STRIVE TO STAY ALIVE

STRIVE TO STAY ALIVE

I want to cry for my lost dreams. 

That house made of stone and glass 

with all wood inside the fame 

and fortune I never gained, 

the way my heart has been maimed 

my life tamed and bought at the corner store. 

Dreams estranged 

caught up in the buzz of busy bees

 living day to day in a maze 

on a pension fund 

Money I earned not charity 

driving safe in the slow zone. 

No airs or golden chalices, 

standardized morphing of reality 

Leave me to blaze on a hot day 

Sweat with no underwear. 

I fear for the living dead. 

Live life in my head 

less than half my dreams 

never come to fruition

because I’m not Annie Malone, 

neither is he 

change your tone please, 

Don't use your phone 

while we're having this conversation. 

I want to be a milliner

Tired of infighting, 

heart a siren, beats with desire 

Set the sky on fire, bring souls out of mire, 

stir the fires of love

Ignore the jive of each haze, 

the latest craze

Always some new malaise 

Live like lost

In a moon phase

Do my best to stay alive and thrive

Noise In My Head

Play my heartstrings like a violin 

Sweet and bitter like a mandolin

Up and down the scale to my chagrin

Left with no more turns, try to find a way in

Your face in a stuporous grin

Walls of my heart broken down like walls of West Berlin

No answers, like holding me together with a body pin

Your pain tattooed on my heart like my car’s Vin

Feelings strewn in a bin, you complain 

About selling your brand new Schwinn

Feel like a fish caught in net, 

Alive while getting her fins skinned

Wouldn’t feel so much pain if my heart 

Wasn’t previously scarred by kin

Almost disappear, your thoughts and mind grow thin

Along with your body flesh

Made of flesh and blood, not of tin

Suffer with words create a fierce din 

My heads in a spin from all the noise

Desire a way to create a win

Search for what may have been

While time eludes us, realize 

I’m older to begin

Buy my book Tupelo Honey & other tales

I HATE MY FAT, I WANT TO GO BACK TO THINNER ME

I see you -hiding inside -under so many layers of fat, carefully placed and misplaced

Inside and outside, you gain and lose in a cycle of fat to thin again

I try to see it is me but I see someone else, she’s not me. 

That woman I see in the mirror, I deny she’s me. 

I want to stop eating, makes my life so complicated because everything seems to be about food while life becomes more sedentary against my will

I don’t know what to do, so many theories about emotions

I want to walk more but my feet hurt, sometimes my hips ache, time chimes

Reflects my image in a mirror, Caught in a web of suspense to see who I am today cause everyday when I awake I’m a new becoming me

Betrayed by my shell, I hide as much of me as I can inside armor

Keep crying help, keep on trucking doing what I do

My system runs amuck and a thunder – I wish I could control my mind

I’m addicted to food – hard to forego food

Eat falafel - fills me up so much, eat Baba -Ghanoush loaded on tons of salad, 

seems to not matter – no matter what I consume … I can’t say, no excuses

Digesting food takes up too much time – I feel like I’m part of organized crime defending sublime

Give me water, honey and lemon- I promise I’ll still survive

I question me– why am I doing this to myself

Yet I hide myself watching me, I see myself from the outside

Creep out from the inside

I yell free me so I can move with the flow

I creep back inside to hide me from myself 

you know where I’m going with this

From humiliation and aspirations all combined, tied with a big purple bow

Put in front of you I am me in front of me I see me and become afraid Of who I am that I made me who I am to you I am you in a wounded knee I see who we are 

Who – attempt to reject self loathing

I am me, wounded, beneath who you are

Hide in plain sight in an underground version of myself

I ride deep waves within myself, diving deeper I fear I’m forever lost

Who is the self I claim to be trapped inside me waiting for a way outside myself

No escape, like a trapped bull in china of life trying to escape from myself 

Caught in an endless loops of myrioscope kaleidoscope color

Endless blues persist as I judge who I am

I see a violet sky inside me

Exploding in years of pain

Abstaining from gain I constrain myself

I’m a bloodstain of pain from which I came

I hide from myself and ask how did I ever withstand myself

Caught on a continental shelf I conspire to divide myself, prove myself, 

I will be a band of oneself to expand and assert myself, 

I will be a prayer of despair 

More morbid in beware

Nothing works that worked before

Now I hear all in my head

If I eat properly and see myself thin I will be – really?

