Best Shantytown Poems
Rising sun out of the east,
Falls on the early morning on Riverside,
A shantytown just yonder of Laiser Hill,
A posh estate under Ngong Hills,
And there on shanty Riverside,
They wake up like they always do,
It is another day that may brim with trouble,
Still it is another day nonetheless,
And so they hurry along like they always do,
They might earn a dollar or less today,
And just barely feed the little mouths tonight,
But at high noon high the little mouths will wait,
Maybe the noon high will go down easy today,
Let their hungry tongues patiently wait,
Till Mummy, maybe Daddy comes home,
With that dollar or less for tonight,
If not it will be just like like last night,
Little tummies grumbling in the night,
Little limbs trembling in the cold,
That is life in shantytown.
A beggar clump adorns a dump, his pencil box in hand -
With sightless eyes upon the skies he’s lying there unmanned.
He’s fallen down in Shantytown, his knees too weak to stand,
With no relief and bitter grief too dark to understand.
The Bowery blight is hid from sight, it’s covered up and bland,
And Robin Hood and Brother Hood lie buried in the sand.
Jacqueline, my mother . . .
always with a smile and a twinkle,
with happiness, joyfulness and blissfulness.
Born poor, poverty-stricken, moneyless, penniless,
she left shantytown far behind, the slum that was home;
fell in love, married young and was with child so very young,
her sadness was buried deep, she held it within her broken heart.
Jacqueline, my mother . . .
We took great pleasure in summer adventures,
mother always said she had a great sense of direction;
but mostly we were lost, gone astray and hopelessly adrift,
so stumbling upon a quaint country town was usually the result.
Jacqueline, my mother . . .
Her family was her joy and mother was her job,
we loved mom, mommy, mama who was so kind to us;
so caring, warm, tender, gentle, devoted, protecting her kids,
and she taught us to be adventurous and not be afraid to get lost.
Jacqueline, my mother . . .
always with a smile and a twinkle,
with happiness, joyfulness and blissfulness.
________________________________
May 10, 2015
Poetry/Verse/Jacqueline, My Mother
Copyright Protected, ID 05-671-837-10
All Rights Reserved, 2015, Constance La France
Written for the Standard contest, Tell Us About Your Mom,
sponsor, Judy Konos, Judged 2015
First Place
Sochi Scraps
by Odin Roark
Among my pen’s rifling
Hunting its own needs
His imagined snout moves across the page
Seeking out beggary nourishment
A shantytown of doghouses
Provided by an animal-sensitive philanthropist
Fills rapidly with the rush to save
Before pest contractors execute the kill
Collecting their bounty hunter payouts
So goes the life of a stray
Asking but little
A few morsels for staying alive
Needing but a simple discovery
Akin to a poet’s oft times
Elusive syllabic frustration
I stare at the foraging effort
The ink beginning to fill the paper
Becoming my mixed plate of empathy
Abandoned animals can never know
In Olympic Village
Concerned over terrorist threat
Wishing only to stay alive
But another day
Many passersby remain homeless-dog indifferent
Unaware the poison darts
Continue seeking canine nomads
My eyes become blurred
My stylus pauses
I stare at the wall
Imagining Sochi
Or perhaps some other
Abandoned-dog city
Places I’ve never been
Save by make-believe
Ink upon paper
Yet
The howl
The whine
The cry of a frightened animal
Once heard
Is never forgotten…
Save by profiteer-butchers of Sochi
I’m back where I don’t want to be
My second home
Which is anything but a humble abode
Well, maybe I deserve this
This shantytown
Where everyone seems happy
For they know no better
But I know and I have seen outside these propped doors
And I know my skin does not have to stay this light
Because there is sun
And there is color in the world
Besides the patterns on your repulsive color
Form:
Fallacious finances
In a shell game
Destined only to get or gain
Until human worth lies as
Consumers with stimulated fantasies
In greed drenched dreams
About fortune or fame while
Regarding their way of life in
Yankeedom as the untimate Utopia.
Fictionalized futures foment
In this falsehood worldwide
As others await their turn to a
So-called stimulus
Connecting to their shantytown
Orbit as they dream of destroying Utopia.
"If I were your love: You would be my everything; my soul and
my heart; my today and my tomorrows; and my forever."
