Poems

Love? If it ever was

I remember her,

Blinded – by love,

At least that’s what she calls it

The constant

Badly-batter of his` baby

In the corner,

Up the road,

Down the road,

On the steps of their apartment.

Anytime he glimpses a man near her,

Thinks a man near her,

Fanatically creates a man near her.

Colours from the rainbow block her vision,

Red red red, purple, black

As her heart starts to palpitate.

He snatches her breath with swift action,

Hands all over, rough

Gripping, touching, squeezing

Then she unwillingly mops the floor,

Bang, bang, bang, she kisses the wall

Please, no, stop a chorus she sings aloud.

Why do you stay with him?

“He loves me, he loves me very much,

But, I make him upset sometimes”.

He loves her? Huh –

A love so strong it hurts?

A love so powerful it kills?

Looking on,

On what was left of her,

In the first pew, of this aisle,

Dressed in black.

I weep for her,

I weep for her family,

I weep for the friend in her I`ve lost

I vow to never love –

A love so strong that it hurts,

A love so powerful that it kills.

– Brittanya Smith

Applause

The stage was a black box

Pulling a black sheet

Over my fears

I imagined Shakespeare

In a corner

Judging me with

Elizabethan stares

I looked out at my World

And thought ‘All the World’s

A stage’

Surrendered to the music

Danced to words

Upon a page

Cruel is the adjective

Cruelty the noun

Please let my audience

Be decent

In them decency be found

Even from the beginning

Let their interest begin

The first, the noun

The other, the verb

Words of a Family

They are kin

As I reach the end of my Journey

Let my Universe applaud

And Shakespeare will

Finally shake my hands

As I surrender to applause.

– Lisa Gaye Taylor

How do I miss you?

With splinters,

Dripping densely into tears

and memories throughout the years

I miss you

With a crumbled heart

and blood pulsating slow

I miss you

With distress

And emptiness without rest

With sleepless days

And pillows wet

I miss you yet my princess

I miss you

With love’s aching regrets

With stress and fears numberless …

I miss you

With tortures fresh

With longings over whispered breath

With an arid void and a scorching spirit

I miss you without limits.

I miss you

With my soul’s crest

With a love that throbs with fiercest death

I miss you

With a binding vow

And a loyalty to wow.

With heartbreak dripping on my lips

I miss you deeply my princess

– Homer Sylvester

He woke me up (abridged)

He woke me up with love this morning

As he trailed kisses.

Each one warm with passion

Each one a touch of bliss.

He woke me up with love this morning.

With words so resounding, words so true.

He woke me up with love this morning-when in my ears he

softly whispered I love you.

He woke me up with love this morning

As he peered into my eyes.

The glint of joy

The flash of passion he could not disguise.

He woke me up with love this morning

As he gently kissed my hands and clasped his palm into mine

Our fingers crossing slowly and like superheroes

They took us back in time.

He reminisced on where we were and where we are today

He reminded me that I will be his tomorrow as I was his yesterday.

He woke me up with love this morning

Reminding me that amid the joy, laughter and

sorrows … we were right from the start.

He woke me up with love this morning

Reinforcing our vows

We will never part.

He woke me up with love this morning

Knowing that we always have each other’s back.

We held on to our goals and aspirations even when they

came under great attack.

He woke me up with love this morning

When he got me breakfast in bed.

He was there to please, to serve me and uttered there’s

nowhere else he’d rather be instead.

He woke me up with love this morning

Awakening every fibre of my being.

He woke me up with love this morning

With a love that felt complete.

– Wallicia Yolanda Willie