Monthly Archives: January 2019

Turn into Pain

31 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry, Spiritual

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

peacejesus3

Be Quiet.

You may be the next Useful Idiot
God uses to spread joy through
pain; wake up asleep, go back
to bed again!

Shhh!

Eat cake for breakfast, if you can
get away with it, smile now
before the wind changes, bringing
Poppins, Toppins, love…

Then crash, the constant in life
of course being change, the wind’s
at it again!

Did you know, little boys, that your
body changes a lot?  When a teen,
you’ll hear that from lots of folk,
but beware a second change at
thirty!!!

What you thought was firm suddenly
doth sag, you can’t believe your luck,
the fate of getting old is not just
for those with white hair it starts
sooner, long after the thrill is
gone life traveling on said the
Cougar, do you know how to camp?

I love you, friends, and I tell you this:
Stop all motion to help a baby, child
or new flower stand.

Do not offend a young person, Jesus
warned us about God’s angels that
bear God’s face—imagine that,
that might be pain!!!

Turn into it now, learn how
to master it!  The moment is gold—
the moment you master life
and growing old,

by admitting its pain, accepting it,
sitting or standing with a Higher
Power and your cards in the game…

It’s not the fun you have but the
pain you endure serving others and
even that voice inside challenging you
that counts to fight, fight, fight.

God give us the courage to stand
up like a U.S. Marine on a dime,
forget ourselves a moment and
be a part of this great thing called

Life.

Ready to Plant

30 Wednesday Jan 2019

Posted by in Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

caterpillar1

Inching like an optimistic caterpillar,
across the hot sidewalk of regret;

fifty-five years since Kennedy died,
CIA still above the law in need of vet.

I am not mad that we killed our Earth
in search of gold and easy living;

I cannot be mad and simultaneously
fend off temptation to keep on drinking.

I love my enemy, and if not bring hell
into life as a grave, sad possibility!

We can let Fear guide us or some version
of God, coincidence or serendipity!

I love the calm lines of the lonely lass,
who picks me up because she knows…

She is aware that I’m lonely, too, not
consciously but truthfully as it often goes…

I inch along, the inchworm ready to plant!
The tide is low a while, the garden prepped;

Sunshine lurks behind the Summer clouds,
Goodness a rainbow out of fog leapt.

God forgive our mistakes, one at a time
made in the path to oblivion far and wide…

“Keep swimming,” saith the Disney swimmer,
We’re not that great but could be…

Henry’s blessed Heroes in the strife!!!

“Why Am I Here?” by SK Rolle

28 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by in African American, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

To remind you
of the suffering
of the innocent child
misused

To remind you
of the promise
of Yusuf Hawkins
unfulfilled

Reminding you
Of Emmett Till
forgotten

young unwitting warriors
to remind you
of four girls
swaddled
in unheralded graves

Of forsaken lots
of infant trees cut in stride

Toward the dream
unrealized

young blood reddening
Alabama clay
Mississippi mud
New York streets

Young hearts stilled in mid-beat
tender memories waiting fertile

tragic martyrs shining

african1

“A Poem that Ends in Love” by S.K. Rolle

28 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by in African American, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry, SK Rolle

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

creation4

I am a black poet

I claim Nikki Giovanni
4 albums, gospel choirs,
ego-tripping all

Invictus
Out of the night
that covers me…

I claim the church
black and white
Holy Ghost and Methodist

I’ve got to claim
The Bible

Genesis
And Psalms

Solomon
And Revelations

I claim the music
Jesus and Porgy

I claim Sunday
And all the mornings
that come

I claim the drummers
And the singers
The rhythm setters
And the beat keepers

The footstompers
And the handclappers

The signifiers
And the silent criers

Both my grandmothers
And my mother

And Miss Hicks and
Miss Ruffin

I claim the Slab Town
Convention
Arriving on the Pea Vine Line

I claim Paul Robeson

And James Weldon Johnson

I claim Paul Lawrence Dunbar
I claim Langston Hughes

I claim Maya
And Gwendolyn
And Lucille
And Sonia

I’m claiming the fact
And the fiction

I’m claiming
The Color Purple
This Blue Body
And the Bluest Eye

The two Toni’s
And the two Walkers

For My People, Everywhere

Baldwin
Nina Simone

‘Cause they all
Made me come in
From the void

Into the universe of hues
Into the dreamed whirl

I’ve got to claim
The heavens

I’ve got to claim
The trees

The maples and the oaks
The spreading chestnut
The weeping willow

And
Water

Oh my, water
Magic elixir

And
Birds

No way one could begin to name
The flock the feather

And light

And hate

And love

I claim love

“Gulls Aloft” by Ted Hughes

21 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by in Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry, Ted Hughes Poems

