Poets are those who love,--who feel great truths, And tell them.

June 28, 2013

It's You

by Ava M. 
Grew up your whole life learning that no one cares. 
7 billion angry people and their mean faces
but you just brushed off their vicious stares

People always tell you, 
Life just ain't fair, 
Child holding a cup of change askin if you got any to spare.
But there's people who have everything and still want more, 
Don't realize they are disgusting 
Don't give a shit about the people who are in pain, alone, or poor. 

Now you're trying to get to the top but someone keeps pushin you down  
standing over you, eyes narrowed with a disapproving frown
You give in and forget what it's like to be 
someone who gives not just one fuck but three
it's easier this way, no more trouble inside,
but after time you realize that's just another lie

You're disgusted in yourself also,
but it's too late to go back 
you've gotten used to it now
and you've joined the pack

Now you gotta take action, and change what they've done,
you gotta go back, fix the world 
cause now they're not the only ones
oh god you gotta fight
fix their mistakes,
stand strong against them
but you finally break 

All those years of being told that nobody cares,
gets into your mind 
and your happiness just tears.
everyone's watching you just to see you fall,
you realize maybe life's not worth it,
cause you don't want this at all.

Your wrists are crying bloody tears
like what the fuck have you done and people are standing here like hey whats wrong, hun? 
What's fucking wrong? What are they saying?
they know. can't they see what they've done 
how they've changed 
who they are

It's all their fault but the blade's in my grasp
so I slash at the lookers and wipe the blood off my mask
now you see what you've done and you know it ain't true 
Go to the mirror, drop the knife, open your eyes 
it's you.

Who I Am

by Keisha S.
I am a person

My feelings show on my sleeve

If you don't like them you are free to leave

I over think my feelings too much

All I want is my heart to be touched

I laugh

I cry

I smile at the world to show them I'm alive

Sometimes I feel dead inside

I am defined of what society wants me to be

I'm alone

No one to hold

I shout but no one ever hears my cries

I am down on myself because that's all I've ever known

I've never been told otherwise

I battle my thoughts

Day and night

I put up a fight

To be free of my mind

To show my worth and all of my being

No longer put on a shelf

I am who I am

I can't change who I am

It's your loss

If you don't see what's behind my eyes

I am so much more

Than what you take me for

So go away

And never look back

I'll let you know

My heart's still intact

For leaving you

I shall never be back

I am alive

You're dead inside

African American History

by Andrew C.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that if you are a 
minority then you are irrelevant. And If you're not using drugs, then you must 
be selling it. Living in a world, where girls are no longer celibate
This is how I feel and poetry is the medium that I'm telling it.

Liberty is a boon, so you just might want to cherish it. From the 1619 Dutch 
Ships it's been a fight for African Americans. From Banneker and Wheatley going 
against the grain in America. The merit that they attained, gained praise from 
Voltaire and Ben Franklin. But they still thought, that blacks couldn't think, 
so they kept the fettered in iron clad chains. 

But headstrong they remained, rebellion was a medium that freedom was attained. 
In 1800 there was Prosser, In 1822 there was Vesey, In 1831 Nat Turner, which 
got a little messy. 

Another way to escape was to run away through a convoluted system trail blazed 
by Tubman. Then there was Douglass, who broke away from the proclaimed slave 
breaker Edward Covey. Who wrote his name in eternal flames by going against the 
grain to gain what he wanted. Johnson, Grant, and Hayes, hated him during 
reconstruction. Nevertheless he reconstructed the structure of what others 
perceived to be a democratic republic. 

13th Amendment passed but no genuine liberty yet. Vagrancy laws, KKK, 
grandfather clause, literacy test. Douglass was a pioneer of African American 
rights but let me introduce you to the rest.

Marcus Garvey took them back to Africa. While Du Bois' Movement in Niagara, 
pleaded for action. Washington's Compromise in Atlanta, parallel to a 
pacifist, said learn the tools of the trade then we can master it.

Civil rights aided Ida B Wells-Barnett, Jacob Lawrence's dark silhouettes, 
Langston Hughes poems of black misery put the whole nation in check.

54 Brown vs. Board, 55 they killed that Till boy. In 63 they assassinated JFK. 
Civil rights in 64, voting rights in 65, all thanks to LBJ. But don't think that 
everything's ok because in 68 they got MLK. Damn.

We hold these truths to be self-evident the fruition of King's dream was not a 
black president presiding on the basics of a nation still faced with racial 
prejudice. This is how I feel and poetry is the medium that I'm telling it.

