"instances" poems
i am not your ******
nor your sister.
i do not know the meaning
of these words, mister.
except
in instances where
i hate us
like
they hate us.
a putrid loathing
sprouting from different
colored grounds
but a dangerous flower
nonetheless.
they are not just words,
they are drops of blood
spilled from the lashed backs
of our enslaved
triple grandfathers
and mothers.
our slang replaces
hoses
pushing us back
during marches
and righteous riots.
aggression
equals regression
equals deppression.
and now,
it's all our fault.
now it's
black on black assault.
now it's
fly shoes and ghetto booties.
poppin' bottles and
poppin' caps,
running through nights like
street ******* rats.
what would
W.E.B. DuBois say if
he'd seen this
backstep taken
after we'd come this far,
after reaching for stars
and dropping
the ball?
now
i love this color.
i love this color
and prefer no other.
all i'm saying is,
let us pick one day
when we put the negroidian away
put ****** back in it's roots.
no, not the movie,
don't me toby.
let us get the dream rollin'
Mister King style,
not Master P style.
no big rims, or leather seats.
none of that ****
for awhile.
i'm saying takeover.
i'm saying african-america makeover.
i'm saying,
let's take
our pride back,
like our
homeland lions.
let us make black
a taste not so sour.
i'm saying,
Black Power.
Nov 18, 2010
Nov 18, 2010 at 8:03 AM UTC
I am what is around me.
Women understand this.
One is not duchess
A hundred yards from a carriage.
These, then are portraits:
A black vestibule;
A high bed sheltered by curtains.
These are merely instances.
9.3k
My business is words. Words are like labels,
or coins, or better, like swarming bees.
I confess I am only broken by the sources of things;
as if words were counted like dead bees in the attic,
unbuckled from their yellow eyes and their dry wings.
I must always forget how one word is able to pick
out another, to manner another, until I have got
something I might have said...
but did not.
Your business is watching my words. But I
admit nothing. I work with my best, for instances,
when I can write my praise for a nickel machine,
that one night in Nevada: telling how the magic jackpot
came clacking three bells out, over the lucky screen.
But if you should say this is something it is not,
then I grow weak, remembering how my hands felt funny
and ridiculous and crowded with all
the believing money.
9.1k
Her cherry wood hair,
and rosy blossom cheeks,
combine to make a dear so sweet.
Moments with her are cherries of time,
nectarous instances,
an oh so fulfilling fruit.
May 14, 2015
May 14, 2015 at 9:51 PM UTC
(1)
There’s one thing I must get off my chest
that’s bothered me now
even 50 years on
with the passage of time –
my English teacher then
she always told me when I grumbled
homework was too difficult,
she’d tell me: “That’s a piece of cake”
And I’d go home discombobulated how
anyone could eat paper
or homework
and she said this not once, but every time:
“It’s a piece of cake”
(2)
And my parents and I looked at it
every which way and from every point of view
and concluded in our Perfect Ancient Native language:
*“This English teacher is a loony. She is wooly-headed.
She is the lamb Mary lost, silly and muddle-headed.
How can homework be a piece of cake?
Anyway, we don’t eat cake – we eat samosas.”*
(3)
And yet the English teacher would put her nose
up in the air
and remonstrate: “It’s a piece of cake!”
Oh yeah, would you like tea with it?
