Every other Sunday or so, stop in for a new poem from a member of the "Starving Artist Project", a talented group on spoken word artists, some of whom compete on a national level.
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-----> look to the right and click on "Poetry Corner"!
This week's artist is the talented Eric "Verb" Odum:
Untitledby Eric Odum
Impossible to title what you don’t want to acknowledge,
So tell me what you want this title to be
…just tell me what you’re thinking of.
They listened to me talk real slow like I couldn’t understand a street fight, fist to fist,
fist to jaw, fist to cuffs if you aren’t quick enough to snuff out an enemies light and avoid them red and blues.
Sirens are the same colors as rivals trapped in one bulb screaming out with a siren’s pitch, it’s found alluring/lure,
I’ll drip blood from my crippled knuckles.
Flips coin, Russian roulette with Cleveland civilians, they say Midwest action for a reason, for more minutes than a watch has on face value,
12 doesn’t seem long enough for a revolution, cause one revolution stretches to numbers we only live by writing down.
Night life is set in electronic stone texts.
Scarred type pride, that’s what resides on the epidermis,
Screw skin that resides below a wolf turned teen’s pride,
Teen turned lion/ you messed with the mane(main) now the pride comes for you.
Stalk type, a cat’s eyes cut night like knife fights,
Pocket switches, flick
Don’t you realize your soul rest on the tip of silver sunlight?
But I’m told “Suburban boy wouldn’t understand. This is hood code, street life.”
I say pull back, get nostalgic, glance into my past,
See where I’m from and wonder what it’s like to get out.
Don’t stay cement poured like liquor down gullets.
Don’t you know once you’ve laid down your back is just dirt for foot prints to track on?
I found your family heirloom residing in torn paper where you wrote your future plans,
Scared to leave the nest where you neck was stretched, chicken set for slaughter, you had to call it home for a while// but for a while now I’ve called your bluff about your desire to get out
I always get half hearted silence,
Words are trying to break through but pinky swears only curse truth long enough for pinky sized promises.
This is life size now, play time’s been over.
I don’t bother being disappointed, never get myself strung up from them, my bones can’t hold up to realities neck snapping rebound as I try to fall face down in my dreams,
I’ve left that life behind.
True promises beget true responses and I haven’t heard you call my name yet.
Flow backwards like reverse stream currents, I’m trying to do the impossible here.
Make ripples return to their origin, find where I can pull you up before you became tree rooted in polluted soil.
The brightest one’s stay in the dimmest rooms,
I know doors don’t always open, but how can they if you haven’t knocked,
You could have missed your time/glanced at your watch three seconds after it stopped ticking.
Eternal batteries only push so far before you hit oblivion … can’t force knowledge to a mind that only tries to stay open, but lets the breeze, of what they’ve become accustomed to breathing, blow them down.
Take a deep breath, you’re about to drown in yourself,
Internal bleeding,
Internally reading palms,
I can’t see what future you have outside on streets.
Redirect yourself you’re misguided type, misguided like you’ve been giving the wrong directions,
Midwest action, can I call cut/have you live a different movie,
I hate how this script ends.
I’m willing to help write your new life.
Now what’s the title?
For all the ones trapped in a cycle we've seen before, push pause on this rewinding regression to times past and tell me,
What's our new title?
Untitled
