Catwoman

Her feet arched like orgasms
were trying to break out of her toes.
Body curving like coke bottles making
my mouth water for a sip of your wet kiss –
the thirst is real.

I know it was you landing sauté en
pointes in my fantasies the other night.
No woman nowadays is that
ballerina and stripper simultaneously.

Your voice was a purr that colored
in the carpet red for your catwalk
and I bet you ripped that without
even breaking a sweat.

True beauty is ageless,
but all I have is pictures of you
posing with cigarettes burning
and dimples to die for.

Ironically your a skeleton now buried
six feet deep beneath the ground I walk on.
But still I look up at the heavens
every once in a blue moon for traces of you.

Busking Ave

Across the street from the homeless 
guy begging for change, there’s a 
guitarist whose fingers are puppet 
master enough to turn a passerby 
into a marionette. Its like he’s using 
their spine as steel-string the way they 
boardwalk over to his hardshell guitar case 
and throw money in it, as if were a 
million dollar investment.

Right down the street from him there’s 
a woman with a voice that sounds like 
she doused it in the blood of a sinking 
slave-ship. Every time she hits a high-note 
you can feel the whips being welted on 
your back. The onlookers always leave 
with teary eyes and pocket lint.

Around the corner from her a man with 
a bible pledged across his chest preaches 
of the rapture and repentance. 
Most people avoid eye contact or are still 
dumbfounded from the guitarist and singer. 
He knows this, but also understands each 
of their duties represent an essential stage in life.

So at the end of the night, they all pack up 
and head for the train station together.

The Big Apple Pt. 2

Today, 
we bit off more than we could chew 
and the bitterness left the butterflies 
in our stomachs tied in knots.

They threw stones at our glass air castles 
and it shattered into masterpieces of sliced 
pies in the sky that fed our spirits with new 
aspirations.

The Statue of Liberty waited majestically 
with her legs wide open, hoping a man 
brave enough comes along and fathers 
the blessings she delivers to the world.

After hours of hard labor and pushing for dear life, 
new visions were conceived in New York City.

The sun kept its eye on us the whole time, 
just to make sure we always looked on the 
bright side. Our future is bright, however we 
still refuse to blink for fear of missing an 
opportunity scamper across our path again.

The Big Apple

Today we will bravely amble 
through earth’s concrete jungle 
and take a bite out of the big apple.

Its sweet juice dripping of destiny will 
be like gatorade for our parched souls. 
Its fruit will fill our malnourished hearts 
up with buffets of life long memories.

We will paint the city red with our own blood, 
then take a maestro step back and ohh and 
aah at the future unfolding like literature 
before our eyes. And even if they throw stones 
at the glass air castles we live in, they will only 
shatter into masterpieces of sliced pies in the 
sky ample enough to feed generations.

As I lie my head ghostly against this headrest 
playing musical chairs with slumber, I imagine 
this is what it looks like when a dream is coming true.

To be continued…

The Poor Poet

Even if you stared at the moon through 
a telescope with bifocals on you still 
wouldn’t see the big picture; 
wouldn’t feel the mountains moving 
at the wand cue of your faith.

This is where impossible becomes the 
laughing-stock of a visionaries dreamworld - 
across the street from drunkards ave 
and around the corner from miscreants 
boulevard.

We dodge the hands of our predecessors 
demons the same way corner boys do 
policeman.

Being that curious boy has taught me more 
than you could imagine.
We have more in common than you think.

The only difference is when our 
surroundings told us it was a dead end, 
we were too alive and hardheaded to listen.

Realistic Fantasies

Isn’t it astonishing that we breathe 
the same air as those whose reality 
is our fantasy; whose world is alien 
enough to be a separate planet.

Somewhere someone just got a 
phone call that made them drop 
down on their knees and thank God 
for their cup, which has runneth over.

Somewhere else someone just got a 
phone call that made them drop down 
on their knees and beg God to spare 
them from this cup of suffering.

That sky you gape at when the 
sun shines is the same one I 
mourn for when the rain pours.

Our bank accounts may say 
we’re different species, but our 
hearts understand each other 
quite clear.

I’m sure since you still follow 
yours, you would agree that its 
the best compass for leading 
a life of happiness.

#MayaAngelou

Children will hear of your name
through gossip and speak of it as
rumors. They will only know of your
life what the tabloids tell them.
Your voice will sound like a whisper
compared to the gibberish of Nicki Minaj.

But someday when the caged bird
knows that freedom is at hand,
you will be there on the pulse of morning
like a mother to open the cage up for them.

