"forefathers" poems
Have you ever watched the light,
The diamonds of the mind,
Fade out of focus never to return?
Felt your forefathers disappear
From your reality only to haunt
You in the dark of night when you
Are all alone and feeling like
You're out of time?
Marched down the aisles of faces
That are burned into your eyelids,
So whenever you close your eyes,
To try and be alone to escape,
With a weight in your hands
And on your shoulders?
Well then join me,
Brothers and sisters new and old,
Welcome to the fatherless.
Welcome to the ranks,
With tired eyes and weary hands,
We are joined in mourning.
Welcome to the fatherless.
Jul 29, 2013
Jul 29, 2013 at 1:23 AM UTC
Young people can you feel the suffering?
roca wear, gucci, apple, facebook, mcdonalds, apple bee's,
honda, lamborghini, harvard, Community College
american express, pnc bank, walmart
Wage Slaves, ceos, owners, lenders, renters, indebtedness
Structural dehumanization, systematic mechanization
Exploited labor feeding blood to your hungering consumerism
Young people you are embracing MISANTHROPY!
Embracing the hate of your own humanity! Why the hypocrisy?
Wealthy children, poor children
Trying for enlightenment through education
Parents garnering wealth through the oppression of their victims
Parents garnering debt through the oppression from economic inequality
Still you invest and promote the only legitimization of your being: CAPITALIST UTILITY
Capitalism engineering unrelenting misanthropy
Vicious economic system discarding humanity
Perfecting the concentration and accumulation of wealth
With the expansion of human alienation and murderous competition
Prostituting your body to labor exploitation and consumerism
Where does your wealth end up?
multinational companies? financial corporations? military arms contractors?
Loyalty lies in their pockets, backstabbing everyday tactics
Killing you through the exploitation of your body
Because they know the birth of another proletariat or bourgeoisie can replace you
Entities, not human, how much have they bought you for so that you cannot see!!!
Beware of these misanthropic missionaries granting your body power and agency
When your body can no longer be plundered for profit you will taste tears and blood
Young people will you deliver your forefathers and fathers
From worshiping capitalist misanthropy?
Mar 9, 2013
Mar 9, 2013 at 12:56 PM UTC
Oh you a gangsta now?
Let me guess cause you got those "hard" tattoos
Jordans as shoes
And blow more green in your in between time
Oh you a gangsta now?
Cause you fight a little bit
Stay on that corner and quick to pollute your nation
With the wicked ways of degredation
Oh you a gangster now?
Cause you roll with a clique
To weak to stand on your own
But there validation gives you the courage
To steal without hesitation
Peddle drugs with no reservation
Take life as quick as a minute passes...
Well I hope those tats come with teflon
Cause while you out here playing the don
There's plenty associates that'll aim at your head
For your place just to save face with a few so called good men
I hope that corner has insurance or at least comes with benefits
Cause as past gangstas before you predicts there are only two outcomes present
Lifetime in a 6x8
Or 6 feet under while your soul patiently waits the outcome of where it will spend eternity
I guess this is what our forefathers gave their lives for
For this ignorance of the so called gangasta
Feb 20, 2013
Feb 20, 2013 at 9:08 AM UTC
O' how they rise above each other,
the descendants of Babel!
Rebels to forefathers.
All as righteous as they seem –
to the law, but not to reality
Towers Among Towers!
unreachable by mere ones
mocking the lowlands
with their heights
Even dreams could not fathom!
And oh, how Towers fall too,
at the top of their limit.
Catastrophe! Phenomena!
their power too is frail
because there is always
One that stands taller
than any other could avail.