Now, my parents, bless their Ancient Souls,
have gone on into the next world
And I’m left wondering about the secret madness
of that English teacher
who’d ask me to eat cake when I expressed genuine concern…
Well, my parents have passed on, as I said,
and I’ve moved on
as is plain and radiant to see
to master idioms and vocabulary
Punctuation, the catenative verb and Usage;
and, as for that wooly-headed English teacher,
I’m sure she’s moved on into
a comfortable nuthouse
where the staff makes her eat her cake,
and make her think she can have it too -
cos that’s what they do to nuts, and such instances
(4)
And now that I have got that off my chest,
I can comfortably resume memorizing
Volume 3 of theOxford Dictionary
as I perambulate
and copy 100 entries from Fowler’s “Modern English Usage”
as I victulate
which is all part of my nightly ritual
since she told me to do so some 50 years ago
(cos I happened to look at her Union Jack knickers
when she sat high on the table, and I stood up *****
cos that's what they made us do in the cinemas)
- and that helps to put me into a state of dormancy, to hibernate
till the sun ushers in a new day for me –
and a new cake for that wooly-headed English teacher,
she, I can presume with certainty,
elegantly reposed and superannuated
Now, I’m glad I’ve got this off my chest
and mastered my idioms and phrases
and I can go eat my samosas
Jun 28, 2013
Jun 28, 2013 at 8:21 AM UTC
What I'm imagining isn't considered pretty
You don't want to know where you're sitting
What I'm imagining isn't considered pleasant
We're inappropriately using a pheasant
What I'm imagining doesn't go with God
And is laughed at because it's odd
Into my life they peer
Trying to insert fear
My owl head on a swivel
My rabbit ears perked
When people don't act civil
And decency is shirked
I needed answers
For my cancer
I find them in love and pain
They both seem the same
I begin to view the rain
As a type of gain
Everyone knows love's scorn
Which leaves me torn
I can't help but feel my situation differs
Something about the rejection seems stiffer
So I become a shapeshifter
To avoid the hate gifters
To avoid bearing the shame
Of being called names
I know other people have it worse
Sometimes that feels like a curse
I can't gauge the importance of major events
In my life
I don't know whether to think they're intense
Or just right
Maybe I'm just being dramatic
But these instances aren't sporadic
When those that I love
Push and shove
I start to wonder if I'm broken or stained
Until I realize we're all burnt by love's flames
We all have a path to travel
And they're all made of gravel
Our feet become sore
Which affects our core
We find people below us on the totem pole
To know how it feels to treat someone cold
For when our enthusiasm for love has faded
It's easy to become jaded
There are things we're ashamed of
That morph us into something unrecognizable
In which we should be truly ashamed
In the mirror we look the same
But our actions are toxic
We become radioactive
We see where our stock sits
And become merely reactive
And it's hard to find grace
After being punched in the face
But one must remember punches come in all forms
And we must not punch back to survive the storm
Oct 18, 2017
Oct 18, 2017 at 5:42 AM UTC
Friend: a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection.
In some instances, we do not choose who we are going to be friends with. It just kind of.. happens. We may be sitting alone reading a book or staring off into nothingness, and then someone walks right up to you. You don't know if you are going to be friends with this stranger. Sure, they could be attractive, have a nice personality based on what you see and hear from others.
But when that first conversation starts, there is no way back to peace and life without them.
From stranger to a weight that keeps pulling you down.
"Get rid of them! If they cared about you, they would take the time to talk." , says my brain and logic. "They have feelings too! They're really nice!", says my heart. "What did they ever do to you?"
Nothing. They did nothing.
Friends don't back-stab you, or ignore you. They don't ignore what you say or send to them. It doesn't matter how weird or inappropriate you act or speak, as long as you know where the boundaries are and you have a good heart and soul.
As Snow White takes a bite out of a poisonous apple, I too have had my share of poison apples that continue to stay by my side.
© 2018 Omni Winters
May 8, 2018
May 8, 2018 at 6:13 PM UTC
There are several books inside my mind,
one of which is a turning tide.
There are many rooms inside my dreams,
one where I balance on ceiling beams.
There are a couple bookshelves in my head,
one that hangs merely by a thread.
I have instances in my reality,
where I hold my breath cowardly.
I have a voice inside me, disguised,
that says I am a mad man and lies.
I have moments that tear me down,
so I fall and drown.
I have a God who fights my battles,
but still my head spins and rattles.
I've developed a tendency to do my own doing,
and that's why my fears are moving.
They move through the night out of sight.
But in reality, my hope is never losing.
Aug 17, 2018
Aug 17, 2018 at 10:08 AM UTC
I'll be going home without leaving
tonight,
inside
we all are wrapped in dust
as if
the love
we create in all our small spaces
cannot provide the instances of growth we need to feel whole
I beg
you, realize the end you wander to in time
Jessica went away with all the lurching other guys
just to wind up growing older in a slow roll, home well before midnight
every time he or she wonders what in wandering they would have found
depression in a sick head worries what with your shadow not around
might happen to me, to me
Nov 8, 2014
Nov 8, 2014 at 11:53 PM UTC
My auspicious and audacious assault augments the annoyance of aged accomplices.
