I wish I was a Black boy that flew
Then all of my dreams would come true
Because people really don’t understand what I go through

If I could get away
I would
But I always seem to stick out

Sticking out like a sore thumb
Unwanted

I try to yell for help
However, no one understands my language
Foreign to all

I try to grab a hold, but my hand slips
And goes straight through
Appearing faded like a ghost

I try to climb up
But I repeatedly get pulled back down
Stripping me of my progress

So, I run away
Lungs gasping for air
I try to run as fast as I can

Knowing in my mind
That humanity is on the other side

Life or Death
Freedom or *******
Pain or Chains

So, I run
Bursting closer and closer
Sprinting to the finish line

But I trip
They catch me
Cutting my Achilles
As I Heal

I realize
That success is inevitable
As I swallow this unbearable pill
And wipe away invisible tears from my treacle eyes

Knowing that life isn’t 100 proof
Life has contradiction

Contradictions of
Impossible
Difficult
Hard
No Way
I Can’t
Fear
Failure

I laugh
Uncontrollably
To keep away the thought of crying
Because the pain cuts deep

Intensely
On the other side of the bank
The narrow trees
Through shallow waters
My hand extends
There's Our Journey
Our Path
Our Blueprint  
Our Success

Unleashing my spirit
Freeing this caged bird
I Fly!

I Fly high in the sky
Soaring to new lengths
Breaking Cycles
Discovering Life  

Writing my own story
Making history

As I glide through the canvas
I illustrate

I am the Black Boy that flew!

My neighbors all came out to gander
At the first sign of light
I had just flicked my bic
On what was to be a huge bonfire

The whispers becoming frantic
When they saw my kindling wood
Every piece of technology that I own
Which between me and freedom stood

I had my DVR, my stereo
Even my microwave
Every modern convenience
To which I'd become a slave

My Gameboy, Xbox, Playstation3
Every system known to man
All that played the game of me
I gladly let fly from my hands

I heard someone holler from the crowd
Quick call the authorities
When they saw I went back inside
And brought out my T.V.

Before it was all over
For the coup de la resistance
I tossed in my cell phone while it was ringing
Then did a little dance

As I was standing at my front door
Waving to those who had joined me
I turned off all the lights
And did a long well needed sigh of relief

What is the void?
Nothingness manifested?
There can’t really be such a thing…
How can there be nothing?

It’s impossible.

You can’t fault me for having trouble wrapping my head around an idea as intricate and deeply infinite as nothing. From a young age, we’re taught that everything, even empty space, is created from protons, neutrons,  subatomic particles…

Empty space is always made from something else.

Some describe the void not as a place, but instead as spiritual enlightenment and/or liberation. As detachment from everything. Some describe entering the void as the moment one realizes that if you try too hard to understand then you will miss the point; as the moment where the student realizes that he will never be able to anticipate his masters surprise attack, so, instead of being anxious he accepts his inability to know; as the understanding that holding on is suffering and letting go is freedom.

There is no way to truly talk about the void, about emptiness, because there is nothing tangible to be expressed in words. And yet, our curious human minds are so fixated on using dialogue to try and articulate this commodity.

Words will always fail.

Even if we could wrap our heads around this idea of emptiness, this complete and total lack of anything (comfort, love, hate, despair, joy, happiness, agony(all pieces of this complicated fabric known as human existence)) we would descend into the deepest and darkest of melancholies. The sudden moment of realization that non-being and being are one and the same and that the only thing separating the two is the awareness of being aware and the unawareness of being unaware would be too much to endure. The weight of realizing that nothing is everything, that we are 0 (placeholders for nothing (the extinction of our species before a return to nature untainted imminent)) would prove to be the strongest link of all in these shackles of existence.

What is the void?

Maybe it’s best not to ponder this any further.

