Infringement of the Rules
Any infringement of the rules
Or minor sin puts her head in
A spin, puts her soul just over
The edge, lingering there in mid
Air waiting for some dark demon
To snatch. Sister Angela rubs sins
From the black beads, utters long
Prayers from the tongue. She firmly
Wrestles with her demons in the bed,
In the cloisters, out there in the dark
Corners of the world, inside her head.
Her father used to say, your demons
Know you better than you do yourself;
They know your pitfalls, your small
Faults, your tiny imperfections that
Cling to your soul like dark bruises on
Fruit. Then he’d beat her black and blue
And leave her in her room to brood and
Suck in the emptiness of thick dark space.
She kisses the black beads as once she
Kissed that Boyle boy behind the bike
Sheds there, not from lust or love, but
For an unholy dare. The knees ache;
The back is stiff, the incense fills her nose
And head. Pray for us now, she mutters,
Her black serge habit tight about her form,
Pushing out her breath, and at the hour of
Our death. Her father lingers in his cancer
Bed; her mother rots in her grave where her
Father drove her with his drunken words
And fisted hands on frail skin. Sister Angela
Washes with her fierce scrubs any small
Infringements of the rules or minor sin,
Hearing her father’s words harsh within.
poem by Terry Collett
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Colors
There was a black man
There was a blue man
They hated each other
For the color of the skin
They both believed the other
To be the offspring of some great sin...
One dark day
They got into a helluva fight
Each believing to be in the right
They beat upon each other
Through and through
They beat each other black and blue,
Until finally
They both did come to see
How much alike
They'd come to be.
Now there is a black man
There is a blue man
Together they stand
Once divided by the color of the skin
Never more shall they
Be blinded that way again...
Black or white
Yellow or red
The color of the skin
Is truly all inside the head,
And the colors in the head
Come out in the words
That are said,
And the words
That are said
Can leave the heart so alive,
Or, utterly dead.
It's a choice to make:
Either for the image of the soul
Or, for the color of the skins sake;
The darkness of night
Or, the beauty from
The colors of the
Light.
poem by Smoky Hoss
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My Father Buried My Sister........Today
My father buried my sister today
My soul burns red with pain
No longer will I touch her face
Or caress her skin again
My father buried my sister today
God, what have I done wrong
To have her stolen from my arms
When my faith in you was strong
My father buried my sister today
Thank God I have another
I couldn't walk this path alone
Every breath is a struggle
My father buried my sister today
She was just 20
Searing, ripping, tearing ache
My emotions overcome me
To God above, how I pray
These words by her not repeated
My father buried my daughter today
poem by Pritisha Sardesai
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In Thou dark stormy Night
All alone in the night
All alone with my own fright
A lightning strikes, runs across the dead black sky
I am alone
but I wonder, why?
In Thou dark stormy night
In Thou dark stormy night
I call your name with all my might
All alone hanging in the night
My arms are sore, my soul is light
I hear the thunder, in the cloudy black sky
I am scared
but I don't know, why?
In Thou dark stormy night
in Thou dark stormy night
I call your name with all my might
Inside Your house in the night
Calling Your name with all my might
Father! Father! Why have you forsaken me?
'You must die so my people can be free.'
In Thou dark stormy night
In Thou dark stormy night
Jesus drew his final breath
Saving us all from our own eternal death
poem by Summer Song
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The other me....
Black angel, dark face
Alive in time and space,
Black angel darkest day
Shall always find the way.
There is this other me
Who lies inside and hide
Comes forth with any fight
And always in the dark of night.
Black angel
Strong and wild,
Black angel
Never mild.
Sleeping in the day
When the sky is blue,
Then shows a dark face
When darkness comes through.
Black angel
Falling sin,
Black angel
All within.
poem by Deep Dark Soul Poet
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Dark Eyed Doyle
Dark eyed Doyle they called him,
And he was dark eyed too. His eyes
Like black olives in white snow, his
Mother said. Had a way with girls,
An electrifying smile, an engaging
Manner. Not a bit like his father,
Grumpy, self righteous and always
Quoting the Bible, thumping the
Black cover. Danny Doyle could
Charm birds from trees, make his
Girlfriend’s mother giggle like she’d
Been tickled, make her father fume
Behind his newspaper with thinking
He knew what that Doyle was up to.
