I come from a musical place
Where they shoot me for my song
And my brother has been tortured
By my brother in my land.
I come from a beautiful place
Where they hate my shade of skin
They don't like the way I pray
And they ban free poetry.
......
'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze;
He turned away the good old horse that served him many days;
He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen;
He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine;
And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride,
The grinning shop assistant said, "Excuse me, can you ride?"
"See here, young man," said Mulga Bill, "from Walgett to the sea,
From Conroy's Gap to Castlereagh, there's none can ride like me.
I'm good all round at everything, as everybody knows,
Although I'm not the one to talk - I hate a man that blows.
......
To give life you must take life,
and as our grief falls flat and hollow
upon the billion-blooded sea
I pass upon serious inward-breaking shoals rimmed
with white-legged, white-bellied rotting creatures
lengthily dead and rioting against surrounding scenes.
Dear child, I only did to you what the sparrow
did to you; I am old when it is fashionable to be
young; I cry when it is fashionable to laugh.
I hated you when it would have taken less courage
......
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Beyond the Rocking Bridge it lies, the burg of evil fame,
The huts where hive and swarm and thrive the sisterhood of shame.
Through all the night each cabin light goes out and then goes in,
A blood-red heliograph of lust, a semaphore of sin.
From Dawson Town, soft skulking down, each lewdster seeks his mate;
And glad and bad, kimono clad, the wanton women wait.
The Klondike gossips to the moon, and sinners o'er its bars;
Each silent hill is dark and chill, and chill the patient stars.
Yet hark! upon the Rocking Bridge a bacchanalian step;
A whispered: "Come," the skirl of some hell-raking demirep...
......
My poem.....
You think you kill me with your hateness. You hate murderously; in blood, in humanity.
Your poison has no place in our society.
The venom that seeps from your mouth have always been heard but will not pierce through and kill me.
Is it faith or fear? Is it your submission to a deity or one to your community?
Are you listening to the valid speech of god or the invalid words of your closest enemies......those opportunists, tearing your daughters. Those women with compassion, resilience, love and ambition.
......
Rotten memories
Glass breaking.
Doors slamming.
Yelling.
Staring at the hurricane in my home
I just stand still
what could an 8-year-old do.
Except stand and watch in fear.
My dad would throw things at everyone
......
Latoya Cantrell
You feckless fool...
This is a voodoo spell
To make you drool...
The voodoo priestess
Of New Orleans...
Will remove your wickedness
By any means...
......
Locking my door before escaping to a blanket fortress
where a Gameboy waits beneath my pillow
helping me ignore the calamity from the rooms beyond.
Mother’s second husband,
whose fingernails find purchase in her neck
draining the stars from her veins.
Transparent and plastic, I tremble
tracing the shapes over and over unaware
......
You are not the one I hate.
In fact,
I loved that blue eye--
I saw it in my sleep
I see it before me.
Your hands were not the ones I wished to escape.
They were long,
Strong,
Kind sometimes.
......