Poem about black joy entitled

River Road Crossing

The cosmos sleeps in water,

oscillating in and out of REM cycles 

like a capricious rainy day where 

you can’t seem to keep yourself from 

outside and you had plans to play 3 on 3 

with your brother and dad

and to mow the lawn for your neighbor Ms. Maggie

in exchange for twenty dollars and a lecture 

on how unsafe the world is.

At one moment it is full and bright,

projecting its vivid dreams in supernova 

and raindrops that touch everything and nothing at all,

so I ponder walking through it drenched,

like an unused dish rag 

that sat there when granny taught me to use  

sponges to clean the kitchen for company,

the kind that steals gravity in your household

critiquing your gaze like you’re the outsider.

Left with few options 

that don’t delineate unrequited destruction, 

what’s often the first explanation 

for celestial circadian consistencies 

is to blindly accept the insurmountable 

as simply that

and continue an ugly step in a larger cycle

even though your eyes still function in space 

analyzing from your angle, 

the sky that surrounds us all. 

The cosmos sleeps in water

because that isn’t a secret ingredient 

in the recipe for life that exists within it,

and sometimes a nap can make discomfort start to feel better.

everything must be nourished, including

your melanin passed down by willful

generations who leapt towards the universes comforter,

and everything the self appointed landlord sneered at 

because it wasn’t synonymous with pearls and perfection,

and to hide his fear of your self love.

The water touches everything 

like the fingers of a three year old 

because everything touches, 

rippling between margins to reflect 

all that’s above, below, and between 

so that all there is to accept 

is taking the first step.

Two verses from a rap that I wrote entitled :
Penumbra

dropping fruits in chamomile roots calming cornucopia
soaking up the sun amidst a field of golden
sepia
firmly anti myopia homies dreaming bout utopia
blabbering sullen bumble bees until we reach euphoria
wanted to be a samurai warrior swinging swords quiet like afro
But before ya tell the story of the origins there's macro
where you from frivolous fiddler freestyling with my heart strings
feel like forever lost phantasms floating with
the closed wings
birds that don't got no dreams
coasting on their sloped schemes
I'm outta threads for sewing up itty bitty little seams
I'm slowly quoting questions from philosophers with no means
always known lowly what the goat needs
similes Sinatra to ocean soulful sentimental pleads
i want bars as smooth as swimming Phelps I think would prolly breath
followed by some sexy vocals sounds my throat couldn't perceive

can't imagine new colors but every sound firmly secedes
only automatons can copy with precision of a sand sifter
isolating every grain a mausoleum of some granite drifters
Some fucking first class anime are ones with the planet shifters
snatch like orange lifters from the kids know what the gift is
suffering in subsequent waves not smoothing out the ridges
applauded for surface things and continue coasting on like Guinness
i started this on a spur and now i don't know how to finish it
so used to humming mumbled tunes now I need to get articulate
particularly humble but maybe not cause I admitted it
persimmons in the jungle flowers need a lot of water
pleasure craved by sons and daughters wanna be more than fodder
tongue slick like a slip and slide but oblivious to slaughter
goin on in neighbors yards what do it mean to be a scholar
praying for your pretty garden but the world is getting hotter
stuck on this funky island imma need more than a dollar

Another short poem I wrote entitled :
Awareness

In foggy confused months of bored 40 something minute naps
and inventing new directions for the sake of courtesy,
waves crash across state lines in apathetic dreams 
that contradict their constant motion.

When it's hard to see it's easy to misinterpret
passive and haphazard harbingers and empty inboxes as
incomplete, especially in a time of need but it's important
to account for context,

the world works whether you ask it to or not 
and most humans are multifaceted, earth
having a strictly fluid schedule of rest and awakening
I used to think that sense were the ultimate output 
of our bodies and I could only function with regularity
in certain places because

trees to grow without specific photosynthesis 
and forethought as to the taste certain roots prefer,
but stories are the same in essence across timelines
and arid variations of vast lands,
while the sun still sets each day we'll be present for.

At the same time noodles are cooked in many different pots 
with some fingers more sensitive to heat, and I still
tell a better summary than a tale because I only like to 
share new wrinkles of what everybody knows

akin to the same nonchalant celestials that tear worshippers in two,
in the palm feeling all the agony of neglect and misplaced 
mystery, on the bony back hand hoping someone 
has the uncanny carving tools to tell me what I need to know,
but alas only the sage holds the key combo to the door
my eyes choose to ignore,
and they are sleeping on an unmarked mountaintop 
I can't seem to summit.