POETRY: Dark Temptation by Reggie Drake

I thought of you as NOTHING but subhuman,
When you trampled upon the residual remains of my shattered heart.
Ignoring the engagements of intrigue that i presented,
The joyful beckons that I used to entice you into venturing beyond those moral breaches,
The woyful summoning that ensued when you refused
Turned me inwardly reclusive...
I dreamed of your Dark Temptation.
In the foolish childhood of juvenile despair
I rocked in a cradle of a thousand seas that personify these dark emotions,
Washing away the burning fire revitalizing my soul,
And settling in the black solitude of that lonesome island.
An X,
Placed perfectly in the center of my despondency housed the cemetery of my desires,
Tombstones labeling each broken dream,
Each promise unfulfilled,
My Dark Temptation.
The lament of my spirit rocked and swayed like waves crashing against a
Shipwrecked cave,
Every time i felt those subtle insults,
Those delicate hands touching eager flesh
As I inhale the aphrodisiac of my divine dream,
Only to fall into a pit of infinite oblivion when you whispered,
NO.
How can I ever forgive you?
Oh, how I wanted you to be, or be nothing,
But light in the dark,
The sun to my shadow.
I wanted you to take me to Olympus,
Soaring invisible heights and reigning forever with you.
You turned sweet ruminations into Dark temptations,
I watched your silhouette dissipate on the sandy beach where my heart laid,
Maybe it would have been better not to know you,
Than know you and then lose you,
At least in my mind you were divine,
The sweet flower that smelled like infinity,
Your beauty never fleeting inside the timeless capsule of my psyche.
Here, is where I loved you,
Before those memories turned to dust,
When you rejected temptation,
Your eyes of ember red etched encryptions into my flesh that revealed to me a conflicted heart.
One that chose to keep spirituality
Rather than engage in the pleasures of the flesh for a season,
To stay as pure as the naked heavens that illuminate the sky,
You looked seduction in the face and smiled a haughty smile that said,
"I am above what you stand for"...
The why do you come back,
To those chamber doors that conceal persuasion,
Succumbing to the enticement of the enticer.
Do you really mean no??
Don't resist.
I will alleviate my sorrow with you.
I will destroy the sanctity that you hold dear and fulfill my sacred dream.
I will not stop until I hold you in my grips forever,
Open those chamber doors and preserve my undying memory,
Leave your morality at the door,
And fulfill,
Your Dark Temptation.

POETRY: The Living Art by Reggie Drake

Today was the day
I opened my eyes
And saw the future.
Life in reverse rear-view mirrors
Where I could see the beautiful tapestry signifying my life's art.
My every movement choreographed by the cosmos as I laid the foundation for me.
I envisioned,
A lifelong premonition that encompassed the totality of my ambitions and dreams,
Aspirations undergoing maturation had culminated,
You see,
 I was living my dream.
But realistically, That me can't become me until I construct with my scalpel a model of excellence,
A model that would live up to Father Time's standard,
Something that would persist and exist,
Its heart thumping, as its veins course through the very framework of this world.
I want to be remembered for my Living Art,
The very being that embodies my soul,
Let generations peer into literature books,
Their eyes scanning innumerable pages until they come across my chapter
My life story summarized in Times New Romans about how I changed the substratum of civilization,
How I fathered the artistic concepts of illuminaries,
Poets, musicians,
Young artists steadily manifesting their art
Visually referencing the works of Neruda, Whitman, Frost, and me.
When I open my eyes,
I see the future.
All of my innermost fantasies blossom into what I picture them to be...
But all i really want is for Living Art to breathe insight and inspiration into those trapped
In a void of darkness,
So that they can see the future,
Their future,
Beautiful seeds embedded in corruptible soil until they germinate and sprout,
Adding beauty
To a dying world,
Dessimating the status quo and installing creativity and complex ideas
Into the societal system,
Pumping vitality,
Bleeding soul, And injecting life Gaea.
Refusing to get drunk off the opiate of the people,
Branching out into a counterculture that contradicts the inactivity of our youth,
Leading generations with visionary wisdom towards a culture that will embrace
A mosaic of masterpieces crafted by virtuoso's and neophytes alike,
These thoughts are more than just an abstraction.
When I open my eyes,
I envisioned something supreme,
Something that would exist beyond the delicate fabric of space,
Past the duration of time.
When I open my eyes,
I see the essence that's embedded within every human being...
The Living Art.

