My steps carry an old drum
Codes,
Beats carved from bone
Memory,
Rhythms that survived every
Crossings.
My breath has memories it recognizes
Ancestors vows,
The ones whispered under the
Moonlight
When freedom was a fabrication
And courage was the only
Currency.
Thunder lives in my ribs,
They call me loud-
But truth calls me home.
I am the echo of silenced
Voices,
I am a freedom fighter-
Born with my soul's fists raised.
High above the cobblestone and mud,
The first church towers began to rise,
Not just for bells or stone and wood,
But chasing something in the skies.
They stretched like fingers through the air,
To bridge the ground and holy height,
A quiet, lifting call to prayer,
A sudden catch of morning light.
From pointed arches, bold and new,
To sweeping curves of Baroque space,
With every age their beauty grew,
Adorning each cathedral place.
Above the streets of Paris grand,
Or standing tall in Roman air,
They anchor all the quiet land
And hold a city’s history there.
More than just timber, brick, or spire,
They mark a spot where neighbors meet,
A steady point of shared desire
Above the busy, crowded street.
And though the modern world moves fast,
Their timeless silhouettes remain
A gentle whisper from the past,
A touch of peace above the plain.
It sits there, motionless, buried under unread mail in the drawer,
The once-sharp scissors my dad brought from his childhood home in Nepal,
Its blades now rusty, dull, and sore,
It sits there, motionless, waiting for a final call.
It waits through slammed doors, late-night apologies, and birthdays,
Eager for a chance to get picked up and put to work,
Just like it did in my dad's college days,
It waits patiently, preventing itself from bursting like a firework.
It holds its breath in the dark,
Yearning for a warm and loving hand,
Like the one that packed it and crossed the world to leave its mark,
It holds its breath, hopeful for a future in this new land.
For now, the drawer remains shut,
Where our family's Nepali history leaves its silver trace,
There lie resilient blades that time failed to cut,
Resting quietly in this loud, chaotic place.
Kindness is creating a space
An absence of self , a welcoming face,
A hand extended to pull someone up
To share their pain , drink their cup,
Kindness is tearing the barriers down
A comforting smile, not judging frown.
An embrace of solidarity
For we are one humanity
What makes us rich is what we share
Our time, our presence , our love, our care.
The clouds will always roll in.
They'll build up, expand, keep coming
Until the day turns to a solid gray.
Storms are good only if they give back,
And when the rains come,
And they only drain the life on this earth, something is dreadfully wrong.
So goes the nutrients, minerals, vitamins and energy-
All washed out.
So goes the cycle-
The circle of living in our dying environments;
So goes the growth-
For the awaited drink of life has been poisoned.
The poison comes from the wicked hands of ignorance, of contempt.
The struggle for life is continuous,
Attacks are everyday in some places.
This is our only home, but
Why do we care so less,
And know so little?
And while storms ravage down here,
And storms rage in the clouds,
Somewhere way above,
There's a great big blue sky
Fighting on the other side.
Ase begins as breath- The
Quiet spark inside
Intention.
Ase grows ad force- The
Current that spiral truth.
Ase becomes energy- The
Power that turns spirit into
Reality.
Thoughts are present,
Thoughts are past,
Thoughts drift slowly,
Yet never last.
Thoughts bring laughter,
Thoughts bring pain,
Thoughts seek meaning,
Then fade again.
Some shine brightly,
Some remain unknown,
Wandering through silence,
In a world of their own.
Thoughts form questions,
Thoughts reveal,
Fragments of the heart,
And what we feel
We see them drop the bombs, hear them boast of victory,
It's time to raise our voices, do not forget your history!
We see cities wreathed in flame, children choking in the haze,
We hear the bullets fall like rain, lives destroyed beneath cruel gaze.
"We are God's chosen!" I hear them cry, but can't forget the empty eyes,
The soulless laughter of evil deeds, when will humanity finally rise?
Soldiers laugh and mock the dying, while parents grieve a child lost,
If you have never suffered, how can you know the cost?
How can we bear to watch, but we cannot look away, For the cruelties of next year, began in steps today.
Cry for the sorrows of our brothers, for the blood that stains our hands,
Cry out for Justice here and now, across every nation's lands!
Do not protect the wealthy, make them stand before our courts!
They defy our laws and mock us, so let Justice run it's course!
It is time to take accounting, for what each of them has done!
Hold them all responsible, let them now face the gun!
Until every human is free, we are all of us enslaved!
Stanza 1
They say protect and serve like a promise carved
Flaw, but the streets has memories otherwise.
Stanza 2
I've watch protection skip neighborhoods
Like they were erased from the map,
Leaving mother's holding fear like breathe.
