Best Prejudice Poems
I hate
your brownness
your whiteness,
your blackness
your freeness
I don’t care about niceness
I’m more partial to meanness
I’m all the things bad
ugly and cruel
my venom pure evil
I’m partial to a fool
No one is safe
no not Christian or Jew
If you’re Buddhist or Muslim
I will hate you too
Richer or poorer
or shades in between
I will exploit your weakness
That’s always been my scene
Woman or man
Transsexual or gay
those straight as an arrow
they’ll all forget to pray
Fear and deception
are the tools of my trade
Sometimes the water looks calm
but it’s a trap I have laid
Love is the weapon
I most truly despise
Because it reveals who I am
and it opens your eyes
"America First",
is the worst.
Should not thinking of others,
be your thirst?
Those who are selfish,
end up being cursed!
Soon they'll be last,
instead of first.
Who among you,
prefers guns and war?
Do you really have freedom,
shore to shore?
If most have less,
are you happy with more?
Should the privileged few,
be guarding the door?
Protectionism,
rots you to the core.
In the end,
you won't know who it's for?
What does it mean,
to be "Great Again"?
I'll listen to learn,
try your best to explain!
Were there fields of cotton and sugarcane?
Was it back of the bus perfect,
everyone staying in their own lane?
A pain striped passport,
for those on the soul train.
If you know the truth,
please speak it plain.
I want to find great,
I've wracked my brain.
Whose America are you trying to regain?
How far do the ripples spread, when eventually we die
Probably stay in the locality, level off, no major outcry
But let’s say we’re famous, suffering unexplained death
The ripples keep expanding, growing further in breadth
See the grotesque nature of spin, is to overplay a scene
Garnishing public outrage, lurid pictures fill our screens
Playing to an audience, ratings become the holy grail
Stories without embellishments, grow tiresomely stale
These ripples are an illusion, imagination going berserk
Carried along by a corrupt deception, truth been shirked
Evidence the one requirement, for establishing all facts
I extrapolate backwards, what the hell there’s no splash
Lines converge into partial truths, confused to a degree
Must be taken with a pinch of salt, querying what I see
Even this soup we enjoy, is manipulated and massaged
Most of the poems are quite good, others form a mirage
Taken out of context a rectangle, can become a square
Brought into focus, desolate pictures, not quite so bare
What’s basically a clean stab, or slash across the wrist
When poets stick in the knife, some give it a good twist
Using poetry for a hidden agenda, political or otherwise
Tantamount to mind-numbing crap, seen in the tabloids
If your going to post propaganda, to further some game
Write it on toilet paper, wipe off, that’s all you’ve gained
By
David Kavanagh
You thought you had me figured out
Before you knew my name
Cause you're you and you're unsatisfied
That I am not the same
You'll never change the way I love
And you can fight for you're dominion
But I'm worth a million times the weight
Of a dogmatist's opinion
I know that all that you can see
Is a stereotype of me
All that you thought I'd ever be
Is a stereotype of me
Did you ever think that you could see me
Past the prejudice you hold
I'm not the picture you created
I'm not the things that you were told
You're voice is long since dead to me
I won't even be provoked
When it hurt you to see me smile
The things you said went up in smoke
I know that all that you can see
Is a stereotype of me
All that you thought I'd ever be
Is a stereotype of me
By: Kyle Ezra Kriticos
I am strong
You may simply disregard me
with your arrogant throng
You may treat me with disrespect
I'm still here, I am strong
Why don't you like it when I succeed?
Why can't you be happy for me?
I walk on air, confidently
so, foot loose and fancy free
Just like hope and like faith
and the sureness of birdsong
I know where I belong...
I am strong
Did you want me to be shaking
so scared and all alone?
Feeling lost and so abandoned
with nowhere to call my home?
Does my happiness distress you?
Does it make you feel upset?
That I'm at peace lovin' myself
Livin' life without regret?
