OPEN MIC ENCORE III

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Serial Sniper

Don Lee Lester

The road had started in Washington state,

As one had control over the other,

In their thoughts must be such a hate,

Friends,all for one,as they were brothers.

Heading down a road,that was their gate,

To Louisiana and Alabama,and to others,

Of death and fear,the people would hesitate,

On through the night of drizzle and showers,

Two lost souls,a dark path,they would create.

D.C.,Maryland and Virginia,two senseless prowlers,

Taking life,and causing terrow in their wake.

Hole cut in a dark car trunk,for unseen cover,

Families in fear,the children were not safe,

In three weeks time so many would suffer,

Ten lives taken,no reason,none could escape.

Shots being fired,with a low muffled murmur,

Two dark minds,cruel,with death a date,

Unforgettable terror,that fall;of deadly murder,

A dark lonely reststop,they would meet their fate...

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I Saved a Life
Graeme James Small

He lived a life of sorrow and pain

Treat all he met with scorn and distain

No reason to love no reason to live

That man he could not forgive.

He woke this morning and stole a glance in the mirror

He had changed somehow he had grown much bigger

In his hands a tiny thing he held

It stirred and gazed into the eyes of the lost

Those eyes shone forth gone had the frost

That reason for warmth that reason for joy

He now had a son for I was that boy

His love was stolen to provideth that child

She only hung on for the life inside

Be strong they urged for the sake of your son

We must do that for what we have done

God stole our angel to join us as one

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I am Destiny
Miriam Onyeani

I wonder about my life at times

I think about the wrong people

I feel that I made bad choices in my life

I dream of sweet loving dreams

I hope find true love in my life

I hear my friends telling me the right things

I see my life going the wrong way

I would be a v.J. when I grow up

I love my family with all my heart

I touch my baby brothers heart when he needs me

I hate when people get the best of me

I trust my gut feels before anything

I write me feelings down when I'm sad

I try to be happy when I'm not at all

I wish that a boy of my dreams will rescue me from this nightmare

I look for sweet and kind thoughts

I understand that I ain't perfect

I sleep when despised about my day

I am Destiny

There is no one here...But me

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MISERY

Keisha Courville

Why is it sad here? Why do you cry?

Is your remorse more powerful than your disgrace?

Why is it so hard for you to believe?

Is the truth too hard for you to face?

Carry on and bury your faith

I cry, I cry in misery

Go ahead and turn your face

I die, I die in misery

Play your emotions well, because you do

Hide your face as well, I'm not like you

Cry and cry, while I die

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Focus

Cole W Schafer

Walk, This quiet path - My friend, your need to take a bath,

To cleans, yourself from hurt - Wash away the dirt

As it sticks, and latches on - These tribes and rhythmic toms,

Kept, all to beat to defeat - Slept, And dream through awareness.

Do we think so much, that we need a break?

Passive is the crutch, do it for its own sake.

Become, aware of all - Freedom, through the broken wall,

Seek, out relief leave the grief - Sleep, no longer through your waking life.

Move, from hear to feel awake, to what is real,

It's bright, and blinds with truth - a light that fills our souls.

Do we think so much, that we need a break?

Passive is the crutch, do it for its own sake.

Multi-task, leaves unfilled Flasks

Now Caste, off, until the single pa-a-a-ath

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My Invisible Prison

Michael Connell

Why do I come back here.

Why do I try.

Can't look back anymore

Sick of my feeling inside.

Can you please get out of my head.

Everyone deaf to the truth, you misled.

Trapped in a quandry.

Trapped in your lies.

Prisoner of deceit.

Jailed by my mind.

Can't get away from the love you showed me.

Your fake heart made me think I could be.

Be whatever I wanted, no limits on my vision.

Instead of stuck here in my invisible prison.

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"If I'm Without Him"

Markesha

Miserable mornings, and lonely nights

in this cold bed, I've spent.

I pull money out of my pocket, but it feels like lint.

Stress is eating through my brain like acid.

When I see him, my body melts quick like plastic.

Now when I see him, my bright eyes get dim and I break in two like a tree limb.

Because in my front of my face I see what I've always wanted,

but those who figured out my dream, stomped on it.

Now my heart is falling apart like a puzzle that has been ran over.

I put on my coat but I know it won't help because without him days

are going to get colder.

I can be under shelter, but still can rain.

My heart is behind a brick wall but still can feel pain.

If I'm without him, I'm alone, in a house that was once a home.

Without him, more than half of me is gone.

If I'm without him, my heart will drip blood,

because I'll lie down and die without his love.