Compare healthcare 

Impaired, play side chair in the affair, arise out of nowhere, I exist, I am somewhere, here to defend

I am sightseer in my own life, like a replay game in surround sound, can’t understand fear is …

So lonely inside, longing for love, I seek, I cry, 

worth the weight, FATE of my soul, I inquire, FIRE up insights

GET TO BE SEE THE REAL ME

A CHANGE IS GONNA COME SOMEDAY

Smell The Coffee

Something’s brewing out there

Not just brewing in my head

It’s not imagined, it’s real, I feel it

Feel it in the way the sun hides behind clouds

Feel it in the volatile change of weather

something’s brewing out here

Time goes by, eventually all life will be dead

Our sun’s holding on by a thread

Nothing will take its stead

Sun doesn’t come out for days

Destruction of our universe

Sun pokes through a moment or two

Clouds cover sun most days

can’t locate sun’s rays or recall sun’s warmth

Rare that sun shines through clouds

See sun less and less I wonder

Is it the ozone layer, fracking, animal waste run-off,

or the GMO’s combined with Roundup and Monsanto

Don’t know if the sun will shine once more in all her glory

Will she ever be like she used to be once more?

End of times, and I wonder when we’ll lose the grid

Chem trails surround us with the lies we’re fed

Electric grids fail, flooding, hurricanes and tsunami’s all around

Clear established patterns following blindly, eyes wide open yet blind

to seeing how quickly earth’s changing storms,  it all from A to Z

A new dawn brewing, a new storm brewing,

Day by day we passively follow like domesticated goats in the herd

with little bo-peep you don’t hear a peep

we get trampled underfoot wild herds of bucks passing by

crows squawking trying to read sense while humans

go about their business of leading the herd of humans

so unbearable they’ve conquered the earth that birthed us forth

The abuse starts up high and is the only trickled down thing

among us humans as we abuse our own kind

follow the same strategy all the way down the line

Something’s brewing out there

I smell change coming
A change is gonna come someday

DREAM ON

An off key blues singer, ms blues to you, so sing along with me

I want to sing my bluetry off key for you

So we can have a fling, peruse my blues, schmooze along the Danube

Escape New York City’s sweet heat summertime

Maybe book a trip to Syracuse where it’s always cold

Got the blues from my head to my toes

Good morning heartache

Try to keep pushing ahead

Exploding inside like an earthquake

Heartbeat moves like a drumhead

Love’s left behind in the game

Make the dream reality

Integrity, happily love the song Valerie

Especially as sang by Amy,

There’s a fatality of sanctity

Specificity is not the answer

Hard to stay focused, too much to do

my mind swept up in strong currents

Some things matter more than money monarchies

Demolition derby – spiteful resolution

My poetic genius stands across the street

Observing me from Ft. George Hill

With trepidation, Search for liberation

Discover corruption in my old soul

“Walk this way,” I say

Flames eat me alive from inside

Sky set on fire, bring our souls from mire,

My heart a siren, beats with desire

Stir passion in, fire blossoms into love

Religious history for all mankind

Find our way out of a bind 

Stay on the peace grind, remain centered, mindful

All religion winds down to similar precepts

My life’s an open book

Written in an ancient language only my soul deciphers

Is it easy to define me?

A midnight blue sky filled with silver stars twinkling fragrant amidst fuchsia blossoms

Leaves falling from dogwood trees

A white turtledove suddenly flies into my open hand - from above, spreads his wings

Hovers a second or two above my head

Do you think I’m in love again?

Floating in the sea,

I’m where I need to be

Like living in a musical ballet
Jelling in a renaissance of humanity

Joy AKA violet performing "I Sing The Blues For You Today" with Demetrius Daniel, Charles Worrel, & Dubblex.

