"protested" poems
the dutch colony ascended on our shores
replacing traditional african education on culture
with teaching slaves how to pray
we saw the deterioration of black schools
and state-mandated segregated curricula
whites being taught better than blacks
who was only destined for subservient jobs
policies of apartheid birthed the bantu education
and later forced us to learn languages
which was not our native tongue
the youth could no longer be silenced
soweto uprising saw them dying for the cause
we have protested throughout the decades
silenced by the apartheid government
simply ignored
with Mandela’s release we saw liberation, freedom, democracy
and a single education system, we were finally equal
however the legacy of black inferior education left a deep scar
which has still not healed
our parents not able to give us the education they were denied
now students are holding the government accountable
who promised free education for a vote
the movement trending as #feesmustfall
anger expressed by burning premises, striking and rioting
i believe in the cause but who are you really hurting?
why destroy the very universities that you are fighting for?
Oct 27, 2016
Oct 27, 2016 at 5:17 PM UTC
Drivin’ with the kids in tow
Windows down, nowhere to go
Hands outside, feel wind blow
On country roads, fields passin’ slow.
Saw a hayrack sittin’ by a fence
“Rocks for Sale – Fifty Cents”
Thought I, it makes no earthly sense
To demand for rocks some recompense.
But the sign - unique enough to hail
(I protested - but to no avail)
The missus and the kids prevailed
A sale you see, is still a sale!
Before day and feelings I did mar
Realizing for the course it’s par
I turned around and stopped the car
It’s what I’ve become, and whom we are .
To the rack and rocks the kids did sprint
I got closer, had to squint
So I could read the finer print
Kids might have seen, but care they din’t.
Said the bigger rocks did cost a buck
I knew then that I was out of luck
Between a hard place and a rock I’m stuck
‘Twas bait and switch, and smelled like muck.
But the kids had picked from rocks galore
Put them in the trunk to store
The rack was less some rocks times four
And the coffee can had four bucks more!
PwL 5/16/15
May 16, 2015
May 16, 2015 at 11:43 PM UTC
It was supposed to be
The dawn of a new age;
A new set of dialogue
On a more balanced stage
With better lines for
The actors to deliver.
It was supposed to start in
The sixties and last forever.
We didn’t really know for sure
What this Aquarius stuff was
But it seemed to us to be
A metaphysical enough cause,
To change the way we acted
And to shout down the rest;
To face the demagogues
Then put them to the test.
We stopped wearing uniforms
That said we went along
With the hard-assed leaders.
We put a lot of it in our songs.
We called them what they were
Greedy warmongering ******
We protested and picketed
And promised so much more.
We spoke out loudly on TV
And in crowds in the streets
That we were through will genocide
And would not accept defeat.
We cried out that our government
Had assumed the role of villain
And was murdering for no reason
Not just men, but even children.
But, we let it all die down;
We let the government slide
On investigating the truth
And keeping the truth inside
A carefully chosen batch of
Criminals in public office.
We let them go on making war
And making money off us.
We let them cheat and lie
And re-write acceptable laws
To support their bloodthirstiness
And we gave up on our cause.
Maybe all that protesting gave
All our marching feet limps.
Or maybe it’s because all along
We were just a bunch of wimps.
Dec 4, 2015
Dec 4, 2015 at 9:38 PM UTC
we ate government cheese
that came in a dull brown box
we were too young
to understand what welfare
and food stamps meant,
our empty bellies never protested
at the salty orange blocks
in front of the bodega,
we saw a woman introduce a hammer
to a drunk tyrant’s skull
his blood pooling on the streets
was too red for new eyes
we watched hypodermic needles
bloom on stoops
cling to life on curbs
the graffiti on abandoned buildings
was our Louvre, our Salon de Paris
sweltering streets our baseball diamonds
prostitutes, black or brown or both
mothered us between shifts
we grew up in projects,
that sheltered drab lives
and senseless brutalities
gunfire, sharp and immutable
punctured lullabies
we were small boys
watching life unfold
the way one stares at an accident
detached and mildly curious
eyeing cooly the despair
and impossible hopelessness
of growing up poor
in Brooklyn
Mar 28, 2015
Mar 28, 2015 at 10:40 PM UTC
I want to love you,
but you make it so hard for me,
With this sadistic torment.