Doyle was a closed book; many read
His cover and liked what they saw,
Others didn’t and didn’t venture any
Further or deeper than the skin on
His nose. Ah, said Doyle, God alone
Knows me inside out and He alone is
My best judge, others can only know
What they think they see, but God alone,
Knows my real faults, knows the real me.
poem by Terry Collett
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Too Dark
When I was growing up I used to be ashamed of my complexion.
I used to think I was too dark.
My brother was so light he could nearly pass as white. My sister was that cream in the coffee color just like my mother and my father but me I was the midnight child too dark.
Kids used to call me spook and gorilla because of my dark skin. They would say if the lights go out the only way I could be found was to grin. I was too dark.
Too dark is what I thought until I heard James Brown scream “say it loud I’m black and I’m proud.” I also saw the ladies start to smile at me and claim “the darker the berry the sweeter the juice.”
I ‘m now proud of my complexion and no more do I think I’m too dark.
These Things.
These things are sent to try us,
Gran said, her thumb
Moving itself over
The well-worn beads
Of her dark wood rosary;
Her eyes taking in the crucifix
On the wall above her bed.
You sat watching her thumb
Moving its way back and forth
Over the round black beads,
Her arthritic fingers clutching
Blue blankets and white sheet.
Never tries us beyond our strength,
She added, the strained features
Mingling with the yellow taint
Of wrinkled skin. You wondered
Who sent the things to try her,
Whose bounty of gifts left
Small tears wedged in the corners
Of her eyes, pushed out words
Between harsh sighs.
poem by Terry Collett
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An Arab Love-Song
The hunchèd camels of the night
Trouble the bright
And silver waters of the moon.
The Maiden of the Morn will soon
Through Heaven stray and sing,
Star gathering.
Now while the dark about our loves is strewn,
Light of my dark, blood of my heart, O come!
And night will catch her breath up, and be dumb.
Leave thy father, leave thy mother
And thy brother;
Leave the black tents of thy tribe apart!
Am I not thy father and thy brother,
And thy mother?
And thou--what needest with thy tribe's black tents
Who hast the red pavilion of my heart?
poem by Francis Thompson
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Father Of Night
Father of night, father of day,
Father, who taketh the darkness away,
Father, who teacheth the bird to fly,
Builder of rainbows up in the sky,
Father of loneliness and pain,
Father of love and father of rain.
Father of day, father of night,
Father of black, father of white,
Father, who build the mountain so high,
Who shapeth the cloud up in the sky,
Father of time, father of dreams,
Father, who turneth the rivers and streams.
Father of grain, father of wheat,
Father of cold and father of heat,
Father of air and father of trees,
Who dwells in our hearts and our memories,
Father of minutes, father of days,
Father of whom we most solemnly praise.
song performed by by Bob Dylan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Everyone Thinks I'm Crazy
Everyone thinks that I am crazy,
they look into my eyes and they,
wonder what lays behind of them,
maybe a man with a darkened soul,
or a man with a deep dark secret,
that he keeps bottled up inside,
of him like a stick of dynamite,
just waiting to go off and blow up,
his soul,
and expresses his true feelings,
towards this dark and evil hurt world,
that has always turned its back on him,
and his friends,
he feels so alone like the little,
boy inside of him that is afraid of,
the new world that he has been born into,
Everyone thinks that I am crazy,
take a look into my eyes and tell me,
what do you see? A lost boy that has no life,
a man who feels so alone that he just wants to,
end he just wants to end his, he doesn’t want
to live in this evil world anymore,
evil ideas and evil thoughts,
they run wild through his head,
and that no one ever cares about him,
just another pointless soul walking the,
earth and the realms of his insanity,
that fills his head with evil ideas and evil thoughts,
they look down at him with him dressed in his black,
outfit and his long black that makes him look so gothic,
and satanic you can look into his eyes and see nothing,
but pure hatred for what he has become,
everyone thinks that I am crazy,
maybe their right, maybe I am just
evil in its purist form like a line of cocaine,
going up society's nose,
and I am going to plaque the world for all of time,
just walking around and being pure evil.
poem by Robert Rumery
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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You, the Dark
Dark, She is the mind of yours.
Icy chill of thought becomes
A steely shimmer.
Behold a glimmer in the black -
A flash of grey, that even glows
In show against the hallowed dark of you.
And that is why you scream in jarring tones
'I have no heart for joy!
