Best Birthrights Poems
So few are they whose legion is peace.
Did Columbus chase the stillness
beyond tumultuous seas?
Sails and oars were manned by dissidents,
genocide is patent.
Prayers and spreads with huge birds
were answered with reservations,
provisions like prisons,
and birthrights lifted.
So few are they whose legion is peace.
Devoid of wings, souls fly
to escape the flaming towers.
Barren of truth, tongues lie
to secure legends of power,
and destroy past ally.
It is for youth to pursue truth
before the wicked moons glide by.
Leap with faith like ten Moses,
your Sabbath day is nigh.
Race is diversion,
kissing cheeks of cliché.
Is the spoil more than the sacrifice?
The new buds quietly fade;
their radiance slowly dies,
and the few whose throng is not peace
hold their heads so high,
while mothers blame the God
who watched their children’s suicide.
A choice everyone doesn't want to make
Birthrights are given before conceptions
Others may have to surrender their lives
Rapists conceive a life without concents
There maybe reasons to make sad choice
It already difficult just thinking about it
Offer support at this time not judgement
No one has the right to force that choice
All appear denuded
When you set in;
Forests, hills, rivers, winds and
The nymphs.
Even the angels look disrobed, and
Seem lying spread-eagled on barren clouds,
Sans their birthrights;
The luminous crowns.
On one of your bare branches,
My poetry perches, reminiscing
Spring days, in a mirage of
Dewy images cringed by summer heat, and
Under your pale sun
My Shakespearian forehead
Reflects thawing metaphors, in anticipation of
Winter verses, surprising the muse
With make-believe shivering, occasionally,
With no offence to your grey indifference.
*Image of Old Empty Case by Pixabay.
Rebirth
Reborn here now without baggage,
you are gifted midst distinction,
referred by divine tutelage,
ne'er stray from His homing beacon.
Your external chapters have changed,
reborn here now without baggage,
verse by verse you are petitioned,
The Word, wills you, to acknowledge.
Keep the faith helps to encourage,
goodwill build trusts and open doors,
reborn here now without baggage,
your light on the hill, new soul scores.
Shine o'er the realm, your rebuilt home,
dawn birthrights, 'tis be your New Age,
unshackled and weightless to roam,
reborn here now without baggage.
2021 October 03
*1st Place*
Dawn
~~Unseeking Seeker: Judged 2021 October 18
RZ, WH checked
HMS, PS checked
Why should we put trust in the Lord?
Can written words defeat the sword?
Should we try to obey the law?
Or try to cheat and steal for more
Is idleness a frame of mind?
To live off others so designed
Enjoying fags and Sky TV
Paid for by the likes of me
What benchmark is laid down for youth?
When MPs never tell the truth
But lie and cheat at our expense
Yet tell us truth and work makes sense
Our old folk in care homes abused
Our insecure young confused
Their lives awash with drink or drugs
Status sought in gangs of thugs
Society’s become eroded
As weapons of unrest are loaded
Things can’t go on the way they are
There’s no way back it’s gone too far
The British know their birthrights sold
I am so bloody glad I’m old
I wouldn’t swap a single day
For what I know is on the way
I’ve lived a life that’s full and free
And loved a wife who still loves me
How will today’s young ever cope?
No opportunity or hope.
‘When you are not fed love on a silver spoon, you learn to lick it off knives.’ - Lauren Eden
lilies and ravens
dance together making mud puddles
thick as salve caked on deep wounds
stemming not the ooze
tinctures from droppers
bitter herbs labeled for survival
use only as directed
replenish nothing
rancid birthday cakes
gleeful candles form dancing shadows
glassy story-telling eyes
yearn desperately
gleaming steel knives slice
neat little rows across the table
the sacrificial altar
where naked I lay
ignorant children
don't see the bullies in their own homes
doling birthrights like feed for
ravens and lilies
Written 8 April 2025
For the contest Light or Shadows hosted by Suzette Richards
June nineteenth one hundred and fifty years ago
Juneteenth hint: three hundred
and sixty six days
after eighteen sixty four.
Major General Gordon Granger
led the Union Soldiers to Galveston, Texas,
to announce the end of the Civil war
and the freedom of all enslaved people.
Jim Crow sat perched
over the event horizon
waiting in the wings,
which brought darkened
(non-sheltering) skies
not only for the hot pocket
of suddenly emancipated
persons of color,
who would subsequently experience
immense prejudice
upon their embarkation
as (no pun intended)
"masters" of their own selves
while attempting to eke out a living
dirt poor, yet resourceful
hunkering down on plantations,
which property eminent domain
of federal government,
(a political entity
characterized by union
of partially self-governing provinces,
states, or other regions),
whereby said body electric
codified, fortified, and indemnified
manifest destiny, a phrase
coined in 1845, the idea
that United States destined—
by God advocates believed—
to expand its dominion
and spread democracy and capitalism
across the entire North American continent.