I imagine you are angry
At the way I have treated you,
And that is why you subject me to agony.
I was so ignorant, back then,
Blaming you for my own shortcomings,
I wanted you to change.
I tried to turn you into something you were not,
I starved you of affection, forced you to do things
Even as you protested, and begged to be set free.
Is this how you punish me? When will you stop?
Please, talk to me,
Tell me what you need.
Is it too late for us to learn to love each other?
There is no escape,
We have to find a way.
And there has been togetherness,
There has been delight, and even love.
Together, we have borne two children,
Danced with abandon,
Explored our limits alone and with others.
My body, my self,
Let me find a way to help you,
My body, my love,
Help me free us from this pain.
May 21, 2014
May 21, 2014 at 10:42 AM UTC
when my hurt became audible
you protested with your history
I know only what I've known
and you begged me to be the bigger person
and so I was.
And so you grabbed one end of me
and I grabbed the other
and we pulled until taut, until
I was enormous, stretched
and distorted
like a lost giant or
A firefighter's trampoline-
my highest purpose became
to break your fall
and so I did
and so I did
and so I did
Jan 27, 2015
Jan 27, 2015 at 12:32 PM UTC
the hens
have raised their fowl fists,
protested the pecking order,
debated the Cuckoo Clucks Clan,
and started a coup in the coop.
they have a bird's eye view from their fort,
truly an eggcelent perch to reside in while they gather resources and
duck when enemies fire.
joining is a nestcessary evil to end the corruption.
so, my dear,
please don't chicken out.
Oct 19, 2018
Oct 19, 2018 at 1:29 AM UTC
Naught but mockery.
In the back of my mind,
I've always recognised why
Why all those nights,
I fought sleep,
Why all those days,
Appetite didn't come.
Didn't sleep again last night.
And I rose from bed,
reluctant as ever to return
to a heart-torturing reality.
The hot scalding shower,
wasn't hot enough.
And when it was,
I closed my eyes,
Calm reigning my soul.
I walked the streets,
Drizzle of rain splattering on my face,
It was as though everything was fine,
Yet everything wasn't.
I felt everything wrong,
But everything was right.
I, I,
I wanted to stand
in the middle of that street,
And await an incoming car.
Nothing in me protested,
Except for the mind,
the god fearing mind.
My heart was silent,
eerily calm.
I hailed a cab,
got to school like
everything was fine,
But the emotions on my face
probably couldn't lie.
All bottled up,
in a bright corner I sat,
just wanting to let it all out.
Yet again,
The heart-torturing reality interferes.
Figured, why I never was a fan.
Dec 18, 2014
Dec 18, 2014 at 10:04 PM UTC
In the early hours of the morning,
you asked me to marry you;
I pushed it off, taking it as a joke,
but you leapt up from our bed anyway,
and I protested, saying there were no rings in sight,
and yet, you wrapped paper, so delicately, into a ring for me.
From the dim-lit room,
I saw you kneel on one knee to ask me.
I swore you were mocking me,
but you persisted that we elope,
and even then I couldn't take you at your word.
Did you really love me like that?
And if so, why did you leave?
Nov 26, 2021
Nov 26, 2021 at 5:44 PM UTC
Protest it.
Unless you employed by the government.
Rules are totally different.
If officers violate the laws they serving to protect us.
Stand up for your rights to protest.
We in America not one of that dictatorship country.
Why?
Do people feel athletes can't protest?
They go on strike for various things not right to them.
Not one stated the protesting the anthem.
