Poetry
Walking into this dark dead end room with these lights flickering on and … and off and … and on and I’m so nervous that my hands are sweating as if my fingertips were lighters feeling all alone and all I want is for someone to understand my fear and pain and to console me and blow out the fire on my fingertips and tell me he won’t drop my tooth in my mouth like his hands were sweating too and to tell me that I won’t die from being stabbed by a surgical tool and for them to lift my chair that is dipped so steep and for them to turn on the lights so when I’m walking in the room it’s not dark and it’s not dead end and when it hurts I can move.
Norman Shepherd
Mumford High School
Article# 847, Created Jun. 6, 2006 :: Last Update: Jun. 5, 2009
Blood courses
through my fingers
numb
forcing its way
down from
under my fingernails
sweeps into my pen
overtaking the ink
and bleeds into
words on paper.
Robyn Arnett
Osborn High School
Article# 846, Created Jun. 6, 2006 :: Last Update: Jun. 5, 2009
I remember when the wonderful beats
first reached my ears,
my world changed.
The definition of music converted to so much more; I remember hearing
the Chicano rhymes, blast full pace
and the words explode with aggression and grace.
Rhyme after rhyme
the scenery in my mind
became more than a blurred vision
frozen in time.
I closed my eyes and let my heart
reminisce in
sand while the waves of the sea moved in patterns,
from one second
to another my world was
caught up in a hurricane
of wonderful notes, words, voices.
Chicano Rap is a beautiful trillium in a pasture of roses.
A unique flower of three petals in the midst
overexposed red,
glowing imminently.
However
looked over with
hot anger, lush hate and
disgust at difference.
Chicano rap speaks of situations
we Latinos go through:
Drama, Pain, Love and Familia.
Within the creation
of intricate beats,
new ears are born to listen.
Listen.
Angeles Gavia
Western International High School
Article# 845, Created Jun. 6, 2006 :: Last Update: Jun. 5, 2009
Two generations ago
they packed Saris, Dhoti and spices,
gur, nimbu and rai,
bottles of the Ganges in pockets
with Jack fruit and Durian,
mantras and black hair,
language made for ears,
all these things only to remember.
They crossed the sea,
left Mumbai and the packed streets.
They unpacked the family,
raised children in the memory
of the subcontinent.
They raised American children
with a taste for saffron and McDonald’s.
My parents raised me
with the Power Rangers,
Mickey Mouse,
Costco, VH1 and hip hop.
My ears dead to sitar,
illiterate to Hindi.
I found impracticality in the folds
of my grandparents’ dress.
It wasn’t how he looked at me.
I was how he tried not to.
The way he reacted to my name:
an English name, not foreign enough for my skin.
It was just the way no one sat next to or spoke to me.
The way I felt unwanted.
I never felt it before.
My grandmother always told me
I’m not like them,
I would always be foreign to them,
how they don’t feel I belong.
It hurt.
“Go back to your country,â€Â
Article# 844, Created Jun. 6, 2006 :: Last Update: Jun. 5, 2009
On my way back home the sidewalk hisses
every step becomes a risk
the clouds form worried faces and the sky is green
the sun abandoned me
along with other stars scared of the dark
no one to witness me breathing completely
I exhale loneliness and misdirection
I no longer walk without my orbit
a free drawn path that denies an almighty Lord
the wind keeps trying to find a hole
in my walk to make me trip
and I notice that the houses are locking their doors
street lights bend themselves correct
to keep me trapped
weeds in cracks grow in front of me until
I’m forced to stop moving, thinking, and evolving
but I still breath
that vital air that betrayed me is removed from my diet
I now only inhale ideas relevant to self
Joshua Tuck
Cass Technical High School
Winner 2006 Lotus Press Prize Article# 621, Created Nov. 21, 2005 :: Last Update: Jun. 5, 2009
I want the colors of the rainbow
to crawl into my body,
to dance in my soul.
I want the butterflies
to kiss my eyelids
when I am angry.
I want my niece and me
to sit on the moon
fishing for stars.
I want to chill and drink
Kool-Aid till our bellies burst.
I want us to dance
in the intersection of
Dequindre and 7 mile
to silent music.
I want to waltz
through a persimmon field
with bare feet.
I want to hurl silent poetry
against the walls of my bedroom.
I want to sit in silence
so we can hear
the raindrop get acquainted
with the concrete.
I want to command the locusts
to devour my enemies.
I want to set fire
to the feet
of those who are
afraid to dance.
Marie Wilson
Southwestern High School
Winner 2005 Lotus Press Prize Article# 620, Created Nov. 21, 2005 :: Last Update: Jun. 5, 2009
If you ask me where I have been
I’ll give you the phonebook
I’ll have to start with a whisper about whispers
In a cream church with a white wall and a brown topâ€â€
Article# 619, Created Nov. 21, 2005 :: Last Update: Jun. 5, 2009