Though institution of slavery
supposedly rendered null and void
at the stroke of a pen
(courtesy Abraham Lincoln)
well actual legislation
passed by Congress on January 31, 1865,
and ratified on December 6, 1865,
the 13th Amendment abolished slavery
in the United States.
Nevertheless merciless abuse
heaped upon the *****
despite their legal status
being Granted leeway
to persevere life, liberty
and pursuit of happiness.
Recognition as equal brethren
among collective soul of American
fraught with bitter aversion,
condemnation, and ejaculation
of physical and verbal violence
against people of color,
whose melanin enriched complexion
birthrights rendered hidebound
severely limited
inalienable rights as declared
in Declaration of Independence,
now still utter abhorrence
regarding treatment
of those proud enterprising people,
whose once storied
African past left in tatters
leaving sparse threads
woven together by diligent dogged research
nsync with twenty first century technology
to allow, enable and provide opportunity
to stitch together a more complete tapestry
and spiritual fusion with shackled ancestors.
CLAIMING OUR BIRTHRIGHTS HERE…
Water breaks to freedom,
Flows and seeks its own level:
Rebirth is as hard as crucible steel.
Emerging from the cocoons
Of our distributions,
We voyage backwards
To the womb of our beginnings.
Spreading our dreams on the levees
Of hope---our souls anchored in waters of faith,
We step on the shores of reunion
As in the matter and manner of Esau and Jacob:
We are
Because Africa is…
Come brethren, let us
Claim our birthrights here.
The circadian rhythms of time
Weaves us together
Through the labyrinth of new life---
Each womb having bleed
The pain of joy of our every birth.
With pregnant faith---audacious determination,
Let us trod the paths etched in the mud:
Footprints of ancestors passing this way before us.
Come let us walk
The dried river bottoms
Paved with their bleached bones;
Leaving the dust of marches behind---
Keeping our eyes on the prize, let us soar
To the mountain top; catch the dream falling
And swoop down into the fertile valley before us.
America became what she is
Because Africa always was:
Come brethren, let us
Claim our birthrights here.
Beautiful, breathless, bloods
Brave, bold beings…
Bringing bounteous buds
Blossoms, blooming birthrights
Beneath blazing baby bluebloods…
Bliss, bolstering, breathtaking
Bushes, burying broken beacons
Buzzing beside breezy bookmaking…
Bathing biblical balms
Beaming benevolence, baffling
Beneath balance, becalms…
Beginning bestsellers, bonded bylines
Birthing banter, bawling behind-the-scenes
Brilliance - by-no-means!
Begin with a letter Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Angela Tune
July 1, 2022
*Image of Public Use by Wise Geek.
a day of days
birthrights claimed its day
hark heralded glad tidings
smiled fresh countenance
2022 January 28
the leaders of tomorrow bravely take to the dais
justified their precious life,
liberty and pursuit of happiness -
stolen under their figurative nose)
asper an unparalleled heist
recouping quintessential basic human rights,
and will NOT yield an inch
(or any other minuscule amount),
if for no other reason
(and many more valid claims prevail)
such inalienable American birthrights
(codified decrees endowing freedoms -
tattered to shreds via frenzy of bullets)
guaranteeing harm inviolable unjustly out priced
sacrificed by lax second amendment spiced
within wanton murderous sprees wherein assassin
literally calls the shots (supplanting
assigned storied halls with din
of fire arms (acquired
from pennies on the dollar,
or bartered for a bottle of gin
within the underbelly (viz black market)
of society, where trigger happy jinn nee
as slaughter sans killing fields mount
with resignation vis a vis
tocollective shrugging shoulders prithee
and upend safe havens i.e. storied academic re:
deuce sing self preservation (UNFAIRLY)
to activist minded students tree
ting each day as a survivalist course, thus WE
as coined on legal tender (E Pluribus Unum)
MUST unite against love affair with pistols, no matter
one or more mere mortals
think Matthew Scott cray ZEE!
Tak oor grund from beneath oor hurdies
Burn oor birches aside the lough,
Besmirch hard fecht fur freedom,
Dictating oor days tae come,
No from the pint o a gun,
Fae laws an promises broken.
