Not So Sweet, A Lesson Learned

This poem is a little old, I wrote it 2/14/2012

 

 

His hand was laced with mine

As you slowly passed us by

I saw you double take

As he bent down to nuzzle my face

Revenge was not so sweet as I thought it would be

It was dark and sour

My lowest and most pathetic hour

He held me close

And moved in

Knowing well that you were watching

It was a burn that in the end

Hurt both ways

You may have done the same to me

But that was no excuse

It gnawed me up inside

Like a deadly hearticide

And all those tears I once had cried

Came back to choke and drown

But he doesn’t know

And I’m not using him

I just wanted you to see

How much better I am without you

Revenge was not so sweet as I thought it would be

 

Smiling Picture

Smiling picture look away

My heart can’t stand to see you today

You look so happy, so picturesque

A painful reminder that someday

We all enter eternal rest

Smiling picture look away

Stop mocking life with your display

Frozen still to quietly tease

Stop being there, just go away please

I don’t want to see

I refuse to reminisce

A person I will always miss

It is too soon

To fondly remember

To smile for the good

I only see cold, gray pallor

Death personified

I only taste the salt of tears we all have cried

Smiling picture disappear

You represent just what I fear

Being gone, just like that

Like I was never there at all

When in the shadow of my mortality

I find it hard to keep my gall

Smiling picture look away

My heart is too fragile to see you today

Stupid Heart of Mine

Oh heart of mine you leave me but a vine

On which to swing and softly sing

A hopeful dream that my love is what I deem

It’s harsh and rough and not enough

To support me, it’s coming apart ever so slowly

Oh stupid heart your falling apart

It’s time to grow up, stop waiting for a dash of luck

Get out of bed or I’ll find some other organ in your stead

I’ll ask my mind though it’ll probably decline

It’s overworked and underpaid but you have got it made

You truly do you stupid thing you have no clue

Oh beating thing don’t get me into another fling

 

Sides

I tried to find the most unbiased article I could for the Trayvon Martin case. Much harder than expected. I searched Trayvon Martin on the Miami Herald‘s and had to go page 34 before I found an article describing more or less the facts of the case, not the racist aspects of it. I wrote this poem more as a response to the reactions of Americans than as a response to the case itself. I don’t know if George Zimmerman is racist or not because I was not there when the shooting happened. This case has changed from one about seeking the truth to one about racial injustices in America. Perhaps this is therapeutic, but we must not forget what this case is really about, the unbiased version of it, and hope that justice is reached, whatever the side.

One side is white

And the other black

In the middle huddles red

Red is what happens

When black and white mix

Red is dreams lost

Red is lives whisked away

Red is the tears of yesterday

You’d think it’d be gray

That mixed stain of colors

Gray is what they should make

Black and White

White and Black

It makes sense

But humanity never has

So the red is still there

A stark reminder of prejudice

The blemish of a failed mass wish

A wall for those

Too something to mix

White and Black

Black and White

Both are colors

But not really

Both do exist

Fact acknowledged or not

Black and White

White and Black

Have much in common

More than they realize

It’s time for them to start

Relying on more than just their eyes

Goodbye Uncle John

My uncle John died on March 21, 2012.  I wrote this poem two days after.

Goodbye Uncle John

It hurts to say so long

All the memories are clearer now

Precious and we’ll never forget

Just how much to us you meant

Goodbye Uncle John

For a man who spoke so few

I have so many words for you

It’s not enough to say ‘”I love,”

And it’s not enough to say “I miss,”

Because it comes down to a single moment

One more hug

One  more laugh

One more meal

But even then I still would feel

A need for just once more

To see you walking through the door

Smiling gruffly just once more

Goodbye Uncle John

Husband

Father

Cousin

Friend

Someday we’ll meet again

But until then

Goodbye Uncle John

It hurts to say so long

You may not be here

But you will never be gone

Choking For Words

There is a Chinese girl in my history class whom I have become friends with.  She has only lived here in the states for a few years and all things considered is quite fluent. Today we had to read aloud in class and when it got the person before her, it hit me: What would she do? Her accent is rather heavy and she is very soft-spoken.  She started to read and I cringed as the other students snickered. It was all I could do to not slam their cruel faces with my textbook. For a country that encourages immigration, we are so mean to the immigrants once they arrive.

In my recent endeavors to learn Spanish, I have realized how hard it is to learn a new language, particularly one as irregular as English.  I have a new-found respect for the bilingual.

To me it seems like choking

Air supply beneath that of mere survival

Knowing so well what you want to say

Only once translated, it’s all twisted

The words don’t properly form

A new language has turned you forlorn

You cannot fit in

When you can hardly talk

And at your oddly said words they balk

Going out of their way to make it harder

Not even realizing that you are smarter

Because they can’t hear over their own laughter

That’s what it looks like to me as I watch

Her face says she knows she can’t belong

When the language she does know is all wrong

 

 

Slippery Truth

Whisper, whisper in the dark

Poison arrows hit their mark

Shredding me up inside

Soul debris in constant collide

The chance to know starts to entice

Thirst for knowledge, such a vice

That slippery gray truth it will

My soul and sanity slowly kill

Like an addicted cat I want to know

That thing that taunts my eyes to and fro

Don’t tempt me, damn curiosity

The end to this torture I cannot see

It’s pure masochism, I suppose

This desire for a truth that nobody knows