In the Middle of a Stream on a Rock

Not one for idle looks, I, myself betook
To linking fine fancy onto fancy.
Through the rushing, bubbling brook,
I pondered questions, and answers sook-
Though the position precarious, and the deed so very chancy.

Mercy

Mercy
love mocks me and I laugh at its jokes
it is the only comedian and magician that can sell me the same act.
Every time, I pay the same price for a show I've seen before
I can sit through the same movie and still cry at the scene where she walks out the door.
It shows no mercy, even when you are clearly defeated and can take no more.
tell me I don't have a role In your dreams and put my mind at ease from the constant thought of you.
tell me that when you hear my name your heart doesn’t smile,

then mine will forget yours

tell me you can't see your soul through my eyes and that our fates are just coincidence

and I will abandon the concept of destiny and the belief of a soul.

tell me love has never been our religion and that we haven't used our minds as a temple,

and I will no longer be a monk of love, instead I'll find more comfort in being an atheist.

Tell me I'm not the sunshine in your paradise and you will destroy mine,

the harsh reality of your words will leave no room for sublime imaginations or fantasies conjured by you.
Love has in seemingly sadistic manner given me the ability to find peace in loving you. Yet in a beautiful contradiction, it makes me withstand a torture by not letting me have you as a lover.
I am a prisoner with the key to his cell
(blinded to the key hole with magic by love)
it's making me pay for a gift.
Blessed me with a curse.

Given me strength as a weakness,
pain as happiness, certainty with doubt.

I’m drained to the last of my resources,
no more artillery, no other defense, and the begging white flag of my ignored surrender, bandages my beaten heart.

How much longer must I withstand?....

.....give me mercy...

Paintings

Once, I tried to paint a picture of you,
With words. It didn't work.
Somehow my colors didn't reflect your light
In just the way I wanted.
Frustrated, I tried again to master my brush
And set it to it's task,
But forcing it only marred the picture,
And that - I couldn't have.
I finally had to tell myself that I had tried
To bridge two worlds.
For my hued words were but your simile,
My painting - Your doomed metaphor.

Remembering

Remembering,
it was the not knowing
and the tears that made me a poet.
I reminisce about my passive voice
that claimed all pains
and joys absolute,
alloting each emotion its century of existence.
It was my incorrect grammar
and my ability to love
and know what love was even inside
the black hole of my identity
that allowed my naked soul
to translate itself to verse-
And God would speak through
divine cracks in my rhythm.
It seemed that ruins derived the truths
of my infinite subtleties,
and my sadness was the dark matter
that kept the stars in place.

I am an African

A poem I loved by this poet Wayne Visser from South Africa. My friend recited it at this African Art gallery over here, I thought u might like it Paulo!
Happy black history month!


I am an African
Not because I was born there
But because my heart beats with Africa’s
I am an African
Not because my skin is black
But because my mind is engaged by Africa
I am an African
Not because I live on its soil
But because my soul is at home in Africa

When Africa weeps for her children
My cheeks are stained with tears
When Africa honours her elders
My head is bowed in respect
When Africa mourns for her victims
My hands are joined in prayer
When Africa celebrates her triumphs
My feet are alive with dancing

I am an African
For her blue skies take my breath away
And my hope for the future is bright
I am an African
For her people greet me as family
And teach me the meaning of community
I am an African
For her wildness quenches my spirit
And brings me closer to the source of life

When the music of Africa beats in the wind
My blood pulses to its rhythm
And I become the essence of music
When the colours of Africa dazzle in the sun
My senses drink in its rainbow
And I become the palette of nature
When the stories of Africa echo round the fire
My feet walk in its pathways
And I become the footprints of history

I am an African
Because she is the cradle of our birth
And nurtures an ancient wisdom
I am an African
Because she lives in the world’s shadow
And bursts with a radiant luminosity
I am an African
Because she is the land of tomorrow
And I recognise her gifts as sacred

Love and me are Different-A Vday special

Love and me are different.
Because my tolerance has limits
Where love knows none.
When my hands and soul and heart and strength and feet and mind are done,
Love has just begun.
I have expectations, practical considerations-outlines of the ways I want to act out my every day,
But Love just sits around and blows all her plans away.
She’s careless as the wind,
as silly as the squirrel
And if I’d have to judge her, I’d say she wanted the whole world.

