"Under Arrest"

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 #1 of 30 of the "30 in 30" project.

Ifeanyi Okoro II (CopperSoul)
Houston, Tx



Smiling while black
The sun charges me for
Many stars shine without
Luster
Luxurious love for my
Rays pour out on the shoulders of
Smooth Sahara sand-colored souls
Man, we kiss each other and pass lineage
Through lips and struggling
Stressed like history
Through strainers
I maintain my brown
Down the Mason-Dixon
Up the Nile
Around downtown Houston
Ground Zero in Zimbabwe
Hey, sepia sensuality
Sends me there
I'm counting spirits on her digits
Play with her toes and nose
My baby becomes quick of knowledge
As the world slows
I'm rolling deep
Without the 'Lac and white walls
But deep in the red clay
My chart's a splay of things
So Aquariusly queer to veneer
I'm not seeing the future clear
Without a little mud covered aura
To show me my way home
Turn right
Go East
Keep walking
Shh...
The ancestors from below the waves are talking
Sending instant messages in maelstroms and
Hurricanes
Communicating with copper casings
We bullets with intelligence
Target redemption
Realign to hit our points of reference
Our destiny's real destination
Wrecking the frame of shame and
Picturing shattered distress calls
Being pieced again.
Straight from Mama's Gun
Motherland daughters and suns
Charging all of us
For
Smiling while black
Concealing contraband history
In our backpack and satchels
As we grapple with the long arm of the law
That was the unluckiest of the draw
I sketch
My life to be my wife
And we artistically die together
When we are satisfied with the ruling of
Guilty on all charges
No parole on freedoms?
I smile harder!
No probation on free will?
I laugh and show strength!
Hell, I'll lock myself up up in my culture's possession
I'll swallow the key
For there shall be no more of taken from me.





© 2009 Ifeanyi Okoro II

"Still Another Day (Reprise)" - Neruda's poem

I start to think of Pablo Neruda's poem everytime it rains.



"We the mortals touch the metals,
the wind, the ocean shores,
the stones, knowing they will go on,
inert or burning,
and I was discovering,
naming all the these things:
it was my destiny to love and say goodbye."



— Pablo Neruda (Still Another Day)





So I infused my own wonders of this quizzical feeling
and came up with this...
A reprise of sorts, adding a few elements of my own.



I think of the words of the Chilean
when mists massage heated Texas panes on my domecile
It sends me to sleep with the rain
I once read this poem on a bus stop, and fell in love with it.
That's what I like about poetry.
She likes to do what she wants, when she wants to...
but only with you.

She falls into your hands.
She comes through many vehicles traveling
through


Solano Trindade
Gwendowlyn Brooks
Langston Hughes
James Baldwin
me...
and the Chilean




I would love to stick my tongue out in this precipitation
gather all of the words poured out by the angels
and swallow the divine spirit of it.
Spit out their truths,
their pain
their adventures amongst us in flesh covered souls
out in these streets to repeat her verses, like

John Lennon vs. The Christ phenomena

Jimi Hendrix and that "stuff"

Open the Doors to See My Family Stone
sitting high upon these hills I feel...
drenched in the thunder and lightning
I'm under their tears
the Orisas grant what we only ask in honesty
so I watch as Sango and Oya pull back the curtains
showering me with love and poetry
and midnight insomnia
and silent dripping
these are my candy coated dreams that won't go away
Speech! In all it's damn glory I am falling...
another day, still another, I am crawling to bed
Angry at sandmen that promised me temporary death
and torture me with impending prophetic breaths.



Why give me liberty late night
and NOT A VISION OF HER?
I long for her love, for she is worthy to be praised
Like a Lord magnified and raised
I imagine her smile and laugh at her downfall...
it is imminent to slide on the wayside
bedside
beside our backsides
I am waiting to kiss the surface of her brown terrain
that layer her spine and lumbar
I desire to smooth my hands inside of her
blend when these celestial bodies are in her grasp
and planets are aligned with my libido

I am stargazing
Needs want to make it to her
Wants then need to bid farewell soon

But comets shoot across skies
to continue to destinations of forever



why

can't

I

She waits for me to call her on stage
I am of fright whilee she is away
It is written, she is scripted
on my heart, by the Chilean artist
He was just adoring nature
giving me a gift that keeps giving
for tomorrow



© 2009 Ifeanyi Okoro II

"Still Another Day" - Poem by Pablo Neruda
(all photos used are not used in slander, defamation, nor crude and explicit forms.)

"A Better Life - (Dreams)"

This is actually a Tweet-turned-poem, originally posted Sunday, July 5, 2009 at 6:02 am.


