"sojourners" poems
*you may not know me
face to face,
but you and I have connected
heart to heart through words.
Our lives are woven together by
the tapestry of words,
and into a living breathing poetry.
you and I are no longer strangers,
but fellow poets and sojourners
on this journey of creation.*
Sep 3, 2015
Sep 3, 2015 at 12:30 PM UTC
In 1963
Mahalia prodded
the good reverend...
“tell them
about the dream
Martin”
transfixed on
a yonder time
he recounted
prophecies of
a near future
from a mountaintop
he foretold a
history of a people
returned again to
gardens of paradise
thriving in friendly
democratic soils
overflowing with a
colorful biodiversity
governed and
nurtured with a
vibrant sunshine
of divine justice
welcoming all
weary sojourners...
from the
pinnacle of
a Birmingham
jail cell
Martin burst
the bars with
the clarion peel
of a golden trumpet
proclaiming the gospel
of liberation to
the wardens of
unholy gulags
“free yourselves”
the horn emblazoned
in streaking lightning
across the sky
cowed by
prophetic truths
of righteousness,
shamed by
lies the pride
of arrogance
bespeaks to
placate the
intransigence
of dominion,
we prayed the
the walls of racism,
bigotry, prejudice
would tumble down as
Martin lit the Battle
of Jericho
today our country’s
profit driven gulags
overflow with people
of color as justice
lingers on death row
begging for a plea bargain
of a life sentence in
solitary confinement...
from the
****** Sunday Bridge
in Selma, Martin
offered a prayer for
peace, rebuking
the dogs of war
admonishing
the tenders of
blood thirsty
machines to
beat the gears
of war into
pruning hooks
and plowshares
advocates of peace
hope to steer
the plow across
the battlefields of
acrimony to sow
rich seeds of
reconciliation, planting
new gardens where
the rich yields of peace
will be consumed
by all God's children
yet these gardens
remain unplanted,
untended and defiled
by the machinery
of war that churns
churns, churns...
Martin last
dream occurred
on a balcony
in Memphis
witnessing
to the divinity
of those considered
untouchable after
a hard days work
collecting a city’s
refuse
he insisted all labor
was worthy of dignity
and the economic
justice of a fair wage
Martin looked squarely
into the eye of the gun sights
of those who thought differently
he never blinked, he dreamed
Martin formed his last
testament to an angry nation
yearning for the reconciliation
of stability and peace,
unmoved that it’s violence,
exploitation and bigotry only
stoke bonfires of acrimony
and division, condemning
the reprobate principality
to the bleakness of a
smoldering discontent and
continued generations
of recurring nightmares…
Martin's dream continues
in awakened hearts
sojourning on
Music Selection:
Mahalia Jackson
Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho
MLK Day
2014
Oakland
Jan 20, 2014
Jan 20, 2014 at 3:38 PM UTC
I have been forced,
Out of domicile,
And now **** bored,
With sojourners' world worthwhile.
I used to love phones,
It's versatility in functioning,
Obeying instructions at all zones,
I loved making calls and chatting .
That was long ago ,
When it made me feel at home,
Simply chatting could let go ,
Steam and heartbreak loom.
Not now at this century ,
Where them need airtime to pick a call,
Where successive missed calls arouse no worry,
When they no bother reply at all.
I won't lower my self -esteem,
Not because of them dissaproval,
That I aint classy and fit for hymn,
Its okey if u take me for a mall.
Needless fight a loosing battle anymore ,
You won't torture me again as u laugh,
Beaming is me at nirvana jaw,
I declare enough is enough.