Dec 28, 2014
Dec 28, 2014 at 5:41 AM UTC
the bus poets
we are the modern day chimney sweeps,
the ***** black faced coal miners of the city,
digging up its grit, toasted with its spit,
the gone and forgotten elevator operators,
the anonymous substitutable,
still yet glimpsed occasionally,
grunts of urbanity
provoking a surprised
whaddya know!
once like the bison and the buffalo,
we were thousands,
word workers roaming the cities,
the intercity rural routes and the lithe greyhounds
across the land of the brave,
free in ways the
founders wanted us to be
us, the stubs and stuff,
harder working poor and lower cases
we were the bus poets,
sitting always in the back of the bus,
where the engines growls loudest,
seated in the - the most overheated
in winter time, so much so
we nearly disrobed,
and then come the summer,
we were blasted with a joking
hot reverie from the vents,
but vent, no, we did not!
no - we wrote and wrote of all we heard,
passion overheated by currents within and without,
recording and ordering the
snatches and the soliloquies of the passengers,
into poem swatches;
the goings on passing by,
the overheard histories,
glimpsed in milliseconds, eternity preserved,
inscribed in a cheap blue lined five & dime notebook,
for all eternity what the eyes
sighed and saw
books ever passed
onto the next generation in boxes from the supermarket,
attic labeled, then forgotten beside the outgrown toys
with our names writ indelible with the magic of
black markers
if you stumble upon a breathing scripter,
let them be, just observe,
as they, you,
these movers and bus shakers,
as they, observe you
tell your children,
you knew one in your youth,
then take them to the attic
retrieve your mother's and father's,
teach your children
how to read, how to see,
the ways of their forefathers,
the forsaken,
the bus poets.
Sep 29, 2017
Sep 29, 2017 at 7:53 AM UTC
Some are born balanced
On a precipice and remain
Tethered for the rest of their days
Overlooking barely there
Mental images
Fragments of a lucid dream
Of a conjured up past life
Once etched on skin
But no longer there
They speak of
Violent reinvention
And escape
While the hollow speaks
And catapults into spaces
Better left unknown
Psyches wrapped in denial
Running the gamut of habitual sins
Perpetuating legacies of pain
With hands that carry
The burdens of forefathers
Tiptoeing
In the twilight of dreams
Willing for the heavens
To send a spring that blooms
Hearts whose pounding
Reverberates endlessly
inside of ears
Eyes that get darker as they close
Meet with ours
A look
A sigh
Ascertaining a mutual recognition
Of the familiar
Shadows that plague.
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 1:39 PM UTC
Wake Up Wretched World,
I assert my Indigenous heritage
I self identify
With the ancestors of my continent
Identity afraid to articulate
Culture, unknowingly belonging to me
Cycle of shame now shattered
Product of love, hatred, lust, and desire
europeans plundering my mother Latin America
In chaos and violence, my skin's pigment
Has been engineered through the mestizaje
Of my Indigenous forefathers
How could I not forget my lineage
When the historical legacy of modernization
Has been to massacre the consciousness
Of where my people really come from
Erasing indigenous pride
Making Paisano and Indio
Synonymous with poverty and alienation
Insulting the humbleness
State of hunger you've left us in
Original lineage within me disturbed
So you push me to ambiguity and embarrassment
Not white, not indigenous?
Pure indigenous brothers and sisters silenced
Not an exploitable consumerist market, not in your campaigns
Not benefactors of your philanthropic development tactics
Bodies too costly to abuse, no reason to bring them
Into the neoliberal multinational corporate circuit
Constantly driving them off productive land
Because they choose to assert their identity
Live in collective communes, not owing you nothing
Waiting for them to make barren lands productive
So you can take those lands too
Not capturing an obscure history, these are not colonial times
This is the legacy of the european presence entering mother Latin America
21st century still defiling Indigenous cultures to civilize and modernize
Mar 14, 2013
Mar 14, 2013 at 10:26 PM UTC
My Country Tis of Thee,
Sweet land of liberty-
Or so we sing.
Land where my fathers died-
But my forefathers died in a battle
Trying to keep their slaves;
My fathers killed your fathers
For trying to run away;
My fathers **** your fathers
Cause it's late at night, and
He's reaching for his gun-no, wait,
His ID?
