No I am not a poet. You see it’s just that I write to live. And I’ve been told that true poets write for a living. And I don’t wanna be giving anybody the impression, that my chest’s expansion and my diaphragm’s compression is interferin’ with feeding their chirin’ so. excuse me if it’s cool. Well, is it cool? Preciate’ it.

No I’m not a poet. Cause’ poets get all the women, It’s already a given that I’m apt to tap any crap of cat if I want that cause I’m just that cute. Then she hears I can sing too? Shoot! So how would that reflect on my character if. Let’s say your names Erica. Erica here, came with her dear here to hear sheer genius, and it just so happens that this week’s piece isn’t about peace but my piece. ‘Scuze me penis. Then I get to spitting’ that freaky sh*t. Just to see how weak she gets. Like, “Girl I wanna give it to you in the worst way like it’s your birthday. From first base to home plate I’ll knock it out. You know what I’m talking bout’? I’m talking soaked sheets and ceiling fans. Shaking knees and flailing hands, angled rams, knocking divots in your diaphragm until you’re hardly breathing if we be heathens then God Damn!” Then I stop. Cause’ she done got to sweating like it’s hotter than Armageddon and forgetting who she came with. Then I get to spitting’ some game sh*t like any lady in here tonight, that wanna feel what that be like come holla’ at me if you’re just that curious. And now he’s mad at me, cause she just that curious. And done got all furious and wanna’ fight, but forgot when I got on the mic. I told him I wasn’t a poet, and he forgot but now he know it cause’ he gotta take his nose and hold it. Like this. So he don’t get his good shirt messed up.

No I am not a poet. I’m the guy on the sideline waiting for the over-thrusted corner three to come to me so I can have, just one shot. And if I make it.I’ma’ run through the park and shake Kidd’s like Jason. Or highlight my sneakers green so that my turbo’s on and run all the way home and remember that I’m grown and I left my car back at the gym.

Yo, I am not a poet. I am poetry’s enemy. I am talent undefined. Or to be poetic. I’m the inexplicable lift of the bumble bee. So don’t think it’s belittling to come to me and humble me with words like, “Algie you suck.” Cause it’s true. I suck the raw emotion out of you and transfer it to composite fibers via graphite. And if it’s that tight, I’ll let you hear it. You forced me to write it in the first place. As to not let words waste I dictate.

I am not a poet. I am unfortunately the audience member who won’t sit down and shut up.

Tasting knowledge gained from loves lost.
Knowing how her day went without me
And how she’s glad to see me again for the first time
And how all she wants to hear is the first line from her favorite piece when I’m done writing it because it moves her.

She said I remind her of the presence of times passed,
And she wishes we could spend our past-time allowing time to pass.
Forgetting everything we knew about each other,
In order to make more room to remember the things we forgot.

We Stopped To Breathe.

I needed to ask her name.
I would’ve swallowed my pride but she did.
Obligated by closed eyes
Wishing we were in each others shoes to know how well we were doing.

Not for evaluation purposes
But in fear
Knowing that the weight of velvet lips don’t leave impressions
They leave legacies.

Me, knowing that antibodies can fight anything my lips can give unless they overheat from the warmth she feels.

And she’s well aware of the fact that, moments like this stick to your soul like lip gloss on your neck.

Married couples look at each other like acquaintances. Wishing they knew our secret.

We had the passion they lost.
The beautiful eyes of our children were no invitation
Obligated by those eyes we started college funds on strange lips
The room spun as the Earth moved and the only thing we could hold on to was one another.
Finding that Jesus isn’t the only stable thing in this world.

We Stopped To Breathe.

Butterfly lashes painted her cheek with vibrant smiles between insinuations
Bank statements and passports
They tell you less about me than she could and couldn’t move me nearly as far.

And I’m merely the part of her she’s been longing for since the Generation of Genesis.
She told me this by slipping the tongue with no stutter.
Moses was jealous.

Obligated by green eyes, we closed our lids tighter.
Dreaming that we could fall asleep
So we could wake, each other, up like this

Hearing the mesmerized Ooh’s of passing children
Inspired by what it must feel like to be a grown up.

Us lost in what it used to mean to be a kid

And I’m glad we grew up together.

Through rebellious adolescence
Pushing past noses, as if they were against us

Praying to see what our souls would inherit,
10 carat engagements, strange lips can agree with.

The pastor can’t find prettier words than she, so he said nothing.

We stopped to breathe.

Our lips came to a fork in the road and trudged the median until our legs seemed shorter than our inhales.

We stopped to breathe.

Solitude was colder than Alabaster. But those lips
Those lips create warmth without friction.
Silence was diction and we were golden.
Bank Statements and Passports, would get me nowhere in life.

She took me places Jehovah forgot about. Just so he could make more room to remember what we forgot.

We stopped to breathe

And I stood there gasping for air.

Brushing out each lash as to lash out the hate she wrongfully received.

Applying the foundation as to solidify this faux emotion.

Painting on the blush so that she can feel that with no shame.

I line her eyes in hope.

We meet in her new beauty beneath the chandelier.

A ballroom should’ve been her first setting.

So I make miracles on her teaching her lyrical dances. Like southern ghetto punch this romance is too sweet. So I have to stop, to take it all in. the bitter with the sweet. Or like the good with the bad. Because, we can’t seem to reconcile our differences. And my whole life would change, if she came in pretending like she knew how to act right; but, she wrote wrong for fun.

