I heard about your violent death...
And had not known about your poems.
I went searching for them, but it seems as if
Someone must have put them away.
Perhaps they would be just too lovely for our ears to hear...
Perhaps the words would be more worthy
Than our repentant hearts might be permitted to feel?
And I am left looking out of my upstairs window
At the mass of white blossoms beautifying the pale cherry trees;
Not even a wisp of wind ...the whole World is left
Silently grasping for breath;
And the fraught blossoms dares not even tremble
Should they lose their tenuous grip upon the crowded
Black twigs.
Our life a horror movie they played to us in real life
In horror films black people die first
We always make smart decisions
And yet they still manage to find a way to erase us even in film
They don't leave us alone
Not in life
Not in death
Not even in fiction
They do this to show that no matter what we will always be trapped
That even if we follow the rules
We still die
We are still erased
That we still have no control
Over our own fate
We will always be puppets
To a system
That doesn't control by using string
But by barbed wire
Making sure every movement is painful
Making sure we have a slow and violent death
That with every breath
The barbed wire strips another piece of our flesh
Slowly peeling away our blackness
We are seen as the disposable one
In life
In movies
And shows
To be the one who helps
The one who saves
And the one who sacrifices
Their life
For their white counterpart
To make sure they get to the end
Where's our happily ever after
We always get the struggle trope
And when we ask to change the ending
They just say nope
Maimed in Miami’s neon glare,
Dead in Dallas under blood-red skies,
Cut short in California’s golden air,
Obliterated where Oklahoma lies.
Consumed in Colorado’s mountain shade,
Fired in Florida’s humid, fevered breath,
Killed in Kentucky’s shadowed glade,
Torn in Texas by the hand of death.
Murdered in Michigan’s cold embrace,
Shattered in Chicago’s restless night,
Nabbed in New York’s frantic pace,
Critical where Connecticut’s lights burn bright.
Gunned in Georgia’s sultry, silent fields
Mad men wielding iron forged in rage,
Liberty twisted for the fool who yields
to chaos, where no reason turns the page.
They cannot spell the sacred worth of breath,
nor grasp the fragile pulse that time has lent;
a culture fractured, courting violent death,
where guns replace the quiet argument.
Yesterday it stained the Texas plain,
tomorrow’s shadow falls on unknown sod
in that wide land where logic lies in chains,
and steel alone decides the will of God.
IF LOVERS WE
(To Julia)
`` If lovers we, you and I, who would we be?
W0uld we be William Powell and Myrna Loy,
sophisticates, trading alcoholic quips across the dining room?
Would we be Abelard and Heloise,
lovers doomed, she to a nunnery, and he,
his castrati voice intoning high prayers through the fog
of winter afternoons
Would we be Tom and Valerie Elliott
plunging into a cold madness?
Would we be Bonnie and Clyde,
outlaw lovers, running down country roads
to meet violent death?
Would we be Buster Keaton and the heroine,
he taking a pratfall towards her heart?
Or an average couple, maybe, growing old before the fire,
watching the last dying coals go out?
No, I would be your Robert Browning
and you would be my ‘Lizbeth Barrett--:
you are my poetry, the rhythm and metre of my soul,
you are my painting, the portrait in my mind,
you are my music, my perfect pitch.
It is through you I speak.
When a battery corrodes it leaks
but life, life slow burns,
nothing leaks out
until the energy explodes.
Peaceful and violent death may come
but inner death is a birthing
it cycles and recycles many times
a slow burn
until that womb you hide and carry
from one dark node to another
that too explodes.
Then the light shovels you out
one smoldering organ at a time
until you are full of a hollow grace,
then you can take your leave,
and die in the world shucked
from flesh-stealing time,
but the surprise is in the fuse
(it always is),
that will bring you wide-eyed
to an afterlife as if its length
had not stuttered or spluttered
for one instant
since the thought of you existed.
Just another siren roadkill:
A low-down,
rabid raccoon resisting arrest
at high noon
A feral noted asphalt death
So says the official pol-pol report
In a Terminator monotone
was the desk commandant’s
brass tact, swastika vapor retort
Abel-bodied justice, sho’ nuff —
A redacted cam footage snuff
Grim fire Cain desire,
hate-lust displayed
when coldly
slapping on the Reaper cuffs
Tar baby fetal prone pinned fatally;
poly blue-kneed on the jugular,
Bwana caught baboon can’t breathe
By George,
bad monkey got a name
Floyd recorded on the birth registry,
a curious
violent death
t’was how the end came
Ebony communities unnerved
by the strangled justice served
Latest rap sheet statistic said,
just another darkie
lights out dead
Midnight scary thoughts:
Pet cemetery spook laid in a
ghetto dirt bed
Asphyxiation was how his neo-plantation air bled
Suffocated by roots of slavery injustice, I’m afraid
A Light Nightmare
My soul lays dormant in the chamber of a revolver
Silent, still, ready to explode into the oblivion of violent death
Fear keeps the shiny metallic surface of my being a compact shell
The last traces of love have vanished with the light of a dimming reality
My dead eyes move and perceive but refuse to see
My hands shake with the tremble of fear playing a dull melody
BANG! The light floods into the void, the universe is born
Sweat, tears, longing, anger, sadness, hate, repentance, forgiveness, love
Ego dissolves, life force flows through the ether
I hear radar waves pulsing hitting my sailing soul
Again and again without end and without change
My eyes begin to open and peek through the crusty curtain of sleep
I reach over impulsively and turn the alarm off on my phone
My hands no longer shake and the illusion of the revolver has left
The light pours in like a cold bucket of water
Did I escape the metal encasing of my soul?