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A life of debt

Derek Mitchell

I reside in a place where the walls are closed in,

I need someone to hold but I don’t want them too close,

If they are too close they may end up as I have done,

I need their help but I am ashamed to ask.

I hurt constantly, my heart aching, my nerves stretched tight,

At any moment I could lose myself, fall off the edge,

My thoughts are dark and somber, a far cry from the past,

A past I can barely remember.

I must have been happy once, perhaps, even for the briefest moment,

I can no longer remember, what is joy?

My only solace is that my life is mine,

I take comfort that blame is mine alone.

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lost in the crowd

screaming out loud

no one can see me

no one can hear me

looking around

can't hear a sound

catch your eye

makes me wanna cry

lost in the crowd screaming out loud

Camee Lemoine

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A Gift From God

© Mariam D. Mababaya

Countless gifts were granted by God

To me, you and everyone else.

He had given us life and love,

The power to learn and dig wells,

The skill to write creatively,

Produce a thousand things and read

Capable of living our lives,

Planting many from just one seed.

Gave each a loving family,

A good amount of wealth to share,

Offered us houses and shelter,

And animals to show them care.

There are those who have been bestowed

A talent to act or write books

To help the sick or build a road

While there are those blessed with good looks.

You have a gift in poetry

And I took my talents from you.

Such art that bears pure loyalty

Practiced more of it as I grew.

Although your past's poems were lost,

You still have that passion in you

The same thing did happen to me,

All songs made at fourteen I threw.

No need to strive to return them,

Let the previous years go away.

I grieve not for myself for I

Know that poetry skills do stay.

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Sleeping in the dark

Death is in all corners of my life

I see it there

Looking for me

Finding me

But not seeing the evil with in

I cannot die a normal death

I am doomed to die an evil ones death

I am sleeping in the dark

ashley

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HIGH AGAIN

DAVE LEVEY 1997

I an losing reality.

I always had dreams , real dreams.

Now all that remains is pure fantasy.

I'll escape before i have to face the truth

or is it too late already ?

Where are they taking me ?

I feel safe here, all alone.

nobody can touch me,

even in a crowd nobody can really touch me.

No emotion.

I'm just floating around my head searching,

trying to put it right,

but ultimately just escaping.

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No One

Adam Gading

Thinking and Wondering

Contemplating, Pondering

What it would be like if I were to die

No one would look back, no one would cry

At my funeral who would be there?

No one would be there, no one would care

As I sit here I wonder, wonder bout you

Would you really miss me, tell me, be true

If I were to die

Raise your hand if you'd cry

There's no hands, none that I see

I knew it would happen, wasn't meant for me

You say you love me but I know you don't

I ask for your guidance but I know you won't

Thinking and wondering

Contemplating, Pondering

What it would be like if I were to die

No one would look back, no one would cry

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I Look in the Mirror and Cry

Alyssa

I am not the girl I used to be

My reflection just isn’t me

I can’t understand what became

I don’t smile like I used to

Wish I’d die, at least I refuse to

I don’t want to own up but I’m to blame

So I look in the mirror and cry

No one knows how I feel inside

And if they did I know I would run and hide

All these feelings I have concealed

Now I don’t even know what is real

And if I did I don’t know how I would deal

So I look in the mirror and cry

I see a girl staring back at me

Her eyes leak with pain and I agree

Could it be this girl was hurt like me?

I don’t know who she is, but I can guarantee

This young girl has been deeply scarred

And that woman has been suffering hard

All I can hope for is these tears to pass

I try to stop them, but all I can do is break the glass

So I look in the mirror and cry

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Death Row

Alisdaire O'Caoimph

The circuits are overloading

to those internal cries

seeking some predestined insulation

that will gather the structures of this cold steel

and protect from the wrath of it's blade,

between the barb wired restraints

and these prisons of my own demise

How well I've hinged my sanctimonious Butt

Upon the infringement of human cries.

Pass the open wounds

That bitterly bleed the final injection

Of perforated, sodomized self raised excuses

Of all that I allowed the mind to gather

Wasted, all so torn to the years great cycles

Till lavished upon a fancy dies.

This is it

That which balances this human condition

Strapped into the chair, electrodes waiting

helping myself to the piece of contemptuous pie

Dangling my legs and shaking the feet

In a final rectal reaction to existence,

Plop that on the plate.

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Drops of sorrow flowing down her cheeks

What reasons we do not know

She sits on a ledge without her glow

And wonders why she’s here.