My white and brittle bones have died'
You cried in dark and fractured moans.
So now the Queen of Black you writhe,
Whence from dark of shade
That honed an evil form afar;
In curse of me you bade:
'I, the wave shall rape the shore!
Violence will there be in glares I'll throw
At all who prey, and more:
A dark and fetid sea I'll bleed.'
And now, the bitter tinge
And bleak of waste
That eyed the death of once your soul
Will here forever be!
Indeed you tell:
'The cramping pain is here!
Eternal spasm, infinite chasm,
The Devil's chaplain plays!
We'll climax in a tortured glee
As all my love decays.'
Copyright Mark R Slaughter 2009
Dark dark dark dark dark dark dark
Dark dark dark dark dark dark
Dark dark dark dark dark
Dark dark dark dark
Dark dark dark
Dark dark dark dark dark
dark dark dark dark dark dark dark darkdarkdarkdark
poem by Mark R Slaughter
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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One Hundered Years
It doesn't matter if we all die
Ambition in the back of a black car
In a high building there is so much to do
Going home time
A story on the radio...
Something small falls out of your mouth
And we laugh
A prayer for something better
A prayer
For something better
Please love me
Meet my mother...
But the fear takes hold
Creeping up the stairs in the dark
Waiting for the death blow
Stroking your hair as the patriots are shot
Fighting for freedom on the television
Sharing the world with slaughtered pigs
Have we got everything?
She struggles to get away...
The pain
And the creeping feeling
A little black haired girl
Waiting for Saturday
The death of her father pushing her
Pushing her white face into the mirror
Aching inside me
And turn me round
Just like the old days
Just like the old days
Caressing an old man
And painting a lifeless face
Just a piece of new meat in a clean room
The soldiers close in under a yellow moon
All shadows and deliverance
Under a black flag
A hundred years of blood
Crimson
The ribbon tightens round my throat
I open my mouth
And my head bursts open
A sound like a tiger thrashing in the water
Thrashing in the water
Over and over
We die one after the other
Over and over
We die one after the other after the other...
It feels like a hundred years
One hundred years
song performed by by Cure
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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While in church
While I was in church last sunday I thought back.
Back to when I was a teen.I remembered this day.
It was the day my father used his fist to punch me in the jawl.
Then he said these words to me.' You will never be anything! '
So as I had that thought in the back of my head.The front of my head
was thinking this may be true, but what I do know now is I'll be anything
in the hands of my heavenly father.Then I prayed this prayer.Heavenly father I love you please forgive my father for his sinn that day he did
what he did to me, and forgive my mother, sister and brother for thier sinns.And watch over my son's forgive them for thier sinns.Watch over
thier mothers and my girlfriend and keep them save.In your son's holly
name I pray this prayer. Thank you my loveing father.'AMEN'
poem by Pirate Love Magic Man
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Black Angel
Black Angel
(By Sheila D. Thompson)
ok, ok, I landed on this earth to kill
look at me,
cause once you cross me your fate will be sealed.
People think it's a laughing,
thing it's a joke, next
thing they lay dead before me.
And I think I'll choke.
I lived a hard life.
I know I don't suppose to be a girl,
in this world, this place could
change the kindest creature to
a beast.
I became a cannibal, and I like it I came
here on a quest to feast.
Now I can't stop.
going crazy at day and
sane by night,
I guess that's why I hide in the
darkness from light.
Black Angel (Black Angel)
Black Angel (molded by the world)
Black Angel (and just only
a little girl) Black Angel
(crying for a change) Black Angel
I listen to thunder and lightening,
forget that it's frightening, liking
the sound, watching the people
up from above, knowing there no
love.
I stand alone, I'm on my own,
I am young so I write my
pain in this song.
I know it's hard try being
a little a girl,
raised up fast in a cruel
world.
fate was ever kind to me.
I watched my father
(hurt my mother)
I watched my father
(beat m brother)
I watched my father
(create a son with my sister)
I miss my father(and I love him)
I am so alone-black Angel-
I still hope someday, that
I can learn how to pray.
