Category: Audio Poem

Featured Audio Poem of the Week

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Jennifer Patino is not only a most recent contributor to A Cornered Gurl via Medium, but she is also someone I have been reading on WordPress for years. Her most recent blog/website is Thistle Thoughts and the world of poetry, spoken word, essays, and her thoughts and reflections come to life there.

Recently, I put out a call for audio poems to be submitted to A Cornered Gurl for our Feature of the Week and approached Jennifer to take on the challenge. She did so. Not only did she hit us with her words, she gut-punched us with the reading of them.

A Native American, “enrolled Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe,” Jennifer speaks about her people, their fight to survive, what has and continues to be taken away from them, and the move toward the betterment of our nation and our hearts.

I give you, You Wanna Talk, and I hope you feel it as much as we do.

You Wanna Talk?

Photo by Dulcey Lima via Unsplash

Audio Poem

I’m petrified into silence,
mute disbelief, my grief
holds my tongue, my words
buried inside me

You wanna talk oppression? It’s
almost an obsession, how you
feel you have to prove you suffer
more than the weak

You wanna talk fear? When I
wake, feeling like I was born
for the slab and may arrive early
because you “can’t breathe” through a mask?

I can list many, my dear, who literally
could not breathe, while being murdered by
police brutality, who
could not breathe in gas chambers,
who are no longer breathing,
brothers, mothers, significant others

You wanna talk sin, or attacks on religion?
My people could practice again in 1978, remember
it was taken away? No, you don’t
You can’t

I can’t speak for all, only me,
a voice from your sacrificial altar,
a daughter being led to slaughter
for your economy

for your frogskins, your chameleon colored money
You wanna talk hardship?
You can’t work on a ventilator
Your bank doesn’t matter
when you’re deceased

I watch infections increase, and
I cry for every family I watch
injustice happening in the streets,
and I contemplate destiny

I think of all these martyrs, I try
and remember, their names, their faces
I want them to be
more than just a hashtagged tragedy
I want, no, I need
to remember

You wanna talk flags?
I wave a white one too
It says “I surrender”

Originally published in A Cornered Gurl via Medium.

Redacted (An Experiment)

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Europeana via Unsplash

An Audio Poem

They tell me, erasing one’s
bloodline is not something
they can do, however, I’m
censored and erased without permission
and I wonder,

“Is it what I’m saying or how
I’m saying it?”

And I sit and watch the people
of the world gather amongst
themselves to finally show us
their vocal sides of life.
I guess being silent came
at a heavy price and not everyone
can carry a cross.

Not everyone’s built for burdens
thrown upon their shoulders at
a moment’s notice.

I’ve found my cross to bear is mine
and mine alone — I carry it knowing
this life is not my last.

Many are learning about Tulsa, Rosewood,
Atlanta, and Wilmington
and they think they know the struggles
of a people who have done nothing but
fight for basic rights to
claim the fight from us.

Yes, we need your voices.
We need you to understand that
this — this being black and fighting
is a thing that has been a thing and
now with new eyes placed upon
fresh faces, millions see what should
have been seen centuries ago.

Removed from history books, our stories
were buried in places where cobwebs
hide and tethered papers have been
forbidden to see the light of day.

You tear down a few statues, remove
racist blips from comedic performances,
change the names of products drenched in hate,
and feel as though this should . . .

Shut. Us. Up.

Oh, ye’ of little faith, we are only
growing stronger and the fight that
will come after this will be one
spoken about years beyond the depth
and breadth of the color of one’s skin.

Now, redact that.

Originally published in A Cornered Gurl via Medium.

Mister Brown Goes Insane

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Mister Brown Goes Insane

An Experiment

Photo by Pixabay via Pexels

An Audio Poem

Mister Brown lives on the corners of
Trident Avenue & 4th Street.
His rickety walk matches the
pace of a snail.
Reverend Burnham says he can’t
be trusted with the church’s
money anymore.
Something about embezzlement
and buying dope.

