Category: 2019 Poetry

Read Poetry: THEM!!!, by Thomas Jones

Jones is the name
Smiles is my game
Yes I’m feeling myself at the moment
Moment so pure you can’t clone
For a while I wonder who I was
Then I caught a glimpse a slight buzz
It was times where I hid behind Laye
But then ppl will ask, don’t worry I’ll explain if I may
Jones Laye Thomas 3 persons living in the same
Now how do we know when which one comes to the light
Well that depends on the situation and who knows at that moment to shine bright
Allow me to learn you and break it down
I’ll tell you why you rarely see me frown
Who is Laye
Laye likes to play
One who sees the scene
The one for the green
Making decisions in the now
You’d call him a clown
Of the three he cares the least
Just trying get the gust of this life feast
Could you handle him if stayed the while
Now I’ll give you Jones
The man that flows through bones
Started as name grew into the man
Ask him he has the plan
Never falling short that goes against what was taught
Cursed actually but fighting a battle to be fought
The forerunner for the body in which he resides
Making sure all things run smooth in the lives over which he presides
More qualified and not even a whole person
Have a problem he’s the one that’ll fix it before it worsens
Something out of nothing is his aim but in a good way
Call on him and he’s coming to save the day
Here comes Thomas pay attention
Save all this for retention
The Protector The Provider The Proclaimer…whew
The realest of them main ingredient in the stew
Without him they all sink to the depths of no return
He built both them from nothing, showing little concern
Now they run wild, but him, reels them in
Keeping the whole operation centered
Staying on course with race they all entered
This guy chose to play the sidelines
Allowing the other two to float free within the guidelines
Call him father if you will because that’s him
The others could be the children, yeah that’s them
So what’d we learn in class today
All three may have much to say
But remember to attention and see who’s in the light
They all shine bright very bright
Created by a mastermind clever in more ways than one
Now set loose to conquer and have fun
Bonus here
Laye is Jones
Jones is in the bones
Jones came from Thomas
And I have created the 3 so who am I?

-Thomas Jones

Read Poem: THE SKIES CANNOT HOLD ME, by Alex Hutchins

http://reflectionsinthoughts.blogspot.com/

Down through the tickling clouds I glide
past grays and blues, and memory clues
always so damn alluding…
through the greens of timeless beauties
gliding lower and lower…
closer and closer…
and into the daisies I sweep and swoon
like a child lost in clover
feeling the delicate pedals touching me
a soft delicate touch
oh so wanting more…
but…
not now, I smile
and back into the skies I roar,
higher into the skies than ever before
until a distant shadow I see
looming directly over me
but I dare not peek
and hoping he will speak
but I am off again
to parts unknown
and no notes this time do I keep
but see all the homes
away from home
that became our homes
and it all seems like just last week
and its all been swell
bidding you a fond farewell
but I seek out more
as the skies can no longer hold me.

Read Poem: ONE VOICE, by Chrissie Morris Brady

Do we not wail with one voice all.
lost in the many mangled bones,
where faces no longer smile, nor
souls laugh. Hurled in one blast
of exploding energy, tossed into
death. Are we not those too?
Humanity has met the inhuman evil
in bombs, bullets sprayed, beheading,
emasculation, rape.

Read Poem: ALMOST HOMELESS, by Perry Terrell

The government is listening to my phone calls
Well, darn
I sincerely hope so
They will hear that I am not making enough money
And I am one paycheck away from homelessness
The cost of living is just plain too high
And that I am barely living

The government is reading my e-mails
Well, darn
I sincerely hope so
They will read a message to my friend
That I couldn’t afford to buy food this pay period
Because the rent, electric, water and phone bills were due

I managed to pay all of the rent
But only half on the electric, water and phone

I am being careful
Trying to stay safe
And be a good employee
So I can earn another paycheck
That doesn’t cover all my needs
Where I can’t buy a piece of chicken
To go along with my one can of peas and one can of corn
Which has to last me for two meals

The government is listening to my phone calls and reading my e-mail
Well, darn
I sincerely hope so

But what will the government do when my phone line is cut off
Which will happen when I need to buy medicine for a cold or a headache
Or someone at the phone company realizes that half a payment is not good enough
And the water and electric company? Oh well.