Jul 21, 2018
Jul 21, 2018 at 4:10 PM UTC
Passover Moon's
****** hue
eclipses
the ordinary
in veils of
miraculousness
obscure
rouge
halos
illume
elliptical arcs
guiding
footsteps in
a righteous
exodus
across
troubling
waters
forsaking
hovels
with
painted
doorjambs
dripping
lambs blood
Mezuzahs
bleat
memories
holy
murmurs
bespeaking
lamentations
of ancient
hosannas
our
desperate
supplications
flesh out a
distressed
humanity
seeking
deliverance
from the
vengeance
is mine
Elohim
may it
be nigh
we wait
watching for
an always faithful
Good Deliverer
to honor the
covenant
to lift
despair
with a
liberating
yoke
lugging
leaden
burdens
Oh Holy
of
Holies
banished
in the wisp
of a bitter herb
our
distended
bellies
fill with
unleavened
grace
sweet
droplets
of manna
consumed
with extreme
gratitude
arriving
at journeys
end to
promised
lands
fully
satiated
and free
to rest in
sanctuaries
of radical
hospitality
luxuriating
in an infinite
abundance
for all
sojourners
Selah
Music Selection:
Big Mama Thornton
Go Down Moses
Oakland
4/15/14
jbm
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 5:15 PM UTC
If trees be poems by the earth
In avid joy I read each one
Florets writ in fragrant verse
Inked with beams of the morning sun
In shade, a fruit, a whiff of air
I rest beneath wide branches spread
A cavort of emerald canopy
Bestows comfort upon my breath
I lean against the bark, recline
And think of how it stands in time
Through tunneled years it's stoic trunk
Stands proud against frost and rain
Drops it's leaves to nakedness
Till spring dresses in green again
On but an arm, the koel sings
'Tis home to birds that weave a nest
Haven to sojourners ache
Clasp around, hold close to breast
I trace the names of love engraved
Now forgot; asleep in graves
On felled bark my soul I pen
On papyrus the past I feel
The murmured songs of sentiments
In susurrus as branches kneel.
Nymphs would hide or fairies entreat
With fireflies in silver light
Creatures tip toe on their feet
Lithe, in the darkness of the night
In engraved lines meaning I see
What better song, what poetree?
Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky - Gibran
Oct 5, 2016
Oct 5, 2016 at 9:38 AM UTC
[begin transmission]
Little mean marble,
the grasshopper lies heavy,
riding storms
and trailing winds,
eating dystopia
right out of the box
suns and daughters
of the cataclysm
sit about a space
cadet's campfire,
hints of alien sand
in their voices
it so oddly resembles
vast outland libretto,
that breathe of menace,
inside sojourners
holding tickets to ride
tramlines on shuttle days
swarming with
Walter Mitty groupies
and econowives,
transporting **** rapture,
and/or reproduction to worlds
of public domain
one day we'll settle here,
one day, with bowed heads,
we'll kiss the splendor
of its red ruination
[end transmission]
May 10, 2021
May 10, 2021 at 8:21 AM UTC
Beloved, my heart sings songs of Your praise.
Thank You for helping me get through the day sober and free.
I am grateful I canbe present to life today. I can give and receive love instead of being trapped in self, hopeless and full of self-pity.
Grateful I can hold my daughter with love exploding from my heart. With Your help and help of fellow sojourners, she never has to see me drunk.
Beloved, may I continue walking on the path and share this precious gift of sobriety with others that I meet on the way.
Thank You. I love You.
May 11, 2016
May 11, 2016 at 10:38 PM UTC
*Destiny will not be found
in the realm of time
Limited to our own imaginations
We are all but strangers in this land
It is those who find a belonging to this world
who are truly lost
Echoes we chase of discontentment
Searching for pieces we think we lost
or never had
Hearing the voices inside and out
Declaring "You Don't Belong"
Wanderers, explorers, seekers at best
Life is a Sojourn
not a place to nest*
May 30, 2015
May 30, 2015 at 1:16 PM UTC
I once scurried through a jungle of tomes
From the languid turf of hazy hagglers
To the esoteric sphere of cryptic connoisseurs
The jagged rhythm pulsating with a staccato of pebbles
Not a placid clime but a wonky wilderness
Where your eyes rove for honey of rising cadence
Only to decelerate
From an alien territory to a corny scenery
The voyage of discovery must continue...
As sojourners of change
Onuchi Mark © 2010
Aug 20, 2010
Aug 20, 2010 at 6:51 AM UTC
What is an American?
Is it decided by the timber of our voice,
the strength in our limbs,
the blood in our veins,
or the color of our skin?
Tell me,
for I do not understand,
unfold your thesis,
inundate my mind with statistics,
be it quantum blood measures,
origin or sociological constructs of the creature in question.