Not one.
They protesting injustice.
And rightly so.
So fans are mad than many probably never saw the youth that protested in the sixties against a war.
Whether you agree or don't.
Always stand up for your rights.
So a so-called billionaire never paid taxes and won't reveal his income tax forms using idle threats.
The only one filling the role of kiss-up is the owners.
Without comprehending, if there is a sporting showdown the most likely won't win.
Most likely to be the losers when Coke, Pepsi, Nike, Papa John and host of others clients profits fall.
A business suffers highly when there no solution solved.
Most fans that go to a sporting event are a great majority of whites and be the ones crying the louder.
If ever done wrong and need attention to get people on board.
You protest, you stand up and stand out.
A small church pastor rose to be great by taking on a segregated system.
The only one mad about tearing segregation is who?
The race need not be mention for a majority hardly stand up for anything.
Well, unless it's the NRA.
Even with violence in school from high powered weapons.
There they go defending the NRA.
And the weapons they protesting against isn't truly needed unless you at war.
But they standing up for their rights.
So players, stand up for your rights.
For CBS/ESPN/ABC/NBC stands to lose too.
If a majority of players stand strong against wrong.
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 11:45 PM UTC
"No!" - He protested
Yes, he had said that she was like lightning,
but he meant that she startled him
with her randomness
and thunder,
and not that she pulsated
writing a spiderweb
into the nights sky;
it was that she filled him with a certain
nervousness...
and no, that nervousness was not
like an electricity.
And while the argument continued
it was brought up that he had also compared her to a storm.
It wasn't because she climbed with a certain
inexorable quality
like the tides
or that she was the perfect mix
of calm pretense
and wuthering looks.
It was more because she reminded him of the rains
lightly dancing on his bedroom window
making him dream.
Mar 24, 2017
Mar 24, 2017 at 4:46 PM UTC
She died a year ago,
But so pathetic I wasn’t around during,
Her funeral,
Air would have protested against my loud dirge,
There would have been series of enjambment
In the stanzas of my her elegy.
General Abas said she died in a ****** coup,
But she was too wise to be wiped out in a coup,
She was like untamed lion.
Mr George gave another account,
He said she died during an internal war,
The war against the truth,
She has been from truth,
Too blind to see reality,
Fast asleep to be woken up.
The family doctor said she was poisoned,
Poisoned with the truth,
The truth that kills rather to set free.
Inspector James said she was sniped
From a fair perimeter.
The mortuary attendant said they
Heared movement,
Guess she was just try to raise up.
Today I arrive with nothing to feed my eye,
A little bit nostalgic,
I had the feeling that I belong here but not to death,
So I left for the yard, at the backyard,
I couldn’t belive what I saw on her gravestone,
“Nigeria a country, not a nation”
Jul 3, 2016
Jul 3, 2016 at 10:09 AM UTC
In Lisbon, we blended
ended the day with spectacular culinary
Shopped and hopped side to side
In Dublin, we vented
as the whisky and Guinness was **** good
Shipped the hire car to Galway
In Italy, we invented
dropped coins in fountains of love we already held
From Florence, to Milan, to Rome, to Bologna
In Paris, I rented
alone in protests and hippies at Place De La Republique
Dreamt of you as they skated
In Romania, I persisted
up on the icy Tranfagarasan highway traps
I saw a bear and it had your eyes
In Stockholm, we insisted
As the Vasa sunk on tables of *****
Pecked on the trains and shied away.
In London, we protested
It was an ordinary day and the flowers didn't bloom
The Thames was gloomy and stale
In Oslo, we transmitted
The reindeer meal and cranberry was a disaster
The gloom followed us to southern skies
In Copenhagen, you were sorted
Smiled and amused by the Tivoli gardens
The night became day and the wind withered
In Amsterdam, we did what we did
Stored the memories on the reclaimed lands
Free-spirited in love and in eternity
May 19, 2016
May 19, 2016 at 6:05 PM UTC
The four of us wrote each other fortune cookies
And the sad part was that even though
The cookies we baked together were sugary and warm
None of the little squares of paper inside
Made much indication of one another.
