A Poem Is Like A Creature

A poem is like a creature

That rears its head,

Verbose drool dripping

Off its curved fangs and palaverous jowls.

Its growl ripples through the air,

Bringing with it the sound waves

Of rhyme and meter,

Emanating lyrically from its throat.

Residing inside its belly

Is the backbone of something devoured,

Poetically creative and prosaic,

To be slowly digested and developed.

When confronted by this literary beast,

You mustn’t show fear,

Rather, you must approach its entirety head on,

And observe this creature, not as a fiend, but a familiar.

Though its pelt ripples with power,

And intimidation blows with its breath,

Privately it desires to be understood,

Respected, protected and treated as a genteel companion.

-Adrienne Chainey

Sisters of the Yam

Connected by the yams
We all use across the world,
Some are black and brown
Without a frown
we hack at the sweet
breakin away the skin
to get what’s nutritionally found within.
Dedication and an abundant appreciation for my sistas.
My sistas I say cause we are connected by the yam.
Yea u heard me right imtalkin bout dat bark like stump 7feet at once of purplish sweetness,
No; not some grape junk trying to perpetuate the hardyness of the yam.
Yes, much so related to the thick purplish sweet and wet flesh,
found between the thighs of the
Many great mothers that have had their thighs pried open
So that the sweet they was marinating
Could be ceased by those
whom new
for themselves
that their lips couldn’t welcomingly penetrate.
Now my sista yams
we tossed up roughed up
Many of us laying down rotten in da gutter
All that is found is a deflated shell.
all the sweet inside dug out.
Devoured yams much to offer the world
But can we be planted again
in fertile land?
Land un-touched by non hueman hands?
Land that has been washed over by pure light?
That has every element forming err essential
Vitamin and mineral?
Can we be planted by fresh streams of water?
So that once we are dug out
our thick nutritional juices
are found in every cell of
Our yams?
Can our
peeled layers
that were allowed to ripe
and mature
be pulled off
as gently as they grew over us
in order to protect our flesh
which all seek
and is found inside.
can you please take our peels and place them
in the ground with our roots?
Devoured we have been
Now we know
It won’t happen again.

-Taisa Grant

Untitled

I am not my hood I am the good in me
Despite what my eyes have seen murders drugs and robberies
I am a voice for all who are afraid to speak
Yes I am love and love is me
And when you have reached your end
like a flood I come rushing in
I am a friend
So let your mind flow let your thoughts go
because I believe when the mouth speaks the mind is free
Live and let love live
Be

-Nancy