My predicament , this apiphany

In times of trouble,
With family , friends ...
And when I fall short of the mark
All the pre-requested ticks
Good job , good marriage , good car,
After all the sermons and requests, - not granted
Fall prey to self-pity,
I torture myself in a prison made by my mind
That taunts me with all my inconsistencies and inadequacies,
And they ...
They have it together, so together
How did they find God? Or religion ? Or purpose?
And why can't I be like:
Them ... like her ... like THEM ... or him?
In my atmosphere of melancholy , my clouds of anxiety
Rise , desire is dead - all feeling is DEAD,
I'm numb to my feelings , I'm numb to it all
That life , what is it?
Silence , passive-aggressive can you feel the distance?
Because my mother raised me to be
A flower child , beautiful child
She said , always love , always be kind - be true
But that was meet with - anything but that
Silence , I'm passive- aggressive , can you feel the distance?
 See , it's not because I'm weak
I'm trying to process all the stuff that my mama said
And the stuff in my head that says,
I need to punch you , slap you , taste some blood
Like them?
Them ... like HER? Like HIM? Like THEM?
Comparison , competition , organisation, superficial
And yet -
Happily , I think of you
And then all the conflicting
Burning,
Like a power , a realisation
And then my predicament , this epiphany
I sing praises to Him,
For your love ,
Such beauty brings
I would scorn to change my state,
With kings.

Inspired by Sonnet 29 by W. Shakespeare. 

Here I am

Excuse me , may I have a moment of your time
See I'm new at this ...
I've never performed spoken word before..
I have to admit that I'm a little nervous my knees are shaking, trembling actually
My palms are sweaty and even my vision is blurry.

I've seen a lot of spoken word performers
Those guys look so cool
An adjective I've never used to describe myself.
I see them tip-toeing , raising their hands and eyes to high heaven
As if taken over by the poetry inside them.

See art in whatever form : spoken, visual or written has a life if its own
A baby you carry no much worse , a burden you carry
Something that if you don't get out your chest will consume you.

So here I am.
Here.
Nervous, shaking but loving every minute of it
Because since I could remember I have loved poetry
And this is who I am.

Before I was here in front of you ,
I used to live in my own world,
A world where Shakespeare , Keats , Dickinson and Achebe and I would all hang out.
They were my friends and we would sit together and have tea
Discuss elusive subjects: love , death and worse still - life

William would say:
To be or not to be
That is the question
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them?
To die - to sleep - no more
And by a sleep say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to ... tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

Marcel Proust (who I have a crush on says) :
I think that life would suddenly seem beautiful to us if we were threatened to die
Just think how many projects , travels , love affairs , studies
IT our life hides from us , made invisible by our laziness
Which certain of a future delays them incessantly
We don't do any of it, the cataclysm doesn't happen
We find ourselves int eh heart of normal life
Where negligence deadens desire.

Chinua Achebe sits quietly and utters:
Speed is violence
Power is violence
Weight is violence
But the butterfly seeks safety in lightness

I wake up. I'm not up there with the immortalized words of
William Shakespeare , Marcel Proust or Chinua Achebe
Here I am ...
In front of you. In front of poetry greats , awesome musicians and a magnificent audience
So from this day , if you ask where I will be:
Here. 

Agostinho Neto . Chinua Achebe

Agostinho, were you no more
Than the middle one favored by fortune
In children's riddle; Kwame
Striding ahead to accost
Demons; behind you a laggard third
As yet unnamed, of twisted fingers?

No! Your secure strides
Were hard earned. Your feet
Learned their fierce balance
In violent slopes of humiliation;
Your delicate hands, patiently
Groomed for finest incisions,
Were commandeered brusquely to kill,
Your gentle voice to battle-cry.

Perhaps your family and friends
Knew a merry flash cracking the gloom
We see in pictures but I prefer
And will keep that sorrowful legend.
For I have seen how
Half a millennium of alien rape
And murder can stamp a smile
On the vacant face of the fool,
The sinister grin of Africa's idiot-kings
Who oversee in obscene palaces of gold
The butchery of their own people.

Neto, I sing your passing, I,
Timid requisitioner of your vast
Armory's most congenial supply.
What shall I sing? A dirge answering
The gloom? No, I will sing tearful songs
Of joy; I will celebrate
The man who rode a trinity
Of awesome fates to the cause
Of our trampled race!
Thou Healer, Soldier and Poet!

Butterfly . Chinua Achebe.

Speed is violence
Power is violence
Weight is violence

The butterfly seeks safety in lightness
In weightless, undulating flight

But at a crossroads where mottled light
From trees falls on a brash new highway
Our convergent territories meet

I come power-packed enough for two
And the gentle butterfly offers
Itself in bright yellow sacrifice
Upon my hard silicon shield.

A LAMENT by: Percy Bysshe Shelly (1792-1822)

O WORLD! O life! O time!
On whose last steps I climb,
Trembling at that where I had stood before;
When will return the glory of your prime?
No more -- oh, never more!

Out of the day and night
A joy has taken flight;
Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar,
Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight
No more -- oh, never more!

The Age Demand

The age demanded that we sing

And cut away our tongue.

The age demanded that we flow

And hammered in the bung.

The age demanded that we dance

And jammed us into iron pants.

And in the end the age was handed

The sort of shit that it demanded.

by Ernest Hemingway

To Good Guys Dead

They sucked us in;

King and country,

Christ Almighty

And the rest.

Patriotism,

Democracy,

Honor--
Words and phrases,

They either bitched or killed us.

by Ernest Hemingway