Best Merchandise Poems
The children, O God, the children,
this world unworthy of their grace,
their innocence, their trusting faith,
vulnerable babes of each race.
Why do men and women abuse
these who are freshly come from You,
making of them foul merchandise
to increase evil revenues,
in all the world, in each nation,
sacrificed for wicked purpose
on aberrant lust's cold altar,
acts in man's perverted circus.
Where is the cry for the children--
abused, starved, murdered, raped, enslaved?
My heart bleeds for the innocents,
to rescue them, make our hearts brave!
© Faye Lanham Gibson, May 5, 2015
In your mind you conclude that
'this one is a dried bone'.
And you look at me as if am alone,
But i have got back bone that makes
Me rise.
I rise! for i am the glittering shining rising star.
I am the African sunrise
I am the future surprise
I am the poetic merchandise
The most wanted prejudice
The lightening ink that thunders rebuke
At your envious heart.
I am the black talking drum,
Talking, making sense as in twisting
Your brain until it starts learning to make sense.
Does my boldness frighten you?
Why restless when am stress less?
Why do you freeze when i breeze in?
You device means to see am falling
But if i fall i will rise more rooted,
Sure footed, like a tree in the swamp.
Till tomorrow or even till i finally mellow
However, i rise.
Though is not by my strength, i'm only a serving vessel.
Out of thatch huts and bamboo fence
Emerged the future modeling art.
Banana boy from hot black soil,
To become a glorious star.
Who cares if you like it or doubt it or not to admit
That my prophetic poetic tonic makes your brain
Charge like alcoholic toxic.
However, i rise...
I rise like a balloon going high high...
Like Maya Angelou,
I rise! i rise! !
...dedicated to Hart Crane (1899-1932)
As I dream the sounds of morning sliver,
cut my senses; slow, persistent slices
pierce my eyes to ragged wakefulness.
The muffled cries of merchant hustle and
the honking of the traffic, the noises of
a summer's day displace my reveries.
I wake, and through my window I see
barges in the harbour, bustling like
beetles, scuttling over busy waters,
dragging ships with overflowing cargoes
safe to rest - the dockhands primed
and ready to disgorge the merchandise,
as sunshine washes monoliths of steel
and glass in dazzling refinement - Manhattan
like a mass of golden bars, smoldering and tall.
Steam and smoke engulf a vibrant scene
encompassing, then drifting into nothingness,
the sky a blazing blue, the docks a maze
of rarified activity as yelling fills the air.
Beams irradiate my garret - drafts of bright
and humid air like punches in the stomach
take the breath out of my lungs and leave me
gasping. I sit and watch you sleeping on the bed.
You stretch atop the covers like a vision,
your legs and arms a picture in repose;
I do not dare to wake you from your dreams,
your limbs splayed like a strumpet, you expose
your naked form, my touch will flutter your desire.
your body 'wrapped in mine,
our souls a living sacramen
to love and joy divine.
I enter you and all the stars explode,
fulfillment is our quest,
our shining testament.
As evening gently falls the windows glimmer,
the city glistens now from altered light;
the glowing falters as the sun dips slowly,
dying in the West, makes way for night.
Activity's still rife, but in my garret,
I reach for you as darkness settles soft,
I hold you in my arms, forever blessed,
while stars are quietly dancing up aloft.
