FEATURE POETRY

Feature: Gwendolyn Brooks

“Art hurts

Art urges voyages

– and it is easier to stay at home.”

“Be careful what you swallow

Chew!”

 

 

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OF ME AND MEN {POETRY BY KWAME DAWES}

When after a week
He is grunting
Startled at the suck
Of my body
At the impossible of his luck
He won’t know
How easily we arrived here
Playing beats in the half light
Won’t know that I have washed these sheets today
And I will again tonight
Won’t know that I ruin love
With the melody of men
Slipping into the soft hunger of my dreams

Won’t know that I can make storms
And quiet them

With just a breath

THE SAFEST PLACE (FEATURED POET/ SADE)

“The Safest Place”

In my heart
Your love has found
The safest hiding place
Inside is a field And trees and a lake Around is a wall
No-one from hell could break
In there you’ll shine
In there you will cry
My heart has been a lonely warrior
Who’s been to war
So you can be sure
In my heart your love has found
The safest hiding place Inside is a stream
Around is a wall
No-one from hell could break In there will shine
The light of heaven’s eye
In there you will cry
My heart’s been a lonely warrior
Who’s been to war
So you can be sure
Your love’s in a sacred place
The safest hiding place
My heart has been a lonely warrior before
Who’s been to war
So you can be sure

 

If it’s to be, it will…AFTER THE DIVORCE! (FEATURE)

When you love someone, you must be willing to share certain thing that you believe will save them trouble and grief. That is the nature of this message; it is intended to save you grief. So here goes…don’t sleep with other peoples partners! It’s not nice, in fact it is dangerous. It really isn’t nice and if you’re not careful you will find out just how pissed off they are. I know you think its love. I know you feel this is the one. You are mistaken. The one who is with someone else cannot be the one who is meant for you. Forget what they say. Forget what you tell yourself. It is never a loving thing to do to sleep with someone else’s partner  under any circumstances. So please don’t do it.

 Until Today, a daily meditation By Iyanla Vanzant

FEATURE (GAUDENZIA HOUSE PHILOSAPHY)

We are here because there is no refuge

Finally, from ourselves

Until people confront themselves in the eyes and hearts of others

They are running

Until they suffer others to share their secrets

They have no safety from them

Afraid to be known

They can know neither themselves nor any other

They will be alone!
Where else but in our common ground can we find such a mirror

Here, together, people can at last appear clearly to themselves

Not as the giant of their dreams,

Nor the dwarfs of their fears

But as individuals

Part of a whole

With a share in its purpose
In this ground we can each take root and grow

Not alone anymore as in death

But alive to ourselves and to others

STREET GIRL (FEATURE POET/ BONNIE PARKER)

BONNIE & CLYDE, BONNIE  WAS AN AWSOME POET

       
You don’t want to marry me honey
Though just to hear you ask me is sweet
If you did you’d regret it tomorrow
For I’m only a girl of the street
There was a time when I’d gladly have listened
Before I was tainted with shame
But it wouldn’t be fair to you honey
Men laugh when they mention my name
Back there on the farm in Nebraska
I might have said yes to you then
But I thought the world was a playground
Just teeming with Santa Claus men
So I left the old home for the city
To play in its mad, dirty whirl
Never knowing how little of pity, It holds for a slip of a girl
You think I’m still good-looking honey!
But no I am faded and spent
Even Helen of Troy would look seedy
If she followed the pace I went
But that day I came in from the country
With my hair down my back in a curl
Through the length and the breadth of the city
There was never a prettier girl.
I soon got a job in the chorus
With nothing but looks and a form
I had a new man every evening
And my kisses were thrilling and warm
I might have sold them for a fortune
To some old sugar daddy with dough
But youth called to youth for its lover
There was plenty that I didn’t know
Then I fell for the “line” of a “junker”
A slim devotee of hope,
And those dreams in the juice of a poppy
Had got me before I could stop.
But I didn’t care while he loved me
Just to lie in his arms was a delight
But his ardour grew cold and he left me
In a Chinatown “hop-joint” one night.
Well I didn’t care then what happened
A Chink took me under his wing
And down there in a hovel of hell
I laboured for Hop and Ah-Sing
Oh no I’m no longer a “Junker”
The police came and got me one day
And I took the one cure that is certain
That island out there in the bay
Don’t spring that old gag of reforming
A girl hardly ever goes back
Too many are eager and waiting
To guide her feet off of the track
A man can break every commandment
And the world will still lend him a hand
Yet a girl that has loved, but un-wisely
Is an outcast all over the land.
You see how it is don’t you honey
I’d marry you now if I could
I’d go with you back to the country
But I know it won’t do any good
For I’m only a poor branded woman
And I can’t get away from the past
Good-bye and God bless you for asking
But I’ll stick out now till the last

STILL I RISE (MAYA ANGELOU FEATURE POET)

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops. Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you? Don’t you take it awful hard ‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines Diggin’ in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I’ve got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise I rise I rise.

FEATURE POET (NTOZAKE SHANGE, “SORRY”)

one thing i don’t need is any more apologies
i got sorry greetin me at my front door
you can keep yrs i don’t know what to do wit em
they dont open doors or bring the sun back
they dont make me happy or get a mornin paper
didnt nobody stop usin my tears to wash cars
cuz a sorry
i am simply tired of collectin
i didnt know  i was so important toyou
i’m gonna haveta throw some away
i cant get to the clothes in my closet for alla the sorries
i’m gonna tack a sign to my door leave a message by the phone
‘if you called to say yr sorry
call somebody else
i dont use em anymore’
i let sorry/
didnt meanta/
& how cd i know abt that
take a walk down a dark & musty street in brooklyn
i’m gonna do exactly what i want to
& i wont be sorry for none of it
letta sorry soothe yr soul/
i’m gonna soothe mine
you were always inconsistent doin somethin & then bein sorry
beatin my heart to death talkin bout you sorry
well i will not call
i’m not goin to be nice
i will raise my voice
& scream
& holler
& break things
& race the engine
& tell all yr secrets bout yrself to yr face
& i will list in detail everyone of my wonderful lovers
& their ways
i will play oliver lake loud
& i wont be sorry for none of it
i loved you on purpose
i was open on purpose
i still crave vulnerability
& close talk
& i’m not even sorry bout you bein sorry
you can carry all the guilt & grime ya wanna just dont give it to me
i cant use another sorry
next time you should admit you’re mean/ low-down/ triflin/
& no count straight out
steada bein sorry alla the time enjoy bein yrself

INVICTUS ( FEATURE POETRY)
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Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

By William Ernest Henley