Tell me,
what it is to be an American?
This umbrella term,
I just do not understand,
is it to be a thief?
A country founded on stolen land,
and stolen labor,
sage bushed bills,
backed by gilded structures and systems of debate and seizure,
is being an American drowning in leisure?
What does this term mean?
I find myself confused,
it is difficult to quantify the qualitative,
and breath life into lifeless chiseled forms,
found in squares and plazas throughout,
a country split by hard wired ferocity,
quicksand laden dividing lines,
the vocal deciding what it is to be,
and what it isn't.
*Careful lad,
there is such a thing as too much,
too much individuality,
so put up your hair,
put away the paint,
put away that sign,
sheath your weapon,
old boy,
this isn't your fight,
and besides,
what can you do with a toy?*
I don't know what America is,
land of the free,
where is that?
I see only industry,
a dying morality,
drowned in ethics,
a protestant-core built on overt inequality.
What does it mean to be an American?
I can't tell you what it means to you,
only what it means to me,
and so I say dust off the document upon which this term was built,
and realize that the past is not what you should use,
just as anything else of import,
use judgement,
agency,
the ability to choose,
uphold the freedom that suffocates in the back of your mind,
to the flame inside your chest,
to the weakness in your legs,
down against the sole of your shoes.
America is a country founded on rebellion,
a little man,
underdog all grown up,
and now he's the one throwing punches,
a story paralleled by Davidic tales,
and though he may not be perfect,
and is often reviled,
I love him still,
his rough edges,
for we are still part of the experiment,
ongoing,
the American dream.
Though the gates may be weighed down,
the hinges rusted,
a country of sojourners,
soon a country of minorities,
cultural pluralism,
though flawed,
I like it better this way,
a techni-colored mirage of what once was,
and if we must meet our end,
so be it,
guide me home,
for is it not true that all roads eventually wind home?
Mar 3, 2014
Mar 3, 2014 at 2:54 PM UTC
If cowboy hats had ear muffs,
maybe they would talk more,
though they would hear less.,
caution tossed to the winds howling.
Not for them
the hairy skins of animals
on their bare hair, too much
respect for their sojourners.
Wooly caps are for sailors,
The ones with cutesy ears
hanging down to the shoulders,
popularized by geeks,
adopted by stylish teenage girls,
well, they would rather be frostbit.
Cowboys,
the silent type,
but never quiet, their thoughts are
their stories, eyewitness accounts,
never told under oath, of the truth
about life and death, in the
Great West.
So, no ***** for them
lest they not hear the
noisy silences, cries of the frigid
Great West.
Dec 8, 2013
Dec 8, 2013 at 11:29 AM UTC
Sun's going down...
Around my miniature height,
Gloom is gathering itself
To usher in the night.
Beside the darkening feet
Of towering trees,
Shade-cooled and looking up,
I see sunlight climb
The upward reaches
Of tall pines.
Leaving shadows far below,
Green needled branches
****** new growth:
Yellow-candled greening flames,
To see the sun,
Greeting and adieu-ing
Steady moving days.
Light and life,
Ageless quests:
Upward reaching light
Downward breaching water,
Insatiable thrusting,
Splitting stone,
Spewing oxygen.
Monstrous undertakings
Glorious oversights.
Fitting past times for giants,
Mountain dwellers,
Living at a pace too slow
For careless passers-by to see.
Silent pines
Contemplate endless days,
Moving or un-moving,
Resolute certainty,
Imperceptible sojourners
Dominating vertical empires;
Joyous, silent soldiers march
Up and down these mountain sides,
While I, mere mortal, pass
Ant-like,
Scurrying in wonder,
Aware the urgency
Of ephemeral routine,
Mortal emergency...
Beneath Tall Pines.
May 24, 2012
May 24, 2012 at 3:10 PM UTC
Feel too much
and
if you find folly in those
freeloading fascist hacks
who tell you to write prose
or shoot photography,
tell them to take notes
-a mental picture-
because you're headed off to the heart;
Taking back roads through
the bile of memory
to touch what it might just mean
to be.
Journalists content to watch.
Sojourners just might find.
A poet will be your guide.