And through the night
We will fight
We pray to see the next dawns light
Caught in trenches huddled tight
Our brotherly blight
The enemy's spite
To return to sons and fathers
To hold our mothers and daughters
To see freedom never fade
This is why tonight we pray

My family, the media, society
And growing up in the ghettos of California
Trained to believe that if you’re man,
Especially if you’re a dark skinned black man
That you can’t cry, or feel hurt by anything
Because we men have no: heart, emotions, a soul,
No brain or anything painful that should be talked about

And if you decided to go against the taboo then you’re:
Gay, stupid, sensitive they say’s you are a female/*****
I spent many years conforming to this unrealistic law
That I know not to shed a tear unless s I’m alone
Or my struggles are so overwhelming that
I don’t have the strength to fight any longer
Without getting some baggage off my chest

But ***** it life is too short to act like Pinocchio
And I’m a ******* real boy ******
So I’m grabbing a red can of gasoline,
And brown blow torch
And I’m burning this fictional script
And rewriting a story with some supportive guidelines

I cry when I talk/pray to God
I cry when I laugh too much or when I’m happy
I cry when someone that I care about dies
Or if they’re in pain and the situation is out of my control
I cry when I see a father & son on TV
Or in real life bonding with each other
I cry when I watch the seen from the movie ghost
When Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore are embraced
Between each other while they’re trying mold potter
On a spinning wheel and it falls down because they start kissing
That **** was both **** and romantic at the same time

I cry because it helps me: stay out of prison/jail,
I live longer; it teaches me that it’s ok to be a tough guy
And be vulnerable at the same time,
But most of all it gives me the strength to stay away
From relationships where I’m being abused
Or I’m abusing the other person

It’s the country of freedom of speech
Some homosexual male, bisexual
Or lesbian can get married
Men and women can choose to change
Their *** to what makes them feel good
Don’t tell me live and let live
When the rich can steal from
The poor & middle class
And make it legal under
The guidelines of capitalism
We can have a black president

So don’t tell me that this is the land of the free
But a man can’t express his feelings
Don’t patronize me into believing that the world has more:
Love, power, respect, happiness than God does for us  
Because that’s some hypocritical, double standard *******
I’m not just talking about me or minorities
And I’m not limiting it to what *** you’re
I’m speaking for what is right compared to what we are told
It needs to change because it’s not helping anybody.

Written By Shannon Pollard
©August 2013

There is no real doubt
In or out,
Still some over privileged will shout
Commands and demands
Life, its just a levy
A burden so heavy
You can have plans and dreams
So long as they fall within the takers schemes
You can exercise your freedom of speech
Into the psyche of the rich and powerful it will never reach
This world is not mine , its not yours
It seems to belong to those of another cause
A global system of corruption
Of mass manipulation
Never has this been just some artistic assumption

exercising my mind,
challenging restless muscles.

heart vibrated in rhymes
body couldn’t comprehend.

feet marched distressingly
upon restless pavement.

concrete incinerated
between fatigued toes.

soul and humanity battled
a complexed imprisonment.

Appalachian was a battle ground,
that planted my fortune.

i twisted my cramped fate,
encountered an extraordinarily
individual wandering around
an disfigured realm.

discovering inner strength,
forced oxygen to pursue my stride.

demanding my determined breaths,
to encounter pulsating freedom.

Losing Hope
Isn't freedom
It's just another bond
Placed onto the soul
It may seem easy
To wallow in deep dank sorrow
But that will only break you faster
Truly, the greatest in human history
Rested, breathed away from the situation
But then fought right back against their trials
Or as cave Johnson put it, they demanded
To not stay down because of life, but to see and speak to life's management

So like I said, losing Hope isn't freedom
Losing Hope is another whip to the back
Remaining steadfast is freedom
Though your nights may be dark and your days be black

To be left a rotting corpse in the inky depths of my screaming, vacant soul
To taste the freshness of the air only to have it ripped so unnaturally from my shriveling lungs
Once sitting atop that merciful beacon of hope,
I find myself tumbling, grasping, gasping, clasping for some hold onto the beautiful signal

And who is to blame?
Who?
Certainly not you, for it was your hand who found me troubled in the merciless murky vapor
Your hand that lifted me from the bowels of hell and so dotingly destroyed my detriments

