(“Obama Dunks” By Artistic Smitty–www.deviantart.com)

(Inspired by K.Popp & D. Morales’ prompts of: Obama, hope, change, unity of a nation)

He walks to the podium…
the air is thick with the anticipation of his words…
electric and alive…
Hope rises like heat off concrete…
He smiles…
and the crowd roars with the joy in their hearts…
Nodding, he places his hands on either side of the podium…
stares out at the Janes and Johns of a nation
torn by war and fear and loss…
ready for change…
ready for hope…
He is quiet for a moment…reflective…
the seconds seem surreal…
Victory shows in his stance yet his eyes are calm…
The cold November wind of this one Chicago night
does not make the crowd shiver…
for adrenaline is rich in them…
He smiles again…
this is our victory, he tells himself,…
The crowd shouts with jubilation…
Preparing for his words….
and the echoes of the nation’s joy is heard…
from every farm and every ghetto
Pots banging, cars honking….
People running through the streets of the Bronx and Harlem hugging…
Shouting and crying…..
because we have a voice and it was heard…
This moment transcends Illinois and unites us all…
Glorious hope fills the night
and the smiles and tears are abundant
Our nation’s tears are of joy tonight…..
His lips part…and he speaks….

“Hello, Chicago…”

(“Drown in my Sorrows” By MiniNutter–www.deviantart.com)

Three days ago I was alive and well,

lifted and warmed with the potential of a life not yet fulfilled.

Today, I am here crumpled,

like a pile of soiled linens…

Looking at my past with a wistfulness that makes my knuckles ache..

Cold and tired…

I tremble with the lost chances,

Reliving my addictions with every pinprick of regret…

How I wish I could hold my dreams again,

close to my heart

So they could feel the beating of it echo in their ears.

Feel their solid warmth and stare into velvet eyes…

and tell them my love is embedded in their very cores.

Keep me close, I pray as the clouded veil…

falls like dust on an abandoned piece of furniture…

beautiful but lost…

I fall into the death of myself…

like an anchor dropping into the sea…

heavy…

descending…

descending…

Realizing I can no longer breathe…

There is no time to fix me…

no time to apologize…

And he…

He is the siren in my sea…

Haltingly beautiful yet screeching in defiance.

Stopping my descent…

I cling to the rusted chains and pull myself to the surface,

breathing deeply as the salt of my tears mix with the ocean.

Legend says that Yemaya has kept all of our tears in the sea…

Protecting our fears and roiling in our joys…

Using our emotions as her most powerful tool….

Yet here I cling to my own anchor…

ignoring her gentle waves trying to pull me

to the safety of my own shores…

Relapsing in the rancor of a heart patched up one too many times…

And there he floats on the horizon…

smiling and waving…mocking me.

I finally let go…

moving away with the current …

my own defeat and anger shed from my limbs…

and my first smile breaks like sunrise…

pink and gold and red orange …

and I realize I am alone….

and the three days have passed.

I breathe without hurting.

I am dead and re-born.

I am my own evolution.

Searching the reflection across mirror’s glass…
She stands… naked…
She holds her breath…
exhaling slowly as she recognizes herself
behind the purpled bruises that dot her skin…

She closes her eyes…
imagines a life without the pain…
a life where nothing hurt and no meant no…
where a questioning didn’t end
in a pummeling of his words and the sting of his slaps…
A world in which he doesn’t mean it …
because he’s never done it.
A life where lips never spit such harsh words..
and hands were never forceful…

A life so parallel to hers…
A world so unknown…
A dream only… she tells herself…
hiding herself from herself…
She wraps the towel closer to her bosom.

Her eyes open…
And she catches the glint of a strength hidden too long…
She stares at pillowed lips and soft hands…
At hair curling and a smile coyly emerging…
She straightens…
wipes the tears from her cheeks…
Running her fingertips over bruised hips and bloodied lips…

She smiles…
asking herself why a world so bright is impossible…

Asking herself why
the only colors she calls her own…
are black and blue….
when there, deep inside her heart, is a prysm…
catching the light and coloring her soul….
with a brilliant spectrum…

She finally beholds her own colors…
and they are flying …

She throws the towel to the floor…
and the reflection of herself
is no longer frightening…
no longer dooming…
But reaffirming and comforting…
Encouraging… a brave vision of beauty…

I am a beautiful soul… a survivor… not a victim….

I am still here and I can still leave.

Parallel worlds converging…

(“Dry Oasis” -By Candoriscariot–www.deviantart.com)

Searching through the deserts of my past….
Trying to find the dusted tombs of what I once was…
I crawl endlessly through the scorching of the day…
I am lost in my own errors.
My mind is full of mental sandstorms…
Blurred by my own temptations…
Dizzied with no direction…..
I am at a loss of words…
stuck in the dunes of a lost soul and praying for solace…

I am my own mirage…
Here and not here….