June 25, 2013

Prisoner of the Mind

by Jacob L. 
I am a prisoner of my mind

Locked and stowed away within my own conscience

Come nighttime,
I am farthest from my self

My brain drowns in thought

Enabling ill feelings and remorse to consume me

I toss and turn restlessly
Searching for comfort

Comfort I know I'll never be able to find.

Ink

by Jacob L.
Splatter me in century old sayings
From deceased artists I don't even know
Take a face first dive in your ink
Tat me up from my head to my toe

Brand me with a cross of dying Jesus
Bare markings of the Inca on my wrists
A blood thirsty sex-deprived contessa
A sunken ship inhabited by fish

Lasso me in bushels of ivy
Spool barbed wire down the shaft of my arms
A serenity prayer for my Daddy
An arrow through the heart for my Mom

Make me into your greatest project
My body is yours to create
Penetrate through the layers of my broadness
Look at me as your blank human slate

Kolors

by Jacob L.
We dance in Crimson Red
Throwing up our hands wildly
Chanting our never ending song of defiance

Surrounded by mesmerizing pools of Silver
And infinite fields of iridescence 

We watch as Gold falls from the heavens in a thick milky stream
Colliding with the ground in harmony as it parts in different paths

The streams of rich color floods our thin statures
Puddling beneath our mangled feet

We continue our dance of freedom

Cobalt Blue combusts in the atmosphere
Coating the air with its bold, audacious beauty 
Explosions of its colors fill our youthful eyes

We chant louder
Power in our voices
Passion in our hearts

Claps of lightning cut through the purple skies
Leaving thick craters of stark black above our heads
Pearls of neon descend from upon us

Before our very eyes
We are endowed by its purity
Coated in its color
We bare all its beauty

Only to make up for the ugly in our souls.

Runaway

by Jacob L.
Here's to the dreams we can no longer achieve
Here's to the life we're ready to leave

Here's to the pain
The suffering
And crying

Here's to the days where we feel like dying.

For if we stay here,
We're no better than dead

This life's a loaded gun,
Set and ready by your head

In the end it's up to us
To make our final move

Caught frozen in the moment 
Questioning what we have to lose

June 22, 2013

Lucid Dreamer

by Jacob L.
Spiral bound secrets
Words drenched in ink
Black and white mementos 
Washing over me while 

Eyes moving rapidly
On the hunt for inspiration
Painstakingly irritated
Overcome by exasperation

Doodles upon doodles
Eyes grow heavy, body unwinds
As I drip into my dreamland
You won't believe the things one finds

Miles of imagination
Past memories left behind
So I pick up my pen and paper 
And write whatever comes to mind

The Substance

by Jacob L.
 Do you think about me?

On those lonesome summer nights
Casting clouds of thick deception
Dreaming dreams inside your pipe

Do you think about me?

Knuckle deep inside your throat
Wishing one day you'd be skinny
Treating life as if it's a joke

Do you think about me?

When razors dance across your skin
Pools of red surround your body
Making up for all your sins

Do you think about me?

With a noose around your neck
Begging God for his forgiveness
Praying for courage so you can forget:

All the pain this life has caused you
All the loves that broke your heart
There's no silver lining in your story
There's just death to which you part

So do you think about me?

Much like the way I thought of you
Before the substance got a hold of us
Before it had its way with you?

Cloud 8

by Jacob L. 

One cloud short of victory 
And another sore taste of defeat 
I gotta do what it takes so I can win it now 
And have the courage to land on my feet 
I can't let the heights get the best of me 
I must progress before it's too late 
I've been treading skies for a while now 
In an attempt to escape from Cloud Eight

June 11, 2013

Journey to the Land of Rain

by Macka B.
She is a burden, who is pressing herself upon me,
Taking me to a place where all I can feel is pain.
Even though that is not her intention, that may be,
These feelings may still be felt in vain.
She has the lock; another man, the key,
Guarding the weapon to end my Agony
But perhaps the way this feeling can be slain, 
Is returning back to the Land of Rain.
For the Land of Rain has no ruler to haul off my glee,
Unlike my Land of Pain.
The land of rain is simply a hopeful plea,
To end a lonely reign.
Whereas my land of pain has one simple decree,
To transfer me to the Land of the Insanity.
I hope I will leave the Pain, 
And find my way,
It will then be again, 
A nice rainy day.

June 5, 2013

Eddie

by Brianna
 

He's not like other boys but he's still special in a way. 
He knows every lyric to the Sponge Bob song,
But he doesn't know what 2+2 is. 
I pray every night that he won't have a stroke in his sleep. 
He's my little brother and my big brother at the same time. 
I hope that when I leave off to school that he won't forget about me. 
Till then I love you, big brother.