Juan+Rivera

"A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.": Robert Frost

__** Sonnet **__

- "We learn new things about people everyday The good things and the bad especially from the past, we have mistakes and lies told Everyone hides what they all fear because they are scared for others to see their real fears. Me and you have a different mindset But its always set to what we want in the future not only for us but for our love ones in our life and our future children."

__**Raised By Poem:**__

I was raised by a women, taught from a man, From all the mistakes they made in the past I was raised by a man, taught from a women, never forget you were born from a woman so treat them right especially your wife and remeber you came from a woman I was raised from a family black, blue, brown, green, yellow, all the colors from the rainbow, cause the lessons taught to you come from everyone not just who raised you Everyone teaches you things could be good or bad, but can never forget where we come from and always had, love from a mother sure, without a father though we wouldnt be anymore Look back and see them happy not because they have a job or money, but because they wish finally came true to have a baby boy I was raised by a woman Good and Bad, but at the end of my life im glad to have the best woman i have ever had She says eat you food so you wont get sick, or drink your medicine so you feel well, or go to school to get your education, at the end of the day i respect that She cared and loved but thats not her job, she gives me hints when something is wrong, i cry in her arms when im in fear, she speaks the words that make everything good and clear I love her for who she is not for who she suppose to be, she deserves the world to me Therefore i will give her something back, just to give back on what she gave to me, not money, job, house or ring, but the love that can never be replaced, the love of a man than will never hurt her, and put a ring on her hand when the time comes.

__** A poem of your choice: **__ "Theres No Love in the air

But room for a prayer

People get on your knees

& ask for your savior

beg him for help

& give you hope

for living in sin

& using up dope

You did all wrong

& never did rite

Better write a song

Instead of picking a fight

You get high on drugs

Like you on a plane

Next thing you know you causing pain

To the people you love & care for most

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left;">Next time better off not taking a dose

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left;">cause you can mess up your life

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left;">next time live left

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left;">cause not all people have a rite

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left;">so do your thing & try your best

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left;">cause your name will shine bright

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: left;">just like the rest."

- This poetry came to me one night i was bored and was thinking about the crimes going on not only in the world but in the environment around me. Referring to my neighborhood and peoples lifestyle. I have seen things go wrong all my life and never seen a right thing happen to not only me but the ones i have love for. The lines meant to me what i saw made up the United states now in our society, but it doesn't make up a human being. We as human beings are capable of doing better than what we can. If it means to sacrifice things let it be that, but even if in our mindset it says you can't just remember that you can't means you can.
 * A statement about your own poetry**:

__**3 Poems from Poets all Written by Yusef Komunyakaa:**__

Believing In Iron:

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: verdana,arial,'lucida sans',helvetica,geneva,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">"The hills my brothers & I created Never balanced, & it took years To discover how the world worked. We could look at a tree of blackbirds & tell you how many were there, But with the scrap dealer Our math was always off. Weeks of lifting & grunting Never added up to much, But we couldn't stop Believing in iron. Abandoned trucks & cars Were held to the ground By thick, nostalgic fingers of vines Strong as a dozen sharecroppers. We'd return with our wheelbarrow Groaning under a new load, Yet tiger lilies lived better In their languid, August domain. Among paper & Coke bottles Foundry smoke erased sunsets, & we couldn't believe iron Left men bent so close to the earth As if the ore under their breath Weighed down the gray sky. Sometimes I dreamt how our hills Washed into a sea of metal, How it all became an anchor For a warship or bomber Out over trees with blooms Too red to look at."

In this poem it gives you the imagery of the highs and lows in life, when you are born you are up high like towards the mountains it is for you to keep yourself up there throughout life without having things bring you down. The quote that stood out the most to me was <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: verdana,arial,'lucida sans',helvetica,geneva,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">"The hills my brothers & I created Never balanced, & it took years To discover how the world worked." It shows that we as humans are never ready for what is going to happen in our future until we actually find out and go through it. When we let things get to us and bring us down we drop down the hill but when we hit rock bottom we have to find a way to bring us up back to the top and a anker to hold us still on the top as he says in the poem.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: verdana,arial,'lucida sans',helvetica,geneva,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Facing It:

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: verdana,arial,'lucida sans',helvetica,geneva,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">"My black face fades, hiding inside the black granite. I said I wouldn't, dammit: No tears. I'm stone. I'm flesh. My clouded reflection eyes me like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning. I turn this way--the stone lets me go. I turn that way--I'm inside the Vietnam Veterans Memorial again, depending on the light to make a difference. I go down the 58,022 names, half-expecting to find my own in letters like smoke. I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash. Names shimmer on a woman's blouse but when she walks away the names stay on the wall. Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's wings cutting across my stare. The sky. A plane in the sky. A white vet's image floats closer to me, then his pale eyes look through mine. I'm a window. He's lost his right arm inside the stone. In the black mirror a woman's trying to erase names: No, she's brushing a boy's hair."

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,'lucida sans',helvetica,geneva,sans-serif;">Feelings are hidden by smiles and no tears, when people see us we seem happy but in the inside we are just another sad person in this depressing world. This is what i get in this poem, people have a sense of a mask on how to hide what they are feeling and what mood they are in just by showing they are happy with a simple smile. In this poem i feel as though he is trying to talk on the behalf of the humans that hide there feelings by never saying what is truly wrong with them and just face it with a smile or smirk. "My black face fades, hiding inside the black granite. I said i wouldn't dammit; No tears. Im stone. Im flesh". this quote is the one that jumps out to me because it gives you a imagery on how a person is and what things they do to hide what they feel. They might wanna cry or shed a tear but we hide it with a smile to not have people ask what was wrong or what had happened. which is a way of being independent.

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,'lucida sans',helvetica,geneva,sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Blue Dementhia:

the poem in my opinion speaks of the past and the present, because he gives you a image of the past speaking of how everything was and how they have changed over the time. Best qupte that fits that is when he says "In the days when a man would hold a swarm of words inside his belly, nestled against his spleen, singing. In the days of night riders when life tongued a reed till blues & sorrow song called out of the deep night: Another man done gone. Another man done gone." He speaks of how men or as you can say human society back in times used to have a great way of expressing themselves through different ways. Through music, singing, and also a way of speaking. He says at the end that he can speak to ghost i think this is a little weird for him to say it but when you think of it, the ghost can be the voices in his memories that haunt him and give him a sense on how everything used to be and how happy everyone and everything was.
 * "In the days when a man would hold a swarm of words inside his belly, nestled against his spleen, singing. In the days of night riders when life tongued a reed till blues & sorrow song called out of the deep night: Another man done gone. Another man done gone. In the days when one could lose oneself all up inside love that way, & then moan on the bone till the gods cried out in someone's sleep. Today, already I've seen three dark-skinned men discussing the weather with demons & angels, gazing up at the clouds & squinting down into iron grates along the fast streets of luminous encounters. I double-check my reflection in plate glass & wonder, Am I passing another Lucky Thompson or Marion Brown cornered by a blue dementia, another dark-skinned man who woke up dreaming one morning & then walked out of himself dreaming? Did this one dare to step on a crack in the sidewalk, to turn a midnight corner & never come back whole, or did he try to stare down a look that shoved a blade into his heart? I mean, I also know something about night riders & catgut. Yeah, honey, I know something about talking with ghosts." ||