"Under The Gun"

I am honored to participate in a flourishing exercise of "30 in 30". This is a challenge, not a contest, presented to the few willing to take it upon their duties to create thirty poems in thirty days in anyway way, shape, or form, no strenuous and strict rules, starting December 15th, 2009, through January 13th, 2010. (Twitter hashtag #30in30)

Here is #2 of 30 of the "30 in 30" project.

Ifeanyi Okoro II (CopperSoul)
Houston, Tx



A spark of hope
Coming out of the wrong scope
Bullets be not a Microsoft Word insert
When paper is due
Instead street calls for exams
In hospital ambulances
And unmarked vans
War on the youth recruits death
At best you get a wounded body
But no purple hearts
With blunted dark brown lips
Crimson shade eyes realize
Cops, killers, Crips, and convicts
Bankrobbers, Bloods, ballplayers and
Babies bottoms freshly powdered
No older than the invention of gun powder
Now fall to the wayside of that position to hold powder
It's the money and the power
You'd think we're Trump instead we're apprentices to
Applications socially nettin' that "work"
Sometimes it's the sun times anger
Multiplied cliffhangers to story book broken hearts
Pages of life ripped apart by the shot
Cupid never used a silencer
The drama is like TNT when it explodes,
So to silence her mode
He mutes the mood with the magazine
Ebony entity emptying its Essence
Jet quick into jeune filles
Jealousy, longing, lust, and lies
Ex-boyfriends get the butt...of the gun,
Or hole...between eyes
Some even doubt fire when they aim
Robbin' children of years
In a red pool of fears
Parent's tears and wails
But of course, we're heroes when we
Pull triggers?
We solve equations with
Caliber precision?


When the next day comes
Could we not try to cut down ourselves?
If anything
Cock back
Shoot for the stars.


© 2009 Ifeanyi Okoro II