Land of the pilgrim's pride-
But so often we leave out of history
How if it weren't for a Native American,
The pilgrims would've died.
From every mountainside-
Like Stone Mountain in Georgia,
Where Rebel Generals are memorialized,
Where the **** was revived-
God, help me, I can't hear freedom's ring;
I can only hear white-washed history.
From every mountainside-
But these days, the mountain is in my chest,
And liberty's ring sounds a lot different,
And a lot of folks don't like it.
Let freedom ring-
And I want to fight for freedom for all-
#BlackLivesMatter-
I want to help-
HANDS UP, DON'T SHOOT!
But-
I
Can't
Breathe.
Let freedom ring!-
But peaceful protests turn into
Bloodbaths as those who have sworn
To serve and protect are sniped down.
Let freedom ring!-
I try to educate myself
On the side of history not taught-
I've always felt that Nat Turner was the bad guy,
But these days I'm questioning it.
I read "The Meaning of Fourth of July for the *****
by Frederick Douglass
And I read "Bury Me in a Free Land"
by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
and I read "Sympathy"
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
and I read "Letters from Birmingham Jail",
"The Mountaintop Speech", and
"I Have a Dream"
by Dr. King.
When I was younger,
I'd research Dr. King & his colleagues
For fun.
I'd wonder, "If I lived in the Civil Rights era,
What would I have done?"
But when I turned seventeen,
I realized, "I live in a Civil Rights era;
What am I going to do?
Jul 11, 2016
Jul 11, 2016 at 5:28 PM UTC
We mourn atop skyscrapers
As our forefathers
Mourned amongst baobab trees in Uganda
Because we have been forsaken,
It is judgment day,
And we’re fearful.
Sep 8, 2012
Sep 8, 2012 at 12:04 AM UTC
The darkness of secrets had kept me in shadows
The pain of the past had caused my family to weep
For they experienced life full of unjust woes!
Yet the Heavenly Lord has awakened me from sleep.
I hear the echoes of my forefathers’ voices,
They tell me to rise like the Mighty Sun,
It is time for me to wake and rejoice
On their legacy of what they have done.
The wise wind of fate pushes me to my destiny,
My blood burns with a new determination
As I am resurrected with a new identity
For my forefathers have impacted the entire nation
For many years I thought I was ordinary
Yet the cries of my ancestors beat like a drum-
Telling me to soar like a golden dragon.
In love and hate we have all endured and succumb
I give thanks to the heavenly divine sky
As he has given me a gift of armor made of courage.
“Awake my dear daughter”, the mighty Lord cry,
“Do not let the army of fear make you feel discourage.”
So the wind of destiny has revealed its plan
That I am to inherit their legacy,
Reclaim the throne and be the Princess of Han
For this is my destiny!
(c) 2018 Joanne Chang
Sep 30, 2018
Sep 30, 2018 at 10:02 AM UTC
over a snow-covered mountain top in heaven
some secret river lies
stirring not earthwards
this river of the Gods
and then a prince disturbs
her peaceful ferocity
with determined prayer to cleanse
the sins of his forefathers
Look she trembles with wounded pride!
Not a mere mortal river is she
a Goddess, her anger awakened
but she must proceed
the Gods have asked her so she shall go
but she makes her displeasure known
threatening to swallow all of existence
she follows
the earth shakes
it cannot hold her weight
her power her strength her majestic gait
life-giver, she is now a messenger of death
in her anger she is beautiful,
this world cannot sustain her
only he who wields the trident
can reign in her fall
and then the Mahadev traps her
even as she falls in a mighty torrent
thinking she will sweep him
to the nether regions
in his locks she is lost
struggling, she resembles
the naga around his neck
she spits like a cobra
this immortal river
stays tangled in his locks for many a year
till, defeated and frustrated
she begs forgiveness
and then with his blessings
she trickles down
still furious in pace
but in heart at peace
the mother of all rivers-
this river of rebirth
her sound like thunder
her hair like streaks of lightning
celestial beings witness
the skies are lit
the parched earth satiated
Ganga has descended
as Bhagirathi
- Vijayalakshmi Harish
03.09.2012
Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish
Sep 3, 2012
Sep 3, 2012 at 3:32 AM UTC
My great-great-great-grandfather,
The father of my grandfather's great-grandfather,
He was a teacher by creed and by deed,
Once he sat with his eyes closed in great concentration...