To hug them into a brave and startling truth.
To kiss them out of a plagued journey.
They will bury themselves in the
mother nature of your antique arms.

Women will feel phenomenal again.
Men will hold you like the
last raw egg in the world for eternity.
Poets will be honored to keep your
legacy breathing through their fingertips.

Never Trust A Strut

They say a woman that can rip 
a back block like a runway is either 
out for your money or attention. 
And 9 times out of 10 she probably 
won’t even have to sweat her make 
up off to get them.

Beauty is such a plastic thing these days. 
Rumor has it a good girl who wears her 
heart on her sleeve will have it ripped off 
and stomped on before she graduates 
from junior high.

So that means that on the first day she 
struts into high school, she’ll be calling 
herself a bad bitch and bragging about 
men twice her age.

I swear, 
these times are a time bomb for apocalypse. 
A smoke bomb for love at first sight. 
Fear has our deepest dreams in a straightjacket.

We all pretend to be bulletproof until risk 
comes along with a revolver and challenges 
us to a game of Russian roulette.

Only if we knew that the winner would one day 
be able to reflect on life with a smile and no regrets.

Hunger Games

Like a hostage,
goodbye reluctantly crawls
out of the oubliette of her lips
and jumps to its death,
why death waits for her like
a grave in a forest laced battlefield.

Where trees gossip of war stories
and night eulogizes the fallen
as if it didn’t trip them into a corpse.
Imagine a genocide with make up on.
And once that becomes too
unbearable to fathom,
imagine a massacre for charity.

That kind of blood never did
mix well with tears or fire.
They fear those that move
through crossfires like revolutionaries;
that look presidents dead in the eyes
and see only a man with a suit and
more power than he can handle.

The system is like a box made
to not think outside of it.
So that why when you do they try
their hardest to either bury you or
lock you in one for eternity.

Single Mother

She once believed in love.

And it left her a stranded single mother
with a restraining order and a daughter
too young and simpleminded to see
her father and not flinch.
To see her mother and not cry,
but hope a smile will make
her believe in love again;
a hug will treat the throbbing
wounds from his wallop.

Sometimes she looks at her daughter
and sees the worse parts of him conniving.
Growing into a figment of her worst nightmare.
A spitting image vomiting the love out of her.
Every time she sips from the golden flask of his memory –
it becomes the quickest way for her to get wasted off hatred.

If she could I’m sure she would snap
Cupid’s bow and arrow in half and throw it on
top of the pile of broken promises in her diary.

She writes to keep from counting her scars;
to keep from reading the bomb threats
in her mind out loud for the world to hear.

Nowadays her daughter and art are the only
compasses love can use to find her again.

I hope she returns home safely one day.

Most Men

Most men will treat women
how they carry themselves.

If that be like burdens they
will only see them as whores;
as lousy sex objects whose morals have
been buried along with their hope.

Or if that be like insecurities they
will only see them as gold-diggers;
as opportunist whose flaws have
been tucked away along with the
corpse of their dignity.

But if that be like virtue they
will only see them as queens.
As heroine’s whose dreams have
taken flight along with their faith
through the stormy skies of impossible.

Piece(is)

You drop a glass it shatters 
into dozens of pieces. 
You crack a heart it shatters into 
hundreds of thousand of words. 
You break a spirit it shatters 
into a lifetime of despair.

Maybe poems are called pieces 
because each one mends 
whatever is broken inside of you.

Whenever demons try to 
unscrew the sky out of you, 
you write them into an oblivion 
of poems and watch the life slowly 
leak out of their eyes and back into yours; 
the blood spill out of their invisible 
wounds and onto your pages.

I know it may not sound like 
much of an happy ending, 
but when you’re able to envision 
again I promise you’ll see a new beginning.

Your Choice

In life you can choose to
open mics or a can of whoop-ass.
Stand behind bars
or use them to free minds.

I’m not saying you have to be a poet
pouring words out of your heart like liquor,
but water for instance does more than
just quench your thirst and nourish dirt.
It adapts to hardships like The Titanic.

You can do the same.

But tonight you will go to sleep like
always hoping you wake up to a miracle
because *you think* you deserve it.

I’m betting all that awaits you
is a reality check – be the miracle.

Most Epic #Selfie

Imagine if Maya Angelou, 
Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, 
and Malcolm X all took a selfie together. 
It would look like black power lifting 
the heart of a woman and chanting world peace.

Their eyes will be a movie reel of memories; 
bloody ones washed away by tears of joy. 
They will show our generation what it really 
means to let your smile speak for itself. 
To let your skin color blend into a 
scintillating hue of love.