I will attempt to dream a better life.
I don't think I've ever felt this before.
You know, the effect of love gone awry.
Not of this magnitude.
Or latitude, longitude, or longevity.
Even readings show confusion
As I commenced to cast last night.
Give me strength to fight the weakness of the flesh.
The depths of my inept love still left, for her...
I'm not understanding why she's still in my dreams.
Why I'm trying so hard to move forward
And my heart will not get out of park.
Pulling over in three lanes wanting to lose control at the wheel
Letting go gets harder
Because of my grip on the thoughts of her.
So I grasp no concept of giving up so easily, yet, I'm
Asking ancestors to ease my grip & pain.
I feel they're granting me only one to deal
My dreams are becoming more depressing in a way,
But more informative.
More deforming to my inner child
Birthing angst and worry pushing and contracting
Cutting the cord to sever something I sought that sweet
I'm but a baby in this new found world of hatred of self
Trying to find someone to hold me in this time, I'm cold
In this time I am shivering in uncertainty
In this time her love may be grasped by another God
I'm praying to ignore this.
My hands clasped resemble hers of closed chances
I'm only walking, crawling, clawing, salivating, crying, trying to be
A man
Her man
But this man is not what a dream is supposed to be like
Cause in this life you must dream big to grow
I am stunting my chance to grow cause she's grown on me so much
I'm wrapped with her vines
I am sealed with seven curses of admiration
I am crazy with no form of dignity when dialing
Calling the good sweet ancestors for help
(Not divine anymore I will try to be tomorrow, mama)
When I don't wake up without my dirt
My casket of her thoughts of me
My suit, (mama, she had a suit for me, did you see it?)
My love suits no other for now cause heartache is
Too big of a size for anyone else
But a man can dream, can't he?
And a man can feel can't he?
So I feel this dream dresses funny, so it can't be here, no
Not at this point and time
And spacial tear
And cardiac wear on shoulders so narrow
I want to feel her in my sides as we blend
Shower with her skin to scrub my soul
Suck her tears from her cheeks and blow sandalwood kisses
Back to her heart
I'm not eager to live with continuous torture
I'm overanxious to see where can I die in her memories
To be resurrected from the lips of hers as she speaks of my name
To sleep forever as she marks my tombstone with
Eulogies and epiphanies
Sleep, to temporarily see God in the works
I am in the works or creating a mess of myself, fix me
I love her, but I don't want bad dreams or thoughts about her now.
I will attempt to dream a better life.

Dreamscapes

I rarely talk about my dreams. When I do, they are either premonitions, or something day/night altering. My dreams are becoming more stranger, yet they correspond with what I may experience the next few days.

Just today, I had a multiple amount of dreams. I cannot remember the order, but one was about messing up somebody's art creation that was solely dedicated to African people and our displaced Africans here. He resembled a friend of mine named Marc Furi. I had a khaki cloth with one adhesive side on it, and I was admiring the piece created, while flipping the large, cloth cover. It had a black, green, and blue stripe formation horizontally, with slang written in golden. The overall message was lightly written in the middle withe the words saying something like, "We are all brothers" across the painting. My friend, Regina, was also digging the art. As I flipped the cover cloth over it, I realized the sticky part clung to the piece fast, and another brother tried to help me take it off. It began to peel some of the paint off, but it wasn't the same part that was shown...it was an "F"
in white and red colors that peeled up like a washable tattoo. We left it alone and awaited Marc to come back. He looked in disbelief, as I explained to him the situation and apologized, profusely. Then it became evident that he wasn't too upset, and was a bit receptive to my apology and token for forgiveness. He asked for some beer...one that I have never heard of, but seemingly everyone else had. As I approached the outside, several guys in suits, walking with a caucasian-looking man passed me, laughing when I asked what type of beer is "Bouyoux" (even as he responded, I visually couldn't spell it, so this is the closest I could get it) and he asked if I could get him one also. Of course, I ignored THAT request.

The other dreams were short. One involved a drive where my cousin previously left a store that she got snacks from. Something that looked like Cheetos, but lighter in color. I drove up there with someone I didn't recognize and started into the store. A passersby tried to offer me the same bag of chips my cousin described. I passed on it.

I cannot fully remember the third dream, however ALL dreams took place away from an area I couldn't recognize. Furthermore, I only anticipate what is coming in this reality, due to my recent dream of my goddaughter and godsons that led me to see them and our reactions to each other.

If I recall, the last dream occurred with me and an ex driving along with her children, and asking for something to eat, and we stopped to get something to eat, but we were arguing the whole way. Something along the lines of that.

(Previously created 11-1-09, around the time of the dream)

Ifeanyi Okoro II

Which is it?

Which is it, America? All of us or none of us? Indigenous occupation or Columbus land disfiguration? Pilgrim or pillage? Pilgrimage to villages of my ancestors' souls' sole prints on pyramid grounds, not Plymouth Rock. Plundering, pasty, pale face pirates barter we good for their goods in our hoods. What's under the hood? Volkswagen? Folks draggin' my mans an' nem the body tumbling and thuds background sound for America's anthem. Mexican reclamation of real estate, now y'all up at arms throwing immigrant tantrums unforeign to we colored folk that have seen this before. Which is it, America? Go green or be black? Plant a tree for your tomorrow, while we sob in sorrow. Can we borrow a saw to sever our fruit from your bigoted branches and uproot racist remarks? You lie? You lie! You lie on our creativity's bed, reproducing cash from fucking us instead. Reduce credit, reuse demoralizing themes, recycle beats for sympathizing beatniks to freak and front our flavor. Profiting from persona-pimping my people from hip-hop, to rock, to jazz, to lips, hips, hair, nose, genitals and ass. I ask which is it, America? The other white meat, get beat to the white meat, or influenza driving under the influence of swine no matter whole, malignant, or benign. Pork, police, or pressing the oppressed to get shots, or get fined, or get jailed, or get shot, or get sick, or get profiled, or get pulled, or get lynched, or get premium lunch meat. Which is it? Bald Eagle or Pitbull? Sick of Vick or sic 'em? I guess while dogs battle now, back then they circled us like herded cattle, nipping at our dogs, so tired from protesting. Gnawing at our bones simmering in the Mason-Dixon sun and determined sweat. Your pup shits on trees while your laws shit on we. At least your bullets were free to roam in our dome, right? Can't even call this place your home, right? Which is it, bitch? Health care or Hollywood head? Which? Bi-partisanship or badger bi-racial brother? Monotonous monopoly on mahogany inspiration. WHICH IS IT, AMERICA? USA...or US?