LatinosUSA

Artwork from Pinterest

Leave Me Alone with My Blues

Some days, all a person has is
     their blues.
I'm talking the 
     Albert King
I've-Been-Down-Since-I-Began-
     to-Crawl 
           blues.
The down home, 
Play-the-Other-Record or Two-
     collard-greens-with-cornbread-
on-the-side
              blues.
The kind where you just want
     to be left alone with your
melancholy. Let me feel
     what I'm feeling. 
The pain of living Black
     struggle, plantation
              blues.
I've-been-up-all-night, -ain't-nothin'-
     going-right, BB-King-and-Lucille-
I-Think-You-Made-Your-Move-
     Too-Soon
               blues.
I'm in a Z.Z. Hill 
     frame of mind.
Just leave me alone with my
     down home
                blues.
Let-the-somber-and-
     pensive-gloom-of-my-
soul-loop-on-constant-
           repeat-
until-its-familiar-cadence-
       becomes- “Stormy-Monday”
                blues.
Remembering Sylvester while 
     listening to T-Bone Walker.

***

Artwork by Ricardo Chucky

Protest Poetry in Haiku

How red the blood flows
staining asphalt life pours out
Black lives wonder why?

***

artwork from Pinterest

Lunacy of Penning

I write daily. Sometimes the
words that live quietly
in my head play across the
paper as if summoned by
a magical source all of
their own power.
I am driven to madness trying
to play catch up to wizardry
as words form from what is
held hostage in my head.
Deprived of sleep days on end.
The words keep me awake.
I tirelessly try to keep pace
as the words come out to
play hide and seek, but it's
useless; the words live
in an enchanted world all by
themselves, and I am
rendered powerless to
stop them.

***

Artwork from Pinterest

The Vanishing

Betrayal is in the
     way you don't
protect me from 
     the pain,
hurt and wreckage of the 
     world outside.
It's in the words
     you don't say so
 very visible in the
     depth of your
hollow eyes.
     I disappear a little bit 
more each and every 
     single day.
The me I can no longer
          recognize fading further
and further away.

***

Words Birthed in Silence

In the quiet of life, the words
come.
They are there, formed, waiting
for you to become their
breath.
I listen to the silence.
I wait in anticipation for the
birthing of words.
In the quiet of life the words
form.
I seam them together then those
secret thoughts birth prose and
poems.
From the cocoon of my womb
the words lie dormant in the
silence, much like a secret tomb.
Birthed in the quiet of life,
the words come.

***

Two sisters and authors are back with their follow-up sequel Mirrored Images. This is where their story in Different Sides of the Same Coin left off.

In this poetic adaptation Chyrel J. Jackson and Lyris D. Wallace attempt to navigate the pouring rains of life conditions as they tell their tale in poetic contemporary modern verse, reflecting on present day social and political events facing the Black community. In this heartrending collection of poems, the sisters further deal with life as it unfolds as they try to arrive at a collective center of peace and understanding.

Mirrored Images is a written meditation about people’s sometimes darker actions and motives. We journey with these ladies as they honestly tackle racism, frayed familial dynamics and embracing a sister bond that has proven to be impenetrable. This time around, Blues is the preferred backdrop of their gripping tale.

Prepare to be wowed beyond expectation as these writings and poems deliver more of everything you loved in book one while remaining authentically true to their soulful and riveting narrative as Black women. Where their first collection of Black Expression revisited Harlem Renaissance and cashed with 2018-2019 social unrest. In Mirrored Images, they rip the bandages off human life experience and force you to see what most are happier pretending just does not exist at all. Spoken word is back and these literary writers take social conflict and unrest to brand-new unchartered heights.

Purchase the book at:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1737046601

Poems also can be found at:
https://sistersrocnrhyme.blogspot.com/