Is this the light I saw after the BANG!
Am I in heaven?
Or hell?
Or simply being with the image of nothingness haunting my dreams
Nations and nationalities, you are not chocolate,
you are the sweetest Jam cooked from bitter labour!
You are the original egg, the supreme cause of war and peace!
You are the homeland of the rising sun and moon.
You are the cameras recording
from all angles the smashed egg. You know everything,
but have no one to add it all up,
so I'm glad that you're both there and not there,
I see you and I don't see you.
Nations and nationalities,
self-love is the caries of the soul.
What enterprise of violent death
wants to remain unpunished?
Nations, have you inquired of each other's health?
Have you dreamt of a homeland
where the sun and moon do not rise,
a homeland without the vain pride of the envious,
a homeland without sexual gymnastics,
a homeland without boxing money,
have you dreamt of the homeland as a full glass
of love with no jealousy?!
Long live the full glass of love without jealousy!
O my tv's had a gray, gray screen
Since it blew up last June.
The radio plays no melody.
The piano's out of tune.
Alas! My ipod's ceased to work.
My laptop's gone kaput.
My car just died a violent death,
And now I am on foot.
When HBO plays great, my dears,
When car and gadgets run,
I'll pay thy exorbitant fees, my dears;
Then we'll all be having fun.
So fare thee well, my saviors dear.
I'll call thee in a while.
Take care of these, young fix-it men.
They're really worth a pile!
Robert Burns, Scottish poet, 1700's
entered in Julia Ward's A Light to Like Poetry Contest on June 25, 2017
When you have Darkness fill your life
And the light leaves with a violent death
A feeling that flees leaving you with strife
To keep going onwards or to draw that last breath.
The Struggle has been lost
The Blood pours out of the Defeated
Energies from constant conflict are exhaust
The men who lie dying their life cheated
The defeated fall finally beaten
The fires of desire in their souls conquered
By Death Their Souls were eaten
Unneeded death by the incapability of concord
In the end all things die
So in the end there’s no need to cry
Like the willow leaves
Merely! runs forward.
Then soothingly or almost
the shadow of shadow
A distance in the dark
towards the road,
went to evanescence
Has been under
The sword's coughed,
Jumpy to:(the sudden violent death)
Right now! Gently of life _ shackled.
In smoothness, blessedness and in
The fragile beauty sleeps!
Wearisome at his land!
Wanderer in his sea!
Exiled near the top of death!
And near his green hamlet -
lost his glory which --
(aged and perished).
Fill Up A Scroll
My darling , my dear love , you almost died
I read the letter and no tears would come
You promised a safe return but you lied
Solemn vow broken as you obeyed battle drum
I knew you fought in battles deadly fierce
That you could not help but be very brave
Why did you act so rashly to my heart pierce
Chancing a violent death and early grave
Promise me our vow you will faithfully renew
A love cast oath to soothe my bleeding heart
I could never live on this earth without you
When our living souls we swore to never part
Swear never again shall I read how you lied
My darling , my sweet love, you almost died
07/29/2014
Pandora's Box
The skies rip apart
Filling with a hot white fire
The winds blow both hot and cold
Burning and freezing
Birds are replaced by black dragons
Smoking cinders fall like rain
Covering the ground below
Burying people as they run
The ancient gods rise up from the ashes
Full of vengeance and hate
Desiring peace they fight for humanity
What has caused the world such pain?
Pandora's Box has been opened
Hope has died a violent death
The last chance was taken from man
Rains will wash away the ash
The sky will heal
Man will survive
He always has
The gods will return from whence they came
But Pandora's Box will remain empty
Devoid of all hope
The battle cry of a Samaria pierces the night
"Ninjas meet your death, no matter how you fight me, the Samaria's decree is death before dishonor"
What you think the little sword is for
It's hard to stab myself with a Katuana
You finger Chinese stars
Well I finger a poisonous arrowhead into my bowstring
Your send out your Shadow Spirit
I don't care white ninja or black ninja
Well mighty men meet a Valiant man
And now you meet a violent death
There now buzzards and vultures devour you
This is our culture we only defend our land
We only sent out a hand of help
You slap us in the face, you wont ever do that again
Freeze the moment let us twins remind ourselves
Who knows where the spirit goes it is like the wind
Come here to where we look the storms in the eye
And before we perish bro we might as well sip on some rye
Is there harm if I don't take off my armour
would you be offended if I sais when your indoors
put your sheild to rest
Rosabella met her maker on Halloween night
It was an unnatural death . . .
Death met her in the maple forest
On the edge of town
She lay in the brittle leaves
Her eyes starring in horror
It was a violent death . . .
A dark veil of hair fell across an open eye
The stars twinkled down on Rosabella
She looked perfectly beautiful
Except she was dead . . .
Such a small wound to drain all her blood
A mere mark on her white throat
She was a fool . . .
To go walking on Halloween night
What could have lured her to the forest
With every form of ghost, goblin, devil
and vampire lurking about . . .
They took her to the town morgue
Draped her body with a virgin white sheet, so white
And there she lay waiting
Until . . . .
______________________________
August 26, 2012
Poetry/Free Verse/Halloween Night
Copyright Protected, ID 08- 416-335-26
All Rights Reserved, 2012, Constance La France
Submitted to the Standard contest, Halloween,
sponsor, Skat, Judged 09/2012
Honorable Mention
Sub Categories
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