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Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Poetry In Motion: Until Death Do Us Part


Like Mr. Shawn Carter has stated in one of his rap lyrics, “death don’t discriminate, it eliminates all”! This statement couldn’t be any truer. Death visits us even in our most untimely hour and it has recently knocked on the door of one of my friend’s closest family member (My Sympathies…). Of course, there is nothing that can physically nor scientifically be done to escape its grasp, but we can all cope with the situation and make two choices: live within the agony of sorrows of a lost loved one or move on with cherished memories that live beyond our physiological existence.


I was on the phone with my friend to convey my comfort towards his loss yet be somewhat of a conduit to his time of need. I will be attending the wake of his fallen family member today not to only mourn the death but to also celebrate his living memory.


So, after getting off the phone with him, it inspired me to write/type this poem dedicated to this subject matter from his emotional perspective. This was the first time I ever wrote the piece on paper prior to typing and aggressively editing it to my satisfaction:



In Loving Memory:

"Full With Emptiness"


Yet another passing

Time has flown away like two white doves prepared to meet their maker

Fluttered wings flap with aspirations towards new beginnings

A new day rests at the far end

Though the plight of my heavy loss has left an estranged emptiness from within

Burning with flames of rage untamed

Flooded rainstorms can't quench my un-healing temperament

Only fuel for the void that expands with vastness

Deeper sorrows clawing my chest cavity like a clamp forcing its will upon my rib cage

Seemingly never to find ease from the spiritual birds that flew away from my aching palms

Leaving behind the melody of memoirs once cherished with flights of delight

Also melodies of screeching harmonies that broke through the sound barrier of my universe

Screaming freedom with deliverance from the worldly sins and his loving kinship

A trade from existentialism toward the ascension of transcendentalism

Physiology holds no bounds

Leaving once again a bigger empty hole

Gravitating like a vortex

Unexplained by science

Growing in hunger

Nourishment is needed for the malnourished

Unfulfilled with fulfillment

Estranged with the mediocrity of nature's thievery

To take back what once belonged to me

Now returning to the ground that I stand in

To be buried beneath my cold feet

Warmed by your decaying skin and bone

Dust will remain to blow in the wind to travel distances beyond worldly fathoms

Night travels for so long until day breaks

The end of the tunnel is at the end of this long heart race

The hole soon grows shallow like the depths of a stream

To shine under nature's light

My skin-deep circumference is recycled with inner peace

I breathe a new air left with celebratory memories of thee

Symbolic to your blank color

Majestic to your angelic figure

Parted between the wings of your nature

Forevermore to fill the gap that was once created by you only to be sewn back together by a simple white smile

Beyond the twilight of the naked eye

Only felt from within

Closure is left at the end of your white cloak.

Until we meet again

Goodbye

See you at the end of deep blue sky


Until Next Time,

Jeff L.

Smock Salute!


Wednesday, June 1, 2011

And the Flood Begins....




As the beginning of the following piece will suggest, I've been pouring poems from every orifice of my soul this week. When I'm flooded with emotions or none at all, my work seems to always take an extreme route. Either I'm staring at a stack of untouched and neglected journals, or they seem to circle me on my queen size bed while I fill each one of prose that matches its purpose.

The love poem journal.
The struggle journal.

The Erica-Stop-Procrastinating journal.

The this-ish-is-never-leaving-my-room journal.


No what matter the piece is derived from, negative or positive, I am thankful for the force that pushes my pen.

Angry? Hurt? Happy? Ecstatic?

PEN IT.

Sullen inspiration is better than no inspiration at all.

Here are two poems from the stanza plethora I experienced this week.

Poem 1: Invisibility


I'm just so full of poems today
small seams breaking apart
tangible words spilling
everywhere for the world to see

on paper

But I can't pull out my own stitching
unless urged by blue lines and red margins

Can't find the loopholes
that spill phrases
to get people to like you,
in person

Instead of choking and sputtering them at random
saying all the wrong things

Everyone else is capable of pulling,
threading,
rendering me loose
with their stares
questions,
noticing....

two gaped front teeth
stomach
long legs trying to maintain a clumsy balance

flaws

see, I know what they are
just not efficient in God's patchwork
been trying to fix them
with a hand that only wants to write

we're all tailor made
hopefully like mittens
keeping the faith that there's some identical soul
lost and found
with the rest of winter's worries

summer is almost here
and like the rest of the girls headed for sand and sunshine
I'm looking for the right fabric to wear
preferably twenty pounds lighter
a vibrant brown
with perfect seams
that everyone will see

including me.

Poem 2: Mirage

You're just different
boasting your hybrid perfection
bookworm and big heart

how dare you come here without permission?

there hasn't been a day
where i don't dream of a utopia
speaking freely
of
Huey
Asante
Shakur
Danticat
vulnerability
and all the other brown I've become acquainted with

sisters are tired of confronting question marked faces
bewildered
intelligence askew

I've been searching
for a paper cut
roam the bookshelves
smoothie and latte
picnic
museum
learning new things and upholding them like God
kind of brother

and here you go...
fitting the mold
sporting your melanin
being close enough, I can breathe you
and taste your possibility

I'm starving.

-riv-
Smocker Deuce




Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Growth.

Smock Salute Jeff has inspired me to take an overdue trek into my old journal entries. Although my style has changed DRASTICALLY, I find my 16-year-old self hilarious. Here is one of my pieces about a fast food confrontation junior year of high school. :)

Fast Food (Slow Diss)

as the skinny girl
next to me in Mcdonalds
grilled my
#2/ 2 cheeseburger meal

I explained to her anorexic ass
that there were
children
starving in Africa
and she shouldn't
waste those fries

she
having the nerve
staring at my belly
to ask
"are you eating for all of them?"

having no energy to fight
as the negroitis hit me
i said,
"trick don't let me write a poem about you"

_________________

hey fat girl, thick mama
let me holla for a dolla
let me love you like no other
never treat you like my mother

the cries of ignorant men
as i grace the streets
of NYC

because their's no beauty
in just being black no more
there's just beauty in
being three's or fours

preaching to the meatless girl beside me
i stated,
intelligence is something we woman don’t strive for
because men are scared of challenges
so we avoid sandwiches

but not me
denzel washington couldn't get me off KFC
and no i will not give back my DD's
or chubby cheeks
and as many diets and exercises
i've done
i never lose the bones you see

always coming to the conclusion
that if my aunts, mom, and grandma are
im genetically inclined to be
a full figured woman

i've come to love my figure
and no man or TWIG
will take that away from me

and the skinny chick rolled her eyes times three
but before she could throw her tray away
i took up her fries
and made for the door to leave.

-Riva
Smocker Deuce