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

seagull2

From Collected Poems for Children (Faber & Faber 2005 — https://www.faber.co.uk/9780571215027-collected-poems-for-children.html)

***

Gulls are glanced from the lift
Of cliffing air
And left
Loitering in the descending drift,
Or tilt gradient and go
Down steep invisible clefts in the grain
Of air, blading against the blow,

Back-flip, wisp
Over the foam-galled green
Building seas, and they scissor
Tossed spray, shave sheen,
Wing-waltzing their shadows
Over the green hollows,

Or rise again in the wind’s landward rush
And, hurdling the thundering bush,
With the stone wall flung in their faces,
Repeat their graces.

The Voice of God

13 Sunday Jan 2019

Posted by in God, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry, Spiritual

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

god

Who’s listening?

There is a pulse and a spirit
under and over our lives,
giving us sanity, clues, natural
grooves to those who are
willing to stop, walk up the backs
of crevasses and ravines, nature’s
cherry, tall mountains yielding
peace in the mind of the sound.

We come out fighting—sperm to
egg, out Mom at whatever pace
gets results.

We have to develop sixth senses,
cosmic attachments to energy
there when we ask.  I asked
for poetry, travelling the song
that is Mexico.

I don’t like music anymore,
because it gets in the way of
God’s voice.

Shhh.

Who’s connecting today?  Where
is the medicine man, the prophet
designated to go up the hill and
ask for God’s blessing.

A priest denying himself sex?

Folks who meditate in buildings?

Who knows what the earth wants,
can report the facts to others,
pick up an instrument to play again
only when we’re on the same
page, one pulse attempting to please
the LORD, like the Jews in the desert.

Burn the incense, retreat back to
the dirt and calm—

God forgive our running around
with cotton in our ears, so eager
and ready to spout what others
say—

We “Edged Out God” the acronym
for ego used today.

Shhh.

Give us peace, God, and with it
your voice to teach us the way!

Forgiving Circumcision

12 Saturday Jan 2019

Posted by in Circumcision, Health, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

baby8

I was a few days old, a bundle
of skin and effort so feed me!

Please?

Put out the welcome mat, I’ve
been prepping in a little bubble,

I’m psyched to be out, show me
the way?

They are strapping me down, this
is uncomfortable.  I am powerless,
I can feel this but barely see.

I have no words.  I cry.  I let them
know I am against this course of
action.

Someone is rubbing a sensitive
area, but I trust them.  This will
be okay.  Wait

****

Let the little children come to me,
and do not hinder them, for the
kingdom of God belongs to such
as these.  (Mk 10:14)

The pain of hindering.  The scream
is from a shocked God, the
creator of all things offended at
the attack.

Take heed that ye despise not one
of these little ones; for I say unto you,
That in heaven their angels do always
behold the face of my Father which
is in heaven.  (Mt 18:10)

What’s better, an old quote?  The
gospel?  The bible, or ancient thought
or nature itself?  What is natural?
What is rational?

Did God screw up?  Did evolution
mess up?

Is it more plausible that bible stories
are man or God-made?  Could men
or women be inspired by God or
higher power to write, but is it
possible we have injected our
fallibility and perversions in these
stories?  Is alcohol—a flammable
liquid—good to ever “drink?”

The story of Abraham talking to
the LORD, where the LORD demands
male mutilation to seal a vow…

Is it sound?  Sensible?  Rational?

Should the Jew have his or her
mutilation, but stay away from our
health facilities—those who respect
the human rights of all babies?

Don’t hurt children.  Don’t abuse
children.  Guard them in the Christian
way, if you be Christian.  Intervene
for them, if you care and are in
touch with the feelings of infant
life!

Protect children!  Join the angels
that bear God’s face, and keep them
from harm!

***

I myself am a victim of child abuse.

No one set out to harm.  No one
intended malice!

The Devil is an amazingly subtle, skillful
foe—who can Trojan horse into your
most sacred rooms and infect our
generations, our loves, our passions,
our children.

The only way clear is through
enlightenment and care—the kind that
comes through trying, showing up
and grace.

Wide is the path to destruction,
and many are on it.

Forgive them Father, they know not
what they do.

Well, I think it’s time to tell them
what they’re doing.

Do we need baby whisperers to
interpret their screams?

We all know what is right in our
minds and hearts, as we connect
with Creation—

breathe deeply and meditate on
God and right.  Read the Tao Te
Ching, go with the flow, do less
and let the next baby born be
a baby.

Keep them out of your religion, until
they want to be in it—or not—at
a later date,

Let’s stop the abuse before too
late, God forgive circumcision!

