You are likely to find yourself somewhere in the line breaks if you pay attention.
Poems from my book, With Only Which She Could Carry, will be shared on Wordlights Hour, a weekly segment of Shady Pines Media Radio.
The radio show may be listened to on www.shadypinesradio.com/radio every Saturday from 6 to 7PM PST.
After my contribution airs, I will update this post with a direct link of the show. For now, follow them on Facebook and tune in weekly to enjoy.
Some mornings I wake up writing.
Through my window, the early sun is shining,
my eyes still blinded I find myself rhyming syllables
with consonants that complement and comprehend the bigger picture
of the scripture prominent in the dominant society.
I see the problems with humanity…
The insanity of extreme mindsets
from every heavenly sect set to threaten the youth into fellowship,
the threat of punishment exploding in the streets
of the east and west, it’s like the people playing God
forgot to take their midday rest.
With shit like this we’re reduced
to only the children knowing what’s morally best.
And I test my patience pouring coffee
while the radio buzzes a news stream
and soon I’m three sips and set
to forget I was ever a part of humanity anyway.
Ready to write off my citizenship to earth
so I can find a place to live where the right comes first
and a shared sense of solidarity isn’t a byproduct
of a brainwashed waste of humanity repeatedly
attacking the innocent and weak.
I mean, three headlines a week shouldn’t be dedicated to mourning and obituary.
Some mornings I wake up writing,
and still hiding under the covers
I wonder why I was wired this way.
Programmed to take the pain and suffering I see
and re-channel it into a quick catchy beat
in hopes that somebody sees through to me.
I surround myself with laughter and animals and love
but sometimes it just doesn’t cut and I wake up writing,
I wake up sighing,
and I go right back to sleep unprepared to spend another day
watching the outside world dying.
National Poetry Month started several hours ago, and runs through the next 30 days.
What’s that quote?
If I only wrote when I had time I’d never write at all…?
Something like that.
This poem has been posted here a few times, once from winning money in a talent show, and once linked to its publication with The Voices Project. But this time, half of it has been included in a PSA for Le Moyne College’s campus. Check it out.
Le Moyne College Says, No More. from Nicole Jean Turner on Vimeo.
Part of Me
Part of me, is so disturbed by recent events, that part of me is moved to move words and form my own opinions but it won’t change anything. And that’s part of what fuels my rage and desire to grab them by the collar and say what is wrong with you?
An entire country, giving undeserved empathy to some teen who thought that he could get away with anything but got caught.
And I shudder, and the thought of hundreds of other girls that will never speak up. They know what’s coming, this storm of shame and blame from a media that only aims to say she was drunk, so she’s a liar, and it’s her fault the star athlete’s lives are over.
That clearly, she set herself up for rape when she lifted the plastic cup to her face and decided to partake in part of being a teenager.
This part of me is enraged that I live in a place that think’s it;s ok to say raps isn’t a crime when the victim made an “obvious mistake.” That teach’s it’s ok to take photos and forward to every half known name and publicly humiliate and then claim in court you weren’t a part of anything.
A witness. A bystander who didn’t stop to say hey this girls unconscious this isn’t ok.
And this part of me has to restrain from breaking down when I hear their names, anger boils inside cracking up and down my spine as I’m brought back to a time, reminded of freshmen year. Waking to the sound of tears that one of my worst fears had become a friends reality.
And 4 months later I packed to leave campus, because he’s walking past us like nothing ever happened.
Sex without consent is a death sentence. Not in the law, but in your mind. Trapped with thoughts inside ageing over time like a pomegranate wine multiplying every time something reminds you.
And it’s a stress that both male and female victims hide because of how our society has promised to treat them.
Part of me, thinks more than anything, that everything needs to change. We need to stop teaching don’t put yourself in bad positions, and start teaching, don’t rape.
It sounds like common sense but clearly isn’t from the news today.
And part of me, thinks this anger and frustration is a waste. But part of me knows that’s to blame, because if no one speaks up, nothing is going to change.
That, has nothing and everything to do with your class.
I’m sorry I’m not paying attention,
but there are matters at hand that I must attend to amend the bends
and folds bursting out of my mind,
making matters miserable for me sitting here
peacefully, quietly.
Blood pumping, veins throbbing,
creativity robbing me of the educational material
you desire burns forest fires over my notebooks.
Khaki clad lectures and suede serenades of study
just don’t fit in these pages
while I itch with irrational grammatical fears and anxieties.
Commas and semicolons haunt my daydreams and
white space suffocates until I awake and shake with
inspiration.
Adoration.
An overactive imagination that my pen fails to control, falls to the floor,
and catches your attention that I’m not looking at the board.
You ask me what is written and
I am shyly smitten that you have some interest in my art.
Margins somewhat peek at the subject that you speak but the ants beneath my feet tell me to retreat to the corners on my mind and give a clean sweep onto the page.
Do not be enraged that I am not engaged, my minds just setting the stage for my pen to be more than lifeless and grey.
So I suppose all I can say, is yes, I am taking notes.
But no, they have nothing —yet everything— to do with this class.