PRICELESS Me
Satan, Im priceless you cant put that price on me
This beautiful structure GOD has created simply does not have a fee
So all that you proclaim to offer theres no need you see
I can send up all my requests and receive them by getting down on bended knees
As I reflect back on my past when everything about me was a fee
And my entire mentality was driven by nothing but currency
I rendered you my soul
And just then my whole life had took its toll
I started chasing and lusting wealth
Which had become so detrimental to my health
I lost all my sense of reasoning my direction, visions and goals I was no longer seeing
I was brought with a pricetag on my head
But realistically I was living as the dead
When my sole purpose was to benefit the family I once led
Eventually you would place a huge dent in me
Incarceration has found me and grief surrounds me
As your merchandise and due to your purchase I allowed you to depreciate my value
You were persistently attracting, while consistently attacking
But know I landed back in my original owners hands, who initially gave me life
With instructions for no strife
New birth, My worth
Recognizing all that he created me to be without a price or a fee
Your wicked ramifications that had once followed
Mournfully, tormented me my family and friends suffering is what we had swallowed
And as your merchandise
I still had to pay my own price
While your plans were to dismantle, distract and corrupt
Here I sit stuck in the prison system on my but
Satan, I have just a few more words “IM PRICELESS”
I cant be bought thats the lesson that I was taught
No longer am I living in hell because my soul is not for sell
No longer a commodity my merchant is now GOD
And he is who embodies me.
PRICELESS ME
(Mark 8:36) And how does a man benefit if he gains the whole world and loses his soul in the process?
...dedicated to Hart Crane (1899-1932)
As I dream the sounds of morning sliver,
cut my senses; slow, persistent slices
pierce my eyes to ragged wakefulness.
The muffled cries of merchant hustle and
the honking of the traffic, the noises of
a summer's day displace my reveries.
I wake, and through my window I see
barges in the harbor, bustling like
beetles, scuttling over busy waters,
dragging ships with overflowing cargoes
safe to rest - the dock hands primed
and ready to disgorge the merchandise,
as sunshine washes monoliths of steel
and glass in dazzling refinement - Manhattan
like a mass of golden bars, smoldering and tall.
Steam and smoke engulf a vibrant scene
encompassing, then drifting into nothingness,
the sky a blazing blue, the docks a maze
of rarified activity as yelling fills the air.
Beams irradiate my garret - drafts of bright
and humid air like punches in the stomach
take the breath out of my lungs and leave me
gasping. I sit and watch you sleeping on the bed.
You stretch atop the covers like a vision,
your legs and arms a picture in repose;
I do not dare to wake you from your dreams,
your limbs splayed like a starlet, you expose
your naked form, my touch will flutter your desire.
your body 'wrapped in mine,
our souls a living sacrament
to love and joy divine.
I enter you and all the stars explode,
fulfillment is our quest,
our shining testament.
As evening gently falls the windows glimmer,
the city glistens now from altered light;
the glowing falters as the sun dips slowly,
dying in the West, makes way for night.
Activity's still rife, but in my garret,
I reach for you as darkness settles soft,
I hold you in my arms, forever blessed,
while stars are quietly dancing up aloft.
She was strength and magic
Timeless and tragic
She was diamonds and dust
Just when you had her attention you lost her trust.
Refined and dignified
Reclusive and mystified.
She was a mystery and a disaster
She wouldnt like if you asked her
Fine wines and old books
Embroidered vintage scarves and large sunglasses
Yes she has the looks.
Jewelery from the island of St. Isadore
So you thought as she hides her face when leaving the thrift store
Elegance and poise
Brief glances and small responses never any noise
She would breeze past you in a busy place
You could forget everything except her expressionless face
Her eyes straight forward she never saw you there
Yet her intended avoidance was apparent in her indirect stare
She would angrily stab the cobblestones at the small street market with her red high heels so you knew she was near
She would hold fake credit cards so her facade would keep you in envy and fear.
She would examine the market merchandise as if she had no interest or desire
She was fueled by the ice in her fire
You could try to approach maybe offer a drink or meal
With one cold rejection your heart would fail to heal.
She was a local story and lie
She was a social write off but we never saw her cry
She wanted us to believe in her made up shine
I watch her walk away to the woods
I remember when that life was mine.
We’re complaining about life and throwing food away,
But there’s nearly 800 million people going hungry in the world today.
Over 150 million children involved in child labour worldwide,
And Innocent people are being killed right now due to genocide.
More than 80 million working in hazardous conditions,
While women in the middle-east are victims to old-age traditions.
Celebrities in restaurants paying a hundred dollars for a dinner,
While kids in third world countries just keep getting thinner.
