Live in Poetic Entrancement

I’m not a rapper or a rhymer 

I refuse to be defined except as poet

I’m a social climber, not on a timer

I’m an old timer, been through a lot

Since born

I’m a writer, half-assed extrovert, an undercover introvert

I write all day till my hands hurt

Use a keyboard and mouse to type

Send out memos to me and everyone else, 

Letters, reminders, 

So busy I go crazy

Live in a bluesday concert of my making

Try to avoid being hurt is like trying to avoid living

I indulge in frozen fruit parfait I make

Grab it!   Life’s for the taking do our best to make it matter. Proclaim! … Lives Matter!

I cry for lost dreams. Houses made of stone and glass, all wood inside the fame and fortune 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 with no underwear. I fear living dead. Live in my head less than half of it never comes to be because I am alone, lost in a phone yet I want to be like Annie Malone and be me. I want to be her, still I see, neither is he. 

Change your tone; don't use your phone while we're having this conversation. 

I want to be Annie Malone – the first Black woman in the US to take the world by storm.

Found her accidentally on the net while searching for my old colleague Annie Malone. 

Blown away in awe, – Annie Malone was ahead of her time, born August 9, 1869 – A chime went off in my head to read… 

American businesswoman, inventor, and philanthropist, Annie Malone came from a simple life. Annie manufactured products revolutionizing hair care for Black women. That’s my goal – be a hero, a superwoman, spokeswoman, for groups who appreciate a different kind of Annie Malone, a noblewoman, a strong secure woman, a give society-her due woman instead of suffering anxiety, 

Gavin’s notoriety or mine. How much sobriety do you need to see the vitality? Like royalty live by misconception that insanity is the rule of the day. People say they want different, yet prefer compliancy, ignore morality impiously siding with majority, fear authority. Standing in a minority is gaining seniority. Gives me hope that one day we’ll be a supermajority and redevelop the meaning of authority. The Cherokees are the original owners yet were thrown away for currency. 

Finally accept this is life and I’d rather do this then push up daisies

Keep all kinds of lists because the To Do’s persist

in running my existence while I attempt to stay cool ~be a shamanist

Get more abstractionist as I age, when I was younger, psychiatrists said I was too literal

Couldn’t see me being lyrical

I preach everyone’s crazy only some us don’t recognize how crazy we have become to survive.

Let’s Go, Let’s Go, Let’s Go

The stars, the sun and moon

Surround me –put me in a swoon

While I read runes

I want the world to know I’m one of you

so step aside and let me through,

Did you hear what I said,

I’m no different from you, you and you, 

Graduated the school of hard knocks

Just like you, came from the wrong side

Didn’t come up easy

Can’t you see

Who I am,

I said I’m one of you, some of what you are – what you are – 

Created in some image I create for myself and the stars in the sky,

I’m on the brink of expansion

An explosion of words going off in me

Words on the horizon

Words provide aspirations, a solution to our rotation 

Of bullshit politicians,

Anxiety spreads like a bloodstain

Feel another me emerging again

There’s a thrill up on the hill

Let’s go, Let’s go, Let’s go

In an explosive moment, puff of smoke at sunset,

Like the campfire built at sunset burns out at dusk all by itself

No one tells it hey fire, listen up, hear me, you’ve run your course, your hearse is on the horizon

My hearts locked inside straining to emerge, a collection of alternatives,

Add some trepidation, come to liberation, salvation is near, 

Not helping to flex, feel like a hex on me. 

Talk shit like it’s the next recourse, 

a force of nature to be reckoned with, no worries – 

Climate change is a no go…

Eastern sunlight rays in my skyline vision alive with the flow of color

Mesmerizes me

My heart skips a beat

A city girl fundamentally, nature claws me with her vibrations

Heartbreak hotel is still a go to

Zonked out on fresh brewed coffee

Feel another poem birthing inside me

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

For The Thrill Of It All

Hugs and kisses, velvet wishes

Come to an end and what’s left

Change husbands, like changing an old pair of shoes for new

Like buying a new pair of shoes

Sudden change to my heart’s colder weather

Gets cold outside, feel blue, another breakthrough

Work to get through the next day

Everyone says they’re coming through

Can’t believe what anyone says

It’s a new day and I’m

one flew over the cuckoo’s nest

Hard pressed to think I messed up again

Trying my best to stay compressed, so distressed

My heart thumps in my chest

Please God let me be Mae West

Life’s work a contest, possessed by desire to conquest

Impressed by old things finessed, dressed to kill

Live in an all frills world

Cotton candy clouds

Are worth more than riches         

And more delicious too

Death gnaws at my life

Fret at changes in this body I no longer know like I used to

No longer own

This body betrays me and does whatever it wants to do

It’s not me just a shell, like a tortoise I will shed

My body like a garden hose, thrown around and carelessly mistreated till it grows holes

