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On Working White Liberals

I don’t ask for the Foreign Legion Or anyone to win my freedom Or to fight my battle better than I can,  Though there’s one thing that I cry for  I believe enough to die for That is every man’s responsibility to man.

I’m afraid they’ll have to prove first That they’ll watch the Black man move first  Then follow him with faith to kingdom come.  This rocky road is not paved for us, So, I’ll believe in Liberals’ aid for us When I see a white man load a Black man’s gun.

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How Did Love Find Me.

(A song by Asa) 

Can you do this for me Whisper a prayer Something's happening I'm so scared What I waited so long for, is finally here Why does it feel so wrong Why the tears I always gave love Never thought I deserve To be the one to get love Oh no [Chorus:] So I locked my heart away I thought I didn't need it anyway Maybe somethings aren't meant to be Over mountains over seas Where I thought no man could reach How did you find me? How did love find me? I was trying to live Without any water I was trying to breath Without any air I was losing the fight And now I realize That I wasn't even alive [Chorus:] So I locked my heart away Thought I didn't need it anyway Now I know differently Over mountains over seas Where I thought no man could reach Love you have found me My love you have found me You found me I'm so glad you Found me

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The End. Day 3.

On day three of my 100 days of Poetry, I will be giving you guys one of my poems. I hope you enjoy it. It's titled the end.

The End

It began as a sweet sunny honeysuckle, On the day of arrival, When wine, tonic and gin, tore up the mask.

Tore open the facade of deceit to reveal the reality A truth of being It began with you stating what might happen next You, asking if I was willing to live with this.

The new space that will form, The new, that might consume the old, The new that changes everything.

It began when two faces became one, that fateful day.

It began when two become one.

But there was hesitancy As two friends became strangers, As closeness brought distance. Two who thought they knew each other, Now separated by familiarity.

There was hesitancy as one wasn’t the one, But the experiment, the trial, sheer experience kept them going.

It was an adventure, a taste of the rich berry.

But sobriety will hit you, It will awaken you at dawn.

To inform you again of what you desire.

Three nights, Three nights of hot-cold, passion, and pleasure To push away solitude

Three Nights of knowing but refusing to face it, Of wanting yet still rejecting.

But the heart doesn't lie, It leads the way.

And eventually informs the head, to leave.

We made no conditions We accepted it as it was, no conditions, Nothing said; nothing expected.

But the heart is delicate Fragile and slips easily Falling and shattering to 1000 irredeemable pieces.

It began and yet ended, Just as it began.

The first one, the last one. It ended before it even started.

But one refused to let go. Refused to let go, hoping Change might be looming by, to wash and bring newness.

But the heart cannot lie. And this has to end. End as it began, Sudden, Unplanned and unexplained. A Chapter closed.

                                                                                              - Pharez Monney.

© 2016 by Pharez Monney. All rights reserved.

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Still I Rise

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise

Does my sassiness upset you?  Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to seem me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulder falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you? Don’t you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still like air, I’ll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I’ve got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak thats’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

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They Went Home

They went home and told their wives,          that never once in all their lives,          had they known a girl like me, But . . . They went home. They said my house was licking clean,          no word I spoke was ever mean,          I had an air of mystery, But . . . They went home. My praises were on all men’s lips,        they liked my smile, my wit, my hips,        they’d spend one night, or two or three. But . . .  

                                                                            Maya Angelou.

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Maya Angelou’s Poetry

I have decided to embark on 100 days of Poetry Journey, this will essentially consist of me posting a poem or two everyday for the next 100 days. Though this is my culminating semester in college. I will make time to stick to this and have 100 poems or more at the end. I love poetry and I make time to write some poems occasionally, their composition make me relax and the end products make me smile.  Some of the poems will be my own and others by various other poets, authors and novelists.

I am reading Maya Angelou’s Complete Poetry this month, so I will post some of them. She wrote a lot of poetry.

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Dear Friend

Dear Friend

Trust has slender body A wide open mouth like a vase To nurture stalks of beauty. To nourish and sustain Till age breaks them down

But trust is fragile like the crystal vase delicate yet strong intricate but beautiful.

Beautiful when intact, But when shattered, Chaos is unleashed.

Dear friend, I will not blame the velvety tannins of aged grapes,

I cannot blame anger, the similar anger we know too well.

I should have known better I should have kept quiet And left those boundaries as they are.

But the vase has fallen, And shattered into thousand pieces.

To the north one hundred pieces lie The south claimed 621 The East and the West claimed the rest

Where do we start, Where do I begin to search for the pieces. I start with a deep heartfelt apology. It’s not easy to recover, from a stab in the back, the pain of an internal stab, especially from a friend takes a while to heal.

But I will be waiting,

Take as long you need. But remember I will wait.

Time is a funny a thing. It heals they say.

I will take back what I said, if I could.

Words uttered, that wreak havoc. The tongue is powerful and humans err.

Maybe this might be our test The litmus test, That restores or breaks the broken vase.

I hope we recover and time heals those wounds, And we look back and smile. Though time is limited for the visitor on stolen land.

I will be waiting.

                                                                                     by Pharez K Monney

�� All rights reserved.

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The City

You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore, find another city better than this one. Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong and my heart lies buried as though it were something dead. How long can I let my mind moulder in this place? Wherever I turn, wherever I happen to look, I see the black ruins of my life, here, where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.” You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore. This city will always pursue you. You will walk the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods, will turn gray in these same houses. You will always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere: there is no ship for you, there is no road. As you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner, you’ve destroyed it everywhere else in the world. 

Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard 

(C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Edited by George Savidis. Revised Edition

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The Place

You said: “I will go hence to another land, I will betake me to another sea. A better place than this may well be found. All my endeavours are foredoomed to fail, and as though dead my heart is sepulchred. How long shall this corrosion sap my brain? On every side — whichever way I look — dark ruins of my life confront me here where I have spent and wrecked so many years.” You shall not find new places; other seas you shall not find. The place shall follow you. And you shall walk the same familiar streets, and you shall age in the same neighbourhood, and whiten in these same houses. Ever this place shall you arrive at. There is neither ship, nor road, for you, to bring you otherwhere. As here, in this small nook, you wrecked your life, even so you spoilt it over all the earth.

Translated by John Cavafy (Poems by C. P. Cavafy. Translated, from the Greek, by J. C. Cavafy. Ikaros, 2003)

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Malcolm

Do not speak to me of martyrdom, of men who die to be remembered on some parish day. I don’t believe in dying though, I too shall die. and violets like castanets will echo me.

Yet this man, this dreamer, thick lipped with words will never speak again and in each winter when the cold air cracks with frost I’ll breathe his breath and mourn my gunfilled nights. he was the sun that tagged the western sky and melted tiger-scholars while they searched for stripes. he said, “fuck you, white man. we have been curled too long. nothing is sacred, not your white face nor any land that separates until some voices squat with spasms.”

Do not speak to me of living. life is obscene with crowds of white on black. death is my pulse. what might have been is not for him/or me but what could have been floods the womb until I drown.                                                        -Sonia Sanchez

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Peace and Calm during break One can relax and destress And enjoy the good moments Away from the chronic stress That the rat race brings

Peace that transcends one’s  understanding

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Views from the High Line.

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The  Highline

On the  Highline

The come and dine,

The walk the line, The old line of the fallen track, They dine not on the food nor long for the wine.

They thirst for the experience to say , 

I was here and have been there.

But at the High line,

All is  made bare,

It's here above the tar

That he finds comfort.

Watching and learning,

Observing and pondering

Bidding his time