POETRY: I Used to Love H>E>R by Reggie Drake

"I met this girl when I was 10 years old,
And what i loved most she had so much soul,
She was old school when I was just a shorty
Never knew throughout my life she would be there for me on the regular...
That's what I thought hip hop was supposed to be.
Beautiful and full of verbal sustenance
Galvanizing young minds with lyrical rhymes that portray
Episodes of financial hardships and social injustices in the form of
Complex metaphors and gritty imagery.
Street themes that parade down neighborhoods giving us our own slice of Heaven in Hell,
I could relate to the intrinsic message imprinted in every verse
I could understand the concept the design.
Through music you spoke to me like a mother to a sobbing child
Hoping to alleviate the pressures and pains of this life
With a melodic symphony that remains engraved in my soul for eternity.
Hip Hop you are the antithesis of yourself.
Now when I gaze upon the remnants of what was
All that's left is the product without the soul,
The superficial part of the whole personified by
Big chains and even bigger egos
That's subject open ears and receptive minds to poison
To misogyny,
To flagrant obscenities that should be stamped with a censor bar around the mouths of Hip Hop's apostles,
That's not the Hip Hip that I knew.
You left the young inner city dreamers day dreaming on street corners
Mentally visualizing the days,
When those dead eyes sparked with vivacity and glowed promise,
Adolescents bee bopping and rocking to inspirational rhythmic monologues singing,
Whose world is this,
The world is yours, the world is yours.
Hands held tight to life-saving headphones that contain their sweet elixir
Overdosing on an audible drug used an exit to escape,
Jotting in a Mead notebook
Lines that extend past the margin,
Hoping to strike upon a million dollar verse
That'll turn those inner city rags to riches,
It was YOU Hip Hop that inspired those dreams
Those aspirations...
Well, at least the old you did.
I never knew the new you,
Who's too new school
Busy chasing the cool,
To be preoccupied with street dreams.
Or even with and 18 year old visionary expressing intricate contemplation's through spoken word.
I still harbor the the melodic symphony you engraved in my soul.
Through music you spoke to me,
So through music,
Come back to me.

POETRY: 'The "F" Word' by Ana Hagins

I’ve found myself constantly avoiding situations

due to my F*** of the outcome.

When uncertainty presents itself

I run because “none of the above”

always seems to be the safe and correct answer

when given multiple choices.

People always talk about

having an open mind,

but it’s closed for a reason.

There’s a sense of protection

from the unknown unknown.

When you start to let all of that unwind

then you lose control  over what’s absolute.

You would never truly keep an open door policy

because “good people” aren’t the only ones with legs.

We all F*** something,

but nobody likes to admit it

because they swear it makes you incompetent.

I F*** ignorance

because “I don’t know”

is never an option in a series of answers

to the questions on life’s tests.

Question #1.      What lies ahead?

a.      Nothing.

b.      Something other than what you're hoping for.

c.       You may die tonight.

d.      None of the above.

“Think outside the box,” they say,

but the parameters are there for a reason,

right?  

Ambiguity within its natural confines

is scary enough,

so why over step that boundary?

In here, I am sheltered.

Question #2.      But is being sheltered the same as being ignorant?

a.      Yes, because there’s more out there that you don’t understand.

b.      No, because the unknown unknown is the area of life that you don’t know you don’t know, but in here the known unknown can be learned.

c.       Can’t be determined.

d.      None of the above.

What scares me most

is that the box that I live in,

that I take shelter in,

may also house ignorance,

which ultimately means

that I live in F…

Dare I say it?

POETRY: 'What Matters Most' by Jazelle Handoush

What Matters Most
By Jazelle Handoush

I fear I’m stuck here.
Where I’m meant to be
Where I wish.

There’s an in-between you see
And the forces stretch my skin and skeleton
In an attempt to make me sway.

Switch sides.

Decide.

It’s not a right, wrong, or left.
But simply a decision between mind and matter.
As my mind shifts to an argument of importance
My heart tells if it matters at all to me…

Then it matters most.
With this mentality it mind, the matters make the compass sway and switch.
Yet I’m still stuck in the in-between.
The compass points to what I want most
And what I want most matters.
But still it circles and spins and goes san-stop
Because the truth of the matter is
I don’t know what I want.

Copyright 2012 | Jazelle Handoush

POETRY: 'William Tell' by Ana Hagins

Denial as a means of mental survival

can only last for so long

before you realize its true oppression.