Joy AKA Violet performing, "I Sing The Blues For You Today" with Demetrius Daniel, Charles Worrell, & Dubblex. JoyandDubblex Poets

I Sing The Blues For You Today

I want to do poetry like Billy Holiday singing the blues

I want to do poetry like Ella Fitzgerald

I want to be me singing my holiday blues

Billie’s songs are poetry so fine it makes me think I’m her doing rhyme

Thoughts about Billie make me go off line, hook line & sinker; she puts me back in time

I sing to my lover, I want to make your poetry mine because you spout rhymes

Observing my life become an unending grocery list of things to get done

Your life or mine, yours is on my mind - the list of to dos keeps growing exponentially

Number 1, try out a mattress, 2, buy it, 3, buy new locks to keep someone out number 4, find someone to install it, make 10 million calls. Keep writing lists. What did you say? How many sessions, any lessons in storage? Will the Divine power of intervention help?

I don’t want to bore you with the details and derail you from my song.

Damn, wonder if I’ll ever see Willa Dean again– oh man, you know the women I mean

Kept her head wrapped up like an African Queen with her creamy coffee looking self.

Willa said the secret to good potato salad is to go heavy on the mayo

Willa Dean days, they’re all in a haze now. I was so high back then.

The memory lingers, listening & watching while she told stories. She’d whisper, her voice barely a breeze, tell me about her lovers, say, “I’m gonna get me some.” … I’d get confused & asked, did she mean her husband or lover.

She’d show me wilted lettuce and bring it back to life telling me about her lovers, drugs, & children while making potato salad.

I thought - she’s a woman of many talents, a stoned cold junkie and a working mom combined

The nose that knows, her preference was coke, good moist coke at a good right price too on the upper - upper west side in Washington Heights, 162nd street to be exact

Willa had class & style combined; she took me to dress models at the Ritz one time. Got paid for it too. It was such a pleasure to do. I even got a pair of designer gloves out of it.

People accepted Willa everywhere we went –

Willa was friends with a famous New York jazzman and his wife, a New York City teacher. We were at jazzman’s apartment, small tight crowded living room, upper west side 90’s.

Willa’s friend sat across from me staring at my big breasts. I can see how tight your muscles are.

Let me massage you she said aggressively hurting me so bad physically

we had an argument instead.

Passing through hundreds of lives so many colors

Let me take you back to what we share - strivings for love – wanting to go somewhere –

Wanting to discover who we really are ~

see ourselves through the eyes of others and – finally see who we really are.

Extend this power to the umpteenth degree. We still wonder who they think we are ~

Uncover recover to return to who we want to be

Dreams are reality - stop thinking, dreams are the color of my true love’s hair

Black is the color of my true love’s hair, his dreads caress my bare hands

A whole-years grocery list pressed into a foggy mist of autumn red

turns bright chartreuse before bleakly the list dissolves before my eyes

True colors make my heart sneeze amidst a perpetual mist of violet-blues
A dream more real than a memory                                     

Catch Me If You Can

If one was well enough to do everything one needed to do, to get relief one sought,

then one wouldn’t need the help he needs in the first place, would he?

Life is Catch 22 of the universe

He said, “I don’t understand why you insist on helping him,”

“I want to,” I said, “It’s a feeling I have to do and want to.

What difference does it make to you?”

While we waste time on bullshit

Epiphany strikes suddenly, a new sight, an oversight

The answer to the question that makes evil disappear

Warnings served years ago now come into play with global warming

Ignoring criticism about forefathers back in the day of humanity

Helps me to glimpse the truth that we'll never get away

Now technology makes it impossible to hide away

Know our religion, knows when we pray

Tracked by GPS, our cell phones, credit cards tracked, petition signing

Usage tallied and compiled daily

Threats to control humanity

Trickle down abuse flourishes

I try to spread the good word today

To foster peace in a world of abuse

Hope propagates, knowledge widens the scope,

more of us see the trickle down abuse encompassing earth

Come see, you know whom I mean! They ~ the big they, you know who they are,

They will not give us back this  great glorious land.
They fight for coin and silver.