I think and plan a future
Love holds on to the past
I slowly make decisions
She throws herself too fast
I teach her moderation
She spits it in my face
I wipe away my hatred
She laughs at my disgrace.
She steals all my lovers
And puts them in her dreams
So I wake up alone
And she goes back to sleep.

Yes, love and I are different.
Though I need house and food
She can sustain herself
upon my mental residue.
No kind of stormy whether
Can at all affect her mood
If I were to die of hunger
It would take her seven days
Before she knew.
Love stays up too late
Calling people that forgot her
Eager for their answer
Wanting them to want her.

Love don’t even care
Bout the problems that she’s caused
cause she ain’t always right
but she ain’t never wrong
And she don’t never stay
But she ain’t never gone-
A little revolution in your palm.
I cannot live with her
But she has found a home in me.
Love and me are different.
We’ve agreed to disagree.

Orphan

Orphan of the sun, forsake his light-
Embrace the Moon as your mother,
Night wolves howling - Owls subtle sight
Moonlit dreary fields - now your brother.
You shall never need another,
Solo, chase the longing night.
Draw your strength from finished lovers,
Fight for your mist-torn might.
Watch as the stars melt and and fall
upon the midnights dying scene,
Then keep to yourself, need no one else -
Bid Life good night-
To sleep - Perchance to dream.

Coconut ruminisce

It is the ripped pages of all my rhyme
the chalk of every butterfly
we watch the red sun dive
and blackout on the time
The crack my voice
Arouse them fly
and open wings
like butterfly
But sing the night
a silent I
onto the moon
my singing rhyme
And them make love
a cricket song
softly and truly
a patient long
tiger's eye

Na scale the seas
for that kind of rum
ask lady luck
for iron thumb
just the moon and you
forever one
A lonely tune
a butterfly
I watch the moon
and cry.
If we could dive
along with sun
we dip our hearts
in golden waves
and hard our souls
to amber days
the memories.
And on the streets
the butterflies melt their golden wings
down my cheek

Snow Day

I should want to be a morning snow/
bringing beauty to a newborn day-
Reflecting the sun, warmth wont but won-
...
Before quietly melting away.

Patience

once again I'm being forced to endure the torture of stagnant time.
I'm forced to do what I've known to do best.
be patient.
but patience is skill that requires energy and strength I know I no longer have.
it's gone,
spent on hopeless pursuits.
it's like a slow flowing lava that deteriorates the mind.
when the brain has no other retort to the destruction,
when it has no other strategy,
when the pursuit of other thoughts deem futile and you are all that survives in my head,...
my will to wait will die a slow death.
suffocating in the absence of your presence.
and I will be shown no mercy, for that is something time has never been known to show.
and although in the end patience pays off, the cost was deadly and the job is one I never wanted to begin
Like a Slave i was forced to work.

Torment

Torment is a subtle breeze
under the fullest moon,
knowing that you want to scream/
knowing its too soon.

Silent as an ocean's wave
but miles more depraved...

The same chord over and over,
in and out of minor
wild is the wind
but my sighs are only silent.

If you whispered to the stars,
and they didn't answer,
does your hurt still echo
into abysmal forever?

Lucky I can still play
a single note at all,
it aches all that I've ever been
to make love something subtle.

Merry Christmas!

All of us here at Coup Poetry would love to wish you all a Merry Christmas! Enjoy your holidays and live your lives to the fullest! Enjoy your moments and wander through life with a poem in your heart and a skip in your step.

What The Blind See

A blind man only imagines with his mind the things we describe to him.

Yet he may see more beauty in life than you and I who bare sight.
But what if for one moment, one night, God could grant such a man the gift of sight as he stood on a beach in front of his wife? What then would he see?
As soon as he has vision, would before him stand just a woman?