But had it not been for you I would have so happily, so cheerfully accepted my vacant vocation
Of restlessly, recklessly, ruefully running around without any remorse for my forlorn reality
For it is not the force of you freedom that loosed my heavy chains, but rather the form
That vicious vigor that stuffed my spirit with a seemingly ceaseless, incessant self-assurance

But for my essence to not identify isolation, to not recognize regret seems so conceited in comparison to yours
Which is ever growing, ever loving, ever laughing, ever knowing, ever telling, ever asking, ever showing, ever…
After all it was your being there that showed me how lonely I truly was, how pitiful of an existence I truly led
So now I state the obvious

Why?
Why go through all that endeavor, all that effort of effectively and essentially helping me escape my insanity just to throw it out the
Door is where you went, leaving me to collect the shambles and shards that was the life you made
Leaving me to collect these silly splinters just so that you could prove a point

A point well taken, a point notably noted, and a point you called no return
Return?
Return from what?
From the friendship promised, or the friendship broken, or the new twisted friends of which you’ve hardly spoken?

And so I take my leave, but I will return
I will not leave such a dear thing to burn
Burn in the essence of what we call hope
For, after all, you were the one who threw me the rope

One man didn't march alone.
He had many followers marching too.
One man didn't stand alone.
He has supporters following along.

One man faced racial hate.
Which all races still face today.
So, have anything really changed?

We have more freedom.
We have more rights.
And more religious opinions.

One man used scriptures and the world out look.
To point out that we are the same.
And only think we are different.

We saw debate about the water fountain.
When out of them came the same clear water.
We saw many get arrested during their protesting.
Just to request a fairness rule.

When legal rules was used for discrimination.

One man bought attention to our ills.
Which exposed one race more uncontrollable by the law.
And once they faced justice for the government.

Then, we saw the Jim Crow's days fall apart.

Everything in life starts with one person.
And Jesus understood God assigned situation.
I guess that's why he's the face of many nations.

We have seen Emperors, Prince, Princess and Queens.
But none has achieved more in society's days then Martin Luther King.

We do know the Lord Jesus played apart.
Cause the Civil Rights fighter kept him , as apart of his heart.

It's  a terrorist attack

‘ISIS!’
That is what they scream
Stabbing innocent people while the sirens start to gleam.

‘Attack! Attack! Get inside if you want to stay alive!’

Terrorists, terrorising children with their bombs,
Enticing other children to join them in their wrong.
Radicalisation, distorting minds through faith,
Ripping though freedom with their hate.
Officers fight back bravely,
Running though streets that you use to walk through safely.
Indiscriminate ******.
Too much bare.

‘Attack! Attack! They have knives!’
Try to run and hide.
Try to get inside.
Another bunch of terrorists have arrived to terrorise.
Cowards in vans and vests.
Killers, no more no less.

when you miss him
yet he used to yell at you
its called manipulation
when you miss his laugh
yet he used to laugh at you
its called manipulation
when you miss his kiss
****…
this is manipulation
did i make the right decision
this is manipulation
i wish i stayed
just to be with him a little longer
yet freedom feels just as nice
better than eggshells
eggshells were all i walked on
even when there was carpet
but i miss it?
this is manipulation
isn’t it…

Craving missundertood
Is freedom
For its life's great lie
What world be left?
Cannot imagine
For we have not been
Ever wholely free
These goals
Rules
Bonds
Laws
Keep it here
Just.

This murky grey of the everyday, of the ubiquitous pattern and structured time - these are the illusions, the straws to which I clutch and cling like a child at her mother's skirt. Afraid of the unknown, afraid it will hurt. Looking only backward at my old stories and truths, growing shabby with constant use, poor curating, and increasing age; I wear my willful blinders like a self-constructed cage. Wide roads open ahead, ready to explore, and yet I cringe, I cower:  weak, small and unsure.