You remarked that it had been exactly a year since
You were where we were:
Lying in a snowy field and watching the grey clouds rush
From the horizon to the moon
Illuminated by city lights too.
You protested those lights, throwing doorknobs
For the darkness but you couldn't break that streetlamp
Until the sun had already risen and the LSD
Had already worn off
Such that there was nothing to do
But read our fortunes quietly and sadly reminisce
About that night we'd spent
Melting the snow beneath our bodies.
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 7:07 PM UTC
This is in dedication to Mr. John Grant a spokesman
for Veterans for Peace local 31. When during the late Bush years we protested the Bushy Zombies in West Chester
Pa. This took place every Saturday from early morning till
around 4 or 5 pm. He keep saying, "They're drinking the cool-aid."
P.S. Veterans for Peace is also national and is registered
under the U.N. with its own magazine. This was poem was written in 2010
Besides it has a rap beat to it
Lies ah decieven' our minds ah believen'
by ah drinkin' the cool-aid; eatin' funny-fudge
Drive-by ah flyin' innocent babes ah dyin',
while ah drinkin' the cool-aid; eatin' funny-fudge
Blacks against slavery racists say lazy,
Jim Crow ah knowin', black vote ah growin',
voter lines ah showen', black suppression ah growin',
while ah drinkin' the cool-aid; eatin' funny-fudge
Mr. sweater vest advisin' theocracy risin' ( Rick ********
gays cannot marry his heavy-load to carry,
all Muslims are targets by his government harlots,
body meedlers of women, no rights he has proven
by ah drinkin' his cool-aid and eatin' funny-fudge
Mexican Border right-wingers disorder,
Jail complexes growin', their profits showin',
public schools no maintain', corporate zombie schools gainin',
while ah drinkin' the cool-aid; eatin' funny fudge
Corporations are people super-vote-money inclusion,
Super Pacs' delusion, Democracy illusion,
while ah drinkin' the cool-aid; eatin' funny-fudge
Profits by Lockheed Martin perpetual wars embarkin',
wars appeasin' without good reason,
while ah drinkin' the cool-aid; eatin' funny fudge
No good reason callin' Wikkeleaks treason,
while ah drinkin' the cool-aid; eatin' funny fudge
Houses ah runnin' from ex-owners ah gruntin',
our lands will desert us whole nature unnerved us,
while ah drinkin' the cool-aid; eatin' funny fudge
Street people ah growin' with hardly non knowin',
parents ah cryin', hungry tots ah dyin', emergency rooms
ah packin', it's healthcare ah lackin'
While ah Wall Street ah hoppin' in triumph give-away-ah-hoppin',
while ah drinkin' the cool-aid; eatin' funny fridge
Slave hours grind us while paychecks are minus,
GOP congress never behind us,
while ah drinkin' the cool-aid; eatin' funny fudge,
Zombies surround us to only remind us,
QUIT DRINKIN' THE COOL-AID AND EATIN' FUNNY FUDGE!!!
