collaboration

stories, labels, and approvals (Collaboration with trE)

/ Just Barry / 5 Comments
ToniMorrison

National Memorial for Peace and Justice, 2018, Montgomery, Alabama (photo: Michael Delli Carpini, CC BY-NC 2.0)

stories, labels, and approvals (Collaboration with trE)

not everything needs a story
it’s possible to want justice
without being seen as angry
and you’re damned right I’m angry
when our justice is perverted
time and again, and again
you fixate on the anger
spinning a yarn about
the irrational response
of us ungrateful thugs

the ones you want to
linger beneath the soles of your feet
will be the very ones who
you’ll beg to add more days
onto your life.
and when the Maker calls your number,
I will play bailiff,
executing all plans for your demise.
and the difference between you and I
will be that I had nothing
to do with it.

make your presence known in other ways.
show this world that there is
so much more to living than
constantly trying to flaunt your
privileges in my face
OR
belittling me every chance you get.
“when they go low, we go high,”
and it must feel like shit
watching angels scale the skies
while you reach into your pockets
for God-status and pull up lint instead

not everything needs a label
it’s possible to seek solitude
without being tagged as arrogant
I look inward for serenity
I demand airspace to be me
authentically free from the box
you cram to shove me in
I guess I’m arrogant enough
to exist in stout defiance
of your weights and measures

not everything needs approval
it’s possible to just want to breathe
without society constricting airflow
or to share life, laughter with a lover
without enraging a stranger lording
bizarre, anachronistic, dogmatic views
I wish to seek the warmth of the sun
free from fear of fatalistic reprisal
because I fit some unsavory description
or I love in a way that you don’t

and, I’ve watched you, watching me–
you want me to be this robotic
thing intent on following your lead:
no disputes, no disagreements, and
no opinion of my own,
and losing the biggest part of me
is not something I am willing to do.
this frustrates you . . .
it digs into places of your soul
that you aren’t willing to share and
I have fun witnessing your strength
dwindle to mere nothingness
since it feeds off hate.
***

This is a collaboration with my good friend trE. trE is an insightful and gifted writer. I highly recommend that you visit her blog, A Cornered Gurl.

Dead Roses (A Collaboration with Tre)

/ Just Barry / 2 Comments
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Photo by Hans Vivek on Unsplash

Greetings, all.

My good friend, long-time collaborator, and sometimes editor trE conspired with me on another gem. I’ll let her take it from here:

“Barry and I have been collaborating for about a decade. If I think it, he can bring it to life. If he starts something, I can usually finish it. We have meshed well for such a long time that I was beyond myself with glee to finally see him get active on Medium. Every time we work together, it is fun to see where we are in our work at that moment. He is a great Writer and a dope friend. Thank you for reading.”

The poem is called Dead Roses. I won’t host it here this time, as it is already available on Medium and trE’s WordPress site. Please drop by her place and check it out. I always enjoy creating with trE, and this was no exception!

Kinship with Saplings

/ Just Barry / 8 Comments
20190209_103630

Image by author

Kinship with Saplings

Yūgen is said to mean “a profound, mysterious sense of the beauty of the universe… and the sad beauty of human suffering”.

Yūgen suggests that beyond what can be said but is not an allusion to another world. It is about this world, this experience. -source, Word of the Day: Yūgen (幽玄) from Just Think of It by David R. Woolley.

1.
The seed yielded to gravity,
falling to rest upon the good earth,
breaking its protective shell,
becoming primordial seedling,

stretching tendrils into the soft soil,
rooting as probe and anchor;
shooting upward in trunk, branching,

dividing, multiplying,
uncoiling in fractals
incomprehensible to what birthed it,

unfurling green leaves to capture the sun,
collaborating with wind
to compose meditative melodies
reminding all within earshot to breathe,

relinquishing oxygen
as a liberating reminder that
speaking to define this phenomenon

is unnecessary

nor does it necessarily
improve upon the silent
newborn rustle.

2.
I’ve never been content
or comfortable in our world,
never knowing my place
within it.

And so,
just as with writing my thoughts,
I’ve never had my voice ring forth
with a declarative

“Aha! I am now a poet!”

or “It’s all clear to me now!
I am an author of fiction!”

or “People laugh at my jokes,
therefore I am a humorist!”

When closing upon
defining my place in the universe,
it slips from my grasp;
I remain unmoored.

My voice crystallizes
lost among the icy mist,
dispersing as yūgen, and perhaps
that is as it should be.

For, though I have no idea
who I will become tomorrow,
today, I am a tree.
***

Originally published on Medium as Kinship with Saplings.

Special thanks for my good friend Tre for providing the seed to this poem.