I stand on the corner, waiting for
The Man to pick me up for work,
and he glides down his steps
like a ghost on a mission.
I keep my wallet close to me.
He waves, I smile.
I don’t say a word to him,
but I watch him as he tries
to figure out how to get
into his car.
The door swings open,
he pushes his disobedient
body inside — closes it.

I notice the gas cap hasn’t
been closed.
I flag him down, but he’s
up the street quicker than my
hands can flail.
He hits a tree.
Cops come.
Reverend Burnham too.
Said he fell asleep at
the wheel.

Funny, I think.
He looked well-rested
to me.

Originally published in P. S. I Love You via Medium.

sound off

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Photo by Noah Buscher via Unsplash

An Audio Poem for Ezinne Ukoha

they don’t expect you to
sound off . . .
your version of one . . . two
three . . . four
isn’t what they thought
counting would be.
you shout from the rooftops
of every dilapidated building,
saying what the world
wants all of us to deny.

“no justice. no peace.”
you do not rest in the throes
of ignorance, you carry a lightning bolt
solid enough to pierce through
the toughest skin
and light’em up.
from your lips come
the fruits of our labor —
an homage to an undying fight.

strength is you.
on a screen amongst millions, you
let your words fly,
uncertain if they can still
reach someone.

they do.
they can.
they will.
I am a follower,
a faithful reader too.

you are touching me.

if you ever feel like the
world is sitting on your shoulders
happy to be around weighing you down,
know that you’ve lifted hundreds up
and we would stand
at attention if it meant your words
could conjure up the next
uprising.

the love you have for
your people — for those oppressed
and shot down, unfortunate
and dismayed jumps out
of every offering
you have to give and we
could pay our tithes with
the amount of truth you
share and still have plenty
left over to help others.

you are the navy by yourself.

and many hate to see your
fleets coming, but you
attack at will.
you’re ready.
you aim.
and, you fire
hitting the target
every single time.

if passion had a partner,
it’d be you.
you are scaling bumpy
terrain yet you manage
to keep your breaths steady.
I pity the trolls.
they don’t have a chance —
you sass them educationally
with just the right amount
of hot sauce and butter . . .

you burn’em up.

the moment you refuse
to sound off is the moment
the world will miss
one of its gifts who
has been trying to save it
for decades.

rise up, Ezinne,
don’t ever let them
catch you falling.

*Author’s Note: I have been reading Ezinne for at least four years now and with each read, I can still feel the presence of her undying will to use her words to express/fight for/and push towards justice. Originally published in P.S. I Love You via Medium.

November 21, 2016, my first poem for Ezinne:

Say You Will
Then You Won’t

unruly

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Christian Gertenbach via Unsplash

An Audio Micropoem

she presses her whole
body upon my heart —
I feel the heaviness of
her grief, the shame that
piles itself in one
place like a mass of
unruly clothes.

I am waiting to
fold her.

Originally published via Medium.

*This piece is a small introduction for a set of published works that I have unlocked on Medium so they can be read by every user and not just paid subscribers.

Hidden

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For Every Black Man Waiting To Be Loved

Jurien Huggins via Unsplash

Hidden: An Audio Poem

she tricked you into thinking
you weren’t noticed — your smile
didn’t meet her in the middle,
yet I see you.

I watch as you struggle to exist
in a world bent on keeping you
hidden behind its sullen corners,
you are not what they expect

when they envision greatness.

I come to you, arms outstretched,
urging you to know my ways . . .
I want to calm your seas,
let me be your peace.

the caves for men aren’t designed
to home the wildest creatures,
we have to make our way —
we are not the boxing kind.

wrappers and bows.
garland and lights.
presentation is everything and
we put on a show.

come, dance in my direction.

I yearn to watch the little boy
emerge with his face aching
for the sunlight.
I know he’s there.

let me watch you
enchant this world around us,
give me the hope of a new season —
the flesh of a beating heart.

you haven’t allowed yourself
this kind of love in
nearly a lifetime, yet here I am . . .
flaunting it for you to touch.

I will not hide you, no . . .
not when something as beautiful
as you should be placed on the
front row of city buses.

no hesitations
no second thoughts
no reconsiderations

necessary.

Originally published on Medium.