Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Sindi Kafazi May 2016
Love, love, love
It runs so deep like the roots of a tree
Connecting together

A flower attracting a bee

Love, love, love
Runs so deep
Heals you and cleans you
The way alcohol does a wounded knee

Love, love, love
You will see
When my gramma looks at me

Love, love, love
smells so good
My grammas  baked goods
My grammas pillow case
My grammas hair
And her whole face

Love, love, love
It's everywhere
From the smile formed with her lips
And the softness of her strong gramma hips
To the apron that she wears
And the so tantalizingly familier scent my mother shares

Because

Love, love, love
Paves the way
It will never lead you astray


Love, love, love
It runs so deep like the roots of a tree
It is embedded in you the way it's embedded in me

Love, love, love
Has us entangled
From the inside of beating hearts
To the dirt under the earth.
Love, love, love my gramma
relaxing? relaxing would be a sin against myself. see God spun and wove golden bits of wisdom in these curls that are mine. see these curls spring loud with
songs of my Nubian
mothers and war cries of my Rasta fathers. see these curls bounce proud to the rhythm of tribal drums and the foot prints of my sisters from Manila reside
there as they roll
lumpia between the coils and springs. see these curls have moved sandstone bricks cross deserts, building divine architecture so perfectly aligned
with cosmos and
planets until Moses told Pharaoh to Let My People Go. these curls have traveled cross oceans and triangles packed like sardines squalid below the decks
of ships. see these
curls have been ***** by the nasty ***** in the big house and suffered sun strokes in cotton fields. see these curls sing loud and strong. See these curls
were branded and forced
at gunpoint behind ******* barbed wire fences gassed to death in the name of so called purification. see these curls bleed the pain of fire hoses and dog
bites and whites
only signs. see these curls wont back down gainst no burnin crosses gainst no swastikas gainst no elephant ******* talkin all that jazz on fox and cnn. see
these curls dance
wildly off beat to straight rhythms that drone on in 4/4 time c major sixty bpm. see these curls are Mas and my Grammas.  see my curls are too proud to sit
back and chill and won’t take no **** or heat or hot air. see these curls cannot be contained in braids or scarves or jars of creamy crack. see
these curls dare you
to force them to
coerce them to
straighten up
their act. my curls.
my curls. my curls.
my curls. my curls.
my curls. my curls.
my curls. my curls.
my curls will not
******* relax.
JM Feb 2013
I put the boy to bed
and sat reflecting
for a few minutes
about my blessed
offspring.
His face lit up
tonight
when I told him
that he was Grammas's favorite.
He is everybody's favorite.
My gift.

My salvation.

I looked up the story of Abraham
again,
and much like grade school,
I thought
**** That.

I listened to the new Trent Reznor project,
not bad.
I think of my
little brother whenever I see Trent's name.
I took him
to his first concert ever,
Nine Inch Nails.
Kicked ***.
I thought about my ******, ******* little bro.
I'm going to have to beat his ***, just ***.

I fired up a joint
as I put my
massive
music collection
on shuffle.

Genre: Electronic.

Shuffle: Puscifer.

I sifted through Craigslist
and saw an ad
for being a radio dj
for a grassroots
community based
nationwide
station
where you play whatever music you want
as long as it is not top 40 *******.
I could do that.
I could do lots.
Lots more than this, anyway.

Shuffle: Mike and Rich.

Buzzed.

I thought of my mother
and how
neither her nor I
are realizing our full potential creatively.
I called Mom
and we are
going to start going
to poetry readings.
She's gonna read my poems
and I'm gonna read hers.  
It's a start.
We are cool like that.
We laugh lots.

Shuffle: Awolnation.

I'm pretty high by now.
Then I read another article on NPR about mix tapes.
I thought about you.
Again.

Still.

I thought about you
and
the mix tapes we
used to give each other.

Shuffle: Massive attack.

****.

Angel.

I put this song on at least five of your mixes.
Even the cover by Sepultura.

The great nothing sighs deep and cold within me.

I started to write a poem.
This poem.
This poem for you.

They are all for you.

I know when I write I purge,
and you just keep coming,
like a
viscous
black
lie covered
rope
being endlessly pulled
from my gaping broken skull.
Will I ever reach the end of you in me?

Shuffle: Lords of Acid.
  
I rolled another joint.
You used to hate it when I
would pick you up
and have
Show Me Your *****
blasting.
But then again, you didn't like anything I used to listen to.
You didn't like much about me, did you?
Just that one thing.
It's no wonder though, you ******* hipster.

Shuffle: Moby.

Jesus man how many songs does this guy have?
He's like the ******* Bob Ross of geeked out techno.
That must make aphex twin the evil mad genius.

I made it through shuffling without crying
but I can't listen to the mixtapes.
Cd's, really but who's counting?
You would.
You.
I cannot
wait until
you becomes
her
and then
her
becomes a breeze of a memory,
wisping across my cheek
almost indiscernible
and
leaving
only the faintest whispers
of amber and earth.
Soil.
Soil and Ancient root.  
I can't listen to any of the great CD's baby.
My dearest.
My darkest.
My sickness.
My Love.
Beloved.
O, Fortuna, why?

 Shuffle: Dragonette,Take it like a man.

Ha! Well played, shuffle. Good timing.
I will eventually.
Until then
I will continue to pull your oily tendrils from my open throat.
I will continue to try and forgive both of us.
Myself most of all.

