Twenty Four Below

Black Men Deserve to Grow

Navigating uncharted territories 

GPSs misplaced us like our streets signs didn’t fit their puzzles

Like our alley ways and our avenues aren’t named after their fathers or their plantations 

Like our blues weren’t rewritten and reorchestrated to the tunes of their blue grass symphonies 

Like we’re not making the absolute best of our blunder giving smiles to the sun hoping daylight savings don’t rob us of our innocence 

They built bike lanes and community gardens on our graveyards, they took the idea of the mom and pop stores, gift wrapped it, and replaced it with Black Friday 

A generation grew up one day and took their dreams and resources with them 

We poured our tears onto hyperbole streets of gold, that if travelled correctly, could make fast money seem so easy

Home Sweet

Underneath the floor boards of my memories a digital time capsule produced a ripple in unsound vibrations

The days were numbered but in this crawl space, time seized and my many nightmares ganged my phobia in this conundrum

I discovered a rusted doormat of sweet nothings smudged in the refuge of lost touch and marveled in the lost marbles of an abandoned boxed Mancala set

Fears that whispered in the northern breeze, found keep in the warmth of disappointment

Underneath the floor boards of memories was the taste of pleasure sounds, the sights of lust’s aroma oozing from the backlighting of the highlight reel and the smells of echo’s sound waves

In this moment, I drew an abstract line in the lawns of our lies, I shouldered more demons than angels, and reclaimed periods that erupted in cremated tears on hour glass windowpanes

It seemed. That, in this scramble. We were eager to reveal who we are<...

Southern Seasons

Warm winds pranced through the rugged terrain of my superconscious 
Rain drop cadences polluted the acoustics of infant footstep compositions on my eardrums 
Sunflower hues brightened my mood by simply being mental pictures in bunches 
Dark memories bursted into my mindsphere like fire works, the best poems about the worst days
When the sky fell I made room in my baggage to gather some in hopes of adding to my judgement 
Time was the remedy but the capsules I consumed impaired my trip down memory lane
Shame shaded me from the Sun's stern stares preventing shadow boxing past photos made by flashbacks 
Stars closely resembled the moon, so much so, that even when the lights dimmed and only the moon shown the potent remembrance rested in its features
Nature's street symphonies invited my soul into a momentary stillness to enjoy the trafficking of sound and heat wave hybrids

beauty and the beast

She was my sunflower with a mockingbird animal spirit 

Her yellow petal feathers brought ice winds into my cosmos

She sung to me but I had to close off nature to hear her song 

Her vocals rang out in silence like a heart monitor on deaf ears

She held my hands when I couldn't get a grip on time

Her touch froze me like the chills felt with a slight graze or breeze to a freshly parted scalp

She was prepping me to be a husband and a father

She is home because she's where my heart is 

She was my Eden, and I, her Atom, she was on ions bringing both positive and negative into a garden of hunger pains

She was layered food for thought that more times than not watered my eyes no matter how many times I tried rinsing

Rivers flooded my ducts like the amount of overwhelming emails of quackery in the spam box of my emails

I'd only fixed frustration I now fixe...

My Belief in God

Met God.

She runs.

She smiles.

She laughs.

She cries.

She dances on occasion.

She sings no matter who's watching.

She has a superb sense of humor.

She's strong.

She's powerful.

Her stride is majestic like giraffes in tall grass.

Her footsteps carry no sound like sighs.

She has the most harmonious laugh that sounds like natures echoes bursting out of a glass jar.

Her tears flood my thoughts with options to make it better.

She has rhythm like the Hybrid sound waves of the African drum and black college snares.

She reads my palms like that childhood story that you're oh so familiar with.

I know she is Mother Nature because I am Sun kissed instead of sun burned.

She is God.

"Might Not Be Ok"

Tears gather in the bags of my exhausted memories 

Curiosity tucks my insecurities into flashbacks where my most unwelcoming nightmare is a reality 

Dendrite locs plug into my scalp connecting my imagination to the universe's matrix 

They collect the Suns agony like rain water in the overflowing Mississippi 

Pain has clouded my ora and made its way into the crevices of my concealed smile

Father Time is ruined, I can feel the beckoning sun peaking through the heart of my hour glass 

Third time around on this day and the anger is not so distant 

There's a certain level of comfort in familiar territory 

In the end I just might be ok  

happy 2 born day God 9/12/16

Tears gather in the bags of my exhausted memories
Curiosity tucks my insecurities into flashbacks where my most unwelcoming nightmare is a reality
Dendrite locks plug into my scalp connecting my imagination to afterlife pockets of the universe's matrix
They collect the Sun's agony like rain water in the overflowing Mississippi 
Pain has crowded my Ora and made its way into the crevices of my concealed smile
Father Time is ruined, I can feel the beckoning Sun peaking through the shattered heart of my hour glass
Third time around on this day the anger is not so distant
In the end, I just might be ok

Jamesia You Got Me

Sights like olives

Her antennas to the universe drape the earth like veiny tree roots

Crescent moons canvas her smile

Whispers of gusts from butterfly wings and chirping birds harmonize in her vocal cords

Childhood snickers chatters and grins after passing classroom notes hold refuge in her laughter

She is lightning that burst from a bottle

She was Erykah's amended lyric "[she] gave me poetry"

She is you and "You Got Me"

Just Kids

Sitting in the seventh seats of our third grade classes, we escaped nightmares day dreaming of untold history

Beating on tables we were producers and disk jockeys befor the business of music tainted the fulfillment of sound

We were mechanical engineers building snow sleighs from cardboard boxes before being presumed pilots of get away cars

Drawing our signature sneakers we were practicing our autographs long before kids like us would think we were cool

We sharpened our scholastic debating abilities listening to our elder argue top tier entertainers and rhyme schemes

Our dangling feet longed to touch the ground so we could run the streets like marathoners, but we were just kids. 

What did we really know?

 

Language Masons

If I'm being honest....sometimes I'm too hard on you. Maybe it's the pureness that I see in you and I don't see in myself. If I can be frank lend me a shell of myself when I'm out of character like childhood cartoons and watch my tall tales fall like closing action. 

Concrete erupted from in between glass jaws like nagging spit balls from your younger sibling's fountain pop straw 

Boulders we were, throwing italics speaking sideways and making a big deal out of bold underlining statements 

We are paragraphs in uncharted territory, no raised bars with loss connection, no information to determine what this act is

We wade tirelessly through a cesspool of frustration hoping to somehow reach building blocks to get over it