She walks to a drawer and pulls out a gun

Gleaming menacingly in the suffused sunlight

She uttered one gasp and pulled the trigger

What reasons we do not know.

Droplets of sorrow flowing down their cheeks

What reasons we do not know

They sit on pews and stare ahead,

Wondering why she left.

The ceremony is over

But the droplets of sorrow will never secede

They will always flow and bring dread to some

And grief to all.

Brianna

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LIFE
MICHAELA

LIFE SCARES ME SOMETIMES ITS LIKE A CIRCLE. AS YOU GO AROUND AND AROUND YOU HIT THE SAME BUMPS OVER AND OVER AGAIN, AND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CIRCLE IS ALL THE PRE-TEENS AND TEEN SCARED TO ENTER THE CIRCLE. NOT KNOWING WHEN TO, HOW AND WERE TO ENTER THE CIRCLE. SO WE STAY IN THE MIDDLE MOST OF US AND DOING DUMB STUFF SOME OF US KIDDY THINGS BECAUSE WERE SCARED TO GROW UP, OTHERS DOING DANGEROUS THINGS HOPING THE PAIN GOES AWAY.

WHAT WE ALL DON'T KNOW IS THAT WERE NOT ALONE. MANY ADULTS HAVE NOT ENTERED OTHERS HAVE JUMPED OUT SCARED TO ENTER OR RE-ENTER HAVING THERE MOM, DAD, AUNT, OR GRANDMA TO PROTECT THEM FROM THOSE BUMPS. SOONER OR LATER WERE GOING TO WANT TO GO IN FOR A TEST, OR EVEN BE PUSHED IN. BUT I NOTICE ITS O.K. TO JUMP BACK THINK ABOUT WHATS REALLY GOING ON IM OUR MINDS.

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Dear Mom

By Jessica Danielle Nutt

Dear Mom

It is me

Just writing to see

If you are too busy today

to come see my play

oh drats

what's that

you have no time for me

you are just too busy

i understand

yeah i see

oh well its ok

another time? another day?

then how about some time next week

your still busy well how about that

no problem i guess, ill just wait to be next

i guess its too much for me to ask

for you to put time toward a much needed task

oh now i see where the problem lies

my mom needs time with that man in her thighs

no no not a man, it's fame that she lusts

should have known it was her that we couldn't trust

hey mom never mind, ill go ask dad

at least he is there through the good and the bad

Don't worry Ill ask no more of you

some day you'll grow up and you'll get a clue

there is nothing here that you were ever good for

so pack your bags and walk out the door

I guess for now ill say good bye

I slam the door and on dads shoulders i cry

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DARK BEFORE THE DAWN.

By Ashleigh Scott.

I sit here at night.

You do not see my pain.

I cry myself to sleep,

Time and time again.

You do not understand

What I am going through.

You think I am just being emotional,

Because I’m not happy like you.

Some nights I will cut,

Just the scars will remain.

I hide these scars from you,

So you won’t see the pain.

I wish I could tell you,

About how I’m depressed.

I cannot find the words,

That will make you more impressed.

I wish the sadness would stop,

So I can continue with my life.

I hate the way it feels,

These feelings of strife.

I wish you could love me,

Just how I am.

But I feel you will not.

Your love will be a sham.

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WHEN THE "HORNED ONE"TANTALIZES

adetayo teluwo

The devil's bait is always mouth-watering

it takes extreme efforts to think of a refusal.

The offer of vast wealth,fame,and beauty

many can't afford to resist

clever from adam,shrewd he'll remain

mightily powerful,just far from offering salvation.

He gives what you very much long

but 'll later wish you never had.

In multiple folds he recoups what you've being given.

With the righthand he showers and

using the left,he disastrously retrieves

Why hold burning coal?

Why touch cyanide and march towards long-time wailing?

Just a primary description of what he can offer.

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VICTORIOUS
by Angela P. MacNeill

If she were standing next to the American flag

Firmly planted on top of the remains of a palace

Amongst the crumbled ruins of an upturned empire

Looking out onto the vast golden horizon

Of uncharted deserts and lost civilizations

On a scorching day in mid March

Dressed in an armored vest atop a chemical suit

Proudly saluting the republic for which it stands

While salty tars of anguish and patriotism trickle

Her cheeks stained black with running mascara

And her nose running, as she could no longer hold it back

A red bandana loosely tied from a loop in her Cargo pants

becomes her handkerchief

The television camera catches the scene

In a wide-angled lens as the silt settles

She would cry tears of the final mortality

Then a smile would overtake her

She would find victory

OPEN MIC ENCORE I