POETRY: Deferred Justice by Reggie Drake

We have been left stranded,

And abandoned.

Locked like caged birds behind societies' iron bars of institutionalism.

Why can't we be heard.

Teens shout and scream profanities behind this invisible barrier,

Hoping that the dream that has long eluded their grasp can finally be clasped behind eager fingers.

Let Justice be heard.

The road to dejection is paved with the aspirations of children who have faltered and crumbled underneath the overbearing weight,

Of anvils labeled oppression,

And rejection.

Forced to scratch and claw.

Outlaws that have been denied access into a world that has never truly understood their struggle.

Blood spills on suburban street corners.

We are like animals who fight and kill each other for supremacy,

The instinctive philosophy of survival of the fittest coursing through the veins of a people,

Who have been led astray by visions of grandeur in the form of diamonds and luxes,

Materialistic ideals that corrode and erode the body until it is left craving for the world's vices.

Let Justice finally spread its radiant wings,

And cleanse my people of this degradation and regression that has cursed us for so long.

Let Justice finally put an end to our suffering,

Hear the silent cries of tormented souls and quiet their tears.

For only then can we be see the world through freedom's eyes.

Only then can we step forward;

After a thousand step backs.

POETRY: The Disingenuous Conception by Reggie Drake

It was a dream.

That ignited the reality within my subconscious,

Sparking imaginative yet cognitive thought that form and pixelate into diagrams,

Conceiving a world generated by my mental processes.

A simple concept.

An escape by design that grew and metamorphosized into an alternate dimension that left me wary of the authenticity of my own domain,

Yet oddly inclusive to the new reality that now enshrouds every dream I ever conceived in their totality.

Miniscule details of ideas and thoughts appear in prominence,

Dull greens and drab yellows explode into vivid hues.

The pinnacle of my potential is only limited by my creative capacity to design and confine my memories;

My life,

My reality,

Into this new existence.

These two worlds;

Similar in their aesthetic features,

Yet antithetical in concept, begin to mesh and collide,

Like contrasting colors splattered about a canvas.

My present body residing in reality while the mind inhabits the illusion.

The inability to distinguish is frustrating.

I force myself to believe that my reality is not real.

I look for an escape,

10 stories high,

To see if this reality is truly mine.

To awake from this deep slumber,

Yet unwittingly falling into an everlasting slumber.

Inspired by the movie Inception

POETRY: GOD by Reggie Drake

He existed.

Before I breathed my first breath.

Before Father Time opened his eyes and set the world turning on his clockwise rotation.

That infinite being that I always knew existed,

Every time I inhaled,

And smelled,

His spirit ostensibly poured life into an inanimate corpse,

Frail flesh that faltered without his divine omnipresence....

I remember.

Ocean water spraying naked feet as I'm walking,

Walking with a man whose hands shined with a radiance and glow unbeknownst to my eyes.

He talked.

As if the world's secrets had been divulged unto him and had been locked away within his voluminous mind.

He walked me through my years,

And I grew old with dementia,

My hands shook as if possessed by untoward spirits.

Amidst my decrepit form he stood paramount.

The agelessness of his features,

His majestic gait...

Enraptured me.

Death never laid his bone-chilling eyes upon him,

His aura to glorious to be defiled by the reapers insidious presence.

Time passed and the boundless shore continued on and on.

Like a staircase that has yet to reach its ending,

Perpetual in its ascension to limitless heights.

That staircase ended,

And he escorted me from my deathbed.

Embracing me with the warmth and benevolence of a father clasping his son with tight arms,

As if letting him go would mean losing him forever.

He opened the gates that led into eternity,

And my soul burned with a fervor unlike anything I had ever experienced.

And at that point I knew,

Or maybe I had always known,

But never fully realized the concept or design.

That day I entered into the divine castle, his kingdom.

My entire life, I had been walking, with GOD.