Sep 19, 2014
Sep 19, 2014 at 4:19 AM UTC
We’ve been through so much together
We’ve witnessed history together
We saw the first moon landing
We saw the Vietnam War on TV
We protested the war in Washington, DC
Our lives have been spent with each other
Our long walks on the beach
Our romantic candlelight dinner
Our cruise vacation together
Our romantic getaways to the Caribbean
I told you when I met you
That I love you will all m heart
I told you that I want to be with you
Forever and I want to grow old with you
I told you that you complete me
When I look into your eyes
I see a world of possibilities
And a world of happiness and love
When I hug you my worries go away
When I kiss you I share my love with you
I know what we’re not perfect
I know we had fights
I know we wanted to **** each other
But in the end we came back to each other
Because I love you and I know you do too
I want to grow old with you
As our children have children
And as the world changes for the better
I want to keep on looking in those eyes
And I want to love you long time
I want to love you long time
Oct 10, 2011
Oct 10, 2011 at 2:00 PM UTC
he was radicalized in
the marshes of Vietnam
when they told him to fire
his loaded gun at a
group of school children
a dissident who
marched on Washington
with a Reverend and a King
and read Žižek Zinn and
Chomsky's reflections on direct
action and anarchistic philosophy
a staunch opponent of
police brutality in his
fifties he protested the
****** of Rodney King
he did not go quietly
into the black abyss but
raged against a putrescent
apparatus obsessed with control
he died waiting for the Revolution
Jan 27, 2016
Jan 27, 2016 at 11:28 PM UTC
How ill doth he deserve a lover’s name,
Whose pale weak flame
Cannot retain
His heat, in spite of absence or disdain;
But doth at once, like paper set on fire,
Burn and expire;
True love can never change his seat,
Nor did her ever love, that could retreat.
That noble flame which my breast keeps alive
Shall still survive
When my soul’s fled;
Nor shall my love die when my body’s dead,
That shall wait on me to the lower shade,
And never fade;
My very ashes in their urn
Shall, like a hallow’d lamp, forever burn.
1.9k
Aubrey was confronted by her mom in the kitchen as she was making her lunch for school the next day. "Two sandwiches?" her mom questioned. "What's up with that, Aubrey? Since when do you eat more than one sandwich?" Actually Aubrey ate well. It was always a healthy lunch for her, perhaps a sandwich with some lettuce and tomato on it, or something cooked and leftover. She rarely indulged in sweet snacks, like her brother and sister did, never going without a couple pieces of fruit in her bag.
Audrey was a freshman in high school, and she was a forthright girl. There was no need to hide anything, so she replied nonchalantly, "It's not for me. It is for Wade Hodak. He doesn't have a sandwich in his lunch".
With her hands on her hips, Audrey's mom smelled something fishy. Was Wade taking advantage of her? She replied, "And why not? Since when is it up to you to look after him?"
"Mom!" Aubrey protested. "He is lucky his mom even gets any child support from his dad! Her paycheck doesn't come til the end of the week. Sometimes, he eats okay, but sometimes they just don't have the money! You know how it is with bills and stuff! It is usually just a bag of chips and whatever else he can find"
Aubrey's mom only vaguely knew of Wade Hodak. What little she knew of his mother, his mom seemed on the up-and-up. She remembered that the woman had to pull her daughter out of dance class because she couldn't afford it, the same class her younger daughter was in.
Aubrey's mom smiled and gave her a kiss and a hug, "Peanut butter and jelly?" Well, don't lay it on too thin.", she advised. Aubrey smiled big, a sweet smile with those braces on her teeth, and she was becoming a beautiful, young woman, both inside and out.
"That's what I was hoping you would say", Aubrey said and added, gratefully. "Thanks mom". Peanut butter and jelly it was.
Mar 16, 2017
Mar 16, 2017 at 8:28 PM UTC
The other day
my colleague came up to me
with his iPad
and he said, “You love Rembrandt?”
“Uh ha,” I said
*“Well, look at this google image.
This is Rembrandt’s Parents Making Love”*
And I looked at the image he had conjured
and sure enough there was a portrait of
Rembrandt’s parents in bed, you know,
doing that, doing it…
Rembrandt’s Parents Making Love
And I protested: *“How can that be?
That’s not a Rembrandt, no!”*
“Sure it is,” said my colleague.
*“That’s what they are making.
It's definitely an artist’s conception.”*
Jan 17, 2014
Jan 17, 2014 at 1:53 AM UTC
Did you check within your dream?
Are you hiding in your sleep?
Has this world become surreal?
