Welcome! This is a collection of poems that are connect with the concept of Sense. At a quick glance it would not seem that these poems have things in common, but while writing I noticed that I was using the word sense in two different ways. The first way is like the five senses, although instead of speaking I used silence. The second way based on the statement "common sense". I chose to keep it this way because I think that in this world there is a need to look at the same things, but from different points. I hope you enjoy this collection of poems.
Feel
Cold wet drops
Hit the skin
Closer to the heart than anyone else has ever been
Each splash removes something more
Slowly dripping to the floor
And puddles slowly pool, by each foot and enclosing
.
Water running
dripping
Leaving tracks of the past and the new future
The pressure of each drop
Like life’s worries
Silence
The sound cuts through the air
No, not sound. The lack of it
Silence cuts through the air like
A butter knife through hardened molasses
.
As words penetrate its atmosphere it chokes the world around it.
For silence is never heard
Sound, words break the fragile image
Like a glass slipping through the small hands of a baby.
But how children understand the strength of silence and the use of words.
How words remove the feeling of being alone,
But silence is never heard.
.
Sounds are forms of communication of the need and want
Of greedy people.
For silence is never heard
.
Silence! For silence brings, power
It brings peace and it is content.
Ideas grow, fester
And can be communicated through writing,
But more through
Silence.
.
The power of standing there
Knowing your silence can start debates,
And can end many as well.
But silence is never heard.
Watch
I see them.
Nothing I say
will change the way they act
How ignorant
they are about what they say
Not knowing who it will affect
How it will affect.
.
I hear them.
The laughter
The soft giggles from the corner
The snickering at the back of the room.
With people like that,
It’s not hard to
Figure out what they think that they know I feel
The words that come from the mouths of those people
Sharp,
Dull,
Flattened,
Curved.
.
One thing to say
But society holds me back
Pulls me down
Forces me to watch,
to listen,
to just be there
And not be able to SAY a thing
To SPEAK like the others have spoken to me
Of me
.
People don’t see the pain behind eyes
Grunts and broken sounds
Because if there is no say then there are
no disagreements
Speech against the majority
Frowned upon
Speech against the minority
Praised
There is no ignoring what they do or say
.
So I write
Hoping that the words on the paper will come out strong enough
Big enough
Loud enough
So that one day
I no longer have to just
Watch
Life
I say that I’m okay
But down inside I feel the hit of words
.
My walls are built on soft ground and I may say that it doesn’t hurt
That I have built my walls to withstand
But words are sly things.
And with walls built on soft ground, it takes time, but words get pass
They tunnel deep into the earth,
Come up the other side and hit me with whatever force that they have left
.
Hidden behind my walls I slowly crumble
Much unlike my culture and heritage
Because Latinos stay strong
.
“Si se puede” I am told to stay strong because we can.
But I shouldn’t have to be strong.
I shouldn’t have to give myself a talk every morning before school
To breathe, put up my walls, and prepare for the day’s round of words against me.
I shouldn’t have to pretend that I am so tough
That all 110 pounds of me can fight.
Not using my words, but my actions.
.
My walls to rest and to prepare for the next day.
This shouldn’t be my life but it is.
Credits:
Created with images by MichaelGaida - "rain puddle water" • Clem Onojeghuo - "ripples" • Zoltan Tasi - "Silence" • Drew Graham - "Eye Of @BrookeMaroon" • John Salvino - "untitled image"