and sang
And she sent him word she loved him so much,
So much, and death was nothing; work, art, home,
All was nothing if her love for him was not first
Of all; the patter of her lips ran, I love him,
I love him; and he knew the doors that opened
Into doors and more doors, no end of doors,
And full length mirrors doubling and tripling
The apparitions of doors: circling corridors of
Looking glasses and doors, some with knobs, some
With no knobs, some opening slow to a heavy push,
And some jumping open at a touch and a hello.
And he knew if he so wished he could follow her
Swift running through circles of doors, hearing
Sometimes her whisper, I love him, I love him,
And sometimes only a high chaser of laughter
Somewhere five or ten doors ahead or five or ten
Doors behind, or chittering h-st, h-st, among corners
Of the tall full-length dusty looking glasses.
I love, I love, I love, she sang short and quick in
High thin beaten soprano and he knew the meanings,
The high chaser of laughter, the doors on doors
And the looking glasses, the room to room hunt,
The ends opening into new ends always.
2k
Lake-wet and found forgiving,
patch-work body and pasture-raised pleasure,
rolling in the grass and basking in
bare-skinned clarity.
They were right, you are a fairy.
Water filled to the brim, may I drink from your fountain,
may I toss my pennies in,
and is a wish like a prayer,
or should I save my change for rain?
Filling puddles like copper lakes,
putting a snake in for Heaven's sake,
splitting my own rib and calling it mate.
When I first saw you it was just your reflection,
you caught my attention, doubling your beauty with your liquid presence.
I asked if I could come in and take a dip in your drip,
you nymphaeum of bliss,
and you said "Yes, yes but not yet.",
like the breath we share before a kiss,
like the moment before sunset,
like the bed unmade around our shapes,
like the ripples our forms in this pool radiate.
I must grow gills because you took the breath right out of my lungs.
Love me, Pisces, Venus smiles for us.
May 1, 2021
May 1, 2021 at 8:50 AM UTC
With the nickname glow worm
A jingle jangle jungle flunky
Experiment gone completely wrong
Radiation Monkey
Ran out of the backdoor
This monkey on the lamb
Glowing footprints across the floor
Running fast this lab rat
See him in the hills at night
Swinging wild amongst the trees
Don't get too close cause he might bite
Radiation Monkey
With the strength of 20 men
He started robbing grocery stores
They say he has the brightest grin
Banana smudges left on doors
Where they lift his fingerprints
Taping off of the crime scene
Geiger counters loudly tic
Radiation Monkey
A menace to society
This florescent ape that's escaped
A radiating personality
Waiting for you to make his day
Wanted posters all over town
Doubling up the bounty
They'll take him live or in the ground
Radiation Monkey
Lessons lived are lessons learned
Latch the windows, bolt the doors
Mistakes are made then hard earned
For stupidity there is no cure
In the lab behind those doors
Is where genius and crazy meet
They might lose a few but they'll make more
Radiation Monkey's
Jan 23, 2020
Jan 23, 2020 at 12:59 PM UTC
It starts with a pinch and an itch,
Between your shoulder blades,
Trickling down your spine like a bead of sweat.
You groan hot and heavy,
Doubling over in pain clutching at your stomach,
And you have this urge....
Your canines enlarge,
Further sharpening.
The hairs on your arms bristle.
Standing on end when you hear the first tear of skin,
At the base of your spine.
And it splinters your mind.
A wine high pitched and wanting,
A gasp as your hair thickens.
A pelt of fur to keep you warm,
There is pain between your eyes,
Your jaw stretches inhuman and ugly.
Legs snap and your squatting on the floor,
Arms pulled close at the elbow,
Back hunched over.
Dirt digs under your fingernails turned claws,
As you grip the steady earth for purchase.
You feel your heart beating against your shifting ribs.
Strong,
Fast,
And aching.
Lungs constrict and your eyes fly open.
Blinded by the ethereal light of the full moon.
You cry out,
Human voice bellows loud, loud, loud!
The beast sings in your ear.
A roar,
A howl.
The transformation done.
We are free.
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 12:44 AM UTC
Rose petals thick and heavy
Just ready to wrinkle
Strong, firm, delicate
Simple
Feigning delicacy.
Tighter and tighter to their middle
Lips curling back
Pouting open
All eventually revealing the
Veins!
Veins
Veins
Veins on the roses
From the underside spread upward,
Uncurled,
Veins.
Some so proud and broad
Some coy and curtseying
Some wide open, greeting you.
——
Some angling to the light
——
Some fading their color at the tip
——
Some!
Some doubling inward. Two twists inside!