We will try to mimic this historical moment. 
They will sit in a throne made of their 
own bones and laugh hysterically at the irony.

Five Never-Lands of the World

(I’m going to start this poem out by saying…)

I. Never look up at the sky and see a heaven
you may only reach in death,
but instead see nothing more than an attic you
can use your faith as a ladder to scale;
broken limbs will heal but sometimes hearts never will.

II. Never be afraid to wake up out of your slumber
for fear of never seeing your dreams again.
It is possible to see the same miracles
while still keeping your eyes open,
unless you have blindfolded your hope with doubt.

III. Never say love doesn’t exist when
you know you can’t live without it.
You may not be able to see oxygen,
but it still gives you life; love is no different.

IV. Never let the crippling blows of life numb you
to the vivacious sensation of laughter.
I know a woman that did.
Now she’s only able to see life through the eye of a hurricane.

V. And Lastly, never live life just for yourself.
A pilot without passengers to keep him
grounded will eventually crash & burn.
We all need purpose to fulfill us the same way we fulfill it.

(…never let your upbringing bring you down.)

The Truth Hurts

In the world there are really 
men with zero respect for women; 
women with zero respect for themselves.

Strutting around loosely like 
the fly line on a fishing rod, 
using their body as bait to 
lure in the Big Fish.

And here it is I’m still penning 
love poems about how beauty 
ties my tongue into a tripwire 
my words stumble over. 
And how she’s beautiful enough 
to flaunt in an art gallery right 
next to a Picasso painting.

Then, I wake up from my dreamworld 
and see the same girl pregnant with a 
man that spent more time behind bars 
than with her. And not too long after her 
water breaks she will try to spend more 
time in the club than with her baby.

The reason I paint ugly 
pictures of reality so often, 
is because the beautiful ones 
are masterpiece enough to 
speak for themselves. 
And most people only listen 
to your words when they’re 
hostile enough to start a war.

By(e)-gone Homies

When a young boy wants to be 
down he looks up to drug dealers 
like moons and forefathers. 
He dreams of the day he can roam 
blocks freely without his mother 
eagle eyeing his whereabouts.

So he opens the front door every 
morning like the cover of a textbook and 
studies the kinematics of a criminals stride; 
the cinematics of a drug dealers swagg. 
The way young girls watch them like 
the backs of fathers that walked 
out of their life years ago.

This is so far from a coincidence that 
you can barely see the connection. 
But its there waiting on your doorstep; 
on the corner of the poppy store with 
the dope boys.

And when your finally old enough to 
hear your mother’s words like 
summer homework assignments, 
all of those childhood dreams will 
come true.

Friends will become strangers and 
mistakes will be a permanent marker 
of blindfold on your vision.

I just hope you don’t run all of your 
loved ones out of your life, 
before they have a chance to save it.

You'll Pay...

I am so much more than a 
shy, tongue-tied, closet poet. 
That wears black like goths 
and can light up a gloomy 
day with just a smile. 
My miracles are no less 
Godly than the next man, 
so if you try to treat me like 
dirt on your shoulder expect 
a magazine of poems to be 
written about you; 
the kind used to 
feed rifles during war. 
Because thats what happens 
when you try belittling someone 
that has the tongue of a sword 
and the heart of a sniper. 
#BOOM.

Till Death Do Us Part

What if the woman you gave your 
heart to like she needed a transplant, 
was the same one that stepped on it 
like she had a death wish and 
land mines were buried deep in the 
war front of your chest, or vice versa?

I imagine regret would feel like a sword 
cutting clean through your wedding vows. 
Years will begin to wear you thin and 
bad blood will thicken your skin.

Screams will be earsplitting enough to 
wake a boy out of his sweet dreams. 
No bedtime story or goodnight kiss to 
put him back to sleep, just routine. 
Just the quiet in his own mind to 
disappear in.

A Different Kind Of Thank You

A tree needs sunlight to grow. 
Poems need poets to write them 
out of the dark corners of their mind.

Today is mothers day… 
Tomorrow will just be a Monday.

My mother may not love like most 
mothers do, but one thing she never 
did was let her demons take custody of us.

No, she was more heroin(e) than 
needles and burned silver spoons. 
She kept us from strolling down that 
dark alley of fire and brimstone and 
never returning for a home cooked meal.

For that, no bouquet of flowers 
should be able to express our gratitude.

Instead, mothers around the world 
should be able to know everyday 
that their sacrifices aren’t in vain.