I dream things that never were, and ask why not?"
- Robert F. Kennedy
02/06/2008
February 6, 2008There have been and sure to be times in my life when poetry has tranformed my life. I will share with you some of my favorite poems as well as anything new I come across that I think will be appreciated. Jessica Care Moore is hands down one of my favorites in the spoken word world and I hope you enjoy her work.
I’m in love with potential
by Jessica Care Moore
I keep falling in love But potential had a way of becoming diluted with insecurities Still I believed potential would eventually love me Potential had an influential way Potential reminded me of how he loved my commitment Still I unconditionally loved potential If he would just stop loving me with conditions Especially when I loved him Cause he was caught up in my potential, And that meant loving you when you hadn’t yet And if I didn’t love your possibilities I guess sometimes we give potential too much credit How many times did I blow off your behavior Can really be potentially dangerous!
with potential But it never seems to work out
He was full of a lot of it
And he was TALL
And just cause you can see the beauty of someone
Doesn’t mean they can see if for themselves
As much I loved him
Then begin to love himself
The way I loved myself
But there was someone else
There always is
Of showing me what my potential was
And he celebrated all I could do without him
To doing whatever I had to do to exercise my own potential
Even if that meant potentially leaving him behind
And held on to the potential future we could have
If only he would see our potential
Without being intimidated by my own potential
Simply for the possibility of how great
He could become and already was
But didn’t know it
Instead of seeing my life
As a reflection of what he already had or
What we could potentially have together
Reached your full potential
But helping you get there as quickly as possible
Isn’t it just a bit too easy to fall in love
With someone after the glory and
Not along the slow, goal setting, potential way?
Then I didn’t love you
And if you didn’t realize our possibilities
Because you were too wound up in my potential
Then you didn’t really love me
And borrow interest from our own accounts
Without taking ourselves into account
Relying on potential?
I can no longer count
Or wait around for you
To let me stand naked in front of you
So you can see yourself as worthy of my loveYou loving me for me and not through me
CAN I WRITE OF FLOWERS (BLACK HISTORY TRIBUTE)
February 1, 2008Can I Write of Flowers?
Must I write
of Emmett Till
problems plaguing
Black Folks
Still
Apartheid
Lynching
Reparations
Political elections
Race relations
Issues
making my heart implode
hoist responsibility
tenfold
on shoulders
tiny-
naïve, perhaps,
tossing knowledge
onto laps
where men come
to rest their head
bury sadness
inside beds
float rose petals
across blank pages
lick my lips
while trouble rages-
continents away
children shot down
while they play
but I write poetry
not real life
I’m a poet
and
that man’s wife
So can I write of flowers
please
ducklings
swans and
honey bees
Understand this
I hid from you
Poets
Writers
Historians, too
who suggest
my hand
examine time
face feared
annihilation
by mankind
with covered ears
I run away
shield my eyes
in hopes to stay
in this
velvet box,
where love
resides
between four
walls where cowards
hide
Octavia Butler
wrote of me
penned hyper-
sensi-
tivity
So can I write of
flowers please
sing this song
in sweet release
forsake war
choose inner peace
Emmett Till sleeps
in my bed
haunts me
with his swollen
head
missing eyes
I can’t forget
my pen bleeds tears
of silence yet
Someone else
must capture pain
spin the words
that often rain
truth across this continent
where evil breeds
our discontent
Flowers
boldly call my name
echo beauty with the same
fervor mixed in violent rage
that I can’t capture
on my page.
_ Jeanne Miller