You may shred me with sarcasm
You can say I don't belong
You can hate me with your jealousy
But still, like iron, I'm strong
Does my confidence disturb you?
Can you not visualize?
That my words are captivating
and the crowds they mesmerize?
From ancestral farmers sowing seed
I am strong
From hardy men of faith who believed
I am strong
I'm a true wordsmith, spinning words so true
weaving and knitting, as true poets do.
Never giving in to fear or to doubt
I am strong
I know what the love of God is about
I am strong
Building on the faith my forefathers had
I encourage the weak, make their hearts glad
I'm strong
I'm strong
I'm strong
John Derek Hamilton
August 17,2016
If 2012 prophesies prove true
And Earth’s life cycles again renew
Mysteries of man will be more than a few
Challenges may await future life forms
With intellects far surpassing our norm
Created to live without doing harm
For if they decipher man’s history
What will they make of our great mystery
The one we refer to as bigotry
Black labs, gold retrievers live side by side
Wild stallions and mustangs on prairies ride
Both red ants and black, free to colonize
Man’s refusal to accept differences
To wiser beings may make no sense
What in man’s makeup can give it credence?
Earth’s subsequent creatures may reproduce
Not needing two sexes to call a truce
So mating rituals may be pursued
A single-sex species might not comprehend
Why women workers were paid less than men
And why “free speech” was not just a given
Questions would most certainly arise
How a believer in God denies
Rights to free worship without compromise
And how could so many wars be waged
Evoking God’s name in death-march crusades
With killing, torturing in every age
Indeed such mysteries in man’s history
Would leave a perplexing legacy
Sure to confound any new species
New cultures may thrive on diversity
Of religion and genealogy
And speak of our inferiority
Note: This is dedicated to Christopher Higgins whose poems about prejudice inspire readers
to do more than just think about one of the greatest ills in our society.
Be quiet quiet quiet
Shush shush shush
We’ve spoken too much
We haven’t listened enough
Black men and women
It’s not easy to be brave
Oppression and inequality
make you feel like a slave
Your struggles are constant
Beyond what we realize
What we take for granted
Should be a right not a prize
Stand tall men of principal
take to the streets
Chant Black Lives Matter
Share your beliefs
We’ll be quiet quiet quiet
Shush shush shush
We’ve spoken too much
We haven’t listened enough
Change shoulda come
So long before today
Our river of cruelty
is still on display
Brother Malcom X
Joined with Muhammad Ali
Their life force and bodies
Cried out for humanity
Then Sam Cooke sang to us
“Brother help me please”
So why are his people
knocked back on their knees?
Jim Brown broke boundaries
While playing on uneven ground
Later movie star and activist
Why has his voice had no sound?
So yes be quiet quiet quiet
Shush shush shush
We’ve spoken too much
We haven’t listened enough
I wrote this piece after watching “One Night in Miami”.
The struggle is real!
I can’t breathe
still in my shackles
no chance to escape my isolation
cries of anguish emancipated
from an awareness that is unfree
the stain is but human made
a long history of human trade
Humanity dehumanised
and put to shame..
I can’t breathe
air is not for free
I have to pay the fee
the earth does not to me belong
It is not my right of birth
as if my breed had done something wrong!
for water, I have to dig wells and pits
as I am denied rivers, lakes and seas..
what shall I do to stay alive?
peel my skin!
for you to admire my drive?!
How would I,
hate, contempt, intolerance.. survive?!
I can’t breathe
deep are my roots
my heart, a mine of diamond
why don’t you see my immense wealth?!
why do you still confiscate my breath?!
and deprive my six and five
of a mundane dream and desire
of being decent and upright
why I have to pay a disastrous price?
my own flesh and blood a sacrifice!
I can’t breathe
Humanity still can’t breathe
a “house divided”
souls of shades moaning under sins weight
a sacred “eternal Truth” deafened
unfree souls kept pending
a body bleeding
a severe infection persisting
In need of breath, Love and Trust
I need to seal my chest bruises, heal my tortured soul
and regain my Oneness
my cause is just.
