ROOM FOR CHANGE

TURN ON THE LIGHT

Our history holds misleading stories
printed, repeated, published, and sold.
Yet, our true history is priceless.
These stories are like precious gold.

In the dark, generational curses
find a home from which to circulate
A litany of mystic tales that serve
to seduce, confuse, and sedate.

This drugged-out platitude
blurs our path and alters our course.
A crooked road becomes the path
blindly embraced and then endorsed.

Truth serves as the Light
that emboldens our priceless spirit.
Lies embrace the cunning dark.
Those tales are profane and without merit.

For lies that are perpetuated daily
without being fact-checked for authenticity
disfigure “The Souls of Black Folk”
and what we, by tradition, signify genuinely.

Like the lie that we are lazy,
dirty, no count, and lack self-respect.
Like the lie that we a...

LIVING IN A ONE-ROOM WORLD

We’re living in a one-room world.
We’re living in it today.
What affects some people 
influences all in countless ways. 
Every man, woman, and child 
needs fresh air to breathe in and out.
Every man, woman, and child 
must drink pure water from unpolluted spouts. 
Every man, woman, and child’s body 
requires healthy meals every day. 
Every man, woman, and child’s home 
can be a place of peace, love, and prayer. 

Renegades seek to destroy this world 
with vile expressions of hate.
Infecting it with an ongoing, ill-fated, 
despicable, crass debate. 
Spawning messages of hopelessness 
and war-mongering despair.
Propagating a combat-driven universe
of greed, control, and lack of basic care.

Others try to build up our planet.
True equality is what...

ROOM FOR CHANGE

Dedicated to Outstanding Women of Achievement. Thankfully, they never left a Room the way they found it.

You knew there was…

Room for you in the forest

where angels float in force.

Room for you in the city

where angels chart a course.

Room for you in the mountain

where angels breed pure magic.

Room for you in the wasteland

where angels mine gold from the ashes.

Angels remake what is tragic.

Room for you in the valley

where shadows loom deep and wide.

Angels rise, magnified.

Room for you in the ocean

where peace and turbulence collide.

Angels there multiply.

Room for you in the jungle

where beasts with beauty crest.

An...

Remake Our World

Between dark and light, self-doubt breeds. 
Rears its flaming head.
God made manifest our dream.
We have risen from humble nests.
  
Between highs and lows, self-worth bleeds.
Uncertainty taints the brow.
God shields the maimed and tired soul. 
We reflect with renewed faith now. 

A bonded front deflects the blows; 
mutes the fired cannons.
A people armed in rooted goals 
feed the spirit’s famine. 

We’ve witnessed what the past has sown.
We know what hate can cast in stone.
No surprise to rocked blood and bone.
We seek to establish our sacred home.

We stand UNITED to forge ahead
from the graveled char-coaled ground. 
We seek to maintain, build, and rebuild 
ourselves, mosques, temples, 
churches, and towns.

It lives, our freedom's walk,
to p...

The Real First Responders

Praying people are our 
First Responders
On bended knees, they fall
With palms up, they ask for help
What a blessing this is for all.

Prayers from the hopeful and faithful
Performed on the go, at work, or at home
Call upon Creator for backup
Knowing to heal can’t happen alone.

With hearts filled with love and devotion
Death and suffering appear everywhere
First Responders believe God has the power
To cure, heal, or comfort those in despair.

First Responders don’t stop there
They are true and mighty vanguards 
For them, faith and good deeds go together
They pull up, button-up, buckle up, and work hard.

COUNTED

A voice and a vote are

terrible things to waste.

We can have our say

in our city, country, and states.

Decades of visible

and invisible shackles.

Slick word tricks to undermine laws.

One of the dumbest was

the infamous “Grandfather Clause.” *

Poll Tax, Literacy Tests,

Fraud, and Pressure.

Lynchings, Beatings,

Killings, and Persecution.

Each blocked the path

to equal representation.

What a dreadful mess.

Seeking access to the poll

took its toll

on a people tired and sick

of fighting for a chance

to be listed on the voting roll.

Protests, marches, and unjust arrests.

Cries of frustration.

Over time many died.

MLK escorted thousands in Alabama (1965).

Still, at first, people faced defeat.

The right to vote oftentime...

GARDEN OF HOPE

City grounds around dusk
Freshly grown protests to toil
Blades of people
Faces green, yellow, red, white,
black, brown, and blue
Emotions run high
Amongst each one of you

Activists shelter in the greenhouse of hope and faith
To produce change the fruit of their labor is pre-ordained
No one can cop or destroy this sacred garden crop
Meanwhile, counters are grounded in a field of death and turmoil

Rocky cover try to smother or covert baby stems
The committed reject being transplanted
Away from the sun’s rays and destiny lands a win
Bending or withering is a choice they won’t make.

Ruby Bridges

In recognition of National Women's History Month

The Ruby of our world
was a rose-tinted glass
through which we dreamed.
She led by example
in her school and class.
Pushing against the ceiling
of segregation’s past
meant walking into a movement
on an unmapped path.

At age six Ruby passed
a rigorous entrance test.
She had always excelled
by doing her best.
She became one of the
famous McDonogh Three.
What happened next
made Civil Rights history.

Ruby’s sweet nature
veiled her genuine fear.
This tiny steadfast soldier
deserved knowledge, not spears.

Shouts, guns, and spit
couldn’t stop the progress
fate stitched into the
silver lining of her hem.
Nothing would rob this child
of her pride ever again.

Not put off by
the onslaught of h...

JUST WHISPER

When a person is angry
and filled with despair,
whisper kind words
into his ear.

A whisper will calm
all quivering nerves,
like a warm gentle breeze,
it’s a prayer when heard.

A whisper is intimate
and usually sincere.
The sound between each word
is what one really hears.

A whisper affects the senses;
makes them pulsate with life.
The whisperer must intend
to share thoughts healing and nice.

A person’s shoulder stance,
stiff from suffering and grief.

Step up to him patiently
and offer delicate relief.

Simple kind words
laced with an intended goal
whispered up so close,
you feel the hair on his lobe,
(when heartfelt and brief),
has a lasting effect
on a tortured soul.

All rights reserved.

Reprinted from: Moments Polished Supremely

Passing Storms

 I cried when you did.

Your pain touched me

like a tornado thrashes a village.

I cried when you did.

Your anger erupted inside of me 

like a volcano blows up a countryside.

I cried when you did.

Your sorrow struck me

like a blizzard beats down a town.

I cried when you did.

Your hopelessness devasted me

like a hurricane flattens a city.

I cried when you did.

And when the winds

of emotion subsided,

you and I bathed

in a calm blue sea of hope.

You were not longer a gale

waiting to happen.

Our hail fueled

a cyclone of change.

All rights reserved.

Reprinted from book: Angels in the Forest