Reading. Books. Even if the two are generally frowned

upon in our day and age, they shouldn’t be. Books are

the things that raised our nation. John Adams, Thomas

Jefferson, John Hancock, and countless others used books, or

My eyes have seen,

My ears have heard,

The special beauty,

Of a kind world.

Those who do,

And those who do not,

They have shaped,

What it is I have got.

So much stress is on my mind,

she’s your daughter just as much as she is mine.

I brush her hair and iron her sweater,

when the winter brings such unfriendly weather.

You might say your work is rough,

I met a woman

Old as dirt

Yet nice as the morning sun,

Living where some considered

The worst part of town

Yet somehow

She finds time

To knit me a sweater

Of dark green string

Straight from the soul

My job is so exhausting,

I don’t have time for parenting!

Maybe my wife should try fighting crime,

and I can stay home all day wasting time.

All she does is cook and shop and clean,

I don’t understand how it’s difficult to do those things.

Walking up and down every street,

Every day – thump, thump, thump

Go my boots.

Walking past the park

Every day – thump, thump, thump

Goes the wino’s stereo.

I messed up with my life

Now I get held with a knife

I am out here trying to survive

I’m glad I’m still alive

I sit in JDC

Thinking how my life is going to be

My dad told me I would be aborted

To my mom I was important

They say they help,

They ain’t no good.

Ask for food,

Barely get kelp.

I wish I could just be

F r e e

Eating my thoughts,

Twisting my mind,

Her shadow passes through,

My words I can’t find.

She looks to me, waiting,

Her eyes pierce my heart,

I know what is coming,

I can’t let it start.

The days are piling up,

But I can’t move,

So little motivation,

Yet so much to prove.

I don’t want to be here,

But don’t know how to get away,

My only escape,

Is the game that I play.

Screams thickened the air,

A scene taken from a nightmare,

Flames licked through the dry grass,

Tribe members pounded the ground, fleeing,

Rifles blasting, the sound deafening,

I hid in my hut,

Peering through the window,

Though once you might have thought

To cast away conformity,

“We must go along with the majority.”

Are the words you’ve just wrought

And now I finally realize

The clanging bells of hypocrisy

Have been tolling with the fluency

I used to rely on compliments

But now I strive off them

I used to keep my chin up

But now I cry non-stop

I used to follow my sister

But now I lead us deeper in the dark

I used to try to be myself

But now it’s no use trying

words fill the pages

the pages fill the void

void an existence

and her head is filled with these words

not knowing their meaning

she writes but the words lose reason

she writes and the words are empty

How could reading be an option?

It definitely could not.

I think of all the books I've read

that will not easily be forgot.

Books

everywhere,

open one

and hear the sounds of

a market in Cairo.

Open one

and smell the crisp air

of the mountains.

Open one

and see the torrential rain in London.

Open one

Pencil joins with paper.

At once, a

pattern of words

begins to flow

and spread

about the page

stories of another world

of creatures

unknown to man

of sports played

on the moon alone

Crack the spine loudly.

Savor the pages fragrance

Consume the content.



Turn the pages slowly.

Continue reading aloud.

Voice calls me away.



Return to the book.

Curling up to read again

When I think of Iowa,

I think of cattle,

I think of the rattle under the road,

driving by humble abodes.

I imagine cornfields,

I imagine barns,

driving by the farms,

I hear the rumble of tractors,

i, the definitive

the only you in the world

i am and you are individual

we are separate

we are absolute masters

of our individual perceived universes.

Seeing out onto the entire field and beyond,

Like seeing out onto a battlefield during a war

While being guarded by the tools of ignorance,

Being the catcher like the general of the team.

I am an athlete,

trying to train hard;

to reach the top.

SMACK!

I get knocked down,

but then I get right back up.

To continue on.

To be a champion.

I am an athlete.

If only that person were on the same planet.

If only that person were in the same hemisphere.

If only that person were in the same continent.

If only that person were in the same nation.

The start of the race isn’t always easy

They say to just put one foot in front of the other

Then repeat

How can you repeat that when you’re racing to find yourself?

I have been told

I am genuine

By my teachers

By my friends

By my family

When I was younger I wanted a different word

Humorous, pretty, or courageous

Now that I am older

I have realized

I walk through halls, the halls of a school. 

It’s a lot different than it was

Just five weeks ago.

I now know quite a few kids now,

They thought of me as the new kid,

The outsider, I don’t know if they still do.

There was once a bright, new, shiny car

with a big engine and all a child’s wildest dreams within.

This noble stallion would speed through all the others,

roaring by them like a lion chasing its prey

through its black-floored, circular jungle.

In my poem “Out of this World,” I explore the theme of oppression and the ways in which Leonard Peltier’s Prison Writings and Rachel Zucker’s “Paying Down the Debt: Happiness” evidence this central theme.

Who wishes...

she could live in the sunny, tropical Bahamian world for a summer

she could experience the ear-popping adventure

on an airplane

going place to place

visiting the breathtaking sights around planet Earth

I Wish

To create new and innovative objects

For the joy of finding a new building block of the universe

To write the published wonder that will spread throughout the world

To smell the delicious food in front of me, soon to be in cookbooks everywhere