A beautiful lady saw him sitting graciously in Padmasana pose,
That cunning nymph she wanted his penance undone for herself,
But he was a little short-tempered and couldn't take it when she tried it,
His patience was very short when it came to being disturbed during his penance.
Disturbed, he saw the beautiful nymph trying to break his temper,
He got enraged and picked up his trident to quickly ****** it through her *****
She had fear in her eyes,
Remorse on her face,
Pain in her contorted brows,
And despair in her dying voice,
As she uttered the curse,
*"O you so-called holy man,
You would never get love,
Your generations to come would die thirsty of love,
You're killing me because you can't make love to me,
So lost in your penance,
And so possessive about it,
Let your generations suffer for your actions..."*
She dropped dead there itself but her curse continues to be carried from one generation to the next.
I have been paying the price too,
Just like my father and grandfather,
No girl I knew has understood it,
No I won't just follow my forefathers,
I'll have it my way, I'll keep searching.
Dec 22, 2014
Dec 22, 2014 at 8:53 AM UTC
to our forefathers;
who fought for our rights for golden years
who bled for peace even before we were born
who screamed for our freedom for decades
who died and dedicated their lives for the future and welfare of the Bangsa,
THANK YOU.
the tears of the mothers, the widows and the orphans will now turn into joy
the flowers will bloom in the battleground of the blood and sweat of the Mujahideen
the scars of the bullet wound from the past will now heal
to the survivors who continued the fight;
the war is over, you can now rest and start over.
no more running, no more hiding.
you can now take the streets and dance with your grandchildren without worries.
no more guns to carry, only pens to write new beginnings
this time, a beautiful one.
Jan 25, 2019
Jan 25, 2019 at 7:15 PM UTC
Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 11/3/2019
My homeland - dear land,
where for the first time I saw the sun
and where I came to know God;
Where my father, brothers and mother kind
taught me prayers in my maternal tongue.
My homeland - villages and cities,
planted from the times of Piasts among Lechic fields;
Rivers, forests, flowery leas and meadows,
where larks sing their sweet songs of hope.
My homeland - our forefathers' glory,
Chrobry's Notched Sword and Cecora Mace,
Knightly Spirit, noble and brave,
bitter defeats and victories great.
My homeland - quiet green fields
for centuries trampled by hostile armies,
burial mounds and sad graves
that have covered our freedom defenders.
My homeland - heroic spirit of the Polish people,
that by miracle lives amid hunger and cold;
- hope that always blooms in hearts,
with work for the fathers, and song for the young!
Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910)
Nov 3, 2019
Nov 3, 2019 at 11:32 AM UTC
My forefathers gave me
My spirit’s shaken flame,
The shape of hands, the beat of heart,
The letters of my name.
But it was my lovers,
And not my sleeping sires,
Who gave the flame its changeful
And iridescent fires;
As the driftwood burning
Learned its jewelled blaze
From the sea’s blue splendor
Of colored nights and days.
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She breathes fire
That tastes of the cremation
Of her forefathers
Their ashes grit
In her eyes, spit
In her hands
She marches
Atop marshland
Swallowing graves
Of their mothers
And lovers
Her thick, leather skin
Wicked and weathered
Wields weapons
Of resurrection
With commanding force
She breathes life
Into desolate plains
She breathes fire
And they rise
Again
Sep 11, 2018
Sep 11, 2018 at 12:35 AM UTC
Iridium fastball pitches
from Zuni serpent mound,
bottom of the 9th walk-off homerun
over 30ft diving moai.