POETRY: A Prayer Called The Lord By Cheryl A. Baldwin

"I must keep waiting, so I must keep praying;
waiting on God isn't easy but favor isn't free"
Lord, when I feel so much pain
and my life feels as tho it was lived invane,
i lift my hands unto you and you promise sunshine After the Rain.
Lord, when i needed a friend to lend ah hand,
You used them to to help me understand;
They Gave me hope and courage to withstand,
The mark of the Devils evil brand.
Lord, I am forever grateful for what you have done
And to your will I will be faithful even after the war is won
I ask you Lord to please help me to be without sin
then i lift my voice and say Amen.
-Quote By Danielle Dous'e

POETRY: 'Rocketeer' By Kabriel Moorehead

Rocketeer
by Kabriel Moorehead

What happens when a piece of you
Flies so far away
And you feel like its non essential and allow it to go
Then end up swatting for it
Because in the flow of your consciousness
The qualities become obvious which made it apart of your being in the first place
Because we never realize what was there until it isn't
Then spend the rest of lives chasing a shadow
Our imagination, or maybe even a dream
A flashback to what we once had
Something that could fill a hole
In former cardiac warriors
But holes aren't empty oblivion's
Rather their reasons to continue driving
To keep fighting and improving
In hopes of one day filling a vacancy
Not by catching the past
But by chasing the future

Copyright 2011| Kabriel Moorehead

POETRY: Twilight Serenade by Reggie Drake

It was a star-stricken moonlit night

When I uttered a symphony.

A dulcet and harmonious symphony

That floated gracefully towards the ears of my sacrosanct image.

She was enraptured,

As if experiencing a newly-awakened nirvana;

Moved to tears by the silvery, sweet-sounding hymn.

She danced.

As if guided platforms were placed precariously upon her feet,

Leading her closer to me.

When we touched,

I felt her heartbeat in conjunction with mine.

The closeness was blissful,

And romantic visions began to drift across my eyes in elaborate, microscopic images.

No longer two individualized pieces,

But one Divine Entity.

Our consciousness now tied together by the umbilical cord of a consecrated love;

Conjoining our existence.

Me and Sweet poetry,

Professing our love through the twilight serenade we vocalize in musical modulations and melodies.

Spoken words that proclaim intricate fascinations and living dreams that continue to breathe within my inviolable paramour.

Two voices articulated in the same breath.

Im left breathless from the freshness of the inherent beauty evident in her ethereal voice.

We stare into each others eyes until we blush this bright, rosy red.

The color of passion.

The color of love

I see both in her eyes as we confide in each other,

Like lovers laughing in recollection,

Restless in the rush of excitement;

Finally finding the one they were looking for.

Just as I found you, my sweet poetry.

In the ever-present shade.

Through the twilight serenade.

POETRY: Here I Stand by Reggie Drake

Here I stand.

Watching.

Days and seasons pass as green leaves fade into a golden brown,

And summer dreams transition into wintry memories.

Here I stand.

Waiting.

With headstrong persistence and unwavering resistance;

Probing through hidden realms within the immaculate reality of my mind's inner caverns.

A sphere of existence where I solemnly wait for a dream unrealized.

A dream only whispered within the darkest recesses of my psyche.

Here I stand.

Inflexible in my will and firm in stance.

Awaiting a perfectionists' dream;

A dream that has existed within the vastness of unlimited space.

Left stranded by negligible hands.

What happens to a dream deferred, a wise man once asked.

It erodes.

Like primordial settlements,

Archaic monuments,

And fading memories.

Here I stand

In wait of a dream I know has not left the minds of millions who wait,

Just as I do;

Watching the clockwise rotation of a timeless chroniker,

Patiently,

Incessantly.

For that second,

For that moment in time where necessity meets opportunity and the vision,

The dream; is realized.

I stand.

In the sanctuary against the incubus that has seemingly plagued my fathers and forefathers for a myriad of generations.

Long in search of an escape.

An exit,

From an accursed reality.

Watching,

And Waiting,

For the realization of a long-shared revelation.