Dr. Martin Luther King Poem

The poem is written by Sunshine:

"Dr. Martin Luther King"
On MLK day
I feel happy
But if it is cold
Outside
I feel
Gloomy
Why
It is MLK Day
His death was a disaster
He was a
Peaceful
Man
His death
Helped
Us
But it took
Many
Years!

Two Poems

Two Countries
by Naomi Shihab Nye

Skin remembers how long the years grow
when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel
of singleness, feather lost from the tail
of a bird, swirling onto a step,
swept away by someone who never saw
it was a feather. Skin ate, walked,
slept by itself, knew how to raise a
see-you-later hand. But skin felt
it was never seen, never known as
a land on the map, nose like a city,
hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque
and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope.

Skin had hope, that's what skin does.
Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.
Love means you breathe in two countries.
And skin remembers--silk, spiny grass,
deep in the pocket that is skin's secret own.
Even now, when skin is not alone,
it remembers being alone and thanks something larger
that there are travelers, that people go places
larger than themselves.


Unity
by Pablo Neruda
Translated by Clayton Eshleman

There is something dense, united, settled in the depths,
repeating its number, its identical sign.
How it is noted that stones have touched time,
in their refined matter there is an odor of age,
of water brought by the sea, from salt and sleep.

I'm encircled by a single thing, a single movement:
a mineral weight, a honeyed light
cling to the sound of the word "noche":
the tint of wheat, of ivory, of tears,
things of leather, of wood, of wool,
archaic, faded, uniform,
collect around me like walls.

I work quietly, wheeling over myself,
a crow over death, a crow in mourning.
I mediate, isolated in the spread of seasons,
centric, encircled by a silent geometry:
a partial temperature drifts down from the sky,
a distant empire of confused unities
reunites encircling me.

Powerful Piece of Spoken Word

Poems

A twist, a turn, a yo, a loop through
A stitch made, not a knot
Row after row, easy to unravel, yet
it holds


The wind sang to me last night
Longing for company, just for awhile
Just until the moon fades


Feel [an old poem]

Sometimes I feel like the sound of a weeping willow
A cool summer’s day in a field of tan and yellow with nothing but blue in the sky
No sound but for the rustling of leaves and butterfly wings, the scent
of heat wafting only in the stillness

Sometimes I feel like the sound of snow
On a dark cold night with the stars shining down
The smell is like the smell just before a winter’s storm
The sound of my feet sinking under my weight into the freshly fallen snow

Sometimes I feel like the sound of rain
Grey and overcast gloomy
The air tasting metallic against my tongue
Running down my face cleansing away

Back From Houston

Back From Houston

We went this weekend to my wife's friend's wedding in Houston. The bride was lovely and her groom adoring. But, what stood out most for me, call me selfish yes, was us, the only as far as we could tell homosexuals, and the homily (it twas a Roman Catholic wedding). The good father spoke of commitment, love, trials, and endurance. He spoke of why the couple would want to profess and share their union in front of friends and family. And though I was greatly pleased to be a part of their journey in that moment, I could not help but think, if a priest, and the people present can and could understand what he was saying, how then brown cows can you could you not understand why homosexuals fight for their right to be married and blessed. The only leap required is one of imagination - switch either bride or groom for another bride or groom and here my lovelys am I.

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Forks

Three forks in the road
One leads to more of the same
Another leads to Plan B
The other, ah, the other leads to leap of faith

How that other road taunts and teases and grieves me
One would think then no choice is that
But oh, how in the dark of night and random dreaming,
It glows so brightly...By what fire does it burn though

Does it burn from my desire, my will alone
Does it burn from hellfire's kiss
Does it burn as an amber lighting the way
I ask of the darkness, I ask of the dream that fades with open eyes

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Discerning Alone

No committe do I have
Nor will I be given, at least not until
the fasting has been well ended
and everyone has fattened

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Been listening to Team of Rivals, very good audio book, quarter way through, and the words are coloring my langauge this evening.

Some Poetry

Here's two poems I've written within the last six months:

Spinning

Light moves through my eyes
Open filtered, closed starkly contrasted
Particles bombard my body
Whirling nipping depositing chaos mind mines
Traversing my psyche on tiptoe
Not yet ready for another nuclear blast
of thought

Walking through today as a chameleon
Morphing into whatever is needed by proximity
Skin raw from instability (of self)
Closing the doors of avoidance
my shield, I dropped my spear by choice
Travel weary

Chasing my cosmic tail in circles
Any progress made becomes uncharted
No landmarks back, dizzy confused, I pause
only for breath, resume again
to collapse
A whisper in my ear I barely hear

Off again in circles

Port

I haven’t left port
No ships have sailed
Gusting seas - gail winds
Coastline deserted
What am I doing here?
I do not want this prison

I seem always to return

My wife and I get together with a friend once a month to catch up and write together. So the above was my attempt to write like poets I admire. "Spinning" was my attempt at Margaret Atwood, while "Port" was my attempt at Emily Dickinson. Though these aren't anywhere near their quality, hopefully the poems are still alright as themselves.