Best Lineage Poems
forging
noble timeless art
brute strength and skill
reverence for the forces of fire
innate passion for working metal
precious knowledge passed down the ages
honoring with pride millennia of blacksmith ancestry
AP: Honorable Mention 2020
Discarded old car
Star on Grill
Still a Mercedes
Time takes age and does what it will
Man ages and wishes time to stand still.
There is infinite turning of the hands on a clock
As mortals we hear the constant tick-tock.
There is a human desire to leave something behind
Hoping our earthly possessions ease our greedy mind.
What is gathered on this planet of earth
Can not bring us back to our place of birth.
Helping others should be our lifetime goal
Not cluttering earth before you're put in a hole.
God gives us an ultimate rule
Love one another and not to be cruel.
If we really wish to leave something behind
Teach your children to give and to be kind.
Your legacy should not be what you can obtain
But what your lineage does each and everyday.
my weary heart knows this is going to hurt
our ancestors, our sons, and daughters too
I feel the fangs of dogs ripping their shirts
the hoses of hatred drowning our roots
the hats we wear those imperial crowns
will silence doubt and reveal our lessons
to fight on both legal and sacred ground
the art of war with non-lethal weapons
should we stand still and simply bow our heads
believe our woeful lot better than some
let us not pause to weigh what they have said
spirits of freedom might deem this loathsome
their words, their blows will forever be flung
we of color must never still our tongues
Between a castle and a moat
One small goat
Strays too far, too long
But nothing happens
Yet scared stiff, the goat is scared stiff
To see this beast, this terrible monster
The medieval lands have made him out to be
What can this beast do to prove
There is beauty beneath his sharp teeth
Beauty behind his scales
Beauty beyond the smoldering ash belonging to the distant corner of the cave
This goat retreats and the animal escapes again
For the fleeing goat will bring enraged villagers
Local pillagers who think it’s an ultimate title gain
To slay the beast which breathes in coal and spews the hottest fire
But the beast, far from majestic, contains neither dark deeds nor twisted motives
He is not part of his parents’ disgraceful lineage
The violent overtaking and burning down precious fields and wildlife
He believes it to be intolerable, unimaginable
And if he could, he would change his complicated anatomy
And happily breathe water, become a different animal of peace
But this is a curse from a destructive dragon lineage
That refuses to stop haunting a mercy-filled being
I speak
I am not heard
I cry you do not care
I scream into deaf ears until
you're grown
you're grown
in frustration your tears fall
you scream into deaf ear
your child -like you
I smile
Never forsake the lineage in which we
originated from because
the ancestors are watching us
Their eyes are on the sparrow
anticipating us to soar into
our excellence
Wash ourselves in their royalty
while remembering they were
kings and queens long before
they became slaves and strange fruit
Society wants to wipe the slate clean of
our heritage by pruning the limbs
of our family trees
waiting in the shadows for the
opportunity to kill it at the root
We cannot allow someone else's antidote
poison us with amnesia that may
cause us to forget the power
of our inheritance
We are much stronger
than they care to know
We must use our pens to flex the
muscle of our minds
Granting permission to build strength
enabling us to balance the truth
on our shoulders
Lets stand our ground and never fold
claim our titles as griots
and let our stories be told
It's up to us to lose the fear
Use the ink in our veins to
to go against the grain of
the lies they expect us to swallow
and washed down with our pride
--LaLa
©4-3-2020
The tree of life has roots to the beginning of time
infiltrating depths unfathomable
lost in the nebulae of bygone memories
the illusion of neat lines soon tangled in a fog
hiding stories obsolete and long forgotten
Diluted storytelling buried beneath fresh tales
and soon hazy with its clouded details
the feats out of mind fade into oblivion
facts turned to hearsay are cast aside
with stranded witnesses turned to dust
and players past and long forgotten
AP: 2nd place 2025
Submitted on May 17, 2025 to contest YOUR CHOICE R sponsored by BRIAN STRAND - Honorable Mention
With
earthly
green and blues,
his blended view
birthed
the
new way-
a bridge from
impressionist
art
to
abstract
expressions-
a father of
all
Ekphrasis 'Mont Sainte-Victoire by Cezanne
Their will be none to follow after
my footsteps tramped in the wheat,
no surname left to hear the laughter
no eye to see, no heart to beat.