Seasonal Madness

/ Just Barry / 9 Comments

Seasonal Madness

the type of kiss
that condenses oceanic breezes into squalls
leaves me tangled in fitful sleeplessness

I cannot admit
the howls and whispers
reveal my intent

yours is the heat
that feeds upon you and me
devouring us
leaving only thirst

it will pass, like all storms
arbitrarily
leaving us drenched and drained
an unearned calm
arrested by
the weather we evaded
***

Shared with Imaginary Garden with Real Toads The Tuesday Platform, Imagined By Vivian Zems .

I was inspired by my friend trE’s poem, Seasonal Sadness. If you enjoyed reading mine, you should pay her a visit as well.

Day 18 – She Still Sees

/ Just Barry / 3 Comments
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Photo by Peter Forster on Unsplash

She Still Sees

You are the Truth
locked tight in my pocket;
promise kept by my fortuity.

You linger patiently,
meeting my frailties with loyalty
pouring into my cracks.
You stay,
voice soothing my raspy song,
facing, leaning into my calm.

Your will
driving intent to fill my silent plea.
I feel this,
your tacit strain
as you heal my wounds.

You’re afraid to leave
without securing my trust
where I live on abyss’s edge.
You steadily shatter delusions
trumpeting your presence
crossing my boundaries.

But I am not here
can’t be found in the light;
cocooned twilight.
You join our hips
expanding as I contract,
filling void with familiar
you still see me where I live.
***

Written for NaPoWriMo Day 18 prompt:

Our prompt for the day (optional as always) isn’t exactly based in revision, but it’s not exactly not based in revision, either. It also sounds a bit more complicated than it is, so bear with me! First, find a poem in a book or magazine (ideally one you are not familiar with). Use a piece of paper to cover over everything but the last line. Now write a line of your own that completes the thought of that single line you can see, or otherwise responds to it. Now move your piece of paper up to uncover the second-to-last line of your source poem, and write the second line of your new poem to complete/respond to this second-to-last line. Keep going, uncovering and writing, until you get to the first line of your source poem, which you will complete/respond to as the last line of your new poem. It might not be a finished draft, but hopefully it at least contains the seeds of one.

I wasn’t too keen on this prompt, so I tweaked it a bit. Instead of finding an unfamiliar poem/poet, I found an extremely familiar one to me. I chose a poet I admire, a frequent collaborator, and a good friend, Tre. The poem I used as a reference is titled The One I Spared. I encourage you to head over and read her exquisite work.

Yesterday, me and Wifey traveled from Whistler back home, and today I had a talk therapy session, so I’m a day behind in my poetry. Perhaps I can squeeze out another one later.

Muses – Collaboration with Tre

/ Just Barry / Leave a comment

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Muses – Collaboration with Tre

In the presence of yellow,

I bury my tears.

A great act of solitude follows shortly

After I rid myself of

A belly full of worries.

I embrace beauty.

It is the one thing sharing itself

In its most pure state and we

Have the opportunity

To swim as long and as hard

As we need to.

We usually drown, though.

 

Regrets crouch, obscuring dusk

Whispering in fitful sleeps

Quilted cotton repels them all

Invulnerable, for now

I rest

 

The average person cannot

Hold three gallons of

Water without bursting

From the inside out.

I see blue and think of Dory.

I hear her optimism in the

Face of clownfish adversity

And I wonder, “Is swimming

All we have to do?”

The pessimist in me is alive

And gearing up for the days

Of tarred and feathered.

History repeats itself.

 

There are days

Usually deceptively overcast ones

When I feel an ocean of worry

Settling upon my neck and shoulders

Days like these are when I desperately

Seek out the dividing line

Where the land melts into the sea

Briny air becomes my totem

Lifting my wings while grounding me

In the reality of nature’s bosom

Everything is as it should be and

Not as upside-down as my doubts

 

Muses come in the middle

Of the night, sweaty boxers

Covered under thick comforters.

The only thing naked are

My dreams.

 

Some flowers have prickly stems

Self-preservation against those

Who would drain their nectar and essence

Offering nothing in trade

An elegant solution

To nature’s vulgar crime

Against itself

I am made of thorns

Nourished by dried tears

In the presence of yellow

I swim on currents of light

Unbound by barbed uncertainties.

** *

I love collaborating with my talented friend Tre. Our styles mesh so well together!

You can find some her solo work here.

Tre is also an Editor and writer for This Glorious Mess on Medium. She is also Resident Writer via The Scene & Heard Journal of Artistic Expressions.

In her spare time (haha! Yeah right!) Tre contributes nearly every month to Visual Verse Anthology You can find her work here.

Sadly, Tre shut down her WordPress blog, as she needed to streamline her online presence, making room for her personal site, https://www.simplesoulsister.org/.

If I wasn’t such a fan of hers, I might be envious of Tre’s prolific work ethic!