some folks keep buried
searing inner pain,
or lock them within,
keeping the world out,
but find your way in;
beat a path through
the undergrowth
of reluctance;
it's important...
to always
ask questions,
starting with...
"how are...
you"? just...
ask.
Source Of Our Awareness Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Unseeking Seeker
Date written: 01/20/2023
When I die
I give the Pulitzer Board
Permission
To exhume my lyrics
And some overweight ME
Will put my verses on a slab
Going thru my stanzas for tone
looking for assonance and
Consonance in my bones
As my family waits around to see
If i really was a great poet
And they will probe my lines
for cadence
Meter and Trochee
Taking notes
As they dissect
My poetry
They will say I was anemic
On my tercets
And many of my quatrains were forced
As they search for the source
One of the examiners
will write on his tablet
That I never wrote
A Sestina or villanelle
They will note, He was good.
But his books didn't really sell.
The NAACP will close that he didn’t
Represent the Black community
Like King or Rosa Parks
Leaving my legacy a question mark
And no one will be specifically sure
If I advanced the Black Race
Leaving the matter a Cold Case
My kids will ask
But what does all this mean?
Was he really a great poet?
Was he as good as Frost or Hughes
The examiner will stare confused
The autopsy will be intrusive
And they will say:
REPORT INCONCLUSIVE!!
Dreaming of sugar spun so high
I could barely touch the sky when
a bird came and sat on my shoulder
she said she was messenger of the
gods of this realm and we (the humans)
of course had forgotten to sow our
souls with seeds of true harvest
most notably we strew our seeds onto the
hard ground of leeched existence where
little can be gathered other than motes
awaiting the rain of content to soften
our fields, we discover perhaps the
drive to exhume something thought
lost but not buried, at least in the
usual of sentiments, not in the ground
but in the concrete village we call
our selves...we hope, we pray, we
silently scream for anyone to listen
the gods of this realm have turned
away to their parlor games as we no
longer remember to deify their
existence, so who will deify ours?
I am here on an archaeological quest,
to satisfy many a curious mind's request
for knowledge on antiques and artifacts
of Egypt's long extinct historical facts,
in treasured sands buried, like gold mines earnestly
sought for in stories shrouded in mythology.
With a large contingent just as curious as I,
hardly daunted by curses, but with shoulders high,
we went to the field, the sun baking us chaps
to a baker's delight. With our rumpled maps,
we searched every clue, and were bitten perhaps
by a million flies. Getting relief from sunless skies
in times of fair weather, whilst hoping something lies
in the depths of the hot sands for our very eyes
to see. With my tools by hard work and search worn out,
I brushed to full view, the tomb, brilliantly carved out
of young blue blooded Tut, regally laid to rest.
To my wearied colleagues, I spoke in real earnest:
'To exhume the past, we are here at last.'
Swimming in mire of memory,
Searching the fish of forgetfulness,
Those are not the good days;
Nervous eyes will get attacked,
Leaving residue of a small heart,
Beat the soft cheeks like egg;
Hands smack the sensitive back,
Infernal, Thrashed till tears,
Suspense of demonic destruction,
Climax of nervy showers,
Bringing noises of home to job,
Ruthlessly pulling off frustrations;
Child became a punching bag;
Explanation of sparing the rod,
Rooms; never to go torture spaces,
Chiron of Greece will feel ashamed;
His passions going for putrefaction,
Witches with too many potions;
Heating the young blood for evil;
Then go home riding on brooms,
Satisfied without such education;
Sweated a lot digging deep;
A metallic coffin from hell,
Burying the days of horror,
Don’t exhume those days.