Feel too much.
Jun 25, 2014
Jun 25, 2014 at 8:50 AM UTC
From Grassy Fields to Azure Blue
Albuquerque a special time soulful sojourners came to release aloft what others find easy to scoff oh
Thy heavenly breeze from earthen habitation all sounds are found in thee laughter and tears the
Sobbing Goes to throbbing depths clouds pewter gray they show your needs and how hard you pray
Some are blessedly light others are weighed and bowed there are streams of air but the spirit too has
The lift and fall some is shear others are tender they hold all that is dear love hopes and dreams in them
You see the atmosphere as if you were sky riding at fiesta time strings of silver red golden black ribbon
They represent light hearted feelings the gust of joy that blows across many a yard and home from this
Dispositions of those that live there are discerned and carried outward and upward into playful days
Bathed in sunlight recharged with all the embodied love that continues through mankind dark shadows
Also are known their gloom are forever fixed with heartbroken tomb but just from earth the higher it
Rises its burning tears begins to fall as tender rain that mixes with tears and it not to be explained
But from this mixture golden memories derive their uncommon essence the loss is then to celebrate
Tendrils that drift across the sky when they briefly touch the ground though it be tearful a smile is
Left and in it the loved one is blessed honored and assured the swirling wind holds so many promises
Of happy tomorrows where the word separation has been expunged it no longer is a part of reality
You crossed the night train trestle your voice was the mournful whistle that announced the dear passing
Of love that went higher you were given a gift wrapped in pain but within it explained far greater truth
Than the limitation of earth’s love alone you are now aboard these sky ships as you rise your burdens
Grow Lighter your vision is enabled to see grandeur and great vistas the pulsating earth winks from
Homes far below you appear as bubbles on the wind in the moonlight glow in it is you’re refreshing
Enjoy the ride
May 2, 2012
May 2, 2012 at 4:05 PM UTC
What happens to the stars when there are no words
to write, no songs to sing, no pictures to paint ??
What happens to the stars, when thought stops, and
flow breaks, and vision blurs ??
What happens to those great galactic giants, when
the world turns upside down ??
The sojourners of galaxies, spinning time itself out
before us, in the wake of eternity, left silent in
some poets dream...
Titanic powers of fusion fire, burning for the
lifetimes of a thousand humankinds, churning
with the gravity and desire to hold the universe
together, invisible,
because the painter cannot see...
Stardust, everything, the gears of immortality
turning useless, marching on in solid state
remembrance of romance, and lust, and love.
What happens to the stars when you leave
a poet speechless ??
What happens to the stars,
when you leave me nothing to say...
Dec 10, 2013
Dec 10, 2013 at 3:05 AM UTC
Often times, abominations misled;
memories beyond travels abound,
with a mint of souls falsifying the "wind"
"flossing" our inner guide they intend...
maintaining a "dirty-game" like "secret agents"
what’s for the future?
having travelled from afar
is this our place?
to delineate as “aliens” scudding from the surface?
Who are we-but sojourners casting a dice of chance!
hitting the freeway, but for what "price"?
followed by a little "preparing the way,"
What else would we think about, anyway?
In time and space...or anywhere else!
Phew!
We are always here!
We will always be here...
Muhumuza Kenneth. E
May 25, 2010
May 25, 2010 at 3:38 AM UTC
I will miss Autumn here.
The crisp days of October, startling the remnants of summer
into hiding.
The homely smell of hearth burned pine and smoked meat
drifting from chimneys built
by long-dead grandfathers.
The battle fields will be beautiful.
Bathed in maples,
harmless blood of leaves, though the earth
still bears streaks
of death.
The grasses, drying, dying, in the cooling air
will whisper to the sojourners passing through,
seeking sites of ancestors
whose voices they never knew.
I will not be here
to slip the fallen leaves
between phone-book pages or
paste and sew them
to handmade paper.
My mother will stare at the tangled thread,
the blank sheets,
left untouched on my desk,
and ask my father
where the time went.
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 1:04 PM UTC
Sojourners from the mama's womb,
Travellers from the papa's testicles,
Candidates of birth and eventually death,
Death is sweet as encrypted in the euology,
Death must come any day or some day,
Don't rush to the grave just because yu have no more light, or perhaps your heart has been broken by a cheat,
Cheats and death are not relatives.
