eve

eve whispers sweet into nothing's ears
knowing he won't respond like silence after sour sights,
whispers of cold summers and lonely nights,
still he's nothing and nothing he hears.

lucky.

i'm done with
bruised knees and
dried closed hands pleading
for an end to my luck.

i see them
dried throats from
waterless weeks and hungered months.

at night I grab bread
then roll my eyes back
to see what the Lord has made.

shannon

shannon is 5 foot 4 times
likely to be 8 out at 13

since daddy's lips and mothers thighs have blessed her,
the demple in her right cheek and her freckled forehead
meant nothing but instead gave tall and dark and handsome
29 a hand, sometimes waist lines beat blood line beauty is
not deep but skinned of logics, tall dark handsome had some
before shannon was 4 for the same reasons he would take
her's from her and then more. but age ain't nothin but a
number.

shannon is 5 foot 4 times
likely to be 18 at 13

a knife

(for Sakia Gunn)

a knife cannot speak for a life.
its blade silenced
like the black community.
the air around it fills a void
called opposition,
alludes to an unavoidable odium
and suffocates the hand that holds
its handle,
threatening to cut fingers if
it isn’t used quickly.

jay

jay's got a new check
a new start this week
a new plate to keep
but no new j's
cause jay's got bills to pay

Poems for April 18th and 19th

1.
there is no real world
just falling mirages: black
blank like morning's fall

(no such thing- john mayer)

2.
A true drug
yes you are mine,
and everything that
comes with addiction,
cold stoned crack,
highs infinity.

As your words
melt into my ears
like candle to holder
I mold stiff:
one touch to move
and I run
one whisper to go
and I come.

heights higher than yours

because her backpack is strapped
10 times tighter on her back
than yours will ever
be, and
when tempted
she'd sleep with her books
though you will never
but sleep with those 'cooch' crooks
you will-
let them rob you, looks
like we have a winner
contestant number three passed her test
but can't eat dinner
moms can't send that monthly check
her friends seem to get
instead she sends her own check
home, so moms won't fret

so in that backpack
strapped so tightly on her back
are her obligations
and worries
and promises of dreams
unimaginable to her mother's
high school educated mind
or sister's and brother's
street kind

she'd find
no kind street
to make ends meet
but if she'd leap
forgetting no afters or befores
her reasons help her reach
heights higher than yours

april 8th limerick (16/30)

(for the poem I missed on my 19th birthday from having a little too much fun)

One more year screamed this day
so down my burdens I'd lay
I'd wished to be mean
lyrics like adele's 19
but instead bomb night had its say.

chicago please love me (unfinished) (15/30)

I admit to being a true Native
who praises thee and fights
that my Southside is better
than any Westside...

in hopes to cope with
both sides
that each hold trashed land
brown grass and brown skin
left to be trashed:

A simple fight we fight selfishly
to prove ourselves through
a learned helplessness
our mothers have taught us
when they ran to suburbia.

Don't abandon me or blow
sheets of your incurable
gentrification leaving me to
social suicide,
windy city.

Your smudge filled cracked corners
scream for my homecoming, the
hypocrisy in your cost draws me near, your
prices are something
I am willing to pay.

Chicago please love me
my urban paradox

Dear poem (14/30)

I wanna
read you then
lay my head back,
like that deep sleep on long weeks
or waking up to head on Thursday morning,
then reminisce on a classic that
feels something like
Poetic Justice.
yeah.

stop talking (13/30)

I can't read your mind
or your lips
but I know they are both cold
begging to be blessed by your breath
that bleeds much more bullshit
than your cut wrists might
on a Sunday night
and much more than my stomach ulcers
could handle in one setting
yet your steam creeps
through my q-tip cleared canals
like in one ear and out the other

the buttons (12/30)

there they were
lined up and ready to be undone
calling me and telling me
that they were worth more than
the 25 cents paid for.

and if they were to be
moved by me
they would defeat their purpose
be deemed worthless
and reveal much more
than I have bargained for.

there they were
lined up and ready to be undone
calling me showing me
that they can no longer win
that they kept him closed
and that they were worth more
than what I bargained for.

can't sing jazz to her friends [haiku] (11/30)

she feels her next note
more primitive than the first
lifeless like eggs whites

words of wisdom (10/30)

(Normally I use 6-8pm on Tuesday to take a quick nap but I guess I can learn something in my AFRO class)

Lesson number one was
written on an aged black chalkboard
in white jagged cursive:

"you can't carry the world's burdens on your shoulders."

the reason we speak only of the future,
the slogan for American society,
the poster child for hope.

stale chips (9/30)

Don't you hate it
when you walk into a room
and suddenly silence falls
and the air fades stale
like that old bag of Doritos
you wished you closed
but
lazily crumbled together instead?