Or his imagination of beautiful, the epitome of it?
When he looks up at the sky would he see stars,

or would he see little holes in the floor of heaven?
When he lays eyes upon the moon would he just see a bright sphere or would he see the glow in the dark ball god forgot in his playground?

When he looked at the water, would he just see sea? Or would he see the sky's mirror?
When he looked at the ground, would he just see sand and footprints?

Or would he see his memoirs imprinted on a surface that kept secrets with every tide? Read them and notice that god is a poet?

Would he then smile and say nature is amazing as he observed this scene?
Or would he dismiss all the words we have made up to describe what we see, and for this precious moment marvel at the artistry of god?
Gasp at how well he blended his colors and detailed his picture?

Would his vision augment the rest of his senses? Would he glance back at beauty, kiss her lips, and taste true love?

Would you believe him if he told you he could see angels, and that this specific breeze was the effect of the flap of their wings? …

Right then he would go back to being a blind man but has seen more than you and I have in our lives in a single moment.

Hey guys,
I was just thinking something today and I wanted to know what you all thought. I just realized that we all sing-Aaron-bass, Earl/Paulo-tenor, Tinisha-mezzo sop/alto and me soprano and I think that we should utilize that somehow. Also, most of us play the piano. Marinate on that.

The Name

What would you say to me
If I told you that all things
have a name?

A name, created forever ago-
A name singular, secret and sacred,
A name that grants form?

What if I told you
That if you cried out
The name of the moon,

You could bathe at midday
under its dappled falling shine;
taking in its light?

That if you called to the skies,
You could surround yourself
With a span of azure infinity,

Paint sun-songs with hidden words,
Or build a house of clouds while
floating in blue nothingness?

To think; You could merely utter
The name of oceans - That
vast implication; You could

Summon distant, breaking shores
for your own inspection and approval-
to satisfy the merest curiosity?

Would you say it was fantasy?
Something august to ponder;
And then regretfully forget?

That to guide a symphony of creation
with mere words and intention
Is a blasphemy?

Or maybe you would think it over -
And softly, sadly say,
"I could never..."

But what if... what if
I gently spoke to you the name of love,
Tender yet bittersweet?

Would you scoff at my audacity,
To arrogantly manipulate its meaning
by not letting it go free?

Or would you see that sadly, I'll
never be able to find the name
for what you mean to me?

Who I am

As much as we may hold
taste to be a divine delicacy
whose manifestation is abstract,
how do we know we don't drink
the sweat of angels in our morning
coffee.

As much as I may love the feel of man
across my fingertips
and the rippling biceps over me-who am I to
tell the soul she is a gender.

Why is it we praise the sun more than the moon;
or sight over sleep-
it is the fatalistic nature of our minds-
do I choose eternity or this moment with you?

All I know is even if
my body is just the shadow of who I am
my choice is to sip hot chocolate with you,
wrapped up in the cold night
whilst the angels smile at us from the stars:
we will soon become who we are.

Heaven in a Box

Once, On a trip during a series of gloomy days
I sat in my seat; thus engaged - To ponder idle
thoughts of simple possibility.

For on the edge of these breaking clouds
lining brightly their misty shroud - were hints
bespeaking some infinite tranquility.

For who, here, could possibly come to know,
Whats behind those simple clouds, and glows
with such beauty, and potential-
...Such lambent fury!

The Observer

Is she the damsel from fantasy books?
The one who heroic hearts arc towards?
Indeed, of faerie eye and fair-lined looks
What cold savior could she be waiting for?
Some faux hero made of dreams, just like her-
From realms of common beauty and the wiles
of class-bred temper; Parted from less learned
Folk like me whom their countenance beguiles-
Although, it seems that all our breaking dreams
In this reality reforge themselves;
Imbued now with the pain of shattered hearts,
We move forward with new convictions held.
To wit; It's not that fucking hip and cool
To play the guy who likes you like a fool

Black&White

Intrinsically tied
Original lie
to death do us part
or liberty die.
A marriage untrue
though equality tries
it gets pacified
through ignorant eye.
I'm black on my white
and white on my black side
the hierarchy is unjustified.
When the colors diffuse
and done is the day
America will turn into
shades of grey.