Unshackling poems on Hello Poetry

Gary Brocks Aug 2018

CARIBBEAN IDYLL with REVERENCE for DEREK WALCOTT

He wrote of the light of the world,
a testament, a lamp to illuminate
the place from which he came —

    I saw his lighthouse coalesce
    out of the cloaking mist, its blade
    shearing the sheath of darkness.

    I inhaled the dusk bloom scent
    - Four O’Clock Flower, Poinsettia, Frangipani -
    beguiled by a road, undeterred
    by calls in the night, the rain, the unknown way.

    I sang with one thousand night-drunk tree frogs
    proclaiming an equatorial cycle to the stars,
    choristers intoning a chant of existence.

    I rode balanced between
    the cycling engine's torque and the
    reflective cast of my foreign skin.

    I felt the grip of ignominy constrict the stir
    of my drink, amongst hands toasting
    the crush of entitlement’s bearing.

    I walked where people dwell, and stop
    to greet and tell news of the market
    or of their nets, bearing the sea’s returns.

    I savored the song in his speech,
    a seasoned stew, unshackling the tongue
    to ring like the steel of a drum —

a tapestry unfurled: a world
paced by sirens of wind and wave,
embroidered on the earthbound side
of heaven's abiding blanket.

Copyright © 2017 Gary Brocks

180730F -> rev 241118F

#derekwalcott #caribbean #idyll #lighthouse #flower #road #stars #sea #unshackle #siren

Deontra' Demeritte Feb 2016

Journal Entry #4 Black Magic

Black girl roots.
Black girl magic, stemming from their black girl roots.
From their magical skin, full lips and hips, beautiful roots of their hair
Is the genetic anatomy of a black female that incomprehensible?
Full lips on display lined with collagen filled comments,
the peanut gallery of social media filled with distasteful outrage by the same things they inject to achieve yet,
riots on social media streets over the distasteful cultural misappropriation of all that is black yet,
It's distasteful to live somewhere, to live here, beautiful islands bathed in sun and filled with black people that aren't even conscious of their background...that aren't conscious of their 'blackness'.
To be so ashamed of their blackness. Their very roots.

Ashamed of their roots.  What a time to be ignorant Trevor.
Black History Month is now, yet there’s a rampage to eradicate the very aesthetics of blackness rather than appreciate them.
Dear colonialized principal of C.R. Walker High School, quit.
Dr. Claudius Roland Walker, the school’s namesake, built a hotel for blacks who were being discriminated against and
I imagine he would build a coffin for your revulsion of all things black,
We’ve moved past your self-hate and the disdain you have for your very roots.
Black hair is beautiful and can never be unkempt. Let me say that again.
Black hair is beautiful and can never be unkempt.
Black hair is a statement that you and nobody that inhabits
this dying planet has the authority to deem untidy or inappropriate.
It took our ancestors far too long to comb through fields of complications
the root being wearing their natural hair and through natural hair movements
to have some nescient minded leader deem it disheveled.
Our roots have permitted our black skin magic, we absorb the rays of the sun,
magicians, and for my final trick, watch my skin glow like gold
dripping like wet paint onto a canvas of unfinished art
left behind by our old souls.

Oh my black people,
a juxtaposition of media sensationalism led by governmental lies, descendents of slave owners insisting that our black hair is something to be ashamed of,
it seems we have our heads so far up our own *****
we're getting too used to the essence of sh-t.
Then the chant goes up, the battle cry,
"This isn't the United States, there's no misogyny, there's no racism, there's no-"
Shut-up.
"Are you angry?"
No, I'm black and I'm angry!

Our mindsets rooted in the prevalence of self hatred, leaves of mighty oaks desperate to remove themselves from their very roots,
requesting emancipation from the very ones that have us enslaved,
begging to be cut loose from the European hand
consciously and subconsciously unshackling the left as we tie the right.
but where are you going?
When has a plant ever survived without its roots?
How dare we neglect the nutrients our ancestors left behind and chase the suicidal pesticide made to eradicate our total being?

