My Ancestors' Dream

I stand as my ancestors dream,

four limbed and crowned with rubies of enlightenment and diamonds of individual tone.

I stand bathed in their tears and sweat and lotioned in their beauty.

I am their endless prayers mumbled and some wailed to Someone behind a moon

radiating the twinkles in their eyes,

unanswered in their lifetime.

I am born of a freedom swarmed by swallows slicing the air with their edged wings.

I am words to songs conceived by illiterate minds and submissive hearts,

 to men and women whose electrifying voices survived through generations

to finally give my life a song to sing.

To those who have witnessed the earth in it's virgin youth and fed on it's purity,

the sun in it's young delight and tamed it's playful beams.

Those who ploughed and planted well wishes of wealth and good health in the ever rich soil

with scarred memories as hands for the welfare

of the remnant of their existance in a time of freedom.

The dreams that will never meet and shake hands with their dreamers.

I am wings for them to soar beyond the only skies they ever knew.

I am their hope and truth and though they are forever silenced I am their every word.

I couldn't go to sleep without a bit of her. This poem is originally titled Tarkovsky (The Second Stop Is Jupiter). Patti Smith The Boy The Beast and The Butterfly Poetry Project Marathon .

The Dancer

I was invited to a midnight dance for two

though, as the latter, my dismay would be the

melody for the affair.

See, it wasn't my heart that he'd danced away with

(though I would've preferred he would)

it was my dignity, twirling around with it en pionte,

graceful and enchanting

I'd forgotten it was my ability to speak up

against being disrespected that he was taking from me.

Oh, he didn't need no tune for this one, no,

my shocked silence was as rhythmic as he pleased.

I danced clumsily to catch up with him,

to resist what was left of my regality

but my kwasa and dombolo fused together

were not swift enough.

A dance I would've missed for a night with poetry and

a lover's goodnight that wasn't even there.

I curse the heart for its ability to convince

without making an ounce of sense-

meeting a stranger at that time of the night, nogal?

If only those Facebook messages could've

read and replied to themselves, though lonely,

my dignity would still be undamaged.

My insecurities refused to let him strip me

while french-kissing the sense out of my ears

and that just pissed him off.

I felt my flab swallow itself as he rubbed his audacity over it.

On my way home this poem yelled profanities at him

 asking me," You just gonna let him get away with that?"

After almost writing it down it made it clear to me that

 there was not gonna be any sweet metaphors for him

or enough that described how stupid I'd been.

The street lights looked on

with their sympathy, a sunlight they couldn't sufficiently afford me

when I needed my shadow to applaud me on the part of myself

I didn't give away that night.

Patti Smith: Fire of Unknown Origin

I think I might have just found a new love, Patti Smith.

The Sad Boy

It took him a life time to become the person that he was meant to be; 
happy, sad, uncertain and confident.
Who he was had came a long way, tip-toeing over fact, 
opinion and judgment of what it meant to be different from everyone else. 
The way of life was him seeing himself in everyone else and everyone else in him.
 A shared reflection.
The reality, however, was that the sibling bonds that God used to keep His people in common prayer-love unconditional, had long dissolved and seeped into drains
The bruises and scratches on his memory made it forget the vision of his happy self, 
it had learnt rather to never trust life or anything that held it.
The loyalty of his sadness had made him long for it more than the charms of happiness.
 He carried a damaged smile confronting the sunlight,
 which had been everyone's hope but his deception; having felt more danger and harm under its gaze.
The shadowy moon had clothed his heavily bleeding dignity with the night and had become a friend and comfort.
He has seen more ghosts in his life,
 begging to live again,afresh, but their deaths were fully registered by murderous tongues.
He has held hands with his happy self, a clear conscience; no longing, no anger, questions or vengeance,
 and hugged him tightly as they cried together over what time didn't afford them,
 a chance, a clear smile, a dry pillow, a good heart,
 an unintended laugh between life. 
He cried as he remembered his life, what it was to never be.