Follow me
Bless the night
Bless the sky
Bless the woman who conceived this child
Bless the tide
Bless every lie
Bless he who lets his imagination run wild
You judge me for my judgment upon right and wrong
But what is good and what is bad?
Nothing
Neutrality
What is cast as good through the mass is later protested against in majority for the wrong choice.
Wrong again.
Eyes sinking in deep thought
The blackness you carry has been a burden not only to yourself
Your past is circling you and all you do is cry
You replace the beauty of nature with artificiality
Like the flowers in your vase which once required care
Now cast into a world of no restrain or effort
You say you understand
But do you really?
Or are you yet again simply judging my thoughts based upon the facts you know about both you and I?
The grass you lie upon will later burn you and cause you to lose what is known to man as 'sanity'. In the future you will rest upon dreams, rely upon liars, welcome the unworthy, lift your servants, free the captives and live what you have thought impossible.
Be thankful I am tired for my mind is restricted to a line of thought so thin that once concentration is lost, there is no return.
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 7:32 AM UTC
There was something heartbreaking in his gaze.
Looking into his eyes
Was like watching every good and perfect thing in this world
Shatter.
It was as though
All the stars had fallen out of the sky
And splintered into glittering fragments all over the ground.
It was as though
The sun and the moon had collided,
Raining shining pieces all over the earth.
Looking into his eyes,
I felt my very being
Shattering,
Being pulled asunder by his loneliness.
And it was exciting.
I felt my heart quicken,
Pounding fast with the prospect
Of watching the world end over
And over again.
I knew this was the kind of loneliness
That gnawed at the world from its foundations,
Prowling like an un-mourned soul
And, in its brooding solitude,
Whipped up the howling winds that keep children up at night.
In all my sun-drenched life,
I had never seen a darker being.
I had never been this intoxicated by a mere gaze.
I had never known a bitterness so strong.
My world was all sweet harvests and smiling flowers,
But when he touched me,
It felt as though I'd stuffed my mouth with dandelion greens.
My taste buds protested but my body thrilled,
Reveling in his Armageddon eyes.
His fingertips were ice,
Trailing down my goose-pimpled skin,
And I knew I was the first hot-blooded woman he'd held.
I wanted to add fire to his shattered soul.
I wanted to watch the fragments of the world
Smoldering when he looked at me.
I wanted to feel his fierce loneliness grab me by the hair
And set my heart aflame.
And he did.
As I watched the heavens colliding,
I offered all the heat of my veins,
And he drank it in like the gods guzzle nectar.
He slipped his arm around my waist
And ferried me across the River Styx.
So I watched the world end,
One soul after the other,
Cooling slowly from revelry
To bitterness
As he burned with borrowed flames.
I dreamed about supernovas,
Stars exploding out of the sky.
I'd been so quick to trade sunshine for his eternal night,
Never considering that I'd be getting nothing in return.
I wondered if my gaze had begun to shatter.
Nov 27, 2010
Nov 27, 2010 at 6:48 PM UTC
I will never be able to eat a grapefruit again without thinking of you.
I remember when I used to hate that sour flesh
It made the sides of my mouth turn down
on their own,
biting into that bitterness and tasting its wicked juice.
I liked sweet things, the sweeter the better,
piled five packets of refined sugar into my coffee,
(they're tiny, right?)
sprinkled sugar onto my vegetables to make them go down better,
skipped dinner for dessert.
But you couldn't handle the sweet,
you protested every time
I tried to feed you a treat.
It made your stomach turn and your teeth hurt.
I couldn't understand it.
but the meals cycled on
like everything else we shared,
and slowly our tastes circled in from
opposite ends of the spectrum.
Nowadays,
I'll eat my grapefruit with a bit of sugar,
and you'll take your smoothies with a bit of lime,
And everything we share together will be sweet and sour
all at once,
The most beautiful flavor I've ever had.
Mar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 at 12:57 PM UTC