Read Poem: The Beauty of a Black Rose, by GrinOlsson

The sorrow of not having you around tomorrow,
Is a burden for me that is just too hard to bear!
You were the apple of my eye and the love of my life.
There are no words to explain how much I cared.

Each night, my eyes cried tears with worry and a broken heart,
Wondering where you are and saddened by us being a part.
My dreams were only dreams of you. What am I to do?
I just don’t know what to say, as I am so confused.

In my heart and mind, it is that time of my life,
When, I am supposed to be over you now!
I have to leave your name in the past;
As, a wound upon my heart;
To begin a new life and have a new start!

Just so that you will know,
That the memory of you will always be a scar upon my soul;
Should I present you the words from this poem?
Or, the gift of a single stemmed rose?

Please accept this gift of a simple poem of hurt and loss;
So you may know, that you are nothing more, I suppose;
Than the beauty and scent of a single stemmed black rose!

– End –

Poetry by Ileana Andrea Gomez Gavinoser

A crescent moon near Venus
a time solstice near the shooting star that falls in the sky
A piece of your certainty
of fresh rain that decays and falls on the edge of our gazes
a fragment of blue and white sky
knotted
on the horizon
and a kiss of fresh cloud
surrounding the fractal of butterflies
all that composes my wisdom of swirling whole moon
on the pupils of our entire faces facing the warm sun
and to the whole star

Read Poem: IndyStar, by Adrianne D.

An Indianapolis Man Died As A Result of Gunshot
Wounds Tonight On the Far East Side…

My nephew and I had been speaking of sacrifices and the forms that they come in.
We would lay motionless and muted next to one another. We would share a conversation with
labored breath
in place of our tongues that shared the same blood…
We both wanted to say “I love you” but that is a sacrifice
in itself. I am all sheepskin and bloodshed.

I know loving brown bodies comes as a sacrifice.

So I asked my nephew what he wanted his funeral to be like. Of course he didn’t answer.
So instead I told him about mine. I told him Aunt Vicky can’t sing under any circumstance.
I told him even through death he cannot have the aux. I told him my obituary must be a
hologram with me in two different poses. He laughed.
I asked him again. Of course he didn’t answer. So I persisted then he receded into a puddle of blood in front of me.
Poof. Gone.

Just like that. I know. I know. I know that loving brown bodies comes as a sacrifice.
How dare I get my hopes up? How dare our home swallow our bodies?
How dare it spit us out? Where we from the average age for homicide victims is 21.
They young. Poof. They dying. Poof. They dissapear. Poof.
The bodies in our city do not have names. They cannot afford to or there would be no bodies.
I cannot afford to give the name of my nephew in this poem or eulogy or forecast.

I will not whisper his name into the asphalt. Instead I will whisper my own. Give my
body to the thirsty white throats instead. What is more sacrificial than something bleeding,
black, and woman? Let me be a worthy sacrifice. This is not to say that I do not want to live. There is just not enough sage or magick in my city to wish the death out so I give my body instead. I wish my body into a bargain. A trade for my kin.

I told you, loving brown bodies comes as a sacrifice.
I wish my body into that sacrifice.
A brown body is always the sacrifice.

My nephew and I smoke a wood for our homie
who was just murdered. Poof. I disappear.
Brown bodies begin to bloom.

Read Poem: SANTA, by Barbara Gulas-Wilson

The reindeer are prancing
They’re ready to go
Santa is loaded he says
Ho ho ho
It is the night that all children wait for
If you don’t have a chimney
He’ll come through the door
No matter where in the world that you are
Santa will find you from near or from far
If you’re on his list
he will bring you some toys
for all the good girls
and all the good boys
If you are naughty he will bring you some coal
So try to be good, that is your goal.

Read Poem: The Christmas’s I still recall, by Andrew M.A. Spear

The Christmas’s I still recall
We were together one and all
Warm inside while snowflakes fall
My Christmas as a child

The snow piled high and we would play
Despite the cold outside I’d stay
Because tomorrow no school day
My Christmas as a child

Our Christmas tree would shine so bright
Beneath it, presents wrapped just right
And such a Santa’s list I’d write
My Christmas as a child

Four excited children, we’d make so much noise
In anticipation of new games and toys
But only if we were good girls and boys
My Christmas as a child

With mother in the kitchen we were happy to be
Out of the oven came cookies in the shape of a tree
Washed down with milk while watching TV
My Christmas as a child

And after dinner when we were fed
Father would tell us it’s time for bed
Slowly upstairs to lay down our head
My Christmas as a child

But with the first sign of morning light
My sisters and I we’d wake with eyes so bright
Bursting stockings and toys were waiting to delight
My Christmas as a child

With Mum and Dad sitting patiently
We kids unwrapped all we could see
Colored paper strewn haphazardly
My Christmas as a child

Beside me a dump truck, a cool GI Joe
Kitted socks from my Grandma and a baseball to throw
Content in my childhood, my face all aglow
My Christmas as a child

Those holidays of joy have passed me by
And I can’t go back, though how I try
It seems unfair how the years they did fly
Since my Christmas as a child

And this year there is no Christmas tree
For my children are now grown and absentee
Yes, now a days there’s only me
Remembering Christmas as a child

Poetry by Alexander Thomas

In a hostel
In san Fransisco
I walked the pier today
And I saw the ocean lady
And I thought of my dad
the one time
Walked to me
And said
“Son no matter what you do, always do your best”
And I tried for 14 years until I realized
I was a loser
But then I learned to lose, and lose well
It was the first day of my life
And so I was the best of the worst
A bastard among men
An orphan reflecting
Years later
In san Fransisco

Read Poem: New Life, by D. Maria Woods

Feeling as though Feeling was something

That I no longer safely feel.

Only a few understanding the leaf attached

To the branch of a tree.

And like the tree so does life have

a multitude of mysteries.

Winter into spring and summer into fall

Emotions like a dry forest floor are in need

of mother nature tears.

Only a gentle wind can know what the forest fears,

And only a tree in its singing and swaying can

Hear its children cry.

Measuring the voids that are darker than the night

Watching the leaf caressed by the wind destine for

Its plight. Feeling as though feeling was

Something that I no longer safely feel.

Read Poem: FOOLS OF FAITH, by Peter D. Bové

It’s Christmas time
Or is it?
Men’s folly hatred fear and greed
Invade good purpose
Ideals…
Ideals that keep us believing in lies
Trapped in the jaws of deception

Come forth to see
Rotten to the core
The world I speak
Betrayal of the soul
When we open our eyes

Should we scamper to the far reaches?
Hide away crushed by imposing burden…
The diabolical subterfuge of thugs? …the oligarchy…
Or shall we fight?
Fight for what is right
In the face of mortal dread
Screaming fear to burst the ear

Through the ages men faced with these
Adversaries of darkness, ambassadors of iniquity
Lifted their hearts from the pits
Beyond enslavement to greed
Though crushed by the hand of those
Who exist in jungle law and far worse
Whose kindness is only to themselves
A seemingly impossible foe

Yet fight they did
These fools of faith
In the face of despotism
Burst from the gloom of apathy
Trembling in the shadow of doubt
Of fear itself
By the fortitude of mettle their minds did race
To great invention, to victorious battle

Rise once more all ye of faith
Take war against the folly of evil
With reckoning of angels… the wrath of light…
Watch darkness shudder in terror
Retreat in fear from the purity of innocence
Too powerful for the princes of darkness
This smile from the fools of faith