What will the government know about me then

That I have become another number on their statistical data chart

If I can’t eat healthy, take a bath and see how to read a book at night
In other words,
Cease to live a normal life
Why keep a roof over my head
And have the government knocking on my door

Read Poem: Live in the Past, by Jaden Baxter

If the future has been frozen
cause you’re present in the past,
It may seem the life you’ve chosen
has been moving fairly fast.

For the memories have blended
to a smoothie of events,
and the seconds were suspended,
when you spent them making sense –

Of the short and sterile seasons,
That would quickly pass you by,
Never giving any reasons,
To assume that time would fly.

Always dwelling on the former,
Never thinking in the now,
Til’ your days are getting warmer,
And you know exactly how –

How the world keeps on spinning,
Even if your days have gone,
Even when your time is thinning,
it’ll just keep moving on.

Read Poem: Cosmetic Aisle in Walgreens, by Kelly Burke

The cashier at Walgreens knows that I will not fill out the customer satisfaction survey but she points to the website on my receipt anyway. And I love that about her. I smile, thank her graciously, and leave, walking through the sliding doors into humidity. The heat reminds me of an Indian woman I saw in the cosmetic aisle. Her hair was thick and frizzy, almost grazing her hips. Her fingertips rested on a box of hair dye. For who? I don’t know. Perhaps herself, perhaps the part of her that never experimented with hair color or piercings or tattoos but she’s finding time for all that now. I look at her more meticulously, taking inventory of her details the way men do when they see a beautiful woman. She is wearing a t-shirt with a band’s name across the chest in bold yellow lettering. Her hips and legs are covered by a flouncy blue skirt with pockets and ruffles. There are burgundy sneakers on her feet. Her clothing reveals an edge, or rather, a texture that her demeanor lacks. I check her arms and neck for tattoos, her ears for piercings but all is bare. I wonder if the tattoo I am looking for is concealed on a brown limb beneath her skirt. I wonder if there are saris hanging in her closet, if she speaks Bengali, if her grandparents live in a flat along the Arabian sea growing herbs on their balcony, still waiting for their children to visit. I wonder what literature she enjoys. I wonder if she likes what the humidity has done to her hair. I wonder if we’d get along. I wonder if she will fill out the customer satisfaction survey, or disregard it like me.

Read Poem: HAPPY POEM, by Bluebell Rizzi

They told me to write a happy poem
Said that my writing makes me sad
And everyone who reads it will feel blue
They told me to write a happy poem
I said, “I do not wish to lie!”
Fake it till you make it, they told me
So should I live a lie?
My poetry is the only thing I have
That is for me; and only me
It wraps me up in a warm hug
Kisses my head
Shows me the light
My sad poems do not mean I am miserable
It’s just that when I’m happy
I lack the words to describe it
They told me to write a happy poem
So they could be happy
But all I could say was:
“I do not wish to lie.”

~ Bluebell Rizzi

Read Poem: Ativan, by David Antrobus

I might well add

lorazepam to this list.

Please. Let me slip, then sleep.

Decades of congregants

arm-linked with benzos, all

gleaming like cumulative

dreams. I wanna hiss and creep

assembled purple, yet

they’re reds and blues and most

refuse to even meet. Summoned

and huddled below the hills.

Aye, I crawled and hurled in

your clawfoot tub.

Your throat is open; I will bring only kindness.

This. Oh, this. You harvest this…

Never forget the blue-scratch scry of the sky.

You ready yet? You marshalled

flocks and stockpiles. Corralled

a mess of ungulates. Oh. You,

woke and vital, primed to

track and keep on following,

ceaselessly fingering me,

blastocysts and humunculi,

enduring, narcotized, eternally

transgressed. Is this

how each and every goatlike story

dreams-undreams, and trips upon its end,

restless, barely dressed, so endlessly

unblessed?

Read Poem: While The Sun Shine On Me – Lawrence Mathebula.

Look now, who’s going home fully
happy
Celebrating life in the place
of a want-to-be?
I am one among the things;
A star, born was the king.
Not about me always;I talked more
on us,
Written most on love, poetry
and Mannaz
Gave to more or less the souls,
Inspiring was the goal:
To reach thy deeper place;
Bring light, to your dark days
An hour, this and next
Sun’s light show us the west
Days coming and unfold
Every morning, every marigold.