Killed by a million insensitive words

Words go deep

they creep into my scars and wounds

I cannot tell that you meant it or not

or even realise the damage you cause

I know I am flawed 

But sometimes you love me open mouthed with the things that come from your jaw 

they are too raw.

If you strangle me it would be cleaner 

but your words are meaner

do you mean what you say?

Your words spray 

Cut like a split artery 

hurt people hurt people 

but sometimes evil is insensitivity

callous chaos 

I cry 

and want to die 

emotion abuse

obtuse 

and won’t relent 

I can’t vent or your words will grow worse 

and more vicious 

you and I are from different worlds 

and I can tell

that you believe I sometimes belong in hell.

Benjamin Zephaniah

Politricks 

satire and humour

you taught me that behind clever rhymes 

is the life played on repeat 

even if it’s on the rong radio station 

you lived your life as a warrior poet

with your black belt 

and heart felt verse

you spoke words not to fill your purse or wallet

but because you wanted to make a change 

in this world of racism and drama 

you wanted better karma for us all

though your words have been graffitied onto walls

and written in our minds for all time

Rasta master poet 

the man with the flow don’t we know it

a dread degree in ghettology

but a man of philosophy and psychology with 

eloquence who spoke to us all

and with a tear in remembrance 

I celebrate your life 

may you walk in heavens fields

and may we never yield to injustice 

like you taught us 

because you taught us life’s value 

and the value of all people 

anarchy and self determinism 

we choose our fate 

to fight for what’s right 

like you’d say is never too late!

This life

This life chaotic 

hypnotic 

energy rushes 

gushes all around me

A sea of endless particles of pain 

I look for the sunshine within the rain

the rainbows light

all fight leaves me

but I won’t give into its spite

the hate breathes

makes you believe 

In humanities downfall

It’s a tall order

living this life in the borders of strife 

where there’s no passport to any heaven 

or any country in that region 

the engine

the cogs of the machine

have us enslaved

even lucifer when he stood up to god

was thrown down and fell

into hell.

This life is pernicious cruel and harsh

most kindness is given by hard graft

and the silence is sometimes the only thing 

that makes us less daft 

for in speaking harsh words are sprayed 

like bullets across the page

or in our ears 

giving us fear and tears 

that scar our sanity 

in this reality 

where we study someone’s psyche 

but not its creator the hater who crafted their malice and spite

and if we don’t realise that they in turn were also formed from people who didn’t always give a fuck 

and told them their so called inner truth

Just to toughen them up,

and yet they didn’t water them with love

or feed them with grace

they deliberately chastised their minds

with words that were unkind

just to make them their clones

the worker unquestioning drones 

You shouldn’t base your life

on the ideals and ideas 

of people who gave way to fears 

and insecurities

give your life to making yourself you

a loving kind person a shining beacon a colourful hue.

Helicopter lover

I’ll be your helicopter lover

Closer than twin flame or any other 

I’ll be your rescue party of one

your loving song 

on the radio 

I can’t behave with you

But that was in those golden days 

now I am like a stray 

like dog on heat about to have the snip

I want to take a dip in your seas

Babe please 

I’ll be your helicopter lover 

Closer than twin flame or any other 

I’ll be your rescue party of one

your loving song 

on the radio 

I can’t behave with you

I don’t know what to do I love you

but I am lost

look at what love costs

a day a week or a year

I look back to those golden times

diamond hard like my rhymes 

Look you probably don’t even remember 

me from January to December 

you’ve moved on

but how can I be so wrong

to love you…

Paradise lost

What if Lucifer gave us free will?

the knowledge of good and evil

Was it our connection through sex

the forbidden fruit?

knowledge that two have to become one to create life?

