In the early morn
I hear the birds sing
Crows caking aloud
Dove's singing their songs
Blue jays calling mates
This birds complaining
Then the geese honking
Flying in the early dawn
Or in the early morn
Ponder where they go
she remembers
each morning
caking it on her face
gave her confidence
made her feel stronger
stronger than she really was
like warrior paint
she caked it on
primed to face the day
AP: Honorable Mention 2021, Honorable Mention 2022
Croissant making
Bread baking
Yeast slaking
Crust caking
Bread
Potato
Pumpernickel
Whole wheat
Enriched white
Bread
The smell of it
You will have a fit
Fresh from the oven
Your Grandma’s apron
Your mother’s way of buttering it
There is nothing more heavenly-tasting in the world.
Bread!
In the midst of the lies and tricks
While others idolize some despise the rich
To get some dough people will lie and snitch
Ski mask way, sit back and devise a lick
Im just trying to get words off the page and into the booth
Its just me and you like we're fly in a coupe
Drowning in my blood, sippin dark sorrow from a bottle
Just heard my young homie won't see outside tomorrow
was just a smart young brotha tryin to be caking
Now he might do 10 and was already on probation
One of my enemies got shot but he aint dead tho
I wonder what was going thru his mind as he bled slow
Signing deals with the devil without even knowing it
Treating money like trees and steady blow it
Not growing it, gotta have the new J's just to show some shyt
Thats why they look at us like we don't know no shyt
Nature's dust,
Caking softly white
Silver rust,
Upon globes of grapes.
Protective,
Wit' her moon powder, of
Autumn's gift:
Her purple sugar.
Aching heart!
Poison'd blue & red,
Nature's blood,
Seal'd in winter's grape.
Hide away here her endless vine,
Her infinite potion of crimson wine.
Twenty one years of Suffering
Lies sprawled on the tiles
In a scarlet pool
Reflecting the moon.
Scarlet droplets
clinging to tangled black hair
How peaceful she looks
How content that smile
Tears of blood remaining
on her cheeks.
A gentle pale hand
still clutching at
the amulet around her neck
Eyes closed, praying
for release
Blood caking
on ivory breasts.
The other hand
clinging to the invisible
Clutching at something unseen
A release from this life
A cold skeletal hand, death?
Expecting the eyes
to open any second
the frail hands
to wipe away
dried red droplets.
But it does not come
The eyes stay closed
The hands lie still
The skin unearthly pale
A peaceful smile
on rosebud lips
Dainty feet covered
in a soft scarlet spray...
Strange how her nightmare
started on an ivory floor
In a pool of scarlet
And how salvation came
Scarlet on the floor...
I am returned to the heart of worship
To the tong teared flesh and searing whip
To dust like lice caking hungry lips
To the greased rope that savagely she grips
You go paint your abstract canvas and flee
The raw flesh bleeding its emergency
I cannot scorn the root where I began
I cannot turn my back on the struggles of man
Their gnawed lives fretting on black tea
I drank bush too bitter as hell that sustained me
Through the lessons of school and shallow day
Where a child could drown, but mother did pray
Do you know Canterbury, have you lived there
Where houses huddle on the precipice of fear
There I felt the razor edge of man's truth
We laughed labeled with punishment as brute
Fathers wrung their hands for milk when mothers' cried
Because their battered breast was bleeding dry. Hide
Me not from such sacred memories, from grace
That kept us, we marginalized dust of the race
Who boiler house, cane rows, barracks earned our place
The foundations for culture's pride and waste
I am returned to the meaning I worship
The atom of my body split by bull-hide whip.
Ending a hot day
On the back of a lizard
Crusty desert dust
Five after four in the morning. Night-sweats
rumple silk bed sheets. Vague cusp ‘tween night and day
blurs chiseled contours of sanity’s sharpness.
Dreams half-way loosed into consciousness waylay
snuggling comforts. Wee hours’ vague demons lurk
tucked beneath pillowcased hopes, threatening melee.
Coffee at four twenty, brewed under knee-jerk
rituals uncritically gleaned in tender years,
won’t clear the spider webs. Thinking is hard work.
Terrible, really, yet recently shed tears
obscure simple joy’s sole right to imminence,
caking like blood drawn by yesterday’s spears.
‘Til mercy’s sunbeams despite grief’s vehemence
melt bitter frostbite of long lost innocence.
thought I'd always love you
couldn't see another way
Please don't hit me
I love you
I would say
Didn’t know that love was not supposed to hurt
that crying through the night just wasn't going to work
Please, I didn't mean to
I love you
I would say
caking on makeup
turtleneck shirts
to hide what his fists had left behind
Please, I'm sorry
I love you
I would say
like a songbird in a cage
I never learned to fly
all I could ever do is sob beg and cry
Please don't hurt me
I love you
I would say
walked around on eggshells
to try to prevent this hell
Please what did I do
I love you
I would say
supper on the table kids in the bed
he comes to me wanting
God I wish I were dead
they all heard and saw the bruises and black eyes
but no one would ever help me, I often wonder why
Croaking and stroking,
joking and smoking,
he became a king,
he began taking,
while he was busy making,
and raking,
all around began shaking,
the plots to overthrow began cooking,
and around him caking,
he cracked after lot of baking,
and came tumbling down after poin blank hacking.
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.