My bodacious broadside of boffolas berates and buffaloes bros beneficently.
A classy crusade Clownishly chiseling and criticizing childishness.
A devilish ********** of dillydallying dullards; devoutly denying dimwits the dulcet dream of defiance.
Excessive, exuberant edification, ebulliently eliminating education-evictees.
A fair-weather frolic in flippancy with furious fools floundering in flawed foppishness.
Gregariously grating glum guys gleefully, growing grander garnishes of gripping gallantry gaily.
Heckling hooligans highlights my heavenly humor.
Irreverently irking irritable, iniquitous idiots in inestimably infuriating and incredible instances.
A jolly, jocular **** joking with jerks.
A kreiger kicking kleptomaniacs in the karyotype. (Cut me some slack, this is 'k', after all.)
A ludicrous, laughing lambaste of lollygagging lunatics, loftily loosing luscious lunacy on lucky losers.
A magnificent masterpiece of malfeasance, a monstrous, malevolent mission of massive misfortune for the minor minors missing no malicious missive.
A noxious, narcissistic niggling of nitwits, niftily nixing the noisome naivete of niggardly nobs.
An offhand, off-color outburst of outlandish observations to outclass the obnoxious overtures of obsequious offal.
A pragmatic prediction of possible platitudes or platypi, a placid parley of pyrotechnic pleasantries provoking Pyrrhic protections by prurient prats.
A quixotic quibble quarreling with a queer quarry.
Ribald ribbing, ruining the robust reality of the repreachful, repugnant, and rapacious with risque ridiculousness.
A silly, slighting slander of sluglike slavishness, succinctly sinking sloppy simpletons sourly.
Tracing the titillating talent of towing tyranny to towering terrors to tactless, togless, terrapins of the times.
Jan 7, 2012
Jan 7, 2012 at 11:25 PM UTC
When the emergency room
is at maximum occupancy,
the nurses will lay down
their clipboards and utensils,
clear their throats, and ask for
women and children
to approach the desk first.
To ensure proper care,
forms still must be completed promptly,
and as patiently as possible for the
patient to be processed.
There's the occasional backwards R.
But all is acceptable with a
signature by the X.
Adrenaline coursing
through veins may perhaps lead
the cause of instability,
some instances coarse skin.
A child with the heart of a lion,
shell of a turtle, will always overcome;
rest assured, an insured child,
prints their name with the
unmistakable yet
innocent backwards R still
knows that words are as powerful
as excruciating pain.
Sticks and stones and words alone
have been known to break through bone.
With the twitch of a finger
even Danny Torrance made
the word "Redrum" seem
like a word to reflect on,
if not only a feeling
of constant déjà vu.
Intensive care is a surgeon
not leaving a wristwatch
inside of a patient,
if not a cadaver
whose time ran out.
Dec 19, 2013
Dec 19, 2013 at 8:31 PM UTC
It must be two in the morning.
it's cold. Dark. The bleeding is relentless.
My fault.
I didn't ask for any of this
but in the end it is my fault alone.
I try to breathe.
how?
I can't.
it feels like
liquid nitrogen.
not oxygen.
I need air.
can't breathe.
chest collapsing.
I wake up.
two ten.
still dark out.
got a text
at ten something
from my Bluebird of Peace.
a list of inappropriate but still humorous jokes.
some are cringey,
but I still laugh or smile.
and so guilt and shame are washed from my mind,
as I debate running
to the bathroom
to wash the cold sweat off
that has drenched my skin
and clothes.
I keep smelling iron
though I know it isn't there.
the things I have seen
and the things I have lost
like to haunt me.
I would like to be a ghost.
to haunt them
in return.
instead I breathe in.
I breathe out.
I change clothes,
stripping down entirely to put on shorts and a t-shirt.
I put on his hoodie.
Wait for warmth.
Hold my old stuffed lion.
send my Bluebird
a text.
I need some type of noise,
but all I hear is snoring
and the dripping of a faucet.
I am glad
for instances like these
that I do not
live alone.
at least this time
i didn't cry myself awake.
one day
it will be different.
"That part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail."
Jul 9, 2016
Jul 9, 2016 at 2:44 AM UTC
It was where you'd always sit, in unrest, with a forced smile, yet comfortable in your dwelling.
Seemingly broken but with a little hope stored away somewhere.