I constantly fight myself,

thinking of how I feel

versus what I feel.

I shouldn’t miss you,

but I do.

I tell myself that the feeling isn’t there

…but now that I think about it…

it isn’t.

I don’t miss you;

I miss what you could have been.

Irony is such a brain teaser

because I miss what was never there.

You were never there,

and I wanted you

but not the you that was already there.

I wanted the you that I needed

but apparently couldn’t have

because that you didn’t exist.

So I got what was

instead of what could have been,

or did I miss it?

No, you missed it.

I sat there with a target over my heart

and you missed it,

William Tell.

So tell me,

will you,

how a person so close can be so far off.

It seems so irrelevant

because you weren’t who I needed you to be,

 but it’s so important

because now I know you aren’t the one for me.

 People talk about how people go through some type of metamorphosis,

but I have never met a more stationary brother than this

one right here.

 I have stunted my growth

just to stay down with you.

So nothing ever changed.

But I want some type of metamorphosis;

I need more than this.

Holding you down means that

I have to stay down

because you refuse to stand up

and be a man.

I want more than the you that you’re giving me.

Call it greed,

but I call it settling for less.  

You have to do better.

Better yet, I should aim higher,

William Tell.

For so long

I told myself that I was moving too fast for you,

but I have taken more than enough time.

I took time

to make time

so you could stand still.

You told me I was moving too slow.

 How could I be moving too slow

when you’re not moving?

That’s how the turtle won the race.

I don’t need you,

but without you I probably wouldn’t have realized it.

So tell me,

will you,

how can I need your potential and not love you?

I want what I need,

and I need what I want;

there’s no way to separate the two,

One.

It’s like trying to kill two birds with one stone,

but you just cannot miss,

William Tell.

POETRY: 'Lost Cause' by Ana Hagins

I can’t seem to get it right anymore.

It’s as if I have nothing to say,

like truth no longer exists,

or there’s no message for the messenger to deliver.

It’s like I am whole,

but not complete;

a void space with too much time to flow through it.

I am struggling to find words.

Every day I spend countless hours

trying to retrace my steps,

all the time wondering where it all went.

I’ve looked behind my fears,

under my sorrow,

and inside my heart…

nothing.

No signs,

no trace,

nothing to indicate that it was once there.

 It just poofed…

like a cloud of smoke,

and now I want it back…

every part of it:

the words and the meanings behind them all,

the introspection and self-discovery,

the messages and the truth.

Because I wasn’t looking for it,

 I never realized that it went missing.

Now,

when I need it most,

I can’t remember where I put it.

Without it I have forfeited my talent.

It’s so hard to say what needs to be said

because I am lost for words.

Look at that…

an expressionist lost for words.

Where did my desire go?

I have searched high and low

for the one thing that can define me.

How could this happen?

How could I do this to them?

For they have been the only ones

to be there through it all.

When I had a story to tell

they gave me the time and space I needed,

never running out on me,

always there to share my pain,

my troubles,

my frustrations.

Paper and pen,

I do apologize for the neglect.

I have misplaced the one thing that binds the trinity…

Forgive me world

for I have ceased being you messenger.

Forgive me Father

for not being responsible

with the talents you have given me.

I have put down the gift you gave me

and let it go to waste,

but I know it’s still there.

Please search me dear God,

for I have lost my passion.

POETRY: 'The Truth' by Robert Drake

It was more like a quiet storm,
the subtle strike of her
sharp gaze pierce my soul
like black stars against wooden dummies.
I was afraid to look at her,
for her eyes held all truth,
not only about things common
but all things, about me.
Her starstruck gaze, had my shoulders
dropping, my head turning like exorcism,
I never felt, such a beautiful pain..
pain of never seeing tomorrow or
the pain of seeing first born brother
slaughtered, or the pain
of knowing you’re a puppet
to society
For you see,
She made me undulate!
like the rising and lowering of tides or,
the wail of a siren in distance
she was as abstract as possible,
sat upon the pedestal of her
oppressors and left war in her wake.
I never felt such a beautiful pain..
The pain to dream and to believe,
the pain to hope, to wake up
from a false existence, or the pain
to desire for a brighter life other than
the ones seen selling rocks on
auction blocks.
In her eyes I saw
a quiet storm,
so quiet, you could
hear the wind speak,
and if you would listen,
just for minute
you could feel the
beautiful pain
of the truth.

Copyright 2012 | Robert Drake