More than twenty percent of children in Asia and Africa are underweight for their age,
And some are so malnourished, you can actually see their rib cage.
Kids in sweatshops are paying the ultimate price,
Just so we can wear fancy Nike merchandise.
They’re digging for coltan in the Congo while being worked to the bone,
So think about that when your texting on your blackberry phone.
And how can you be happy with the world that we’re living in?
When people are getting murdered due to the colour of their skin.
We need to break down racial barriers because we all breathe the same air,
We need to show more respect for each other and learn how to care.
Human life is worth more than paper but some are obsessed with greed.
Life is about caring for each other, so why take more than we need?
We can still be happy without materialistic treasures,
It’s time to wake up and relish small pleasures.
We are all the same, we are all equal,
We are all human, we are all people.
So why can’t we all work together and try to live peaceful,
We’re only here once, in life there’s no sequel.
I’m trying not to get emotional but it’s just too tough,
Humanity please wake up, enough is enough.
They travel
Distances
To work at the new factory
At the mall
To sell
To persuade
To show
To ring up sales
To stock shelves
And keep merchandise neat and attractive.
Customers
Look
Touch
Examine
Feel and perhaps
Buy.
Standing on their feet
Workers wonder
How does an
An $8.00 an hour job
Minus benefits
Zero coverage
Negative career
Compute
In their lives?
Their parents had jobs
Some for thirty years
In a real workplace
Free from outsourcing
Goods made in China
High unemployment
And foreclosures.
The store mannequin tells workers to break it up
Back to their counters
To do what they’re being paid for
But there is much more beneath the surface of his words
A threat
Real or imagined
The workers listen
Because there is nowhere to go
Nothing else to do.
In the new economy.
The young have energy
To organize
To demonstrate
To petition
For real change
Time is on their side
For a better tomorrow.
We lost our “UMOJA”, the basic concept and core value of our being “We, therefore, I am”, at the time of our history that began some 300 years ago. We didn’t step on the soil of New World with a dream like many others, but hauled on the ground like a cargo as merchandise. We were each treated individually as a unit but not tied as a family or group bonded together by the same dialect.
Misery was the food we’d been feeding to fill our empty stomach, agony was the water we’d been drinking to quench our thirst, depth of our footmarks were the weights we’d been carrying, our lives were trial after trial of thorny path. No matter how hard we worked, our baskets were empty. No matter how much we labored, returns of our toils were unbearable lashes. No matter how humbly we begged and ardently prayed, God always turned His face away from us.
But all those detestable days are gone as second millennium faded away. Shackles of curse are removed from our neck and wrists. Our burdens are removed from our back. The reward of our day’s of labor is reasonable wage. Why don’t we embrace one another with joy because only thing remain is our determination.
As daybreak sun is rising from yonder horizon, our darkest day has passed; for daybreak light is brighter than ever and pleasant as spring breath, we have good reason to celebrate for a moment. Nevertheless, don’t prolong the time of festival because it may make you stray from reality and to dwell in farfetched world.
As long as you don’t fold the wings but spread wide and keep flapping them, though sometimes encountering high wind, you can fly higher than the highest ridges of a mountain. If you keep swimming upstream, though you may confront falls and rapids, you’ll come to your old home where your parents risked their lives to spawn and enable you to hatch from an egg one day, and rejoice overflowing water in the ocean to gladden your life. If you dart with a swift gallop not abandoning tomorrow’s dream, no matter how immeasurably vast is the wilderness, you’ll reach the horizon before sun sinks into the other side of the world.
It’s the time to restore our “UMOJA” a laudable custom once we lost during our darkest days, recover “UMOJA” our ancestral heritage the good moral standard to sustain “I as us.”
The alleyways within the maze are paved with rats and mice.
Evangelists with moneyed fists collect the sacrifice
from losers scorned and rubes reborn, and promise paradise,
while in the back they cook some crack, inhale, and roll the dice.