Dear god if you're listening, as the cry of former sages went up I also cry,
emancipate yourselves from mental slavery and take me back to my golden home,
where I belong.
Take me back to the very roots I am taught to be ashamed of,
so that I may feel the energy of what once was.
Take me back so that I may cultivate my roots. Take me back so that I may live to tell the truth.
Just take me back.
My people deserve the truth as I find them in the lie,
smearing the proverbial “creamy crack” on hair and skin,
My people deserve more than a painted picture of Cesare Borgia Son Of Alexander Pope 6 as Jesus.
My people deserve to know that Jesus was black and that the Catholics were snakes in the grass abusing their power during their time of reign. Uh oh, the snaps got quiet.
Oh but my people deserve to know that perceived infallible Bible they see today has been edited and destroyed to hide the secrets. Why?
When mama and grammy worship pictures of “Jesus”, why wouldn’t white be right?
Jesus in the pictures mama, he’s a white man, he has straight hair, he’s the savior,
aren’t we supposed to be just like him?
but
Little black girl with your, black girl magic and your,
magical skin, full lips and hips, beautiful roots of your hair
your crown, your skin, is beautiful. Your roots are strong.

Got excellent help from a friend named Gail on this piece.

#poem #poetry #sad #life #mental #black #female #journal #racial #bhm

Chris Weir May 2010

Survive

In the dark
time shows no sign
forward backward or up
the diligent digital clock
tacitly ticks its tocks
dark recedes to dark and then
only to spare no light again;
But suddenly some scowling scream
("Still survive!" he shouts at me, according to the OED.)
shatters silence, tears the scene,
rips a hole in the dark, serene,
before any morning can be seen;
Some hidden pigeon's cackling
time revives, unshackling,
though the day is yet to come,
as if to offer a reminder to one:
"keep to the fore,
look to the sun."

Paul M Chafer Sep 2010

Brave Voices

Be brave,
You have no choice;
When trying to change the world.
People cannot, or simply refuse to see,
New ways forward, promoting harmony.

Inevitably, others will always ridicule,
Their ignorance blocking your path,
So solidly entrenched, unchangeable,
Pouring scorn over radical ideas.

Beneath their mockery, they sense,
The Border fences are breaking,
Chains of Religion are snapping,
Unshackling, Political manacles.

Revolutionary meeting of minds,
Sowing seeds of the unknown,
Voices unleashing subtle energies,
Diminishing established power.

Reveal to those, now choosing to see,
New ways forward, promoting harmony.
When trying to change the world.
You have no choice:
Be brave.

Inspired by and written for, D, Gary La Buda, and Irwin. © copyright with Author

Cynthia Wales May 2015

OATH

In the name of blood, for it is the source of life itself,
Plasma's crimson essence of liquid infusion, to the undead's
Pulsating heart.
Intravenously feeding cravings passion, through the carotid
Artery at the throat of humanity, thou'st not love, suffer
The pleasure indulge the pain, the out come shall be the same,
To be embraced by the black ebony arch angel of death,
Release thy darker side, let the instinctual behavior of the beast,
Know freedoms unshackling at last.
Become one of his sacred disciples, a creature of his dark dimension,
A kindred being, unto the legion of the night.
In the moon's elliptical light, shadows thus move from
Left to right, shifting as transparent figures, phantoms of
Illusions, taking winged flight, soaring on the currents
Of air mingling with their ancestral brethren, the vampire bat.
Run does not the lone wolf, along the side path next to man,
As we do so walk amongst them, yet never attempting to belong.
Oh are we not the a shunned, the accursed, by a God known
For his forgiveness, to love all living things under
Heaven, but for us this mightiest of lords, turns
His gaze away, not acknowledging our existence.
Our we not his lost sheep, missing from his flock, why
Does not this Sheppard seek this black lamb’s wool,
Is it too coarse for weaving's wheel, as it spins thus
And is it not said that he created all life within his image.
Nay I pray this vamperic prayer, why has he abandon
Us, the darker of his creations.
Behold the unascended, begging to enter beyond the gates
Of light, children of the lost are we, seeking a father blind
To his responsibility.
Harvesting, by the basic instincts given unto us,
Taking only what we need to survive, for this he has turned
Against us, and thus taking the light of day with him.
So my father of damnation's hell, has offered salvation's
Darker domain as a sheltering harbor of comfort, I will not
Abstain his patronage.
For I am the ashunned, living by the moonlight's haunting glow,
Yet yearning to see one last horizons sunset, but the Holy Father,
Hears not my humble vamperic prayer.

Marshall Gass Apr 2014

Progeny To Power

I came from nowhere into the sunlight bright
staring harsh at the way it looked when released
from the thick of dark dank open spaces
of the mind like skyscrapers
looming in awe at unopened alleyways.

