by Troy Taylor
Dear Violence,
Boi, I’d smack you in the head with a metaphor
Just to give you double vision,
So you can catch each double meaning
Appoint alliteration to altercate with your attitude
and leave you tongue twisted
My imagery will haunt you
Have you seeing things I’m your worst nightmare
Someone using words instead of guns
Don't you forget that
So, rather then trying to beat the mind,
That's deep as a mine
Digging passageway halfway into china
To reap a diamond
Let me promise
That a poet never needs a gun
To get things done
We’d hop in the whip
Do a drive by with repetition
Circle back around the block
Do a drive by with repetition
Circle back around the block
To stand on it
And milly rock on the competition
Us poets
We’ve had enough of you
Sitting in our streets all comfortable
Invading our classrooms what's up with you
I'd call education
Tell him to slide through
But he’s too busy breaking down your wingman ignorance
So it's up to Poetry and knowledge to end this sh—
I can’t say that word
But catch me outside, It'll be the same story
For we know we can't run you out with violence
But we refuse to keep silence.
We won't stomp you out
We’ll march
We won't argue
We’ll chant
We’ll continue to fight you until you’re gone
That’s our promise to you.
With Love,
An Angry Poet
by Willes Vertilus
I want to fly
Like a bird in a cage that restrains it from its freedom.
I want to fly,
Fly from the painful life full with seasoning of woe.
I want to cry
Like a newborn babe that breathes for the first time the outside air.
Why can’t I shine
Like the rising sun on a snowy day that melts the white snow bowl?
Why should my tears dry
When my days and my nights are full with fear and terror?
Shall I ride alone
In the narrow part of life which is filled with hatred?
Shouldn’t I be terrified
When I get shot with the words of my best friends?
Shall my pain simplify
When life itself cuts me down to the ground?
Why would I be identified
If hatefulness is my lot to bear?
Why would my agony not intensify
When the life of my loved one has been threatened by a school shooting?
Who is ready to testify
Against the hardness of life which leads to an unending railroad?
How can I laugh
When I know my brother has been frozen by hunger?
My friends, I get caught
By an imperative life till I die.
Thus, my reason for wanting to fly....
Fly away from this life, the day I get glorified.