A bum called Boe has stubbed his toe, he’s stumbled in the gutter;
with broken neck, he looks a wreck, the sparrows all aflutter,
the passers-by, they close an eye, and turn their heads and mutter:
“Let’s pray for rains to wash the lanes, to clear away the clutter.”
A river slows neath mountain snows, and leaves begin to shudder.
Though rip-off shops and crooked cops are paid not once but thrice,
the painted girl with flaxen curl is paring down her price
and loosely tempts cold hands unkempt to touch the merchandise.
A crazy guy cries “where am I”, a schizo titters twice,
and double quick a lunatic affects a fight with lice.
The jungle teems, a siren screams, the air is filled with meth.
The Reverent Priest and nuns unleash the Holy Shibboleth.
And Righteous Jane who is insane, as well as Sister Beth,
while telling tales to no avail of everlasting death,
at least imbue Hagg Avenue with whisky on their breath.
The Reverent Priest combats the Beast, they’re kneeling down to prey,
to fight the truth with fang and tooth, to toil for yesterday,
to etch their mark within the dark, to paint their résumé
on shrouds and sheets which then completes the devil’s dossier.
Old dan, he's drunk and in a funk, all mired in the mud.
A Monk begins to wash Dan’s sins, and asks “How are you, Bud?”
“I’m feeling pain and crying rain till soon there is a flood.
And no god’s there who seems to care I’m always coughing blood.”
The Monk, he turns, Dan’s words he spurns and lets the bible thud.
Well, Banjo Boy, he will annoy with jangled rhymes that fray:
“The clanging bells of carousels lead blind men’s minds astray
to rings of gold they’ll never hold in fingers made of clay.
But crest and crown will crumble down, when withered roots decay.”
Continued
Captured like game.
Branded like cattle.
Herded like sheep
Treated Like cargo, and defects where thrown in the deep.
Certified merchandise
"***** show me your teeth"
Murder guys who don't hold their own; no hope for the weak
"You better dig deep,
Cause I don't care about your suffer and strife"
If you were advanced then your people would have fought for your life
Instead of human trafficking there own, for goods from the whites
Besides your black.
You can never have rights"
As a result most blacks are poor, and still seen as less.
A people unsure of themselves,
A race in distress
It cuts deep,
Like whips on the back of the slaves
Whose grandchildren still fade in the land of the brave.
But I am a diaspora man
An African with habits of an Anglo Saxon clan
Racial discrimination still spans this land
But still I rise, brother give me your hand
Mike Concise 2009 ©
www.mikeconcise.com
One Halloween night as the tired Gran, was
Putting her wee little darlings to bed at last,
The youngest begged her for a bed time story,
Make it scary grandma, please, oh please,
Just one story?
Scary she said, to the wee little lad, well
Then you will go to bed without a fight.
For your Gran is tired on this night
Of fright, the tiny wreck agreed, I will her
Grandson whole heartedly did, promise,
And thus begins our tall tale my spooky,
Friends!
Did you ever hear about the Halloween night
When the old witch had her enchanted pillow
Case was stolen, by a mischievous child?
At first it seemed just a harmless prank,
The youngster went house to house,
Begging as the others did, trick or treat,
Did the lad shout out, and each gave him
A tasty sweet treats confection.
But as the night wore on people started
To run out of their goodie candies delectable
Gifts, but the pillow case wanted more!
At the last house on the young lads block,
The lady beneath the lamp light post,
Shouted to him, sorry son I’m all out,
Better luck next year!
Then just pillow case began to twist and shift,
At hearing this ill news, the child didn’t
Understand what was happening, he
Realized the bag had a hold of him,
And would not allow the child to
Release his grip?
Give me candy or your life will I
So take, what a trick to play on this
Halloween night, the pillow case
Spoke in an eerily haunted voice!
But there is no more the child shakenly,
Replied then it’s your life.
Then just then, in a swishing flash
In swishing flash, the witch came down
From the darker side of the moon.