Writers and Poets with dark and dense language
lurked on every page offering
wisdom and wonder at all that existed
and I was taken aback by the grit and gristle
of their tongues in torture and bonehard
determination to say things real and true.
My first lesson was obedience
at the citadels of learning.

Soon the words began to form and fix
in the minds eye, each picture drafted
in the souls eternal fire of seeking solace
from within a lone slim space of knowledge.
We were wild then, travelling in jungles
where beasts roamed with hookahs and chains
and belted the night with rabid beats
of rhymes and rhythm bongo drums
that cascaded through waterfalls of lust
and loneliness.

woodstock soon came around with a growl
from Hendrix and a soulful guitar solo
that lifted our energies beyond mud
and music into higher ground where
love and peace co-existed with boundaries
and lines of policemen with batons.

Soon we loved each other on the streets
of shame uncaring for the masses that lay
strangled by traditions of the old
and battered regimes. Our music carried
us into a universal song which started
then and never stopped four decades gone.

what we started in those freedom years
still parades the streets of our individualism
today with a different costume.
The shackles that we unchained
were replaced by those who felt burdened
by the guilt of freedom and excess.

Even today the Capitols burn with angry mobs
tearing political fences and building barricades
of stone hard determination and raised fists
in defiance of subjugation and slaughter
as they race towards a wide open gate
where walls and ****** windows do not
get them down fast enough.

The cities will continue to burn
to mark the decades we bled loose
the power from dictators armoured carriers
and concubines of greed and injustice
as we ourselves built shells of steel
around our embattled homes and liberties.
Freedom is a right. It will be fought.

In every continent there burns a bonfire
lit by few that smoulders and shudders
in the rubble of military might
but that will not deter the protection
and peace. The bonfires are fed by the few
who boiled their blood in their thinking
for all the others.

Over the radio and tv promises will
echo hollow and insipid as the faces
of the masters who seem impervious to pain
and unwilling to smear the ashes of their own born
against their foreheads of power.

A time will come when peace will settle again
and the rousing reception of rain bearing
clouds will cool the tempers of the trusted
and the untrusted.

We will soon be gone but we leave a legacy
of will that will course through the veins
of our children and grandchildren
and for years to come the poems
we write will stand testimony to the demons
we locked back into the cages of the past.

The power to pen will return to the people.

Author Notes
I come from a generation that tasted freedom from traditions in the best way possible. Four decades on that unshackling still unfolds.This poem talks of that transition. It is long and will continue on and on until that bonfire subsides!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Graff1980 May 2015

I Love Poetesses From A Distance

I like to love her from a distance
My dear daylight poet
The sunspot
So **** hot
Tan skin
And spectacles
Smirky smile
Deep intelligence
With a certain spiritual resonance
Pulls me from the pit of despair
With her deep thoughts and kind airs
Twisting language to wondrous purposes

I like to love her from a distance
Letting her dark words wash over me
Inspire the higher functions of my creative brain
Unshackling me from the dullness of society
Inducing, immersing, and freeing me to see the beauty
In the horror of our descriptive language
Pale skin dark hair piercing eyes of creative Fury
A cold fire that inspires desire and respect

Two angels of a sort
Ying and yang light and dark
Sitting on my shoulder
Even when I say
That they are tucked away
From a safe distance
So I can love them
From within
From their words first
Watch their beauty burst
Like bloated rainbows
Breaking beams
Shooting mercilessly
Piercing me
To set me free
Not lustily
But as fellow poetic human beings
Whom I will never meet in person

#love #poetess

Parker A Blackwood Feb 2018

these heavy hearts

I know I've said it a hundred times and I know you've heard it even more, but I'm tired. and the funny thing is, i can't even sleep, let alone eat, and i lose all focus despite what all I've seen:

with heavy hearts and heavy minds, we lift our sleepy eyes. towards a sky above all dim and grey festering wounds to our decay. weighted down by the things not seen and thoughts we never spoke. barren land, all sleight of hand damming us to our bones.

but we wish, one day, something will come and cast away these clouds. unshackling to this weight. only then the ground will quake so we may be cast down

