This evening I'd like to post some poems by a DC-area poet, PS Perkins, who has led at least one workshop at Writers on the Green Line. I hope that she will lead another this spring/summer!
DIRECTION
She beckons me to the land of ancestral knowing,
willows whispering my name
claiming their own.
Come home! Come HOME!
There’s work to be done.
No hoeing
No planting
No chopping
No sifting
No cooking…
Just RE-MEM-BER-ING yourself
to ourselves
to help themselves
BE-come ONE!
PS Perkins, Poet
Greenline Writers Workshop
Summer 2018
The next poems are from her "Trilogy Called Life."
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| Photograph by Jorobec |
RUBBISH
Urban streets filled with the economic refuse of
tattered souls seeking solace
from littered and embittered lives.
Preyed upon by money hungry,
power craving forces of sanctioned ineptitude
created to keep the mentacide machine of human waste fed.
They shuffle, they schlep, they drink, they drag
along the cracks of life designed to trip and snare
those besieged by despair.
How can we be our brother’s keeper
when they've become the street sweepers we refuse to pay?
Wasted minds filled with discordant voices of who they are not.
Drowning out inspiration
long since exchanged for futile aspirations
never to be realized while wading through
the cesspool of residue called re-member me?
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| Photograph by Yanping Nora Soong |
PERFECT PITCH
Living in a consciousness of lack makes you
take more than you need,
and need more than you take,
while desperately driven to the next detour
called WAIT.
Running around in the machinations
of your own imagination,
inventing dreams of fake realities,
turning truth into lies.
Wanting to wake from the slumber
that makes you forget your worth and wealth to the world.
Desiring to drown the discordant voices
telling you your own voice means nothing.
Despaired of the passion requiring patience waiting on its purpose.
But in your heart you feel a note,
a just right, familiar prophetic note,
a perfect pitch that belongs to you.
Follow That!
PRODUCE
PAIN is not a product of good decisions.
Someone
somewhere
somehow did
something wrong,
and the outcome is always respectful of the cause.
Detours,
Damages,
destructive thoughts
all line up as the cause for the effect.
Regardless, the seeds are yours
to plant, to germinate, to grow
producing the pain or pleasure of their fruit.
Going down the aisles of life, we poke,
we prod,
we pick,
we punch,
Carefully, or not, examining each piece
for quality of consumption before ingesting.
Too often thoughts of self-destruction
invade and conquer our minds
Producing the very product
we should not eat,
or don’t want to eat,
But we do
wondering why it tastes so bad?
All the while not understanding
That EVERY Word grows and
it’s simply a matter of
PRODUCE.
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| Photograph by Pallab Halder |
PS has given us quite a bit to reflect on. Now I am going to post some music for you.
My husband is playing Miles Davis' "Milestones" in the front room, so I am going to post this song first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k94zDsJ-JMU
The other day he was listening to "Tutu": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00tzcnyDL68
Here is "Billy Boy," also from Milestone. The arranger, by the way, was Ahmad Jamal:
Enjoy!
I am honored to be a member of this blog that seeks to bring understanding, sharing, caring into our lives from distant past voices to present urgent cries for solidarity, love, and compassion! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThank you Pamela Shekinah Perkins. The poetry you have shared moves, touches, resonates, and generates heart. It reflects aspects of life from compassion and grace, perfectly pitch.
DeleteBrilliant!
Sent from Bronnie from Australia:
ReplyDeleteI just tried to post a response to the poetry blog, but it didn’t “post”.
What I tried to post was this:
Thank you for sharing this expression of your heart and understanding, Pamela! As one living in Sydney, Australia, I see we share many of the same heart issues and challenges … and that’s especially why I love your poem “Direction” – for we are BE-com(ing) ONE!. Recently I attended a small festival, and entered the stall of an Aboriginal Australian elder, who was using a puppet to convey truth to whoever would listen. I realized then the power of using art-forms like puppetry, poetry, visual art and drama, to say things which otherwise would been seen as “outrageous” and “not to be said”. That little puppet spoke to me of truths which (as a white woman) made me blush, but I accepted and appreciated the accuracy of the words. Indonesian puppets have historically had a similar “voice” in their role of stirring up peoples consciences to hear what needs to be said. And so, the poetry expressed here in this Forum by Pamela, and no doubt others so gifted, is also stirring “the inner being”, getting to the heart of the matter, and challenging.
I’m not sure if you can post it for me?