I will continue to write.
I will pull you
out of me
and
flog my canvas
with your shadows.

*They are all for you, Dearest.
It was 12 months filled with apocalypse
That started at the stroke of the New Year.
The more we tried to make life good
The faster it turned bad and wrong.

A wave of illness washed ashore
Like a flash flood of bacteria.
Even those who laughed at it
Were suddenly mowed down.
We hid like cartoon hermits
In our household caves of safety.

The Grammas and the Grampas died alone,
And soon their grandkids followed them.
The jobs shut down, the schools all closed.
And children could not understand
Why Mommy was their teacher.

The populace was out of work;
Their income disappeared
And folks lined up in endless queues
To get a box of canned goods.

We struggled to avoid the ones
Demanding their God given right
To sneeze and cough from naked faces,
As masks were just for Democrats -
The constitution said so.

All holidays were sacrificed
To the Gods of the Pandemic
Forced to barricade ourselves
Against the breath of others,
We all learned to breathe through paper.

Mother Nature joined the fray -
Mud slides, hurricanes and floods,
Each setting some new record.
        
The West Coast exploded into flames
While the East Coast froze in blizzards
And Tornado Alley blew away.

The sun chased all the rain away
From Arizona’s rocky hills,
For almost two hundred scorching days,
While Mercury reached one-oh-nine
For a blistering ninety-nine of them.

The weather took a slingshot to Nevada
Spring and Fall both disappeared
In unrelenting heat.
Weather played a ping pong game
With thirty degree swings for fun,
And gale force winds for amusement.

The year became an endless Summer
Dog days vaulted over Spring
And every day was August.
Autumn never had a chance
As Winter barged in months too soon.

The weather imitated life
It wasn’t long til politics
Became a quagmire of discord
When an unlikely President
Set out instead to become a King
And join the despots he admired.

As everything went bad and wrong.
Children found themselves in cages
While their parents were sent home
And often lost to them forever.

Around the world they laughed at us
And his parade of sycophants
Who aimed to tear down common sense
And use the bricks to build that wall.

While those with any moral code
Tried vainly to restrain the one
Who claimed to have the biggest brain
Yet startled everyone in charge
With weathervane decisions.

Racism grew with media’s help.
We saw unarmed people die
In graphic form repeatedly.
Black men died in frightful numbers,                                      
Too often with bullets in their back.
And once a knee across the neck
Which proved the final, ugly straw.

That drove the crowds onto the streets,
Where they were joined by Bovver Boys
Who longed to only loot and burn
And turn peaceful protest into riots.

Egotism gone awry
Sent Jack-boots to the Portland streets
With women hustled into vans
While Third ***** vistas came to mind
And Half the city Burned.

Amidst the flailing of his flock,
The Nation’s Shepherd ditched his staff -
Abandoning his sheep, but not his golf.
His only thought, to keep his crown
And stay as King atop the hill.
In desperation to find a way,
He prattled on his fairy tales and
baldfaced, maskless lies.

The righteous folk had had enough
And turned the bully out
In numbers not to be denied,
But he refused to yield his throne
And tried a hundred ways to stay.

Those he danced on Ginsberg’s grave
In order to give candy to

Were supposed to stay his loyal friends
But even they refused the claim
That all his bean bags had been stolen.

He riled the Black Sheep of his flock
To swallow his mendacity
And urged them to stampede for him
And desecrate the country’s home
While he enjoyed it on TV.

Silenced on the air at last
He skulked back to his golden heap
For golfing in the Palm Beach sun
And subterfuge behind the scenes.

Getting past the bile and guile
Will be the next big project.
But we’ve elected one who can,
And normalcy will rule again.

Quiet now, we wait and see
If decency will have a chance
To save us from the boggy swamp
To once again be who we really are.
ljm



Google: Bovver Boots UK
This took months to write and I'm still not satisfied with it but I have to move on.
Steven Martin Jan 2014
Sitting in our rental car, driving to the local lake to
Blow up fireworks.

Dad’s driving, sister and mom in the back.

Good vibes been all around, but
The Vapor's rising

Such pride had been growin in my heart
Wellin up like it hadn’t ever done

Amazing how simply taking something toxic away
Can make you appreciate the simple things so much more

A couple nights before, I saw him start slippin
No evidence needed, no smell and no sight

I can see it in his eyes, darting back and forth
Beedy, wide open eyes

He needed it

Gotta let your happiness swell up real big
For the pain to rush so hard

I thought this time was different
I had given up a couple times before
Didn’t ever want to feel this way again
To feel shame for that which I come from

I look at my hands
My face
My walk
My smile
My ****** hair
All of my **** hair

And I see him

We wave our hands like the worlds about to blow
And we need to tell the story right
Before it does

Sitting here at my grammas dining room table
The fireworks have long since blown
Getting ready to take the trip back home
From Texas to Cali

I can’t look at him
It hurts
Deep down in my belly
To hear him talk
and smile

I don’t even need to look
To know

The smile is false
And his eyes are beady

But back to the rental car
When I let it smack me in the belly

I had seen it coming
I knew it was rising

But it took the turn of his head
And that smell, and that smile

For me to let it in

The vapor rises out of that toxic pit he calls his belly
(been cultivating it for years he says)

They rise to dance as
twisted lies
from those large lips
That reddened face

I’ll be back at school soon
Leaving San Diego behind

I have to leave it rising
To choke and overwhelm my family

Feeling hopeless
And the vapor keeps rising

— The End —