Through the grit and grime…
I reach…
deeper and deeper….
and finally…
there at the horizon…
The beauty of me is still there…
Rising like lotus blossoms…
I see my own perfections amongst my flaws…
and I have never thirsted as I do now
for my own creative waters…..

I look down and realize I was holding my pen all along.

(“Bound by Temptation” by Inertiak–www. deviantart.com)

Her heart is good…
But the awakening of her own fragile self control…
brings her to the brink of pain….

He hands her the apple…
and the sweet taste of her own sins…
drip off her lips and cling to her clothing…
Staining her with her regret…
Her palms are calloused from her trials and errors…
Yet she crawls in glass to get another taste of her own reflection.

She is the Eve of her garden…
Snakes coiling up her ankles to reclaim their prize…
She reaches for ripened bliss…
content in ignorance…
She wants it to be hers….

This was her flaw…
her ragged tear in the silk of her soul.

Forbidden…
the candied drop trickles down her fingertip…
She lifts her hand to savor the taste of her own renaissance…

The temptation…
Her internal seductress…

She couldn’t give up…
She had only to give in.

(“She’s Taking Flight” by RomanceKills – www.deviantart.com)

Her wings have spread…
Ruffling her feathers against the breeze of a new dawn…
The night is behind her.

She longs for the aching intensity of the moments…
held back by her own loyalty to the skies…
But pausing on the pulsing heartbeat of another…
She fed off the uncertainty of the flight…
The zig zags and loops…
that only brought her back…
to the same bough on this tree of knowledge…

Exhausted…
Her wings droop and she cries…
For her own flight was misdirected…

Heavy lidded eyes wait for the sun that was stolen…
Heart pounding…
The beginnings make her wince…
as she realizes there is no other but her
preparing for the journey ahead.

She is alone…
except for the four winds beneath her wings…

She flies away from fickle branches and twisted roots…
Flies towards her own horizons…
Iridescent wings catching the sunlight…
She soars amongst the clouds…
and sings her song to the heavens..

Her wings have spread…
She leaves the night behind her…
and joins the day.

(“Underwater Persephone” – by Svarte Sjeler www.deviantart.com)

Sweetheart in the city snow…
She was the confident fire in that concrete gray ice…
Melting them flakes off with a shrug…

“I’m blazing and this world is mine…
I got life by the balls…
And this shit ain’t nothing”

Confidence oozing like sleet around her…
She orchestrates the rise and fall of her own control….
The life and death of her own destiny…
Yet the cold winter winds batter her skin…
with no promise of change…
How could an entire life pass by with just a shrug?
Indifference was her wintry hubris.

Blinded by walls of white…
She couldn’t even see her own skin…

Falling to her knees the weight of her winter
avalanches in sky-high drifts of snow and ice….
across her shoulders and down her back…
cutting her face with frost…

And yet, there…
Inside…
She’s a burning coal…
No, the sun…
The rush cool of water flowing around her…
holds her…as her self-created storms melt away…
Sprouting green leaves and buds of glory fill her eyesight…
Velvety petals of her season’s change approaches…
and the blooms of her heart are lush with golden and fruitful rebirth.

No more dark black blue walls and cold sweat…
No more gray winds and gusts of regret…

Here, she runs in the dappled light of spring’s dawn…
Towards the new and old…
Of one who finds their own soul’s garden.
Summer’s opened arms and florid smiles welcome her home…

She is ready to grow.

It all makes sense to me…
All the crossed out scribbles,
Marginal notes and smiley faces…
It all just makes sense to me.

Flipping through tattered pages of old poems…
I relive history…
my history…
Written in excited fervor…
and then corrected over and over …
with scratch outs and do-overs and doggy ears…

My life is one big book of words…
Mushed into corners and spilled onto pages…
lined or blank…
I write my life…
My loves and my pains and sorrows…
in Blue Bic Pen…
and I don’t feel fulfilled…
Until my fingers are nicked in ink…
and my wrist is screaming at me.

Every line is a breath of air…
Every word a gasp…
Every page is my survival….

I bleed this ink onto the pages of the world…
Every mistake was kept here in these books…
for all to see that my eloquence was not met…
without qualms and trepidation…
My idioms were scarred with errors…
And all the endings to my beginnings…
and all the beginnings to my endings…
were all met with inkdrop tears…

I hold my pen like a divining rod…
like a torch…finding my way to the source..
of who I am…deep inside…
My heart is dipped in lead…
So I write with it like a Number 2 pencil…
Scratching the page…
Never erasing…Just flowing…
And growing…

These pages speak my language…
the tongue of my soul….
A language undecipherable to others…
But…
it all makes sense to me.

Running fingertips over creased pages..
and my chickenscratch penmanship…

I flip through tattered pages of old poems…
Reliving my history…
Facing myself..
and it all makes sense to me.