Slide to home base in volcanic lava
to congratulatory ***** Gatorade bath
from Kubla Kahn forefathers,
chanting psychedelic clubhouse anthems.
Levitate from home plate
and land atop Pyramid of Cholula for victory dinner;
for since we’re all artists in our dreams,
true dreams never come true.
Dec 29, 2011
Dec 29, 2011 at 10:34 PM UTC
African Beats
Written By- Shakela Storr
African Beats, African Beats, African Beats, can u hear those African beats
Im having sleepless nights, nightmares with meanings of life, waking up in cold sweats my heart is pounding and it goes Boom Boom and its goes faster Boom Boom and faster Boom Boom.
And I begin to get weak and the sound of drums ring off in my ear like an alarm clock and its loud and it gets louder and louder every min and I start to lose it and I scream
( stopppppppppppp) !
Tossing and turning in my bed I feel scared the beats show me a pregnant woman who was beaten to shreds.
Then I see slaves in shackles and were tackled by the white slaves masters who thought they were nothing but senseless disgusting cattle’s .
The beats get louder and I see my forefathers with chains around their neck fifty lashes to their chest with demands that if they don’t shut up and work their children are next.
The beats get louder and I cry stopppppppppppp!!!! , but instead all I see is an old crippled man working on a cotton field with dreams of being free to go and he sings very loudly let my people go.
Then I heard him sing ‘’ Wait in the water, wait in the water children, wait in the water God is gonna trouble the waters’’.
O what a sight to see black African people not being free, then the beats show me a family of three who was brutally murdered because they decided it was time for freedom of speech.
African beats, African Beats, African Beats can u hear those African Beats,
Yes drum beats I can hear you, but why do you trouble me so, why do you make my heart so weak with tears I have to know?
Why do you show me such horrifying images, what are you trying to say i just want you to leave me alone and go away.
Why were black people treated so bad, why were these white people so mad?
Why did they take black people from the motherland and ship them away to be so sold like gold, why did they tear families apart that’s so cold?
Africans beats I beg of u please leave me alone whatever your trying to say I get the picture Black African people have come a long long way.
Black people have come so far that we should be proud of where we are today.
We should be proud that were even allowed to pray.
We should be proud that our ancestors fought for our rights and though it was never easy they didn’t give up without a fight.
We should be proud that Martin luther King Jr had a dream and saw us 20 , 30 years later not living in shame.
We should be proud that our ancestors were so brave they had a hard life but it surely paid off one day.
Beats I hear your message and it’s very clear I am black and proud to be here.
Written by- Shakela Storr
Jul 7, 2011
Jul 7, 2011 at 10:33 PM UTC
Our government wrote a constitution to prevent violation of individual rights
Separation of church and state was included in the constitutional rights
We must look at why this was so important to the founders of this nation
In England the King wanted a divorce, the Pope refused to grant this
The King then took over the Religion for the country appointing himself leader
Our forefathers did not want the same type of control to happen in this country
At the time our schools had few books. Everybody had a bible though
So the primary reader for our early school system was the bible
The Judicial System has done the very thing that the founders tried to prevent.
We cannot teach our children the most basic rules of life, the Ten Commandments
Perhaps if we taught from the bible, we would have fewer problems in this country.
May 8, 2015
May 8, 2015 at 1:29 PM UTC
Return to the ancient path,
the roadmap of greatness,
the elders call must be obeyed,
thoughts of the ancestors is enough,
everything is hidden within it.
It is the beginning of healing
for all of us and our land.
With your ears to the ground,
listen to the secrets offered.
The lone voice heard has a
message for you.
To obey the call means life.
Oh! you children that heard it,
carry it like a fire within you.
Let it burn into your bones.
For your strength lies in it
and can't be taken away.
Your destiny is already shaped
by your culture mixed with their sweat.
