Poetry is within you ...

Poetry, not just words, but a state of mind
Are we aware of this self expression
To paper through pen our thought we bind
Are we just seeking to make an impression?
Or letting loose our imagination ...

Poetry, not just words, but a deep feeling
Do we know that it comes from the heart?
Carefully chosen words, rife with meaning
Its important even before you start ...
to let loose your imagination!

Poetry, not just words, but a message
Of what we want everyone to know
creative words, whose meaning we envisage
to the poets' mind we must go
to merge yours with their imagination.

Poetry, not just words, but life itself
with a force to uplift and enlighten
to give hope for others and yourself
for the days you seek to brighten

take your pen now, merge your heart and mind
and bring forth your feelings and thoughts
Remember, its not just words
but POETRY!

Romance of my Youth

I was only 7 years old, living with my grandmother when my neighbor's youngest daughter spoke to me first. This story is hilarious, amazing and then sad, I wish I could have had the chance to meet her for our third decade...





























young as I am
radiating naivete due to my age
I know I am a boy
and that she is a girl

I remember I wanted us to be friends
and even closer than that
I do not know what drives me to this
only that it is what I want

in a show of affection I push her
-and she pushes back, stained with dirt
and grandma breaks us up
and it was then I got the definition

grandma asks me to bathe
get ready for the marriage, she says
we will take care of the bride-price later
after the girl and I marry

I dash to the bathroom and bathe
I am excited, do I really know why I am this elated?
and I look at the starry eyed girl
innocently unaware of the budding romance

ten years later and I am a young man
it would be as long since I had seen her last
I go looking for her
the old surroundings flooding memories of childhood past

she opens the door, this pretty thing
a woman, and as amazing as I remembered her
quite ignorant of who I am, I reveal myself to her at last
then she remembers me, her awe more than evident as she stares at me

in half-disbelief and pours me tea,
her eyes never off me
dusk comes upon us and I have to leave
having seen her, I am satisfied
and have to go home

yet another ten years pass, and I dream that she has come to me
clothed in white, radiant as the angels
and she bids me goodbye as she turns to light
may God keep her-the innocent romance of my youth


Image by Peter Griffin

http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/browse-author.php?a=296

Adiemus (Karl Jenkins & Adiemus)

A bit of musical distraction and inspiration.

Black Folk

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"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others.... One ever feels his twoness, - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder." ~ W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk, 1903

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Afterthought for a Valentine

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"Evolution made civilization steward of this planet. A hundred thousand years later, the steward stood before evolution not helper but destroyer, not healer but parasite. So evolution withdrew its gift, passed civilization by, rescued the planet from intelligence and handed it to love." ~ Richard Bach

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