I can’t breathe
Long ago, a man named human had a dream
the emancipation spirit into his mind remained seared
“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”
in the promised Earth with a mine of Justice
“Justice, a reality for all of God’s children”..
Now, it is high time I won back my right
and freedom I could breathe
I have a mission beyond what you see of my skin
let me breathe and unveil the beauty within
I Can’t Breathe
A song of a poet
as peace deserted my mind
and ache resided in my heart
My words that couldn’t remain silent
flowed to reach your Hearts.
* My humble work is a voice I couldn't suppress and I wanted to share with my dear fellow poets and friends on Poetrysoup in the contest sponsored by Richard Lamoureux but couldn't compose it in time.
Before I scarred the page
Raging what your letters cannot invent
Let me invite you to other books
I wrote before you owed me wage
For all maladjustment and discontent
Tettering on tentacles on hooks
Invite you to an open age
Of change and discourse transfigurment.
In a quiet moment read again
Shards of clay and artefacts beyond
A material functional disdain.
Look at the words like old bones
Bringing chromosomal tablets to rinse
The eyes of prejudices and conceit
You may wince
At what your arrogance did delete.
I have winced for years in broken jars
Unleashing rivulets of tears
For I gave you humanity as a gift, stars
Gave you dust and vessel for it
Time etched your abuse against this spirit
As you idolized barren observations
As if them alone could tell truths
Without the presence of experience.
Strange how you so prone to the material
Destroyed so much of its substance
In us. Yet it is inescapbale in the footprints of dust
The chromosomal bridges in our bodies
Linking us, reaffirming the gift again
Documents on my body like a stain
Irreducible by Mercator's illusions
There is no survival without the spiritual.
After protests, marches, firehoses and ropes
Still hanging from leftover branches of fear
I have earned the right to forgive you
The inherent gift make me your brother, here.
So now let us turn the map upside down
And draw again the latitudes unbending
In a straight line to your old thoughts,
Can we agree about the silence of the moon
Is a prohibiting noise in our head, a blind despair.
In our Asian-cum-Eastern land
No one prefers or admires
the dark-skinned or tanned
Gosh, as if the fair-skinned alone
belonged to the so-called fairer sex
And here, 'black is beauty' a phrase unheard
All falling for the light skinned almost in reflex!
Bachelors on the hunt for a non-fictional Asian 'Snow-white'
Even an ugly heart will do if the skin is white, pale and light
For them lighter skin tis brighter and better at beauty
even if superficial and skin-deep
The dark-skinned maidens thereby left single to weep
But while the ebony dark- pigmented
go on applying whitening and lightening creams
The white Westerners frequented
the sunlit beaches for dark tans from sun beams!
So in westerners females wish to look browned and tanned
Thus the opposite is preferred
so to that end they may sun bathe for hours on beach sand
Ah and though from the point of view of my motherland
I am luckier that God chose
to model me from a peachy whiter lighter clay,
I still feel this tug-of-war between complexions
needn't really join the fray.
For when you and I glance at Naomi Campbell
we know beauty can be white, brown and black as well
Like love, beauty knows no colour, creed or race
As proved by this gorgeous black supermodel.
Besides, we all have come across
both dark-skinned angelic saints
and fair-skinned folks with sinner's taints
Ah, Black Beauty, or Fair and lovely
Beauty has never known any bounds
For God He distributed beauty rather equally
No argument can last on these grounds
Oh, a soulmate's inner beauty ought to be earnestly sought
Too bad lustful passions fall for those merely outwardly hot!
In my mother's eyes I see my hero
I know fear is far at bay
In her words I feel protection
In her smile I see my face
Because She has loved me first
before anybody else
She carried me till the ninth month
so very close to heart
She breathed life into my lungs
Held my hand within her palms
Showed me guidance in every way
Made me who I am today
In my mother's eyes I see my hero
I know fear is far at bay
In her words I feel protection
In her smile I see my face
Her arms are always open
so I can curl within
For her I'm always special
Without my need to win
Her soul ever a rainbow
in hues of humankind
For She carries no prejudice
amongst the black and white.