Slowly we go to slaughter, like pigs, goats and cows,
we kill ourselves in their sham.

Forced to pay more than our share of taxes
It’s only paper you know, no more gold in Fort Knox
and, while the Masonry leads our government

Symbols lurk every place when you see

Small insidious devious concerns surround us, controlled

By society, daily news, TV, our jobs families, and our conscience

Our desires prevent our seeing

Facebook and twitter rule you can’t see

Enough to spin your head, dizzy, can’t comprehend why facebook

warns one not to add a lot of friends, you can only add so many each night

Isn’t adding friends a boon to Facebook?

Every day it becomes more difficult to understand the world I’m living in

They are not going to give our land back

If we don’t fight for our rights,
if we don’t take  back from the usurpers who have stolen our planet,
we can’t inherit the earth by common assent,
agree our land is not sold for gold, this land is god’s gift,
is not ours to give or buy, but to love and care for like we do our children …

This land is your land,

This land is my land
From California to the New York island;
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and Me.

AMERICA THE MEAGER (sestina)

Alive burning with fire consumes me

Ready freedom burns me

Disputes consume me

House of ill repute

Esteem pollutes forbidden fruit

Pursuit of dreams

American happiness is not pursuit of dreams

American dream a lie, fire consumes me

Covered clotted cream, forbidden fruit

Deceit, the lie of the American dream burns me

Life in the house of ill repute

Americans, wish I weren’t consumed

Freedom from consumerism

Important to pursue the dream

Caught up in ill repute

Desire consumes me

Dirty hands burn me

For sale, buy my forbidden fruit

Can’t hide away forbidden fruit

Lust consumes me

Thirst so strong, it burns me

Cravings coerced, reimbursed dreams

Yearnings consume me

Borne and bred of ill repute

Iraq, Beirut, wars of ill repute

Oil the biggest forbidden fruit

Observing abuse consumes me

Obliterating abuse consumes me

Inflicting suffering drowns dreams

Blues burn me

Trickle down abuse burns me

Weak forced to accept ill repute

Eradicates man’s right to dream

Access to achieve forbidden fruit

Denials of basic rights consumes me

Animal abuse and pollution consume me

Wrenched heart, fear consumes and burns me
Equity and decency consume me, searching escape from ill repute Forbidden fruits multiply wealthy citizens; cancel out poor man’s dreams

This is written in sestina form:

1st Stanza   ABCDEF 

2nd Stanza  FAEBDC

3rd Stanza  CFDABE

4th Stanza  ECBFAD

5th Stanza  DEACFB

6th Stanza  BDFECA

The last 3 lines are formatted thus

AB

CD

EF

Searching For Sunshine

Ain’t no sun up in my sky today

Rain keeps falling on my head

Got the blues so bad I’m dancing with fire

in hellish nights with no end

Promises and dreams not in sight

No delight in life

a bout inside, an an endless fight

in a world where nothing’s right

No sun up in my sky, too down to cry

waiting on motivation that can't come

Dream daily

Lying awake waiting for my lover to come on home

Frustration growing

waiting on lover makes me quirky that way

Comes sneaking through the bedroom 

door in the dead of night

Bed bathed in moonlight

Soft red hair brushes my shoulder

Our promises of together forever have grown older

Each day colder

As she lies down beside me

My eyes closed, pretend I’m asleep

Awake to an empty bed

Gone, left

With words unsaid

Sadness never ends

Never thought we’d end that way

Rain taps on windowpane

Listen in solitary solace

Left me on a rainy day

Called later, said she had to go,

Had someone waiting on her

Someone easier to abide, 

Someone to turn the tides

Someone to resolve dissatisfaction

Permeating our relations

Someone older, more mature

Someone sensitive who knew

how to make love

Someone who understood

Standing in the rain, alone

Clothes drenched through to skin

Each day hope rain will go away

tears blending with rain

sun’s gone away

rains refuse to abate