Poetry: Writing Ain't Easy, but when it comes it floods.

From my balcony,
I shhh. Hear several somethings thumping
in the night. Insects bisect sound waves with
their calls and all sounds lump together, I just
call it living. Life giving the announcement
“I am,” and I listen to it be. Sharp winds, whoosh, whoosh,
and diligent students stroll towards their dorms,
while others flee from these shoe boxes, boring cages
for future rulers and dream throwers hoping someone
impressionable will catch them. From my balcony, I see
dreams I never had, financially challenged childhood,
I couldn’t afford to think about it. But, I watched
night visions become day missions, in God’s way and time
experiential treasures given freely, I know Grace, I see
her from my balcony where morning greets Filipino women
with curtain brimmed hats, graceful gardeners of the land
below my balcony. From my balcony, introspective
thoughts boom like southern bass and this beast sheds
skin and stars bear witness to my morphing.
From my balcony, I spit poetry, beating the banister
letting the night know not to mess with me, to not make
alone time seem lonely, just leave me, protruding from
this collegiate dungeon, struggling to hear God and myself
simultaneously. I am a fool, but I fall on wisdom more
frequently. It’s the sole of my feet, and if I am ever empty,
there is a volumeless jar out on my balcony, where day clouds
make clown like faces and funny figures, and night clouds are
ghost spawned from a gloomy heart and sent to find peace. I see
you mother, from my balcony, day or night, brunch or supper.
I see you when the lights drown the stars or clouds
suffocate the mountains. I manage to mold your face from
the natural skyline invaded by modernity’s crud draped
across the sky, my heart is surely shaped like your face and its
beats are just your voice, reminding me of my faith, my
purpose and path. I see what I’ve become, from my balcony,
and if this banister wasn’t faithful, I would surely fall out of
amazement of the distance it took to get to me. We never
start within ourselves, but rather somewhere else, and now
that I am comfortable within my skin I fear that time
is ready to make that mad dash for the end. Tell me Joan,
where does it all go, just whisper what you know into that
southern night, I’ll catch in the morning on the edge of my
balcony while you sleep still spending time in my yesterday.
I see things changing, from my balcony, knowing that home
will not be what I left, it will be different, because I will be
different. From my balcony, I see the devil devouring
the world’s morals, tarnishing the original agenda
the price of freedom, exchanging discipline and right,
for social promiscuity and relativity, disguised as civility
and then he looks at me and wonders why I fall and continue
to stand up only to tumble again. I say Romans 3:23, I say
Grace keeps me, I say no to that numbness, that apathy, that
perverted tolerance that calls you to forget, down play,
blasé blasé, go ahead bottle up all the Christian values
you once stood for. I say John 14:6, I say I stand
for right, and I say it out love for you, out of compassion for you,
hoping no harm finds you. I say it in the most assertive way,
and I scream it out in this eastern dusk, knowing that pacific
winds are no match for my breath. Yes, I will yell it shamelessly
and unafraid. Look to the east and you’ll see my passion pouring
from the once asthmatic lungs of this Negro man,
All while pressed against, indenting my hand prints into that faithful
Banister, betting that you can hear me, from my balcony.

October 8, 2007
Benjamin Uel Marsh