They have different genotypes,
At tymes darkness accompanies light,
And sometimes darkness persist,
You loose what you have nurtured,
You feel the world has been turned upside down.
But before you take the step of pronouncing yourself no more,
Think about this, we are all candidates of death,
Wait and pause after all we are destined to die.
Be careful, be sensible, in kiswahili we say kujipanga my fren.
Nov 29, 2018
Nov 29, 2018 at 6:34 AM UTC
Placed on mountaintops
made of ice
& melting under
the continuous rising sun,
eventually the single drop
reaches the sea
& like all of us,
we cry for freedom,
to brave the endless crests,
sojourners
tumbling in
a pool of raindrops,
only to evaporate,
only to do it
all over again.
Surely,
we are blessed.
May 21, 2014
May 21, 2014 at 6:14 AM UTC
I find myself speaking with God
In the company of my solitude;
As though he is present in the long walks
along paths lined with trees
Where the only noises are those of leaves of trees
rustled by the wind
And the only voices are those of birds
Who lend their beaks to the wind
As though I was another Adam
Searching for God’s footstep
As I walk over the garden
Muttering the litanies of my sins and imperfections
Ruing all that I have done which I should not have
And all I didn’t do which I should have done
Wondering what became of the little boy I once was
And how I seem like a sea
Where fragments of a sank ship floats
And the remnant of his innocence is scattered about
Like flotsam, impossible to reassemble
I let God listen to the pains in my voice
Of being a failed sailor
Drowning the sojourners who gave me trust
Yet my second journey remains uncertain
And not-in-tandem with the wind
There is no healing for me in the world
I already added iodine to her wounds
In her pains, she screams at my conscience
And I recoil into my solitude on this solitary path
And I find myself speaking to God in my heart,
Where I find him
Sep 14, 2017
Sep 14, 2017 at 2:42 PM UTC
Everybody wants
to be like Bukowski,
that drunken
drug-induced
crazed-scholar
born on the edge of existence,
who tested the poetic boundaries,
who spewed forth sacred *****
from his mind of brilliant depravity
& who loved the starry nights
& the suckling robins
of the early summer.
And pray tell me
my fellow sojourners,
how does one get like that,
get strung out
on this living
kissing heaven
& embrace hell
without
the use of
tasty liquid-vices
& those ******
****** injections.
******
Jul 1, 2014
Jul 1, 2014 at 5:12 AM UTC
I see it written
in the graffiti
on electric-walls
& the time is here,
it has come to carry me away
to realize my dreams.
So fare thee well
my fellow sojourners,
you are the universe,
I will always
think about you
on my Earthly travels...
Mar 13, 2014
Mar 13, 2014 at 7:45 AM UTC
How can one think straight,
not feel anything,
when their heart's
constantly on fire,
tuning into
the beautiful-transmissions
& passionate-wavelengths,
listening to the other
fervent hearts
riding the same highway
in cyberspace?
Pray tell me
my fellow sojourners,
I want to know your feelings!
Feb 10, 2014
Feb 10, 2014 at 5:14 AM UTC
tall prairie grasses
wind whipped, without lament
bison bones,
now soul wedded with soil
wagon wheel ruts
petrified with time, tracks
followed like words on the page
no scent of the sojourners' saga
remains
for mongrel dogs that hunt
or 21st century two legged creatures
who cruise control across mouthless lands
that once spoke of promise
Nov 24, 2024
Nov 24, 2024 at 10:34 PM UTC
We sojourn
in a dying world
diaphanous
as the antecedent glow
of Virtue and Destiny
We scatter
and within and around and among
the sepulchral
Wind and Fire
of progress and evolution
a promise
breathes resolute
that nothing here may abide eternal
and in the imperious pursuit
of meaning and purpose
We sojourners
inexorably consume ourselves
Infinite and Whole
against the rucked pall
of history
like entwined marionettes
set upon a boundless stage
Into Oblivion
We dance
Apr 1, 2018
Apr 1, 2018 at 7:53 PM UTC