The blood of your forefathers
was shed to earn you a place thus far.
Put your ears on the ground to listen
to what they have to say.
Tilt your head and look up for
the sky bear witness to this truth.
The air still sings their music,
even the waters also whispers their songs
for they drank from the same well as you.
The ancient trees in the arena
where they lean their back
stained by their sweats still stands.
The flute and the talking drums
are still calling out their names in
the dark under the moonlight amidst
the people with the elders,
the elements and the stars bearing witness.
My people return to the ancient path
and save yourselves from thunderstorms.
©2018,Emeka Mokeme. All Rights Reserved.
Jul 4, 2018
Jul 4, 2018 at 6:55 PM UTC
My great grandfathers wore dreadlocks
Yet stood firm, proud as peacocks
Patrolling their territory paddocks
Today they are a source of mocks
A representation of sheer evil
In the world we foolishly call civil
Like an attempt on a biscuit by a weevil
We lost it.
Our great forefathers drank milk
And then over the mountains take a hike
Had absolute no need for a bike
Treated all men with respect alike
We are taking concoction for drink
May never cease to suffer sick
Rounded and diabetic as tick
We lost it.
They went to schools to learn practice
Learnt virtue and shunned away vice
To obey all the elders without a voice
Then there was little necessity for police
We are learning to sit all day in office
To treat subordinates with blowing malice
Learning theory, understanding without choice
We depend on book, written advice
Alphabets unlike words know no justice
Scratching as mice full of lice
We lost it.
Jun 23, 2012
Jun 23, 2012 at 5:21 AM UTC
I am an African,
Just like you are,
Here I am in Africa,
From Africa,
I may speak,
Not your African language,
But a cataclysmic African,
Who speaks my African language,
I am.
An inferior African,
You may as you do,
Regard me,
But still,
African I am,
African I cry,
African I laugh,
African I sing,
African I live.
You have made me feel ashamed,
To be in this part of Africa,
But never,
Will you make me feel ashamed,
To be African,
Whatever derogatory labels,
You may stick on me,
No matter how unAfrican,
Kwerekwere, Grigamba or whatever,
But still,
I will be an African,
Even a much better one.
African,
Like my father,
His fore fathers,
And their forefathers,
African,
Just like I was yesterday,
African,
Just like I am now,
African,
That is what I will always be,
And African,
Forever.
According to the author, we are all foreigners in any country on this earth, more like tenants. No one has any claim to any portion of this earth for it belongs to God. The barbaric, self-centered and intolerant demeanor we have recently witnessed in South Africa tells the story of mindless teaks on a dog that are claiming to own the dog and solidifies the myth that Africa is a dark continent and Africans are still stuck in the animal kingdom. How do we dispute what is becoming more of a fact that “you can take Africans from the bush but you can never take the bush out of Africans”. Fellow South Africans (the perpetrators), you have proved to be more disgusting than ***** and the most befitting place for you is the sewage dump that is far away from Africa. If there was another Africa that is not this Africa, I would have done the obvious and most logical thing – to completely disassociate my dignified African self from the brainless, destructive, inhuman thugs that you are. Today, I am an African who is dead ashamed to be African!
May 18, 2015
May 18, 2015 at 4:48 AM UTC
342
It will be Summer—eventually.
Ladies—with parasols—
Sauntering Gentlemen—with Canes—
And little Girls—with Dolls—
Will tint the pallid landscape—
As ’twere a bright Bouquet—
Thro’ drifted deep, in Parian—
The Village lies—today—
The Lilacs—bending many a year—
Will sway with purple load—
The Bees—will not despise the tune—
Their Forefathers—have hummed—
The Wild Rose—redden in the Bog—
The Aster—on the Hill
Her everlasting fashion—set—
And Covenant Gentians—frill—
Till Summer folds her miracle—
As Women—do—their Gown—
Of Priests—adjust the Symbols—
When Sacrament—is done—
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