More poetry!

Poems performed on CNN and NPR

Call It a Requiem

Requiem: Laying to rest the souls of the dead things like a name, like a dream, like a sin, 

like a parent. 

For everybody  who lost a loved one to covid 19

some memories catch on the back of the throat

just can’t be made to rest 

In morning garb, tungsten & charred   delirium 

etch themselves in occipital lobes

Leaves an ache like solemn a vow or preachers robes

Love and pain are the same, a simple axiom

as god sewed loss in the veins of Job 

I dare you to call it a requiem 

funerals make life long songs one note 

daydream that sums of symphonies live in the echos left

burn in the furnace of the mind with no lifeboat

 fester under, wonder why loss feels more like theft

 there aren’t words to explain the dept of death

pamphlets passed out filled with false compendiums 

 silent churches sing no verses of bereft 

 I dare you to call it a requiem 

we never stop wondering why this is all God wrote 

how dare God leave me with the aching in my chest 

after every prayer I crafted all that we devote 

he still took you from us sternly deaf to each protest 

hoping if I preach enough then maybe I can rest 

that I won’t see their face in my reflection 

sing softly words to songs that they professed 

I dare you to call it a requiem 

people tell me mourning is like any other quest 

I search everywhere except where they buried them 

I wrote a letter that I never sent stamped or addressed

And I dare you to call it a requiem 

Our First Exodus

High school has always been an enigma 

Every moment in those hallowed halls felt like a phantom fleeting

I never thought that junior year would be our last true meeting

We were the bird in the airport warbling in e minor 

On their way to catch the latest and last covid liner 

Here to save this country’s legacies from early graves.

Because We know too much and care too much 

and want to do the most dangerous 

Of things 

Be the night and the stars inside it at the same time 

we never asked for a world  so vast and dense

That grew and and blazed at our expense 

Our Revolutionary covenant will persist for centuries  

Because Discovery is innate to our nature 

We were born explorers, but as we’ve grown older  

We have discovered the love of our neighbors. 

There is a distinct difference 

between being taught and learning. 

 education is to me  more than a right, 

it is a necessity.

Creates creatives to lead us through the fight

 Running restlessly 

 into the future of this country.

We survived the world’s darkest night and 

Somehow still made it home 

We are survivors.

 untamed by fires 

undefeated by disease or flood 

through every battle we are fighters. 

 We are speaking the language of the unheard.

We know  The pain of martyrs 

We  take the guidance Of the men who poured the tea 

In Boston harbor 

One day our countries flag will mean what we think it’s supposed to 

And our class will build the world that we had always hoped to 

 I’ll move this tassel for every classmate that didn’t make it to graduation

Every identity and entity That makes up our potentially penultimate generation 

for every kid we never got to pray for 

I swear on all that is fair you are all worth more  

when I see you all in your caps and gowns standing at those stage doors 

I know that tomorrow will be better because we are in it. 

We are finding the American spirit again 

we are changing the world with the strength of every friend. 

To the day that every faith in our country is restored

To the class of 2021 to our people evermore