Lees an lees spout forth like watter
Lives expended as if they dinnae matter,
Feel the Jacobite spirit again,
Ready tae fecht like scotsmen again,
Like warrior poets risen from the glen,
Fae the mists o the past remember,
Oor freedom wis wun sending Edward hame,
Yon wis the past a new war begun noo,
No wi claymores ,targes an guns,
This time its ideals an Eton buffers,
Those who wid sell oor birthrights
Tae mak us slaves an servile peasants,
Using stealth ,treachery an unco ither weys
Rogues they be crooks ,cheats and thieves
Seeming beyond reproach wi things hidden
Frae us puir mortals aye they wull dae us doon,
Sic a time as this tae fecht fur whit is oors
Naw mair begging fur aa few scraps
Fae a table fu wi guid things ,
Scraps urny fur us we ur free loons
Burthit free an deeing we wull be free,
Ur ye ready tae rise yince agin?
Andrew P mcintyre 14/09/2020
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And what is time but a dream within a dream; this polarization, now standing at its edge....
Held atop the peak of HalfDomes gazing upon Curry's Village below as glancing across the sky
Towards El Capitan, while the rising winds begin to blow gently these, loves reflections!?
Speaking from heavens unseen chambers; pristine visions of the Merced Rivers white waters ~
Breaking upon the rocks down within the valley's painted floor as I begin to walk with, joyfuls
Angels by my side; gathering paradigms in moments amid this their panoramic views....
Afore and beyound the horizons in both here and now's, all that is and was and shall soon be
Crossing continents that have been bound by these, the open waters; history placed amid jars
Prisms to be kept upon the shelves imprisoned about darkness yet, its colours fading away ~
Birthrights; hypnotized to become mesmerized then lost along the way of why's and, life....
Disenchantment sold while crashing to the shores of their tales told, through tearful eyes?!
Standing atop HalfDome as looking upon Curry's Village below with, the winds of change blowing
Aneath El Capitan; an Angel beckoning joyfully myself across the way holding, Sacreds Heart ~
Carried from heavens unseen chambers its, paradigms pristine view; panoramics reflection....
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....“Polarizations Dreams * `Fly So Free'”
Our eyes are generally see brown, green or hazel
They appear soft and muted.
Undertone mustard rust golden brown
TRUE autumns have warm, rich, earthy, golden undertones.
The overall appearance is soft and muted.
A low to medium contrasting exists between nature’s grounds and skies
The view appears lighter than it seems
Seems like a undertone eye kaleidoscope
Falling leaves blown blowing in the wind
Marigold, golden brown terracotta, deep rust, burnt orange
Golden yellow blended, while in my eyes appears lighter than he grounds and skies which creates low to medium contrast.
All colors features are such a beautiful site
Beholding falls autumns bright
Onslaught winters birthrights
The lights of copper, burnt oranges leaves colors glow
Trees with leaves of warm apricot yellows and golden browns…beautiful
12/21/2022
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2022©
February 29th, 2020
alternately titled: 207th leap year since 1582
the year Pope Gregory XIII world leader
(i.e. essentially paterfamilias among
Roman Catholic flock)
timely maneuvered around calendrical rock
and hard space implementing
viable system tracking years ad hoc
out of sync and lock
step by one day
with astronomical calendar,
slated more'n acceptable tick tock
off kilter around the year of 4818
after common era making mock
re: regarding mankind organizing and
witnessing global chockablock
Democratic celebratory anniversary party
millenniums after Republican dynastic deadlock
thoroughly walled imponderable gridlock
worse fate than quaffing hemlock
practically snuffing out lock, stock
and barrel constitutional birthrights
thirteen original American
founding fathers ghosts experiencing shock
how initial inalienable rights
activists sacrificing life and limb
united with linkedin armlock
said freedom fighters shackled
within crowded jail moldering cinderblock
cold upon hemorrhoid riddle buttock
diehard libertarians unified, pilloried, denounced
legion with repulsion as Shylock
purported, reputed, touted playwright
(William Shakespeare's sited anti semite
The Merchant Of Venice) doth mock
Judaism in vogue four hundred plus years ago,
smoldering think white supremacists i.e. skinheads
violently aiming to knock
non Caucasians upside the head
courtesy pistol whip,
and/or emptying gunstock
into human flesh disenfranchise scaring up
one after another racial and/or ethnic aftershock
aforementioned celebrated bard unwittingly
strictly opinion of me:silly poet -
despite hashtagged as laughingstock,
(plus vitriolic objection taken)
voiced by Shakespearean expert defenders,
yours truly reckons mine thought provoking
regarding storied, lauded, and feted Globe theater
literary King my interpretations not crock.