I saw an image that day, so surreal.
I could not help but let the tears flow, for I have missed you, more and more, since you let go.
Little instances when I feel you around, keep me curious and looking forward to life.
I momentarily feel the comfort and security you provided, and like the wind it sweeps away to find me on another day.
©A. Harris 2016
Dec 5, 2016
Dec 5, 2016 at 4:22 PM UTC
Phases of faces, captured moments and instances
I pass by, so swiftly, so fleetingly
Caught in the crossroads of paradigms and decisions
I stood paralyzed, terrified.
I meet intense eyes that bore through me, knowing me, knowing us
A smile as warm as the sun that has the power to melt me
Your presence is strong, comforting…strong, unsettling…strong, terrifying
You have me without even trying, you mesmerize me.
You bring me to my knees with a sigh,
you can crush me with a word.
You can bring me to bliss with a touch,
you can bring me to ecstasy with a kiss.
You command me with a whisper, I am drawn to you
You break down my china walls, one by one
You undress my layers of failed expectations
Of shattered dreams, and broken hearts
I stand before you, naked, vulnerable
I look away, not bearing for you to see
My helplessness, my hopelessness
All my imperfections, my fears, my desires.
You wipe my tears away, and kiss my bitterness away
And yet the fear descends on me…I’ve been here before
Fear of hurt, of betrayal, of disappointment
Fear that this is all an illusion…or perhaps just my delusion
And so I put on a smile, cool and composed
Hide behind my fast-paced life, run far away from you
Going so fast, so fast…so I won’t think, I won’t feel
Until I fall, exhausted, to sleep a dreamless sleep
I need the noise, the meaningless clanging
For in silence, the longing creeps in…
To be in your arms, just us and nothing else…
Nothing but warmth and the sound of our hearts beating.
So I welcome the numbness, welcome the pain
Punish myself for the choice I’ve made in my weakness
Someday I will find my happiness, someday I will find my strength
Somehow…I will find you again.
May 28, 2013
May 28, 2013 at 1:32 PM UTC
She rises and falls like a reposed breath
before an entire world's visage
in her encircled arms.
The incandescent glow of the stage
has an intoxicating quality to it,
the music being
something liquid, viscous.
As notes thrum in tender and soothing caresses,
her legs supple, twirl like petals
cascading under the weight of raindrops,
giving way to a lush surrender
steeped in a language of love and need.
Her very fire
and impassioned soulfulness
lifts her up above the crowd itself,
burning for all to see.
In this moment now
her timelessness enraptures me.
Another part of myself awakens to her grace
and renders me
gratefully whole.
A sense of euphoria slow dances its way
from her being to mine,
consuming every piece of my body
in a fiery bloom—
charging me with
a crackling, electrifying force
unlike my mere own.
I can see now
that this is what she was born to do—
to be on pointe, seeing everything.
Any instances of worldly fear
is left to the dying.
The rhythms of her old pains,
tribulations of past destructions,
are now buried beneath her feet.
And her radiant smile while she dances
still speaks to me gently—
that to be free
is to be wonderfully lost
in her waltz with destiny.
© BT
Nov 19, 2017
Nov 19, 2017 at 8:52 PM UTC
Tethered feathers sing their long lost songs in solos that were once symphonies
Falling from swan-like wings of a lone angel and floating along a reflecting stream
The misty haze graces both water's surface and the resting angel's skin
Making the glow from her shining halo all the more evident
See as she sits inside the arms of an elderly weeping willow
Fireflies gracing her satin hand as the glow from her skin does billow
The natural string quartet of the crickets under a full moon's glow
A silent moment in a place and time that mortals may never know
Looking upon the star studded sky that is her open field
Flying with the grace of many a dove whose untamed beauty shall not yeild
Yet landing on dirt ridden ground to see whatever it is she may please
Trickling tears coming from your eyes at the sight of such travesties
Oh angel, if feather must fall, then let it, but not one tear from your eye
At this hallowed sight and glorious eve where Heaven and Earth coincide
And if tear must fall into the waters under the arm of the willow tree
May it harden into the whitest of pearls so I might keep it here with me
Let sultry glowing moonlight be your constant company
Filling the darkness and contributing spotlight to your scene
May silver moonlight and silken feather compliment each detail
And pray the moon does not fade away and break this scene, so frail
Dear hallowed breath of the midnight hour, take note of this rare time
So you may utter this instant in this poet's ear and turn it to hallowed rhyme
The instance where an host of Heaven indulged in a glimpse of Earth
And with a tear turned into a pearl showed what our instances are worth
Oct 28, 2012
Oct 28, 2012 at 11:47 PM UTC
when you sleep there are instances
when you'll suddenly wake up
and you felt like you've fallen
on a building
on a floor
somewhere you're not even afraid of
yet now you're afraid
cause you knew
that an angel caught you
while you're falling
catching your breath
saving every cell in you
letting organs to function
but you know you're not worth it
you're just a bag of blood
so what was the angel thinking?