So I make miracles on her righting the wrongs that she wrote, that he wrote about, which brought about the sudden urge to splurge on pens and legal pads, rather than MAC brushes.

Painting just as vibrantly as before, yet, no longer making her up.

But, giving the pure depiction of how she keeps me satisfied.

But as inkwells run dry my hunger grows, so.

I make miracles on her, still, hungry. So I eat fruit from the poetry to attain knowledge. Wash it down with wisdom from any biblical text. What comes next is the sudden urge to splurge my thoughts into feelings and submit them through this pen. Just to reveal my lust for her. Because, we stay up all night, making what I write, right.

Right? And as the sun rises I make miracles on her like sores of lepers.

From swarms of shepherds I call forth my prematurely born conception for protection.

For of the mouths of babes passion flows.

Corralling any weasel willing to foxtrot with his quill and retreating him to the rafters.

Before I’m after him like the rapture with Anita Baker in the kitchen.

And I make miracles on her using Anita as my blueprint and then dubbing LaBelle as my personal assistant. Because they couldn’t prescribe enough delicious. My recipe sustains her. Like sucklings’ feening’ for another hit she needs me. Because she can’t do this alone.

And again I make miracles on her like pharmaceutical Hermes with a caduceus.

Me the messenger I reduce this to verbiage through bruised lips.

As if the song of sirens wasn’t loud enough to sink cruise ships.

My cuneiform speaks the volumes of history lost in the libraries of Alexandria.

Or places Thomas as the medical examiner of Jesus himself.

And like it’s his presence she felt.

I make miracles on her feeling her feelings in conjunction with mine. Because we’re one in the same, together. Alzheimer’s may have her lose her train of thought. But I write on notebooks and letters to help her remember our last rendezvous. As if she could forget.

And I make miracles on her like the lyricals’ conjured up by the hip-hop heads of the Boogie Down. Like Ben Hur dressed in the black mail and chest plate donned by the truest warriors. Wielding my pen against the broadest sword. I’ve grown from a modest ward to the ruler of the roundest tables, or left handed school desks. Working on ambidexterity writing, “Who’s next?”

And I make miracles on her screaming it is I, or it is me. Or like Twentieth Century Fox Television channels of a black show on prime time, I’ve got down. Like any equal opportunity employer she’s been through many men. And since she’s an exhibitionist even every woman. But I’ve tamed her wild banter to proclaim that I’m the man and I’m the best. And she wants nothing unless it’s at the level of my doing.

I make miracles on her like the masturbatory product of flaccid kings. Spewing forth well-fashioned streams of consonants and vowels. Acing spades and trowels to furrow any thoughts that burrow to sew such said seed. So well cultured it couldn’t receive flak from Roberta.

I make miracles on her killing her ever so softly with the precision of this ball point pen. Leaving an everlasting mark in time. And rewinds of this old song keeps her beautiful. Such a vibrant thing waltzing to a slow tune called love.

I make miracles on her like flames dance on oil of Macabee’s. Unraveling scrolls of papyrus to reveal hidden messages she left me with unbeknownst to you. I make miracles on any canvas she allows me to freehand on. And we stand strong. Me and my poetry.

My Second Love

We lay on that closet floor crying our unified tears of separation while I remembered the greatest piece I ever wrote; a piece for you. “I lay some sugar on your right shoulder to match your left. As if symmetry is perfect. As if you are not.” Like similes do you justice. but words can’t die so I figured I’d write. My memoirs might stutter your name but the recipient will know, I love you forever. I pinky swear.

I can’t take credit for this piece. I’m citing the constellations. Breathe! Breathe! Life goes on. But that’s faint to realism on account of the rewinds of this old song and the promise we made each other October 10 th 2005. I love you forever. We pinky sweared. Remember?

You would’ve thought romance never had a home the way it found us. I had to pretend I hated picnics for as long as I’ve known you to pull this off. Who would expect you, me and a grassy knoll. With the bubbles in our fancy champagne recalling the greatest piece I ever wrote; a piece for you. “If the wind were to expose every inch of every rose, the fragrance found within would be unfit to scent your skin. Simply put.you’re simply perfect.” As if limericks do you justice. but words can’t die so I figured I’d write. My biography may never mention your name, but my historian will know, I love you forever. I pinky swear.

I can’t take credit for this piece. My heart tapped these words out. Breathe! Breathe! Life goes on. But that’s faint to realism on account of the rewinds of this old song and the promise we made each other July 29 th 2006. I love you forever. We pinky sweared. Remember?

Crying always hurts more when I open my eyes and see you crying too. And as you know I breathe for you so I guess hyperventilation is unfair. Sitting in this cluttered room is so poetic the way my mind is jumbled. Jumbled.Jumbled.Oh yeah! But if that’s what you need to be happy, then, I guess we’re not together anymore. And amidst the tessellation of our lips a dream bought to memory the greatest piece I ever wrote; a piece for you. “A beauty that could only be found if the angels made their bed in the clouds, lay their heads on the universe and made love to the sounds of God’s orchestra.” If only a comparison could do you justice. But words can’t die so I figured I’d write. My scratches from this pen may have omitted your name, but anyone who’s seen me smile will know. I love you forever. I pinky swear.