Were we being controlled by the Demi urge the god 

in the gnostic religion

Sophia the creator of the universe and Christ were one and lived in heaven 

some how the two became divided 

Sophia gave birth to the Demi urge

a dead god without her husband Christ 

she breathed life into the Demi urge

But the Demi urge was cut from heaven and the divine light

He envied Christ and Sophia so trapped them in human bodies 

evermore to forget they were divine as are their children

each generation suffering 

but Christ and Sophia the Holy Spirit can save each other…

Written by Daniel Hooks

My third face(the one I never show)

This poem was written from the prompt of a Japanese proverb

That we all have three masks

One to the world

One to friends family

One when we are alone

This is one I wear when I am alone

Angry and aggressive

for justice and justification

in this suffocation

In this isolation.

Powerful, beautiful and strong

Among no one

I bleed the some of my cause

and all my flaws

But angel or demon I open doors

locked

Gun cocked

and ready to fire

Let’s go to the wire

and win

I escape into the mask within

that I do not show

I grow into a man with wings

to fly on the winds

of change

I rearrange

The strange flow of my words

the poet grasps at the meaning

he’s dreaming…

Like a football manager

I look to myself for management

like a football team

who’s fans scream for their cup dream

I am in the depths of relegation instead

fans dreams are dead.

I fight disturbed sleep

waking up from bad dreams

screaming booing my own game

and the shame of losing

I am bruising

going into battle like a worn out team of veteran players

I am in need of better management and encouragement and prayers

not a self talk that swears

schizophrenia and autism a toxic mix

and sometimes I cannot help but feel like a dick

another penalty going against me

I withdraw to the stands

the best laid plans

of a team with high hopes and dreams

but I keep screwing up my own team.

I am too inconsistent

Middle table in the conference is too high an expectation

when I meet my friends like fans they don’t understand

and give me a frosty reception.

Give me back my dreams

of being a winning football team

putting four past the opposition

That’s my metaphor and my disposition.

I live at the borders of your life

I seem to live at the borders of your life

I don’t have a passport to visit your country

I live at your borders

we both know people and have mutual friends

but we both know love doesn’t hide in your heart for me

it’s protected by metaphorical dogs security guards walls and gates

I would love to see you but we never worked

I wish you well

time will tell

if my decisions were correct

I still pray for you and respect your decisions

you have a family and a bright burning life

I live alone and have no wife

or children

I live in the land of could have been

but with all I have seen

this life passes by like a dream

and all our plans and schemes

can fail

and we flounder in the dark

where we lose our spark

but love is a door without a key

to me.

Strength unbowed

Strength unbowed

Savaged by words

but unbowed

and unbroken

I wish I wasn’t bothered

I wish I didn’t care

courage is sometimes acknowledging our fear

using it to drive us on

the art of leaning on adrenaline

sometimes I rattle the cage

the only war I wage is to be heard

above the caterwauling cattle

who prattle on.

but sometimes I know we all need to be heard

so I go silent for days

the only words are prayers

so strength is adaption

and love is peace

feast upon silence

don’t turn it into violence

fight for yourself because no one else will

it’s a bitter pill

that makes me depressed and ill

but I will fight until I can no more

because life is flawed

and we stand alone

Heavens our home

It was at the start

before our hearts

got jaded

My body may fade

but words are sharp as the day they were uttered

may you live a life without the clutter

of weak words.

Jesus I am alone

The heartaches when I am in my home

pretending people are with me

my heart is a icy block a sullen stone

Sometimes in solitudes den

I pretend that I am free when

I am on my own

I am just recovering from life’s traumas

Sometimes I pretend I am jesus in a tomb

in my living room

waiting to roll away the stone

and be free with people who love me

but often people talk over my ideas

and conversation

I know I am alone

but with the voice in my head I never truly am

life is painful but I know I am!

alive and fighting wrestling with life’s gaping questions

and although people won’t agree with me

I am the marks the footprints I have left

I am the ideas that crept into your head from a poem I wrote years ago

my life is art

and it drives my heart

but like paper sometimes I am lost in the bin

of life

sometimes in mundane drudgery we find that life is unkind

but it’s the only one I have…