Why? Overcrowding.
Petals wide,
petals too ready, petals broad
And she made herself a lover
——
Some older, wiser
By quicker death wisdom grows
The peaked face within
Afraid
Afraid of what is coming faster for her.
Something her beauty could not slow
An aging ballerina, refusing to retire her slippers
——
Some wider
More careless
Hippies
——
Some like a dance
Such a vulnerable entrance
Opening up her lips, her arms, her legs,
Spouting out her tiny tongue
Aroused
——
Some so full
Hiding herself in her layers
More of her.
Ancient.
Just a blip.
Trimmed from their bush. Here to die in a vase by my bed.
Dec 2, 2018
Dec 2, 2018 at 11:08 PM UTC
I do not live: I burn. In acrimony raging
Two souls are dueling within my breast:
The soul of a devil, the soul of an angel.
Their breathing is flame and it gives me no rest.
Not one flame bursts but two - whatever I am touching,
And in each stone two heartbeats I hear clash…
Wherever I go there is an odious doubling
Of two warring faces, which vanish in ash.
And everywhere the wind that follows me is spreading
The ashes: all my footprints are effaced.
For I am not living - I burn! - and am shedding
A trail of grey ashes across a dim waste.
Jun 7, 2019
Jun 7, 2019 at 8:48 AM UTC
[my only swerving, by el ten eleven]
guitar slides
that break my heart
sitting inside
my hollow
guitar body
quick three
notes
on air
beats slow
snap
melody light
and quick
dancing
doubling
tripling
now slowing
sliding
bringing
tears
the sad
drumming
and bass
that move
time
forward
it's hard to
breathe my only
swerving
the cello sound
pulls me
down
guitar
strumming
the deep bass note
a vibration
to define
my
loneliness
Sep 23, 2013
Sep 23, 2013 at 6:01 PM UTC
This secret, best kept away
from prying hands that drop
eyes on eaves and awnings.
They stay within
the perimeter of spies and agents
doubling as bartender ears,
drink up and pour
the punch that hits you where
you bleed invisible. The spleen
lacerating split, a penetrating
ooze, cleaves back and forth with you.
Drain out and glaze over. Be very,
very still.
Mar 13, 2016
Mar 13, 2016 at 3:18 AM UTC
I am a poor boy - A Capricorn
Perpetually saddened by my surroundings
Eight cats have sought me out for sanity's sake
But none of us seem able to escape on our own
All voices silenced for the sake of the rude,
the drunkard has-been, and so many varieties
of dream abandoned lives.
I fail to see any exit, reasoning, or plan.
These are the trials of a wisdom seeker
trapped in a pretty shell - conjuring Hell.
The west side of this city is falling apart and
my house is definitely no exception.
Any wealth left is gained from trading in
talent, hope, and aspiration for meager work
in refineries and plants that pollute
the bloodstream. Causing Decatur
to purposely decay into Lethe and
remove itself from memory and history - suicidal city.
I am just another generation in a long line
of poor romantics who close their eyes to the world.
I must have been born with the wrong last name
and composed of the wrong ingredients.
I may have insight, but no one dares or cares to hear it.
These people have given up on beauty and
have begun the worship of agriculture, but Artemis is no where to be seen.
My world has abandoned appreciation or art
because they have stripped it down to a profitable formula.
This may be a hopeless venture.
They have infected me with their grief.
Let the slumber of the soy city wash over me.
Aug 26, 2013
Aug 26, 2013 at 10:36 AM UTC
Life is glorious
With a taste of gore,
But it seems
That glory has no value
And gore shall prevail
Forevermore.
Hand in hand
Go glory and gore,
For, rainbows are not found
Without a sunny downpour.
Magnifying trouble
Doubling the rubble,
A flaw engraved-
Incorrigible.
Harder and hardest
We name them apart,
But truth lies in neither
For, it's only hard.
Choking and bleeding
To death and beyond,
Send us to our eternal home,
To the grave we belong.
We need not love
To live a life
Without burns
Within the soul.
We need not heartache
To maximise gore,
But only the need
For sympathy and pity.
Although some of us
Need not any pity,
Only a helping hand
To change the future.
Past is past
Untouchable,
We have no time turner
To change what's over.
But gore maximisation
Is what is shameful,
Exaggerating
Pretentious nightmares.
Stories of blood
Stories of tears,
They may be true
But only what
It means to you.
Keep the rubble
They way it is,
Don't falsely increase
The heavy burden.
Yes we cry,
But not die.
Death comes once
And takes us away,
Completely disconnected
And entirely stray.
We sink to the bottom
But we don't drown,
Breathless and shivering
But still alive.