Small spikes of... awareness, sharp sudden connections to the divine, in the midst of mundanity I am hit with moments of expansion, of elevation and escape. A soaring stretch of the soul, reaching its arms upward, yawn and strain, trying for something, reaching beyond its usual scope as if hoping to catch a half-remembered dream, yes -- chasing the remnants of a fantastic dream --

Is it still within my scope? This rush of potential, this flush of excited possibility, of hope? Am I walking into it, or waking from it? That feeling of joyful freedom - surely that is our natural state, when the mind and its anxieties are forgotten or put to rest. That heady elation that makes me feel larger than life: I will it to be so, for that stretch to stick, to rearrange my shape, the space I take, to alter the way I think, the decisions I make.

It could be, can be reality, can be more real than the press of uncertainties, the weight of worries and restless unease.

Life begins to feel like a prison
Invisible bars of society and rules you can't trespass
Maybe death is freedom
Right now it all seems depressing
Work, health, love ,and stress
I'm so JOY-LESS
I remember the times when Simplicity ruled
I give you this , you give me that
There is no real human kind
You're not free to be who you wanna be
Just follow the trends and you'll see
How miserable you can be
In this world filled with greed.

me rich Great Again
follow dreams to a place where freedom
ebuffed my  businessman

Mar-a-Lago Club
resort is mine
to escape the spotligh
Our culture has gotten
too mean and too rough,

More weighty details are scarce
Berwyn speech, without a hint of irony
deep love and respect”

dropped slightly as my race tightens
after a plagiarism controversy

"You dress like a ****."
Yes, I can see it crystal clear now.
Mum, you were just jealous. I said it. Jealous.
Because my lips were crimson and it stung
your eyes. And I had charm, guts, cheeky grin.
All you never had.

"Go to the streets and sell yourself, you *****."
I. The *****? Because my top was tight.
And the hips you gave me, swayed when I walked.
"Your **** is so fat, look at you."
I wore what your shame was as pride. And the feline
liner didn't help with the disgust on your face
That disdain you never tried to hide.

You tried bribing me with labels encrusted in gold.
In return for behaving the way you want, the good girl
"I spent so much on you, do as you are told."
Put a price on freedom, and told me it's how it works
No happiness can be bought with less than six figures
was your motto.

I was the anomaly in your schemed life
your controlled perfection, calculated to
hide the anxiety that hung loose. I yielded
to pleasure, you clung to your fears for your
life. So you snatched my breath, locked me up
to comfort your devils instead.

Cooking, cleaning, putting porcelain in place
Dusting, wiping, my every move was timed
"You should do it all, it's all your duty.
  I did it all for you, now you for me."
I can see it now, I was no different to your
Equity funds and market shares. If I dip down
the streets and venom would be my end.

You didn't love me Mum, yes I said it.
You loved the idea of the
perfect daughter you controlled in your head.
Good. Innocent. Obedient. Nice.
I am sorry, Mum, but a bird gotta fly
Not to be suffocated, wings snapped, in a bed of lies.
So if you wake up one morning,
Don't ask me why I am gone
The way Dad walked out, 15 years ago, on that day.

While trying to find my self,
I have lost my self,
In depths unreachable,
In darkness invisible.

Breaking the social constructs that I am built in,
A war cry echoed through time and space,
Infinite possibilities unfold in front of my destiny,
A destiny worth a thousand peoms.

Still searching,
Still seeking,
Still looking for that which is me,
A soul confined in a human shell.

Eager to see that which is not visible,
to feel that which is unspeakable,
A sudden awe surrounds my mortal form,
Liberation, freedom.

A unique feel of bliss,
the hand of god has reached for that which is within me,
Awakened I am to the purest form that I be.

Pain, guilt, sorrow and fear,
are vanquished in the blink of an eye,
The heavens await me, as I sail through the vast oceans of infinity.