Quote by _Constance
If I were your love you would be loved,
our love story would be one worth writing about;
and forever you will be beloved.
I would never, ever give a reason of doubt;
proclaiming it to God and Heaven- I would shout !
Darling, when you feel sad I will hold you,
when discouraged then my arms will be your power;
and better tomorrows you will pursue.
And we will stand up tall like a mighty tower;
when we make love your sweet kisses- I will devour !
In a love dance we would visit the stars,
and like drifting feathers we would come floating down;
I promise you that this love could be ours.
Home a grand palace even if in shantytown;
and one day my dream will be- to wear a white gown !
So, lover will you take a chance with me,
join me on this sweet journey and exploration:
to put roots deep down like a forest tree.
If we were lovers it will be the creation;
and respect, love, friendship- will be the foundation !
And I would write epic poems about us like Calliope !
_____________________
April 22, 2023
Poetry/Rhyme/If I Were Your Love
Copyright Protected, ID 04-1542-098-22
All Rights Reserved, 2023, Constance La France
Written for the Premiere contest, If I Were Your Love
sponsor, Mystic Rose Rose, Judged 0f/02/2023
The slum that birthed me,
Is where love and loss huddle close, side by side,
Shanty houses crowded, wall to wall,
Yet love’s essence bloomed, unyielding and clear,
Tin roofs, mud walls, unpaved streets, filth embellished in disarray,
In that savage realm, where Violence law, and Deceit lingered, a norm,
Shouldered my fears and nurtured my hopes breathing purpose into existence,
That was HOME.
I recall days when we played till midnight, boundless and alive,
Recall how together we waited, hand in hand, sharing meals, in simplicity,
When on tempestuous nights we stayed up, collecting each droplet from leaking ceilings,
In happiness despite our unfortunate bind,
In that savage shantytown,
That was HOME.
Now, my soul languishes, a captive, far from its Home,
Confronting the harsh realities that fate has bestowed upon me
In this realm where Justice law and Virtue norm,
Amidst lofty buildings and paradise-like gardens,
Yet within its grandeur lies a cold emptiness,
I’ve come to realize that Home transcends mere walls,
For it is the very abode that emancipates one’s soul.
The slum that birthed me is not just a slum,
Within its alleys narrates epics of Strength and Survival, of Hope and unwavering Resilience,
That slum, a reminiscence sweet as nectar, a testament that liberated my soul,
And that was HOME
The colored pains are carved onto the back of my ancestors’ history.
My oppressors see my Africanness as a curse,
the rotten fruit of savagery, slavery, and the barbarity of colonization.
The blackness of my skin has made me a suspect since the cotton fields.
I am from the cradle of humanity.
I grew up in a colonial trading post.
My homeland never had factories that manufactured weapons of war,
yet I know how to handle a Kalashnikov like those child soldiers.
My first shock: an infant, cut to pieces and stuffed in a sack hanging from a palm tree.
After the colonial massacres, dead cities to soften the cruelty of a bloodthirsty dictatorship.
I share the same convictions as those independence fighters
that the general’s colonial army labeled as “rebels.”
I am neither a suburban kid nor a ghetto dweller.
I took my first steps in a shantytown of Equatorial Africa.
Some cross the Mediterranean toward the Western tyranny of misery,
while others choose the illicit path to shine in the gloomy cells of capitalism,
lit by the flashing lights of the “Republic of Enlightenment” slavers.
These Western impostors treat Africa like an open-air dump,
while their neo-colonial military bases protect the safety of multinational corporations
that have been savagely plundering Africa’s wealth for centuries.
They finance Islamic terrorist groups so that African dictators
can sing the globalist symphonies of Western democracy.
I am a Sub-Saharan animist like the first pharaohs.
I remember the massacre of the Amerindians
when I see African Americans filling the prisons of a nation born from genocide.
My holy land is Africa.
I will never submit to the negrophobic laws
of supremacists indoctrinated with the vile delusions of the Third Reich.
I remember Pope Nicholas V’s papal bull
when I see the Catholic Church meddling in the political affairs
of Africa’s banana republics.
Slave blood in my veins,
in my heart too much pain, only love, no hate.
My conscience has never been chained.
My criminal record remains spotless,
like the orifices of the Christ’s own mother.