The Catch

The Catch

Flames
Within these casual games
We play
Where water is so scarce
Where the wind is just too fast

Flames
Licking every morsel from the plate,
Clean and pure.
Where light is just too black
We’re happy with our pet.

Flames
Grinning every round
Seeking every sound
That rhymes with now, now and now
But can we put them out?

How
To tear down all the houses we’ve constructed
To burn down all the bridges we’ve raised
Flames, can you help us
Find the grey area?

Dry
We’ll only dry these flames with
Ashes of our own
Since pain becomes our pleasure and we don’t even know
Or is the gate just too narrow?

Run
Run through them
With dampened spirits and tears from battle
And pray for the mercy of the grieving sky,
“Let go, let go.”

Hold
Hold, hold on tight
My friend
Living is so much more that catching
Butterflies and keeping them alive.

~tc©

When, She Is

When, She Is

When was she?

She stands still, she stands still
In men’s dreams she
Lives for who she is in this
Casual cyclic drill, one drill
Stretching and striking her domain’s
Ignorant.
Everyone feels, feels this drill
Grinding into the flesh of
Blood and steel
Her creatures are chained and numbed,
No one grieves.
Alas, the Ignorant
She is as casual as he permits.
When he grasps her slender hand
She slips behind and
He adds, wisp by wisp to
What he thought she was to be,
Already.
Completely under trivial mercy,
Golden shackles round and round…
In dreams of query
He stands still, he stands still.

When was she,
When is she...
When, she is.

~tc©

Don't Discriminate

This poem was nominated by UN as the best poem of 2006, written by an African kid.

When I born, I black
When I grow up, I black
When I go in Sun, I black
When I scared, I black
When I sick, I black
And when I die, I still black
And you white fellow
When you born, you pink
When you grow up, you white
When you go in sun, you red
When you cold, you blue
When you scared, you yellow
When you sick, you green
And when you die, you gray
And you calling me colored??