Love.Speak.Easy. Read online

  I cannot stomp it out

  Hate Crimes

  Is hating yourself a hate crime?

  Killing yourself slowly

  Manslaughter or Murder 1

  Because you actually have to kill yourself a little everyday

  To die slowly

  Now, is that premeditation?

  I think I am a murderer by omission

  I see other people dying

  But I do nothing

  Some days I push the knife in, hoping to put them out of their misery

  Euthanasia

  God, Dear God, is that hate crime?

  Do I hate them or do I hate me?

  God is that one in the same?

  Waste not. Want not.

  Am I wasting away?

  Am I wanting to be something I am not?

  Is hating yourself a hate crime?

  Haiku #2

  Who am I to you?

  Where do I fit in this world?

  I am not with you.

  Haiku #3

  Very slowly live

  you will see it all pass by

  hastily you will

  Haiku #4

  storms are coming

  raining pouring raging pow!

  Flashes, crashes, light....

  Haiku #5

  through your eyes I die

  I do not flourish in the Spring

  I am frozen, cold

  Haiku #6

  there are words coming

  out, to kill you swiftly-harsh

  words to hurt you–swoosh!

  Dark Skin

  Dark skin girl I am

  Chocolate, mocha, cocoa

  Coffee, sweet flavored

  Keep Going

  Look around the horizon

  The future lies ahead

  The past a distant memory

  Push onward full-fledged

  Obstacles are sure

  No journey worth traveling

  Is smooth

  Stay true to the mission

  Autumn

  Leaves fall golden brown

  Wine colors speckle the ground

  Earth tones rustling ‘round

  Walk the District

  Here is the life

  That is dressed up

  Fancied with bows

  Demands

  And credentials

  Here are the players

  Matchmakers

  Movers and shakers

  Suits, ties, networks,

  And lies

  Here are the people

  Urban, at-risk, minorities

  Diversity

  Condos, projects, row homes

  Gold coast

  And everyone else

  Write on

  There are so many poems to write

  That my pen

  Swells with excitement

  People keep living

  In beauty

  In filth

  In love

  And in squalor

  There are more poems

  To write

  Some with names

  And others with sounds

  To be recited

  And remembered

  And relayed and even

  Forgotten

  Like people

  There are poems

  Not songs or ditties

  Odes and elegies

  Words in rhyme or rhythm

  Or not

  Waiting to be written down

  Waiting to live

  Got it

  Say it

  Like you mean it

  As if you’ve never seen it

  Blind by faith and Venus

  Believe it

  Like you know it

  As if you’ve had to show it

  Strong with roots below it

  Think it

  Like you feel it

  As if officials sealed it

  Sturdy like God’s carpenter

  Would build it

  Stand up

  Raise up

  Be up

  Wander

  Wander this world

  For there are so many journeys

  For those who are willing to travel

  See with your mind

  Best done with your real eyes closed

  Autumn in Maryland

  See autumn

  Slowly winds and creeps

  Then bursts onto the scene

  And the rain comes

  Slow dripping, fast plopping

  Dot dot dot

  Then mist and fog and coolness

  Leaves take their cue

  To change their hue

  Red.yellow.orange.brown.

  Fall moon swells

  Large and round

  Skies calm down

  Sun goes to bed early

  Not a Glass House

  I wish I lived

  A bulletproof life

  Far from injustice and misfortune

  Safe and secure

  Like diamonds in a velvet case

  Yes, if there was a quiet

  Restful, sacred space

  I would be there

  Write again

  I write rhymes or sometimes

  Rhymes write me

  By leaving messages in my memory

  I try to capture the

  Letters—the words

  Sprinkled on message boards

  In my brain

  You see ideas sometimes can be

  All over the place

  Ellison—2 years old

  She is joy itself

  Voice

  New, fresh, special

  Kind, sweet, wonderful

  Eyes—splendidly bright

  She jumps—she bounces

  She laughs

  Giggles

  Laughs

  She explores

  Not just this world

  But her own

  More vast and grand

  She delights in bubbles

  Blown and in the bathtub

  She looks in my books

  Most peculiarly at the pages

  She demands to lay down

  With a nice warm ba-ba

  Undisturbed

  She is in constant fascination

  With her piggies

  She is love itself

  All kisses, tears, squeals,

  And fun

  I walk, but I am not a Pedestrian

  Genius lives

  Whispers speaks screams

  Begs to get out

  Be unleashed

  Wants more. Needs more. Dreams more.

  I am not a pedestrian

  But I feel I have been walking

  And my feet hurt

  Genius says create

  Screams

  Dreams can’t sleep

  Genius whispers more

  Genius wonders

  Wanders

  Lusts

  Desires

  Screams to build

  Screams to make

  To think to be

  I am not a pedestrian

  Last Day of July

  Can we begin again?

  In this world with wounds still healing?

  Are we meant to be incomplete?

  Impossible.

  Once we have been hurt, will we ever forget?

  Or do we release the feeling when a stronger one arrives?

  People are made for people

  Just a little bit lost

  Where are we going?

  Don’t quite know

  Can’t quite see

  Or think

  I agree and disagree

  Simultaneously

  Guess that’s just the DC in me

  Got to get a handle

  On this thing

  Figuring out is never

  As easy as

  Fucking it up

  Because you don’t know that’s happened

  Until it’s done

  Still Writing

  I have been
writing the same poem

  For fifteen years

  Wondering where the beat goes

  Rhyme at a time

  Rhyme at time

  Change my name

  Change the game

  Some things, most things

  Still the same

  I have been writing the same poem

  For fifteen years

  Wondering how it started

  Love now for the present

  And the dearly departed

  Two rhymes at a time

  Three rhymes in my mind

  Changes back my name

  Play the game

  Some things

  Many things

  Still the same

  Last poem before bed

  Am I weak for wanting him?

  Or is it his familiar-ness?

  I hate him. I love him/

  Not right and never was

  Tried to be

  He inserts himself

  Doesn’t really want we per se

  But wants to keep me

  In his possession

  I don’t think I want him

  I think I want the dream

  The memory

  Of what was, what could have been

  And what will never be again

  Am I weak for walking away from a story that definitely has

  No closure?

  Yet, I cannot afford to write another chapter in a book

  That’s overdue

  Melancholy, I think

  Ain’t no drums to beat no more

  English majors ain’t not a one

  I heard we don’t study history or philosophy

  Anymore

  We are illiterate business-minded folk now

  The CEOs of nothing and nothing special

  College grad fad ain’t half bad

  Can’t send an email though

  Or count or write well

  I look good, but my soul ain’t got no drums

  Auto-tunes, not really singing

  Or living or thinking

  Trying

  I am at a place

  Where there are no roads

  Streets that are really paths

  Some covered in rocks

  Some just dirt

  No signs to direct me

  But people claim they know

  The way to the place

  We are trying to go

  A better way to walk

  But they do not know

  They say they say

  I follow because they have the water

  And they determine who gets some

  Standing at the corner at night

  Meet me here

  Under the skies

  Where controversy

  And contradiction

  Collide

  Where success and excess

  Reside

  An Ampersand for the City

  and the city screams

  for grass so green

  for clear, blue water so clean

  not crimson, not lead, not iron or steel

  and the city cries out

  for joy and jubilee—for dreams

  not boarded or abandoned or shackled

  but set free

  here among the wonder, the curiosity

  the anticipations

  lies the buds, and the blooms

  and the blossoms

  ready to thrive

  and blanket the jungle in natural

  beauty