A Life Of My Own or Your Life For Me

What you see reflected in me are the remnants of your shapeless desires. Desires that lay formless under the disparities of this world Under the heat of poverty and the wounds of war. You see me as the merit of your suffering, Your ascension into a world closed off to those Who built it. And…

a certain type of man

There are boys who hold in their eyes a burden when undone but not embraced, felt but not studied, the burden of femininity. It can be given to them by their mother carelessly, attentively with no knowledge of when doing it but the knowledge that it will be there. Knowledge through the way her son…

till it’s over

  Young, no more No longer a victim of circumstance Of ignorance, If you were ever lucky to have it. You can no longer play pretend That you cannot see The words unsaid that people often scream. You are a woman now. Remember when you thought you were Because people got to relish in their…

Onye

Family tree You look like me The same roots planted on Heartland’s soil. Intertwined Brown and yellow looking, As eagles dance overhead. We lock and we branch away The wind asks some to fall Which makes others cry. I feel there is no such thing As a graceful family tree I suppose Heartland forbids it….

States of Denial

I exalted when I was blind for I could not see, the hands of those who persecute me. it was only their voice which silenced birds And severed wings that I heard. Their voice would say to me, ‘those to blame lived on soiled lands far away.’   As symphonies of war deafened operatic cries,…

I Tried To Drink It Away

I cradled Ignorance like a new born baby. I fed It warm milk and let It gaze at the world from which It came. When the baby cried, I sang lullabies of tomorrows I was not sure  I would reach. But these days the baby cries more than It sleeps It wails till I look It straight in the eyes, Till I…

So What?

He was lost when he blew on that trumpet And he was weeping when he rained on those keys She was bleeding when she wailed on that mic, He was cheating when he picked up those sticks And he were lustin’ when he fingered that double bass  Then her in the crowd, she bore the…

Go Tell The Man Who Waits

There is a man who waits for the Day to come, When things begin to unravel And the world becomes kind And the Lord becomes present And there is no need to run from Time   Go tell the man who waits That he does not have to wail so loud, Prayers of salvation not…

Four.

Inside, my dignity died and left instead the vulnerability of emotion, the need to be loved regardless of what degree regardless of which rope is swung in order to reach it, love. The word, the act, the sentiment all that makes us push and pull towards each other in order to find reason, purpose, desire a…