Stanza 3
Service shows up armed
Before it learns your name,
Turning questions into
Warnings.
Stanza 4
Safety becomes a privilege
Even when you do everything right,
Because suspicion wears a familiar face.
Stanza 5
Communities protection each other
With no badge and no sirens,
Just caution stitched from survival.
Stanza 6
So I ask again
With no bow in my voice,
Protection and serve who?
A reputation like mine
Ain't born in the afternoon
It crawls out of the alleys
Where whispers sharpen
Themselves
Into pocket-knives.
I walk through rumors
The way old gods walk
Through storms-
Unbothered,
Unmoved,
Already knowing the wind
Never had the final say.
They throw accusations
Like stones at a monument
They different build.
But I'm carved from a truth
That remembers every strike
And still stands upright.
Integrity is the currency
You can't Counterfeit
Noise is cheap.
And when they try to rewrite
My name
With their shaky little stories,
My reputation answers
In a voice older than their
Shawdows:
I was built to outlive
Your version of me.
Once upon a time;
Some time after I was born.
There was a treaty between two nations.
The treaty was supposedly mankind's best
Bet for the prevention of a nuclear holocaust.
I'm not certain if the treaty still exits; but I am
Certain that The reality of potential destruction
Is as real as it ever was. This treaty was known as "MAD"-- Mutually Assured Destruction.
These nations proceeded to amass weaponry
Rather massively to, in my view, the point of insanity. Perhaps there are those that give
Credit to 'MAD" for saving us from destruction.
Personally, which ever direction I turn in search
Of heroes, ideology, or philosophy; regardless
Of my politics and opinions; I credit God.
I have never imagined that destruction was
Avoided because of the treaty between them.
I can only believe that in many and various
Ways, it is God who holds our world together
Left to our own selfish ideas and devices, with
Or without 'MAD", mankind would have vanished
from planet earth were it not for God's grace.
Unified Call- We speak their names with
Reverence, and the ancestors rise in
The unseen to witness.
The world reads them before it knows them,
But the obscurity answers; their capital is
Older than any bias.
They learn caution too early, discretion too
Young, yet the unseen strolls with them in
Every stride.
Harm pursues them without petition
But protection gathers like a second horizon,
Shifting the air, not today, not this one.
Their names hold history, optimism, and the
Right to grow old, and the ancestors say each
Name is an ancestry of brilliance.
When the world looks away, injustice transforms
Into bold, but the shadows rise; we do not look
Away.
Truth returns to them like a safeguard,
Justice throbs even when unheard, and the
Unseen closes the circle:
Their lives mattered before the world began, and they matter now, fully incessantly.
They slide through the city quietly,
No badge, no spotlight, just that
Hush - pressure vibe that makes your
Skin read the room before your eyes do.
Unseen movers
Unseen scribes
Writing your name in places
You ain't never walked.
They draft futures in
Side-pockets,
Tuck provision in the corners of
Conversations, drop signatures in
Hush Hush.
Like chalk marks only the street can decode.
You feel 'em in the shift- that micro pause-
That air-tight moment
Where the world alters itself
And pretends it didn't.
State Actors,
No stage
No curtains,
Just corridors that rearrange when you blink
Too slow,
Scripts of the unseen, inked in obscurity,
Performed in systems
That don't need an audience to keep the
Plot running.
But You?
You walk through it rowdy
Refusing to let hidden hands
Truth and bright
Ghostwrite your fate.
Years ago, when my friends and I were just boys;
A nearby place provided such simple joys.
To us, it was one of the best local ‘finds’;
“Let’s go to the creek,” never far from our minds.
We usually rode bikes, although sometimes we’d run;
To be first to arrive was part of the fun.
Visiting each favorite spot with made-up names;
Racing leaf and twig boats, playing other games.
Covering stones with mud, shouting “Bombs away!”
Vying for biggest ‘explosion’ of the day.
Pretending that large rocks were islands mid stream;
For hours we’d play in a quasi day dream.
Imagining that millimeters were miles;
Jumping from the creek’s banks to ‘fly’ to warm isles.
When dusk called us home as it did way too fast;
We knew today’s trip here would not be our last.
Partners in poetic perambulation
in peregrination’s peaceful imagination
Without prestidigitation
serendipitous poesy will do
Each of us inspiring the others
creating community ~ sisters and brothers
Community Categories
Definition | What is Community in Poetry?
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.
Related Poetry Forms
neighborhood, center, district, people, company, nation, society, state, public, association, commonwealth, commonality, locality, populace, colony, hamlet, turf, territory, body politic, neck of the woods, residents, general public, stomping ground, semblance, likeness, affinity, kinship, identity, sameness,