quiet roads abound
through silent beauty all around
beneath the stars and moon
shadows dance and swoon
wildscapes stretching far and wide
from scorching desert to flowing tide
beside forests standing tall
changing to bright hues come fall

mountains sink into rugged deserts
deserts changing to beautiful plains
plains growing to mighty forests
forests turning to proud mountains
circle start to circle end
one giant cycle of life

as dark is to light
and day to night
surrounded by so much wonder
thieves can't plunder

such freedom unable to be retained
the wilds so feral can't be tamed

dear icarus,

i've watched you toil your youth away
all because you have been growing your wings of freedom
to be freed from the life you are locked in

with your calloused hands,
you have put on your wings of feathers and wax,
you are ready to fly across oceans
and escape from this labyrinth
of loneliness and fatigue

but icarus, remember those wings may break
you're shining boyishly, you're coming close to all those stars like stage lights
after aching and fading in the dark
you are seeing the sun for the first time
and it is all you want
but even the brightest and prettiest of lights can burn you out

icarus, come back safely
remember the world beneath you
and the love that the earth
has given you all these years
fly back down here
and i will do all i can to keep you safe.
before the ocean of wreckage pulls you into its depths
and it is too late

Alma.

Tempting serpent I can hear your harmonies,
Preying on the dreams of the ******
Wings of a raven, soaring through
The bleeding sky where the sun rises from the flame.  

The laughing spirit
Earthbound to the ground, you fantasize
With the moon,
And live through the sun.  

Your lips kiss the wind, embracing the organisms of beauty.
Your eyes saturate my internal deception.
My wall,
Invading what others seem to avoid.  

Weeping willow,  
Your roots chained, imprisoned by the soil.

The dark dance of the night, quivers your skin.

It’s cold, so cold, I see the desolate wind as your comforting blanket.
Left to rot, left to parish with the needy maggots.
Debris of the wind,
Dancing on the destiny chosen by the day  
  
****** spoken predator,
Devouring the false truth of life.
Finding freedom, hiding from the brutal
Beating of Father Society.  
  
Live on as the spirit you were born to be.

In a green field
with the sunset
on a cabin
with the logs on
and the horses
in the prairie
and the cows
in the barn
\took my rifle
to fight for freedom
took my gun
and shot them down
for my country
For Our Freedom
took my gun
and shot them down

the elephant is lovely  endangered now is he
he cant roam around now no longer is he free
they are under threat from the poaching war
gone now has there freedom that they had before
all they know is danger there lives  now in distress
getting killed for nothing leaving just a mess
cutting of there tusks  disfiguring there face
leaving them to suffer is nothing but disgrace
such a lovely creature it is such a shame
all the poachers see is money for there game

California has two places we would escape the hectic bay area Central Coast and Disney land. We were staying at a smaller hotel right by Disney we got to know the owners they were very down to earth. We were setting in the glassed in game room by the pool well the husband came in with nine business men from Japan they were talking about buying his hotel. This was back when everyone bashed Japan. The next morning my wife went to the pool I was thinking about those men did I want to bash them or go a different way. God gave this to me it came in a rush it was written in fifteen minutes it is patriotic and it deals with our great blessing that is wrapped in diversity

Imposter
From where did the lie first spring
The face I show I don't even know
The truth does sting so to falsehood I cling.
Best to wear this disguise, continue with the faceless mass.
America proud land of liberty; too long it's been just a veneer.
Freedom you espouse, to have this you must clean prejudice from your house.
True greatness finally you will know, when it shines through all colors.
To do this you must rediscover the bedrock of your heritage.
Truly believe the words that say "We the people."
Words that shook the elements, only being surpassed at creations stage.
To long our apathy has been collaborating with our enemies no more.
This challenge is given to restore.
Opportunity's open door let us our energy out pour.
That freedoms passion soars, as in the past ******* it tore.
Land of light continue, Miss Liberty your lamp burning bright.

Our Freedom is your Failure
Our Unity is your Undoing
Our Confidence is your Collapse
Our Knowledge is your Killing
Our Unbreakability is your Uncertainty
Our Integrity is your Imperfection
Our Solution is your Scream
Our Imagination is your Ignorance
Our Sovereignty is your Sickness
------------
Written by Victor Timmons

burdens carried are behind me now
fleet of foot, my steps tarry not
freedom from all that
far too long
beset me
clamor no more
for my attention
thoughts lightened
spirited forth, future
foreseeable, my soul soars
like an eagle assail in seas of
cloudless cerulean skies and ...
burdens I carried are behind me now.