Neglected, abused, torn inside out, rife with strife

Can’t get away from myself

This body ages without grace

Thoughts seclude me

Nostalgia eludes me

Randomly search inside to know this body that is mine

Life’s burrs consume me

Soul is youthful, yearns to learn, to see the unseen

Physical pains don’t belong to me, only this body I am forced to carry

It can’t all be bad - We all get old

Some of life glows with rhythm like sudden golden shimmers of a glad song

Words are the answer to my body.

Return to my roots, go slow with the flow, my words – this body begins to control what I do

I swear this body is not me and struggle to see what I
truly am made of – sugar and spice, so nice

Destiny tugs at my heart’s strings
I sing my way through the valley of my soul

L’Chaim! Toasting 2017 ...

My words like music, fill your ears

My lips, soft like rose petals touch your lips

Words fill you with sounds I don’t hear

Rhymes I spout fill your heart

Lonely, long for love, here, now

Too smart for my own good

If you only stood where I stand,

Maybe you’d understand

Where I’m coming from

Childhood to adulthood in barely an hour

Live till we’re dead under power

Of the IRS, government shadows & showers

Wonder if or when or can it be better

Our minds, thoughts controlled, fettered

Would a chain letter do, a scarlet letter

BE a trend setter or pacesetter

Move forward, be straightforward

Hold words close to our heart

As though words are people;

They’re not

Store words in our hearts

Know we can’t go back to yesterday

Must live with what we hear today

What we say & hear on sad days

Thoughts are transient

Words last longer

Can’t erase words you’ve spoken

Words escape your palate, are token

Leave me brokenhearted

Pretend to study a pie chart

Love is strange,

Life, a curse, a game played on my shame

Kick start my life into another movie frame

Soothe and feed flames

Love claims my blame

My name, my fame,

Life’s games, reclaim my stage & nick name

Disclaim strife – go on with life

WHAT IS POETRY?

WHAT IS POETRY?

I mix, match, and blend words

Use verbs to describe

When I write

What the fuck do I know about poetry?

I wonder why it’s not as good as theirs

The ones who are consistently published

And I examine the pile of rejects

I survive on poetry for sustenance

My mind is like a sieve

Thoughts buzz in and out

Been like this for as long as I live

Run through my mind

My mind and my heart intertwined

With appointments and dates a blur

Conversations recalled word for word

As they occur, ground up in a coffee burr

Don’t tell me you don’t remember saying that

I hear your voice clear as day today

Shames surrounds me,

from a tarnished childhood

Like silver needing polish

Live in a secluded fortress

In a palace protecting my soul

Hide away day after day

Like a rash, an allergy that has

No place to go, like a prisoner

Of my own demise

Like unpolished diamond

Glow body and soul

Flow with rhythm

Hidden me emerges in poetry

Courses through my veins

Frees me from my chains

Dream Love

Felix stares deep into my eyes
leans towards me,
it's a dream
I stare back into

Sweet almond eyes

Presses his lips to mine

Kisses my lips gently,

Lips slightly apart

Total eclipse of my art,

My too-kind heart

I was never smart in love

And attraction, men are an alien faction

My private eye –shy daddy mack,

Always take him back

The second kiss, a photo in my mind's eye

I feel that kiss now

See his face as though were today,

Eyes lock in embrace

He bends his head toward me

I raise my head, anticipate

Lost in one another’s gaze

Says his one little phrase

Like a photo, stays glued in my memory

One kiss so sweet; cherished reveries

My Daddy likes no man who wants me

And even he sang Felix’s praises

“He really loves you,” he says

Stamped, signed and delivered

His face and eyes moving towards mine

Gently press his lips to mine,

See it as if it was two clear photos,

Shown in two different angles

A photo I see with closed eyes

Even if I were to be blind

It will remain clear in my mind

A sensory delight, exemplary levity

A memory that never lived

So can’t survive

A dream delight withstands time

Forever I see the photo in my mind