Maybe if you used a clip
you wouldn't be so damn hungry
and so ready
to devour those hard chips...

or maybe if you screamed
to let them know who you were
before you opened
that purposely unlocked door
you wouldn't have felt so
quiet and stale...

and so ready to turn around
and run
and devour those hard chips.

Maybe you should have knocked first.

then issued Her a cane (8/30)

I apologize for not being able to sense your power and yield to its utmost strength.

Don’t tell me those stories you don’t speak of
Or secrets that purge through your veins.
Still is your mind as it floats among
An unintended river
Still like the rain was before her storm
A mind soaked and stuck

The force it took
To push back those streams
Your face could so easily render
Is something I did not see
In you and in them

And men became men
Or the men they would have never been
Before then

Despite the vigor of your will
Broken are your levies and your arms as
they cannot reach all of them.

If you only knew it was not you
who left them behind
Or crippled them then issued
Her a cane
as if she could not tread and stir
those troubled waters alone.

speaking of ice skating... (7/30)

my boyfriend is as dark as a hockey puck
really,
I gives no fuck
but he hates his luck


through his corneas
Dark is the bottom

Brown is in the middle
Light is on top


his teeth smile at my guise
then he looks up to see
a veneer of lightened skin


my place needs a trim
my chances are slim
I loft,
but I wish I could be down there with him

shuffle (6/30)

don't push my buttons...
just press play
so that this list
can make my pants
go south
with ease

first is the worst / rain checks on Christmas (5/30)

didn't know him to well
still took the punch
so he could swell
so I could tell
my friends I didn't thirst
anymore, I could face them
but the first is the worst
when there's no replacin'
the placement of his base, meant
to be or not to - syke
questions comments in the basement
some where he cannot trace it
behind the box where third base went
then wondered why his placed base hit
and then it hit me
coulda grabbed some some rubbers
but he wouldn't break a fifty
so now how is he sittin? straight shifty
he's been past the present
but was sure to stop by and gift me
8 months strong and heavy
bet you he won't try to lift me
now, kiss me now, taste this V now,
like vowels
he better write A I.O.U
for get about the E -asy way out
Cause he will owe me
for the next 3
times 6 years, plus this:
birthday parties and rain checks on Christmas

ignorance is freedom (4/30)

I smiled at my little cousin who thought
we could buy him whatever he wanted because
money was free...

Ignorance is freedom
it is peace of mind
and the answer
if i only knew of it
I could live effortlessly
but I see no sense in not knowing
so intelligence becomes
a never ending cycle
of failure

Little did he know
money isn't free
but it does buy freedom
how I'd wish to be as ignorant as he

same old old (3/30)

Saw Craig today for the first time in weeks
talked on bar runs last night
red eyes and left feet
how Sherry had to be carried home
on 6 feet and 6 inch heels
who he took home and who he didn't(couldn't)
and throw-back hoes
and who got chose
in this game we play Thursday Nights.
He hinted it would be me next time
I hinted a foot up his ass.
Laughed 'til 12:23
when the bus pulled up and cut words short.
Granted familiar goodbyes with hopes of playin Friday.
To class he went and there I waited.
Saw the wheels of the bus go round and round
playin same old same is the same old old.

sucka nigga (2/30)

feel the kick back beat loopin baritone tones
like
hey sucka nigga...whoever you are

and if you are
be sure to sleep on it
like sweet dreams re-seen
recite every meaningless word
like blank scripts
till we put it on repeat and
pull it apart put it back
hear it for the first time
say it

sucka nigga...nigga nigga?

form lips to try and spit it
lips cracked and chapped and nailed shut
shuts calm calls out
so scream it scream it

SUCKA NIGGA!...WHOEVER YOU ARE

release that heat that heat
let the stress leak
out your ears
catch it with your hands
hold it mold it throw it
use it as term of endearment
hate it while you find it
start to flinch as you try to say it
but
your lips are like a ooowop as u start to spray it

sucka nigga(to fade) nigga...nigga

holding this pen (1/30)

I am a complete hater
In every sense
When I see holding hands
Or clenching fists
that find and show a reason of use
I cannot

My pen can prove its point
but won’t give the world
Its verification
Unless they see or
begin to comprehend
my illegible chicken scratch

and if I grip and lift my pen
It becomes no mic
unamplified
and fails in comparison

So still I hate
Those hands that hold
More than my pen
can seem to make