I still walk so bold
knowing my hart's half cold(repeat)
(oh-Black Angel heart beat
with thunder and rain* Black Angel)
now it's just heartbeat and rain*Black Angel
(the last few words should echo)
A poem wrote by Sheila Deliese Thompson: C/O
swtlamb @yahoo.com
Let me remind you this is a young girl
reaching out in her own words.
poem by whisperkwane Lamb
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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One Hundred Years
It doesn't matter if we all die
Ambition in the back of a black car
In a high building there is so much to do
Going home time
A story on the radio
Something small falls out of your mouth
And we laugh
A prayer for something better
A prayer
For something better
Please love me
Meet my mother
But the fear takes hold
Creeping up the stairs in the dark
Waiting for the death blow
Waiting for the death blow
Waiting for the death blow
Stroking your hair as the patriots are shot
Fighting for freedom on the television
Sharing the world with slaughtered pigs
Have we got everything?
She struggles to get away . . .
The pain
And the creeping feeling
A little black haired girl
Waiting for saturday
The death of her father pushing her
Pushing her white face into the mirror
Aching inside me
And turn me round
Just like the old days
Just like the old days
Just like the old days
Just like the old days
Caressing an old man
And painting a lifeless face
Just a piece of new meat in a clean room
The soldiers close in under a yellow moon
All shadows and deliverance
Under a black flag
A hundred years of blood
Crimson
The ribbon tightens round my throat
I open my mouth
And my head bursts open
A sound like a tiger thrashing in the water
Thrashing in the water
Over and over
We die one after the other
Over and over
We die one after the other
One after the other
One after the other
One after the other
One after the other
It feels like a hundred years
A hundred years
A hundred years
A hundred years
A hundred years
One hundred years
song performed by by Cure
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Half my father
Half my father
Half my mother
My mother white as a ghost
My father black as coal
In my face the mixture glows
My skin is white
Still I am a black man
By the make of my nose
My hair is curly
My eyes are gray
Within me both if them lives
My mother’s race
Did enslave
My father’s race
Was never paid.
Still within I bare the two
Am O the new American?
My father is white
My mother is Korean
They met during the war
And I was born
Their only son
By my tone of skin
And by my eyes
You can tell
That there is a divide
And by my blonde hair
It is there for you to spy
Am I the new American?
My mother is German
My father polish
I learned three languages
As I grew older
Both of them
Did love me well
And of each country did tell
That I could draw
From each well
Am I the new American?
My father is Chinese
My mother Spanish
Both crossed over the Rio Grand
I am in the make of my father
But I have my mother’s brown skin
Am I the new American?
poem by David E. Patton
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Elizabeth Speaks
(Aetat Six)
Now every night we light the grate
And I sit up till _really_ late;
My Father sits upon the right,
My Mother on the left, and I
Between them on an ancient chair,
That once belonged to my Great-Gran,
Before my Father was a man.
We sit without another light;
I really, truly never tire
Watching that space, as black as night,
That hangs behind the fire;
For there sometimes, you know,
The dearest, queerest little sparks,
Without a sound creep to and fro;
Sometimes they form in rings
Or lines that look like many things,
Like skipping ropes, or hoops, or swings:
Before you know what you're about,
They all go out!
My Father says that they are gnomes,
Beyond the grate they have their homes,
In a tall, black, and windy town,
Behind a door we cannot see.
Often when it's time for bed
The children run away instead,
Out through the door to see our fire,
Then their angry parents come
With every candle in the town,
The beadle with his lantern too,
And search and rummage up and down,
To catch the children as they play,
Between the rows of new-mown hay,
And bring them home;
(They must be, O, so very small,
How do they capture them at all?
But then they must be very _dear_);
When they can find no more
They blow a horn we cannot hear,
And march with the beadle at their head,
Right through the little open door,
Then close it tight and go to bed.
My Mother says that may be so;
(They both agree they're _gnomes_, you know).
She says, she thinks that every night,
The gnomes have had a fearful fight;
Their valiant General has been slain,
And all the soldiers leave the camp
To dig his grave upon the plain;
They drag the General on a gun;
Every bandsman has a lamp
And there's a torch for every one,
They dig his grave with bayonets
And wrap him grandly in his flag,
Then they gather in a ring,
The band plays very soft and low,
And all the soldiers sing.
(Of course we cannot hear, you know,)
Then some one calls 'The enemy comes!'
They muffle up their pipes and drums;
Every soldier in a fright
Puts out his light.
Then hand in hand, and very still,
They clamber up the dark, dark hill
And hold their breath tight--tight.
(I'd like to know which tale is right.)
O! there is something I forgot!