In my mother's eyes I see my hero
I know fear is far at bay
In her words I feel protection
In her smile I see my face
Our days , lunchbox of memories
filled with tender loving care
Past nights, eternal bookmarks
of her fingers playing gently with my hair.
I know one time I'll wake up
in a world of all alone
In the stars I'd have to find her
because mama won't be home.
In my mothers eyes I see my hero
knowing fear is far at bay
In her words I feel protection
In her smile I see my face.
Not for the contest , but for those interested there is a contest about mum by Francine Roberts.
Sweet Talkers of the Devil
Reptiles in human suits are the true sweet talkers of the devil,
and are well known among the various societies in our world
as slick, sleek actors who fancy the breaking of common law
virtues by their actions in supporting ungodly acts of a real
form of reprehensible separatism that opposes all that is right
and true under God’s eyes in civilized human society.
These malefic actors are the perfect humanoid reptiles for
spreading their surreptitious message of greater autonomy
in the world as they seek to divide and conquer all people
in human societies with their notion and true intention of
setting back the real, hard-earned historical progress that
mankind has achieved over the centuries that have been
marked by war, strife, prejudice, tyranny, nonsense, and
utter debauchery.
What’s at stake you might ask? Think of the implications
of the negative actions proffered and foisted upon all
innocent people worldwide. Think about all the progress
mankind has achieved over the centuries while having to
confront and to defeat the uncanny forces of deception,
darkness, and true evil.
Beware of the Sweet Talkers of the Devil!
Gary Bateman and Liam McDaid
Copyright © All Rights Reserved
November 1, 2021 (Narrative)
What Would Wallis Say?
What would Wallis say if she were there that day,
a divorcee too, American through and through?
Did she offensively blink when Diana winked?
She and Adolf were friends. Let’s not pretend.
Her man was the King, who discarded all things
to take her as wife, this love of his life.
In that space of time, divorce was a crime
so, he put down The Crown when Wallis was found.
Life was no fairytale but great love did prevail.
Ugly words were said and ugly words they read.
Socialites all the style in unspoken exile.
What would Wallis say if she were there that day?
Would she turn up her chin in a bigoted grin
or grow greatly dazed by the change of ways?
Do you think she’d be glad that this woman had
been loved and accepted where she was rejected?
5/29/18
I have an aversion to prejudice
Judging a pond without sampling its ice
Consorting with others eating large melons
Passersby judged as free men or felons
Women condemned as whores or harlots
While tormenting men turn the air scarlet
Then sit in the pews reserved for the saintly
Ogle the preacher’s wife ever so daintily
For judgement you see is a way to look down
On those, as they pass, on which you may frown
Knowing that god has made you superior
When in truth you couldn’t kiss their posterior
For consciousness doesn’t offer correction
Unless you can make a change of direction
That is, of course, dependent upon
How much of the ice you take from the pond
I thought anger was a negative emotion
to be avoided at all costs.
Then I thought about the oppressed.
Anger grew inside of me.
I chose to act upon that anger.
I used my voice to speak against the oppressor.
Even so, I measured my motivation
tempered my response with love and wisdom.
My desire, beyond the lust for recognition.
If my words gain recognition,
I will purposefully pass them to the oppressed.
Their stature and power shall rise.
Their voices will gain resonance.
It is not their guilt and shame to hold.
Prejudice is a horse without a rider.
Fear and hate power its hooves.
Sadness flows through its mane.
Righteous Anger must take the reins.
Once again the oppressed will have pride.
There will be no aversion to kindness.
Greed will be replaced by generosity.
To go against the will of God
will be counted as an embarrassment.
A new light will shine upon the world.
Peace and purpose are indeed possible.
Unseeking Seeker’s “Consciousness Correction” Poetry Contest. Written November 22, 2023.