We forgive the writers of the Bible
and others through history, who
have proposed it.

I will convert fully to the Native
American Great Spirit, before
I bow to a God that would
advocate hurting little ones.

I do not know.  Truth comes to me
in dreams, and I write it all down,
the gift I was given perhaps to make
up for foreskin lost.  Perhaps
I’ll take my pain to the stage, make
some jokes, plant my Forgiveness
Tree in the next baby we save.

Truth, with or without words, and
Nature’s perfection places us in
eternity the moment we listen
to the real voice of God not in
books.

I’ll Miss the Winter

12 Saturday Jan 2019

Posted by in Nature, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

winter

Before the change, you wait
until lo and behold: it’s too late,
the wind and the spin of the planet
beginning again around the sun,

ninety to a hundred times seen
per blessed life, Hebrew kings
and justice is still right.  Pinch here,
pinch there, we’re different

I’ll miss her.

As long as I’m alive I’ll live July
missing winter.

Something dreams and I’m stronger.
We get up in peace, as long as we
yesterday struggled and sacrificed
enough, took our shopping money

to the street, clothed a man on his
last leg, wet pants—you said and did
the right things, changed him with
a tear as he said three cheers.

You walk at limp pace with the suffering
masses, being sure you’re not “ahead
of your skis,” the advanced run wisping
by trees toward Heaven.

There are no signs for it, minus the
aforementioned dreams.  And they do
not come remembered until you commit
to truth, take off your own threads,

give your life to powers unseen, see
your part in the general flow, put an
extra coat on—hoping for one more
splash in the song that is today.

I’ll miss the winter, when long
from it I wet my own sheets dreaming
of she’s and he’s who like me, admit
they can’t do it alone.

I’ll miss the winter, when in the Truth
of now I shine a light on age, rocks
sagging off a sheened rebel coast,
Scotland crags, Welsh hills awaiting
decoration—

As we stand to holler one more time.

I’ll miss the winter, as I shout my
colors into the wind, national flags
sagging likewise around children and
infants raped by ignorant knives

as mother cries, father and so many
on the wide path of “I don’t know”
and “Whatever they say—”

We abdicate our will to white coats
until grace appears at point of death.

We see light at last, breathe and smile.
Dealt this, we cope, try to accept the
wrongs but call them out so the next
little boy and girl tastes opportunity
and freedom sooner you hope—

than you did.

Sighs breed change as winds their
leaves returning—yell out “God”
or something like it now.  Grab
today!  The hope, stay warm at night
say good night and pray.

It’s getting warm again, as you knew it
would.  You shake it off, stare at the
firewood.

“Until next year,” you think of things
only God should.

Around the Sun Again

01 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by in New Year, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

sunset-815270__480

Happy New Year, much like
the old cheer—

games played by humans and other
beings to remember now against
the hurling, tumbling dreams and
action of the ages;

actors, dancers and sages passing
away in body but leaving spirit
soaring, the steady drum of the awake
seeking truth with proof that cannot
be faked, no matter the tone and
tenor of presidential tweets.

God forgive our missteps, and guide
us onto the straight and narrow path
that defines “respect,” universal codes
sought instead of deified leadership
posts, politicians giving money back,

realizing the community needs workers
not suits, keep dreaming on—this could
be a call to you for more.

But if addicted to the clichés that made
us, the alcohol posing as “drink,” colorless,
flammable and volatile as we slurp the
toxic clink,

studying harder we drink instead of
God and life, water less strife, the
grape juice better than whine, the
ripe tasted better than moldy on the
cursed vine, so we walk away as the
band plays—

Happy New Year!!

A song with cheer, a moment we raise,
the only true melody one of praise,
Higher Powers are at work, supplication
keeping me from lonely worries about
sad mortality, the end in a wink of
this life is not what we think—
the native way to discard the concrete
and the fray,

be calm, take off your shoes and see yourself
a part of the earth we burn too much.

Sink your toes in the sand, eternity
is in oneness with the grains and time,
laugh at our journey ‘round the sun
again, roman calendars marking it
the first step of 365 logged here
and somewhere else…

That place or thing that runs all
things, places markers in energy
for which we strive.

We celebrate another trip around
the sun made, this spaceship earth
calling all to pride, think of it
and others to high levels and never
think yourself apart but instead a
special part.

Eternity is in forgetting the self,
seeing ourselves as one with All.
Be not deceived into isolation’s
worry and regret, go out and
leave a prayer in their place, be
free in your signature, writing your
name in this vast space.

Happy New Year!

Be the smile we occasionally offer
on the whole of time’s face.