I AM FINE

How are you? You ask politely;
I am fine, I reply politely.
How are you is only a polite question
Because you really don't want to know
About the things that keep me awake
When the world snores in sleep.
You would not want to know
That behind this smiling mask
Is a tear stained face.
You'd be embarassed if I told you
That this trouser is my only pair;
That my son has been home for months
Because I can't afford school fees
You'd be embarassed to know
That my wife is due in December
And that the Christmas baby
Will have no Christmas clothes.
When you ask me- How are you?
Do you really want to know
That I was laid off last week?
That my rent's due in two weeks;
And I've switched off my phone
Because the landlord will call?
Do you really want to know
That my baby cries in his sleep
Because he didnt have enough to eat?
So please don't ask me how are you
Except you really want to know.
But if you ask me politely
Then I'll tell you, politely
I am fine, thank you... with a smile.

I WISH

I wish... O how I wish
Wishes were horses
And hopes were chariots
And dreams were things
That rhymed with horses;
Not like the Marriots, but
Like the forces of Nature
You know- the Elements
In the firmaments and such
Things that shape the future.

How I wish my life
Imitated my fantasies
And respected my dreams
For a life without strife
Where all the hustling and
The dealing, and the gaming
And the wheeling and all
The other things that rhyme
With dealing, like Healing,
Will heal my confounded life.

I wish... O how I wish
Wishes were horses
Or at worse donkeys, or
At the very least bicycles
To ride the tide of this crisis-
Filled life, filled with such strife
And vices, which rhymes with crisis.
O I need a steed to give me speed
Give me three wishes, a few horses
Just give me something to ride.

May 20, 2010

April Rain

It was in April, I remember
When the world left us to die
My memory has not failed me
It was in April wasn't it?
It is April now, and it's raining
But I remember that April long ago.

I remember William Jefferson Clinton
The first Black American President
He said save only the white skins
Leave the rest for the Interahamwe
He said that in April, I swear
My memory has not failed me.

The brave french rode in galantly
With their policy of assimilation
But we the assimilated were dissimilated
When they came only for their own
They too came that April
That month that haunts my dreams

I saw many things that April
I saw things I will never forget
I saw chopped flesh in churches
I saw grown men cry as they died
I saw one lone African warrior
I saw many things that April

I saw Clinton when he came
And I said thank you for coming
Nigeria has oil Mister Clinton
So no matter what happens in Jos
You will not leave us like Rwanda.
I told him when he came, I told him I swear.

It was in April, I remember
When the world left us to die
It is April nown and it's raining
But I remember that April, long ago.

***For the victims of the Rwandan genocide
And the Jos massacres.

The Voice

I sit still, in the dark
Listening to a dog bark
And thinking about the voice that
said those things I did not want to hear;
Sweet, mellifluous, it lulled me to sleep
As the words cut deep into my heart

The warm wind whistles over my warm flesh
My mind gropes for answers to her questions
It finds none, and so I sit still, in the dark,
Dreaming about this fading voice
Pouring from lips I once kissed,
Distorting this face I once worshiped
Whispering the things that broke my heart
And waking me up with a frightening start.

And now I'm a statue in the dark
Listening to a lone dog's lonely bark
Time rolled over and sat still
He sighed deeply, and kept me company.

May 2010

This Thing...

What is this thing?
This thing…
What exactly is this thing?

This thing that makes me blue
Makes me laugh
Makes me wanna cry
Makes me don’t know what to do!

This thing that torments
This thing that tortures
This thing that man cannot define
This thing that makes me feel sublime

What is this thing…?
This thing...

What exactly is this thing that finds root
In the quiet regions of my heart
And makes it flutter with foolish dreams;
Primeval dreams; dreams that began, I am told,
In the garden of good and evil.

What is this intangible object
This thing that has been the subject
Of literature… Religion and Science
Of Physics, Chemistry and Biology;
This thing that defies man’s psychology

This thing that makes me blue
Makes me laugh,
Makes me wanna cry
Makes me don’t know what to do!

What is this thing?
This thing…

Tyrone Terrence
(c)2010

Forced Silence

I don’t have words of wisdom
Nor words of folly,
Neither words of sorrow
Nor words of Joy

I don’t have words of freedom
Nor words of redemption
Neither words to teach
Nor words to learn

My words do not heal
And neither inflict pain
They don’t enlighten
Or cloud the mind

I don’t speak in metaphors
I don’t speak in symbols
My words don’t personify
They cannot be used in comparison

My words are not part of a sentence
They have no subject or predicate
They obey no lexical rules
They’re alien to nouns and verbs

I don’t speak in prose
Neither are my words poetic
My words have no ideologies
Or theories to propound

They’re not words to be quoted
Nor words to borrow
I do not have words of courage
Or words to inspire

My words are not political
They are not part of a manifesto
Neither are they religious
They’re not words to preach

My words cannot be sang
They cannot be danced to
My words are not scientific
They cannot define a cyclotron

They haven’t been to outer space
They’re not on cyber space
They don’t need any space
They occupy no space

They cannot be broadcast on VHF, UHF,
Short Wave or Long Wave, AM or FM
They haven't contributed to
Or taken from civilization

My words never condemned the wars
The maiming, the raping… the killing
They didn’t participate in the holocaust
They’re alien to Gas Chambers

They know nothing about ethnic cleansing
The mindless bloodletting, or racial profiling
My words never spoke against slavery
They never sang Negro spirituals

They weren’t vocal for civil rights
They never shouted in protests
They never expressed a dream
It wasn’t by any means necessary

My words are not democratic
They’re not part of a majority rule
Neither are they autocratic
They serve no tyrannical whim

My words are not important
They haven’t been read in speeches
Discussed at meetings
Or screamed at rallies

They haven’t been gossiped, whispered,
Proclaimed or passed as law
They’ve not been used in conversation,
Interrogation, information or communication

My words cannot be spoken
My words cannot be written
They cannot be read
They cannot be counted

My words are not vocal
My words are without speech
I have no words to voice
I have no voice for words…

They will not listen anyway
They prefer the sound of their own voices
Well it doesn’t matter anyway…
Because I cannot speak, I am Dumb!

© Tyrone Terrence 1997

I See You

I don’t know what you see
When you look into my eyes
Neither the things you see
When you search my heart
I doubt if you’re what I see
When I look into yours
Wondering about your smile
And what it portends
I know the things I see
When I look in your eyes
Narrowing to see the look in mine
I am not what you see
When you look at me
Hoping to see what you want to see
You better understand this thing you see
When you look closely, and see me.

© Tyrone Terrence