Bad pillow case, what have you done,
I’ve come to take you home with me,
From this thieving son of humanity!
The lad was instantly released,
As the old hag retrieved her stolen
Merchandise, I’m sorry, so sorry,
The child spoke shakenly, I won’t
Ever do anything like this again,
I so promise, and vow?
As the witch flew away, she said
Next time I’ll let my pillow case eat
You child of man, as she hackled
With a witchery laugh!
Oh my Gran, I’m too scared to sleep
Now, the old gran looked at her
Grandson, and politely spoke, go
To sleep young man, or I’ll get out
My pillow case, it’s hungry and wants
Something sweet to eat, then she so did
Laugh, with an eerie cackle, herself!
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
A wooden carving of a regal and grand horse stands,
outside to greet and usher customers into the dim.
The windows are a cluttered chaos of assorted things,
all beckoning and charming me to venture in.
The light is dappled and the corners lost in shadows,
aisles are narrow and navigation is so treacherous.
I like a box of odd books, some new and some old,
wondering why someone let these perfect gems go.
Most of the merchandise is too expensive for this girl,
but sometimes a treasure is awaiting my contemplation.
One mismatched plate, perhaps, or an old poetry book,
I love to ponder jewelry flamboyant, garish and gaudy.
The entire store is filled with odd, mismatched things,
I visit an ornate dressing table each time I visit there.
Imagining that it resides in my very own sparse room,
it is a journey into the unknown each time for sure.
_____________________
June 21, 2013
Poetry/Verse/The Door Is Open
Copyright Protected, ID 06-487-555-21
All Rights Reserved, 2013, Constance La France
I’ve a vast store of mem’ries about Chicago
as I’ve lived there for a couple of years
helping out in the parish of many immigrants,
especially Mexicans and Puerto Ricans.
I’ve made friends and a number of them
still continue to correspond by emails;
it’s like a treasure-trove of relationships -
where friendship makes a big difference.
I still remember when I get invitations
from people of other cultures in their homes;
their different cuisines and customs,
a great experience, a wealth of culture.
Chicago’s known for many attractions,
home of architecture with modern skyscraper
the neo-gothic Tribune Tower in the north
along with white Wrigley building in the city;
rich in architectural history, a sight to behold!
Its classic and modern architecture so far,
complements each other in visible terms,
with innovative ideas and creative designs
a special city with marvelous history.
Daniel Burnham, the famed architect,
designed the Merchandise Mart and others
significant to his life like ‘Paris on the Prairie’,
a tapestry of combined art of old and new.
Renowned architects with their respective styles
such as Frank Lloyd Wright and his prairie designs,
Louis Sullivan and his visible ornate facades
Ludwig Miles van der Rohe for modern styles.
Oh, Chicago, known also as the Windy City
so rich in history and its uniqueness too,
the time when a huge fire razed the city
destroyed lovely buildings in 1871.
Well, with the growing skyscrapers in the city
Chicago Spire, for instance, with its 150 stories
designed by a renowned architect Calatrava,
stands as the tallest building in North America.
With the so-called Trump Tower in its 92 stories
and then, Waterview Tower with its 90 stories,
Sears Tower, the skyscraper with its 110 stories,
that’s the only tallest among buildings in the U.S.
Oh well, this is Chicago in the landscape of beauty,
as a windy city, as well as a gateway to reality;
there’s meaning to trace back in history
there’s continuing progress towards this century.
It's time for the
Fall clearance sale
along the urban trail.
Your last chance
for real bargains in
summer leaves,
acorn seeds and
English walnuts,
Summer hopes and
dreams of full bellies
to last the winter,
lazy rivers and the
last blackberries,
much has already
gone to decay,
grasses and late leaves
spin in the first cool breezes,
some, were washed into mud
in last nights drizzle.
Prices cut drastically,
we must move this merchandise now
so we can bring in the winter line.
Now, now, now,
is the time for the last
warm fantasy, prices are slashed,
before the sun sinks lower
and cold shadows usher
in the winter pelts.