maybe she knows how it feels
falling on your sleep
falling for somebody
falling
falling
May 29, 2014
May 29, 2014 at 10:51 PM UTC
Bad as a ***** *****
Bas as a ***** *****
Flapjack rippin up tracks
Call the conductor
Oh wait that’s me
You need training
Wheel’s on the track
Traction that you stuck under
N never wonder who is coming with the blunderbuss
All up in yo face, one shot n you under us
Ain’t wonderous?
****** up a couple plastics, pause, chill, kickback
Smoke a couple blunts
M to the A G, N to the Ificient
Life’s nice isn’t it?
That is, if ya got a little life light to lighten up those, like,
Way heavy dark instances.
And I don’t give a **** what you’re inference is
Psh, this ***** tryna tell me what the difference is
I thought it was obvious
I am, they are not the ****
Now we all got a nervous system
But that don’t explain why you’re so nervous mister
I done chained two chains up by his whiskers
Gave away his dummy money needed hunny ****** his sister
It’s the
Little Rapscallion
****** up your fleet, better bring the whole battalion
And I rap stallions, you stickin to the stable
Fables of your ladies n your many medalions
**** I’m goin off in this motha *****
Tossin these ***** fuckas wall to wall
Knockin bricks out with a fist pound
So get out n stand back, take notes, watch it fall
I’m bach with ***** don’t matter what your speed
I can clock em all, No cops involved, knock knock knock knock
Lock down drop top n ball
I’m all tweaked up n ***** you bound to stall
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014 at 2:33 AM UTC
*if only I knew how to love...
for my Victoria
winces-grimaces, that these words even leave my fingertips,
reminiscences, a chrome bookmark tab full of decades of near misses,
instances, subway sideway stolen daily glances of she who would be the only, the one, but one day failed to appear, left to dream peer,
and/or
decades long of romanced lasses, flying spectacular super crashes, when my heart-blanched, lanced, and the lawyers danced, poems shriveled as dried ink crack'd and words rusted shut,
cut by so many p'raps, and ugly motives, beautiful covered up, disguised as synapses of sin and insincerity, and I,
the sad man,
both the sinner and the sinned against,
totalities, of shoulda-woulda-asked/kissed-her-gallantly,
activities, when kisses were doorways to trap door rooms
and an over decorated monte cristo prison cell
ah well
the 'and yet,' the 'but for,' a single finger, sealing silenced lips,
passions mourned and irrevocable sensations, frittered, fractured,
all that I calmly called love was sprigs and broken branches,
cut flowers destined to shrivel,
not of what I believed in, something akin to a tree rooted, an oaken strong unbreakable love
of this certain, all approximations, all failed incantations,
for surely, if but only one escaped, could have been saved,
and if truthful love it was,
I would have known it,
for would I have dared to let slip away?
Jul 14, 2017
Jul 14, 2017 at 6:05 PM UTC
*I used to be so hesitant about expressing
the extent of my feelings towards people.
There have been too many instances where
I value and appreciate and love someone
much more than they ever would reciprocate,
and to them I would seem overwhelming,
reckless, and desperate with the way I felt.
I’ve learned it’s too risky to pretend not to care.
What comes next is too uncertain, too capricious.
In the next 24 hours, I could get hit by a bus,
move to another country, I could disappear.
I am young and we are fragile and mundane
and we never know when the bus is coming.
We don’t know who won’t be here tomorrow
or in two weeks or in two years from now.
All we know is the unadulterated here and now
of our infinitesimal existence on this planet.
