Get knocked out once Learn, shake it off Enemies will scoff Let their past be the dunce Feet placed deep into the sand Seeds raised with a steady hand Do it right Future takes flight Watch the leaves change Take your time No need to spend a dime Dreams are within range Learn from the chameleon’s sense Do it right Change the colors of your might Let love be your defense

When I am asleep He finds me alone Always in the forest Where I run High into the trees I look down to see Him He’s sniffing Getting my scent I see Love in the distance Who I really want to be with Then He is gone from my sight That is when He grabs me He pulls me onto the bed I scream I scream I awake

Stop leaning against nothing Living should be expected Eagles spread their wings Fulfill these expectations Run through the sunlight No lingering in the shadows Don’t live life on the wall Even flies get off the wall

I have loved the South so much Even though He has hated me as much To be happy is all I want, not much Yet I have run away from my home “Go away!” the South yelled I cried and sniffed I couldn’t understand He said I was different No better than a spec of dirt In a field of white cotton But I felt that I was the same So one day, He said to me “Prove It!” I denied my heritage for His And like Judas, my skin became silver But God taught me what gold was And She spread across my body Destroyed all the hate the South had left on me She said, “The South don’t own you.” So, I marched to my home in the South And said, “I ain’t going nowhere.” I made the South, the South didn’t make me.

bridge is broken eyes closed the openness of sight ice blocks dying from the heat shadows running across the clock daggers dulled by apathy an ad for yesterday’s bread let freedom bend its limbs let the child cry in the closet he calls in the basement is an apple core near the old school with the crippled roof singing love songs to a vase a Tuesday with no wind a jar of molasses on a truck bed: honeybee wings forgotten in a mailbox they expect more than fresh footprints bridge is empty bridge is empty abridged

The clock ticks second by second I cannot measure beyond a century I will never be that old “I will never be that wise,” said the wise man at my funeral on my tombstone, all my years, but a dash? Time, my precious time