Going over these lines
I only see
A blank page
Staring back at me.
*Oh you hypocrite
Don't tell these lies,
You know you double
The rubble and the cries.*
I despise this poem
But still, I write
For, I need to be loyal
To the growing demons.
Paradoxes contaminate
Words of wisdom,
Scattering constellations
Back into stars alone.
I question myself
What is it I want,
I realise that the answer
Only lies in a web;
The web of life.
Live life to the fullest,
Don't live in a dream world,
This is reality
There is gravity.
***But, to hell with life
That's what I say,
Live your dream
Make it your way.***
Be considerate
To what others want,
But never bow down
To unreasonable taunt.
Look at good
Look at evil,
Choose your path
Let it prove
Not fatal.
*A cursed hamartia
Ruins many a life,
A flaw so fatal
A remorseful light.*
Ending this vague haze,
Of many a peculiar phrase,
I cannot comprehend myself,
For, I am caught
In the inevitable daze.
Jul 22, 2014
Jul 22, 2014 at 11:07 AM UTC
i am not in the mood to write...
my head is in piercing pain;
emotions are sore and haphazard;
resistance is doubling its might;
slain eyes are about to rain...
yes, my eyes have been slain -
like two lovers
by a jealous and envious third;
been rid of all chances
and glimpses -
so yenned for, like air -
of you...
they rain clear showers,
they rain crimson showers,
they flood all terrain and
shape rivers -
deep crimson-clear rivers of need,
they let my soul bleed
through their chambers...
i am not in the mood to write...
because - you've both hurt me like hell,
because - you've both played with my feelings;
because you care naught for my reelings...
i am not in the mood to write...
what did EVER i do to you?!
or, maybe, - you're simply a coward
for being a friend AND a lover?!
but that would be
artlessly easy...
or, maybe, i'm - simply - just blind?
i am not in the mood to write;
i am not in the mood to fight;
i am not in the mood for my goodness;
and for backstage-politics wooers...
(c)kRu, 03.07.-13.07.11
Feb 4, 2012
Feb 4, 2012 at 9:57 AM UTC
*thinking oft of alighting into dreams
whose rides go through loftiest-clouds..*
Upon the gilt threshold, it appeared - a waiting carriage
and passing by, along the broken road, came Zachary
through gentle-haze, it struck him - the face of beauty
Came nearer.. only for disillusionment to take him by the hand..
Zachary’s lament falls on the thunderous roll of carriage
as it leaves the water’s edge..
ripping out his heart-eyeball and throwing at open lightning-sky
He chokes on dust-particled truth-beads piercing heavy-air, doubling over
Zachary, oh Zachary.. who are you?
too many ill-winds
blow rude-breathe
rack and shake your life-cage
try to unseat your heart’s-core
*a gentle-prayer comes across the way – and takes your hand – leads you to the side
it shows you how redemptive-answers lie on the light-ripple on the water
go quietly beneath and
you’ll find yourself..
in time*
S T – 15 Octogonic-day 2013
Oct 15, 2013
Oct 15, 2013 at 2:47 AM UTC
was you could wrap a wooden spoon in aluminum and press it to the tongue of an infant. was you could smoke at work. was man was an act other men would surround. was your body would make of soul a ghost. ghost in a balloon holding its breath. was every stone was the head of a stone child. impossible. was vacation would yield vision a shore spat whale or a girl your age absently wiping the blood from her finger onto the leg of a bored white horse. was a woman would know she was pregnant and by knowing would be heavy. was gender was a kind of solace.
was you could climb a tree wearing a dress and any looking would be a gift given to kite. was a rag for worry and a rag for pain. doubling as bath towels. was we understood the Bible to be written very well. when the saying of we was more specific. we without healthcare having also said amazing things. was my mother went to prison. was tomorrow your father would visit. might she turn, be your mother, and love him.
Aug 3, 2012
Aug 3, 2012 at 2:20 PM UTC
My body say yes my mind says no
The morning jog I've give lots of thought towards
I've been thinking about doubling up on my cardio
In my late twenties more changes going on than on puberty
Getting means more maintenance and taking care of yourself
Before I could jump into things now I have to stretch and take the proper precautions
As time passes my body aches it doesn't heal like the same
Shave once a week now I shave every other day
If I remember to do so
I remember before I could go on no sleep
Now all I want to do is sleep
I could drink and wake up no hang over
I don't drink but I sense no tolerance
I could eat everything now my stomachs is sensitive so I have to watch what I eat
Apr 12, 2013
Apr 12, 2013 at 11:01 AM UTC