Sometimes one little spark burns on
Long after the rest have gone.
My Father says that lamp is left
By a little crooked, crotchety man,
Who cannot find his wayward son;
When the horn begins to blow,
He has to drop his light and run.
Of course he limps so slow
He squeezes through the very last,
When he is gone the naughty scamp
Jumps up and puff! out goes the lamp.
My Mother says that is the light,
Borne by the very bravest knight;
He is so very, very brave,
He would not leave his General's grave,
And when the Enemy General tries
To make him tell where his General lies,
He answers boldly, 'I--will--not!'
Then they shoot him on the spot,
And give a horrid, dreadful shout,
And then of course his light goes out.
I sit and think when they are through,
Which tale I like best of the two.
Sometimes I like the _Father_ one;
It is such fun!
But then I love the _Mother_ one,
That dear brave soldier and the rest:--
_Now which one do you like the best?_
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I Was The Child of The Night
I was the child of the night
Dark is my father
The moon is my mother
Star of stars was my sister
I was the child of the night
My father is a symbol of fear and helplessness
My mom is the charm
My sister is the beauty of the night
I was the child of night who afraid of the dark night
Mom, please tell to father i would not like the darkness
But my mother said, need not be afraid, my daughter, my light will always protect you from the dark night.
I always give you a glimmer of light in the darkness.
And see your sister, she was very beautiful among the dark of night.
My daughter, the darkness is tranquility.
Many people would like stay in it although it will make them are scared and helpless because
They are find peace in the darkness.
Dreaming Of Hair
Ivy ties the cellar door
in autumn, in summer morning glory
wraps the ribs of a mouse.
Love binds me to the one
whose hair I've found in my mouth,
whose sleeping head I kiss,
wondering is it death?
beauty? this dark
star spreading in every direction from the crown of her head.
My love's hair is autumn hair, there
the sun ripens.
My fingers harvest the dark
vegtable of her body.
In the morning I remove it
from my tongue and
sleep again.
Hair spills
through my dream, sprouts
from my stomach, thickens my heart,
and tangles from the brain. Hair ties the tongue dumb.
Hair ascends the tree
of my childhood--the willow
I climbed
one bare foot and hand at a time,
feeling the knuckles of the gnarled tree, hearing
my father plead from his window, _Don't fall!_
In my dream I fly
past summers and moths,
to the thistle
caught in my mother's hair, the purple one
I touched and bled for,
to myself at three, sleeping
beside her, waking with her hair in my mouth.
Along a slippery twine of her black hair
my mother ties ko-tze knots for me:
fish and lion heads, chrysanthemum buds, the heads
of Chinamen, black-haired and frowning.
Li-En, my brother, frowns when he sleeps.
I push back his hair, stroke his brow.
His hairline is our father's, three peaks pointing down.
What sprouts from the body
and touches the body?
What filters sunlight
and drinks moonlight?
Where have I misplaced my heart?
What stops wheels and great machines?
What tangles in the bough
and snaps the loom?
Out of the grave
my father's hair
bursts. A strand
pierces my left sole, shoots
up bone, past ribs,
to the broken heart it stiches,
then down,
swirling in the stomach, in the groin, and down,
through the right foot.
What binds me to this earth?
What remembers the dead
and grows towards them?
I'm tired of thinking.
I long to taste the world with a kiss.
I long to fly into hair with kisses and weeping,
remembering an afternoon
when, kissing my sleeping father, I saw for the first time
behind the thick swirl of his black hair,
the mole of wisdom,
a lone planet spinning slowly.
Sometimes my love is melancholy
and I hold her head in my hands.
Sometimes I recall our hair grows after death.
Then, I must grab handfuls
of her hair, and, I tell you, there
are apples, walnuts, ships sailing, ships docking, and men
taking off their boots, their hearts breaking,
not knowing
which they love more, the water, or
their women's hair, sprouting from the head, rushing toward the feet.
poem by Li-Young Lee
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Falling in the black
Dark engulfing me
seems their is no way to be free
I'm falling in the back abyss
my demons are dragging me down
they are pulling me away
i only hear whispers in the dark
this nightmare has begun
and there's no way for me to
be found
someone help me
someone make it end
everything feels so cold
these whispers in the dark
are they in my head
will this ever end
I've fallen in the black
now i'm crawling in the dark
searching for the light
in this blacken place
poem by Edder Ramirez
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