"Tornado"You can listen to the audio above as you read this poem about drugs, loss and sadnessOctober 29, 2009…
I lay back flat, At the base of a tornado Facing A Spiral kaleidoscope Of glass chards Ripped From bits Of misfit existence, Twisting At dangerous distance… Reflections, From my social mishap chronicles, Fell victim, To the prison Of personal holocaust, Where I was nothing more than a number in the system, A lost vision, Lined up at death camp Waiting For the methodic removal Of my personality… And as I lay back flat I remember being young… See I had this friend named Joe who meant the world to me. Joe was, Perfect splatter paint Branded, On life’s bland canvas, Outlandish and candid, The one who didn’t stand me up stranded When family did… We grew up together, The ones never Getting letters, From girls in class Saying, “Do you like me? Check YES or NO”, Never the ones In style, Or in the know, Just lingering In the shadow, Of this quid pro quo Plateau Below The standards of what others thought We ought To be, Although, We had we And see, That was enough for me… We were sleepovers, To Saturday morning cartoons, Afternoons Of forts in the woods Defending fabricated monsoons, Typhoons, And enemy platoons, If I ever felt minute, Like a grain of sand, Joe was the comfort of a desert dune… October 30, 2009… They found Joe dead today Cold From a heroin overdose. He was Bunched up, bruised, banged, battered and blue, Eyes rolled so far back in his head I can only imagine he watched his last thoughts Passing through, I thought Can this taboo be true? Was it really your cue To bid adieu? Cuz it feels like they ripped liberty Right from the statue, A rusty shank carved A dark hue, Tattoo, In my heart… I remember your mother, She was a queen we underrated, Now berated With desecrated images faded, The child that she created Now outdated, And she’s sedated to this faded state Of aggregated hate, Jaded, And now invaded , By a life unaided, So Joe I pray you went to heaven, Cuz from what I hear, Hell is over-populated… Now comes this struggle To stay strong through the hurt, To establish values And not revert To the havoc I reaped When I caused my static, So I remember your smile, So charismatic, Before you went on that erratic Path As a heroin fanatic, Systematic and problematic, Yet just another struggling addict With an anticlimactic Finale, And now I just got these lines of Didactic mathematics, And the toys of your memories In the dark corners of my mind’s attic… This feeling, Is lonely and strange, The wrench in my gut, A lunar phase change disdained, A foreign exchange That rains pain And stains Like blood from the veins Of your lifeless remains, And I persist to contain This throbbing feeling So profane, So all I can do, Is beg to some higher power, to grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change… |
One of the strongest triggers that sparks slam poems, unfortunately, is love and loss. Death comes in many forms, which means each spoken word piece about death can be quite different and unique. Poetry slams provide a forum where poets can dig into their emotion to talk about their issues, their story and their message - it's not uncommon to see them (us, me...) get choked up on stage when performing work about loss. This piece is about a friend I grew up with and how a world of drugs, heroin and addiction took over. The piece talks about how that affects the lives that touched his.
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Other recommended poems based on this one: WAR | INTRO | I SEE YOU THERE | TO ME
Need help writing slam poetry? Check out some posts, blogs and articles here
Need help writing slam poetry? Check out some posts, blogs and articles here