Jewels
Be Greater than the walls that pen you in.
Always dream bigger than you deserve to.
Respect the spirit of those who sacrificed it all
so you could have the privilege of being human.
Fellow Have-Nots and Low-Lifes: I too have hurt
others as well as myself and those lacerations
will outlive us. Like the blade or the barrel –
everything we’ve ever handled with care or haven’t.
Countless cages prove forgiveness a solitary endeavour
but the real path to freedom winds through others.
Follow it until your eyes shine back at you.
Another Day in Paradise
So, we repeat the head nod, fist bump, what up fam,
how you doing, routine. As if anyone gives a shit.
Camaraderie’s rare in this vast necropolis: after all,
who’s got time for others when their basic needs
ain’t being met? Feelings are luxuries of the living,
the poet. Funny I should say this, being a wellspring
in a desert, but these pages overflow with more night
than day, and, if I’m being honest, ink no longer drips
from my pen like saliva down a Gemstar blade –
for what vessel could ever hold space? The poet.
I’ve met a few on this bid: most of them smiled
Deeply, upsetting the stereotype of the wordsmith
as a haunted soul without recourse to happiness.
God-awful actors who couldn’t pretend otherwise.
Still-Life of a Dreamer
Storming in bed till morning, dying in my sleep,
my victim’s son eclipsing a pale yellow moon,
barrel smoking, while darkness un-numbs us,
I arise a living corpse, still anaemic with regret –
exit wounds fresh as a newborn’s belly button.
The day carries on like any other, yet I cannot
shake the feeling that a piece of me remains
inside my pillow, my polyurethane headstone,
as feathers flutter past bar covered windows.
None of this seems real, but only because it is.
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