#depression #alone #confused #frustrated #meds #tired #mind #life

aviisevil Feb 2014

The Perfect Madness

Your hands reach for mine as i pull you near
My every thought crosses your heart, i know you can hear
There's just silence , an aroma of lust in the air
My hands reach out for you as i touch you everywhere
We're so close now , breathing in each others arms
You moan and squirm , more with every moment that passes by
I strangle you just little to get you warm
And i can see you want me too , its in your eyes
Every part of my being aches for you now
Time stands so still as we are falling down
Into each other , now we can't tell each other apart
Reaching new realms with every beat of our hearts
I slide my fingers against the outline of your face
Hurt me some more , scar me with your every embrace
Tear into my flesh and make me feel pain that i never knew
Set me free so i can taste every part of you
Release every secret that you've hidden deep inside
Show me what we are , take me to your other-side
Blind me with your beauty, infect my sight
Take me to the edge of the unknown with your every bite
Quench my thirst with the touch of your fingers
Touch me deep within where my dreams linger
Let my fantasies fuel the passion in your soul
Move to the rhythm of the night till we become whole
Your dark brown eyes enrage the beast in me
Unshackling the chains , the sweet pain will set us free
Out in the open , now there's no place to hide
Walls are broken , everything else has died
Just us and nothing more to hold us back
Bewitch me with your love , all the hurt you have
Paint me in your blues , show me all your fears
Collide in me , with all the strength you bear
Give me all there is to you in this fading moonlight
Let the spark of our love shine through the worlds hollowness
Show me what we are , take me to your other-side
And let us be lost in this perfect madness

Notes (optional)

RAGHAV BAL MARDHEKAR Jan 2021

THE 25th HOUR

Twisted   paths   lined   the   woods
Where   I   once   used   to   walk
There   I'd   watch   people   gather
Of   an   eve   just   to   talk

And   sense   just   the   rhythm
Of   the   road   moving   on
Listening   to   the   silences
From   Twilight   to   Dawn

In   the   cradle   of   the   night
I'd   hear   it   resound
The   song   of   the   crickets
Rising   high   from   the   ground

Past   the   woods   one   could   see
From   some   distances   away
The   homes   of   the   people
Who   chose   there   to   stay.

At   the   first   sight   of   dusk
The   lights   from   the   homes
Would   glow   in   the   woods
Like   the   lanterns   of   gnomes

In   the   midst   of   the   woods
They'd   cleared   a   little   space
Laid   the   modest   trappings
For   a   small   eating   place

On   a   simple   wooden   door
There   hung   a   small   gourd
With   a   welcoming   lamp
On   a   hand   painted   board

Four   walls   made   of   stone
In   the   shade   of   a   tree
And   windows   so   tall
From   without   you   could   see

Young   couples   who   came
To   that   place   not   to   eat
Unshackling   their   cares
From   the   day   to   retreat

The   fare,   it   was   modest
And   nothing   was   dear
You   spent   longish   hours
Mulling   over   a   beer.

I   remember   those   times
When   my   pockets   were   bare
And   all   I   could   do
Was   to   try   not   to   stare

At   faces   so   solemn
Yet   somewhat   alight
With   knowing   anticipation
Of   the   treat   of   the   night

I   remember   on   occasion
When   I   was   still   small
Nose   and   face   pressed
To   the   window   in   the   wall

On   feet   lightly   poised
From   the   owner   to   flee
Tasting   in   my   mind
The   food   I   could   see.

The   tastes   they   were   real
I   recall   till   today
Of   the   modest   eating   house
When   he   shooe'd   me   away

The   woods   are   still   there
And   so   is   the   road
Though   battered   by   age
There   hangs   still   the   board

Dimm'd   along   with   old   time
The   owner   and   the   lamp
Still   herald   a   welcome
From   the   cold   and   the   damp

With   the   gift   of   my   sire
I   stand   somewhat   tall
But   I   still   press   my   nose
To   the   window   in   the   wall.

I   see   the   white   vest
Now   quite   faded   with   age
Of   the   owner   in   the   corner
Looking   solemn   and   sage

My   pockets   aren't   bare
But   I   stand   still   a   while
Till   he   shoo'es   me   away
Though   now   with   a   smile

I   return   to   that   place
Travelling   from   afar
Again   and   Again
On   the   twenty   fifth   hour

I   know   it   will   happen
One   day   stripp'd   of   grace
Those   woods   will   be   gone
And   so   will   that   place

In   its   stead   there   will   be
A   place   stark   and   clear
No   songs   of   the   crickets
For   young   couples   to   hear.

Silence mourns alone
That idyllic retreat
Lamenting man’s passion
Nature’s joys to defeat

I'd   know   then   to   part,
Like   a   man   from   his   lover,
Leaving   twenty   fifth   hours
For   others   to   discover.

— The End —