I was gonna sit this one out

sit in the back row
while other poets dip their big toes into
i...

The last chord burning is the one you didn’t mean to play the note that slipped out when your gua...

When the night learns your name,

it doesn’t whisper it soft,

it drags the syllables slow,

Is it something that can take away from me? I won the skin color lottery. The reason I am winning...

I think about
things

great and small
short and tall
how much it will cost
the interest on ...

My rhymes are weapons so lethal

One day they might justchange people

Sow seeds so potent, t...

Dont write much bout my experiences in Vietnam

but this one piicture stays in my mind all the ...

Got the trump infused name callin

try to shame folks

this racist administration a phony

joke a...

That time of year when

butterfly U R here

Colorful silky delicate

bobbin dippin like Smo...

I love olives, the green kind. Not the black one that are locked in the cans. At least with the g...

I was walking around my room the other day and every I turned I stubbed my toe. Like God was tryi...

I detest the taste of it

it's unpleasant aromaset before me
wanting to turn away and ask for ...

My dreaded season not that

far away

mattter of fact starting to

feel its effect more and...

Everything in his power to degrade the Black

voting rights trying his best to supress our vote

I am trying to be civil

Sensible

As you say civilized

I am a creation of your civilization

I ...

Its already bedtime and I am putting all rumours to rest. Im well rested and the world has tested...

Sharks are 50 to 100 million years older than trees!

Guess which came first, dogs or fleas?

Still.

Enough?

"Mother" a sacred word revered and worth its weight in gold children learn to bow their head and ...

Silence walked in like it knew my name told me chill everything don’t need to be explained as i...

I saw a deacon picking up trash around our church’s parking lot

So I grabbed a broom to sweep ...

Cue the music

Strike up the band

Manufacture the tears

Manufacture the cheers

Sanctified in s...

Big momma hands stilled

The kitchen forgot its hymns

Mercy missed supper

was once a poet

then survived the rinse cycle

writer of poems

does healing look like progress a quiet home inside voices children who do not flinch when their ...

loose strands growing side by side twisting into one tangled vine strengthen by time grows to...

Given a spark of madness is the madness of insisting that all is, when all are miserable.

Diff...

Christians praise a trinity but are monotheistic

Media is fiction we worship because its unrea...

Burning down the Wickerman

holds like setting fire

to myself, I built to survive.

Every ...

when I say "please" am I asking or begging am I being respectful or begging for a chance to be he...

These are my damn words

not softened,

not sanded down,

not dressed up

to make anyone ...

don’t get the wrong idea
when you read the words I write
and listen with attentive ears
to the...

There’s a riot breaking... fists, fire,

A storm of everything

Walls shake,

Truth cracks,...

I AM SO

REAL REAL,

do you know

how I

FEEL FEEL???

some

ISH,

I just gotta

DEAL DEAL,

this...

STOP, just Stop.

I’m done swallowing storms

to keep the peace.

I’m done carrying weight

t...

Angry, reflective....

two flames in the same glass,

one burning hot,

one burning slow.

I star...

Pour the water to wash away the weight of yesterday’s dust.

Sip the wine to honor the fire sti...

DAMN—

that’s the only word

big enough

to hold the weight

of what just broke open.

We are the object of desire

Melanin men spindled and folded into robes of gold

Whipped blac...

Shadows hide under the sun, quiet as secrets that refuse to die.

Even in the brightest heat, t...

Stand down.

Not because I am fragile, but because I am finished shrinking to make room for som...

The words you carry are heavier than the night.

I see the storm gathering behind your teeth,

Part not thou lips, for I can hear the truth before it’s spoken.

The breath you hold trembles ...

It came back

like a storm we swore we’d outgrown,

a shadow stretching

from wounds we nev...

How did time convertMorganucodons into humans?

Over 200 million years ago, just walking around d...

I lay beside the anger like a fire that won’t die down, embers whispering what the flames were to...

broke homegrown curses writing verses backwards in cursive each sentence a surgical precise incis...

They hand me a mask

and call it my face,

pressing it tight

like I was born wearing it.

Brick by brick,

the wall I built

to survive what hurt me.

Every piece I lift away

let...

The truth you sip slow,

the rumor you stir twice,

the heat that fogs the glass

before th...

Under the voodoo palms,

the air hums with secrets—

old magic curling like smoke

around t...

Turn your back— not in anger, but in arrival. Some roads don’t deserve your footsteps anymore, an...

There’s fire under the bridge— not the kind that burns it down, but the kind that whispers, “I’m ...

They tried to shape my story

from the grain of their own assumptions,

carving silhouettes i...

I see a broken pencil

I have a impulse to fix it

I look at it then start to

see it differently...

there was a time when you wanted your voice to be heard all you had to do is scream the noise was...

Thank you, for all you do

I haven’t said that nearly enough though, true?

For years, as our...

I
did not
could not prevail against the gates of hell
knew I wasn't flying the friendly skies
...

I think about the good times "the good times" there were good times not to say all the good times...

Be the spark

Not in fire
Not in flame

But in memory
of your name

Let your craft open
gat...

Where’s your witness…

when the truth sits heavy

and the room grows still?

Who saw th...

I didn’t fall all at once—

I came apart in quiet ways,

edges softening,

strength slippin...

Pass the passion like sunlight through branches— soft, warm, and meant to be carried.

Let your...

Like a branch shaped by seasons, I curve with the weather of my life— sun?warmed, storm?tested, s...

If brothers could sing the blues,

their voices would rise like smoke at dawn—

soft at first...

I felt the weight lifting, a shift in the air,

Like color returning where shadows once lived.

My blues have edges like river?worn stone,

Smoothed by the years, carved by the unknown.

Bu...

There’s a crack in the quiet where the light slips through,

A soft little shimmer in the shade...

Cannot fly.” You will always find a way” wake up, for sometimes, when you fall, you fly.

Let t...

Now, what do I say…. everything I had was placed into a man; at least I felt he was a man, a man ...

A minute too late. Lost - yesterday, between sunrise and sunset, two hours, gone forever

Lost ...

Playing till sunrise the low-down blues, blew my mind. Something’s been missing my whole life.

these words might find you
or you may find these words
one hundred years from now
or maybe mor...

poem
tucked neatly and discretely away
underneath three upside down walnut shells

people
plac...

Summer camp 1983, we just left the pool

Rushing to catch the bus, I grabbed my shorts off of a s...

Ma bell

The muse upon my mind

Glistening in the sun all the time

Heavy sometimes...

Go there with me

from the day into the night,

when the sun cools its temper

and the moon...

Imagine what the world would be like if we could exceed the mind. If we could push the limits of ...

Matthew 7:13-14

For wideis the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction

Narrow ...

they came in
famished
this place either highly recommended
five start positive reviews
or the...

if I were a betting man
and I ain't

desperate in my addictions
gambling hotline number on ...

You really have to look at the world and you need to believe that we are in the service of each o...

I was not really unfaithful
or having a cheating moment
a relapse of the days
or more like
un...

you are
so close to my heart
as each beat pounds metronomic rhythms of love
coinciding with my...

perplexed, annoyed

climbing through the abyss

staring into the void

wondering

The road to revenge

burns two bridges

if you’re so happy w/o me

then why are you trippin...

poems for her wedding
three-tiered
decorated with sweet words and flowers
sliced into small pi...

She stands in a place where the ground still aches

Where everything around her has already g...

sometimes Heaven gets a call and the caller is me and I want to talk to someone I believe is ther...

Talking is giving birth to creation.

Every word is a labor,

thoughts pulled from the unseen...