Time will never stop its running
with sun and moon and touch of heat
like old stones lie in their sunning
not caring for the strong or weak.
By the drought or in the flood
storms of winter's wind-full passing
flowers of May and October’s mud
will matter to only lineages lasting.
Neither a hair nor drop of blood
not shade of eye or crest of bone.
Of myself I leave only love
and not my name to carry on.
A deep pink color tinged with orange like that of a flamingo
walking with our feet in shallow water
As I gazed upon the sunlight, dazed and bewildered
Squeezing the life out of us we believed them just like Adam and Eve
were cruelty taking over like cancer
Asking us to put on a mask and loose who we are
Manipulating our psycho
Playing tricks on us
Terrorising our souls
Hijacking our thoughts
Waving the flag singing the national anthem but they kept on firing the chili bullets mixed with ginger, cumin and oregano
They mow down a number of lives
Seeing the blood of my brothers and sisters smeared to my face
The trait of extreme cruelty
What a brutal barbarous savage act
The color of our flag painted with the blood of innocent people
They have being treated in a cruel and savage manner
My mind is still on replay trying to find answers
We are in agony of hopeless grief
We're griped by fear of failure and rejection
20.10.20 is the dressing code
Venue Lekkitollgate
As they danced and rejoice by sipping the blood of young Nigerians
What they asked for was just a new Nigeria
The mistakes of our past will not hold us
Surrounded by demons on our left and angels on our right
You can't mute us
We're on a rescue mission to save our fatherland
@bint__abdolrahman
My grand father
is a father to my father,
and my grand mother
is a mother to my mother.
Today iam a father,
a father to my children
and my wife is a mother,
a mother to them.
One day or one time,
i will be a grand father
and my wife
will be a grand mother.
Oh, that's what i call a lineage.
In These Days, We Prayed
.
**************************
The Curse On My Linage
Oh linage
I now sit and wonder,
why thou have grown so slow in progress
And wasteful in resources.
Ah!
Then i realize our great forebears
Laid too numerous generational
Curses on us all, curses
That now beat the drums of
Our imminent downfall;
But centuries ago,
People from other tribes, settlements and regions
Couldn't compare our civilization to theirs.
None were as open minded and learned like us.
Brethren from our linage
Were so admired and envied.
Our glory days murdered by hunger...
While other clansmen took advantages
Of every given opportunity to help better
Their brothers and promote tribal unity.
Our rich uncles and aunties grew cold
Towards their own countryman mos
And watch them decline to the statuses
Of house keepers, mild slaves,scammers
For greed and self centeredness
Corrupts absolutely.
Hunger now creeps through the land;
Our land, 'This house is not for sale'
Beware of my first son, Osakue.
Tribalism
Our best excuse yet as a people,
When our growth is compared to others;
Who planted seeds of love,
And are mos reaping it
We promoted self interest
This Curse (HATE)
Our days of reckoning...
GHOPS...
ES
Honeycombed crocks, like patterns
On an old quilt
Start and pause without reason
Long dandied extravagant Peacocks
Strut below airships rising above
Pale blue seas…dust has no taste
Light reflects off shadows of rouge
Rubbed rough by tears
Only today matters.... white caps roiling
Over loyalty, held for centuries,
Never released,
………never released
© All Rights Reserved
I am a son of the verse and the word,
the spoken and written word...
I am the fruit of platonic love
between carnation and rose...
in truth I am made
of meat and flowers,
bones and dreams,
muscle, blood and truth,
and mostly I'm made
of poetic immateriality
that is poetry...!