I love being straightforward and honest, I love
telling people how much they mean to me,
I say things like “you are one of my favorite
human beings to ever walk this earth of ours”
and “you are a strong, resilient, beautiful sunflower.”
I love hands in hands and heads in laps and
kisses and hugs and cuddles and caresses.
I love saying "I love you and I appreciate you."
I need you to know now, in this moment
that I care for you to the ends of the earth, and
I cannot believe that I have the privilege
of knowing you and your story and simply
having someone like you in my life.
I love being unapologetically Harsh.*
Jun 9, 2016
Jun 9, 2016 at 1:17 PM UTC
Glances shared at infinitesimal instances
trickle up my vertebrae,
blow the dust away
& chew the tin foil for me.
Nonchalantly running a gauntlet
that I designed with architectural
displeasure.
If you absorbed all the gold you've ever touched,
feverishly drank the blood of gods,
suckled the syrup from tangerines
until you blessed a famine,
stole your story from a pack of gorgeous wolves,
or inhaled the whispers of every wise soul
it would still not explain your unprecedented
growth & elegance.
A superlative pressure wave in the eyes of
a politician.
Purely an enigma.
Beauty in the form of human nature.
I truly flourish in this experience.
Jan 8, 2015
Jan 8, 2015 at 9:56 PM UTC
After several instances
of your arm accidentally brushing
against mine,
can I assume I finally like you?
Can I finally say that
you make my heart pump blood
faster than when I
go to the gym and workout?
Can I finally say that
you lift my mood up, as high as the heavens,
and make me write poems
as sweet as artificial sugar?
Can I finally say I like you
even when you don't like me too?
Sep 30, 2018
Sep 30, 2018 at 10:59 AM UTC
All day yesterday was the best day of my life
Nothing went wrong, everything went right
Tracking all the factors that helped make it so
Reinvigorates me to continue with my goals
There’s a thought that returns, maybe coincidental,
But there is a common thread that is sequential
Early in the morning is when I first saw you
And at the end of the day you were in my rear view
So you were there with me from sunrise to sunset
Any moment we had together I never felt upset
No awkward instances, only natural feelings
No pressure to make myself seem more appealing
You make me feel like I’m almost where I need to be
To have something that you may one day need from me
Leisurely I will continue to approach the situation
Because this is a path that I want to keep straightened
At the prime of our lives for the time of our lives
We just have to be willing to hold on for the ride
Hopefully I’ll have you before the towel’s thrown in
Together we will laugh at what could have been
All the bullets that we dodged and the ones still lodged
Deep into our hearts, but they’ll seem like a mirage
Compared to the dreams that we’ve chosen to live
After each other’s hearts that we’ve chosen to give
It feels so strange to be so close to these emotions
I’m hopeful for the future, for once my mind’s open
To all of the possibilities that life could deal to me
I’m so thrilled to see what will be revealed to me
Whatever happens to me, I need you to be there too
Since I know with you there we could see it all through
I can’t recall a single bad day in which you were involved
Even in one of your foul moods I was still so enthralled
That’s just the kind of person I will always choose to be
Doing whatever it takes to always have you with me
Especially when extreme patience is all that’s required
I’ll work hard at this job, no way am I ever getting fired
Committed until I’m beyond the age of being retired
Whistling while I work until the day I might expire
One day, to all these thought you won’t be oblivious
One day I’ll pursue you with an attitude that’s vigorous
Until that day comes I’ll patiently wait off to the side
For an opportunity to make you my source of pride
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 4:03 PM UTC
Your eyes, bringing despise, continue to pierce me
With their glowing incompetence
And fluttering instances of jealousy.
Your thoughts continue to reach me
With their condescending demeanors
That strike with utter prosperity.
Your hatred continues to elude me
With its striking usage
And power that proves deadly.
Once, just once, I know you can only wish
To wrap your hands around my neck
And squeeze until my breath has been abolish'd.
Once, just once, I know you can only pretend
To plunge the pencil into my chest
And apply pressure until my beating comes to an end.
Once, just once, I know you want to violate me
And, once, just once, I may allow
Your reaching desires to overpower me
Once, just once, I will see your anger
As you wrap your hands around me and decree,
"I'm only putting us out of our misery."
May 21, 2014
May 21, 2014 at 12:11 AM UTC