Side Kick

I live on the Southside
Just along the river side
It’s not far from Pharcyde
It’s a town called the Darkside

It’s not really a bad side
Some think it’s a good side
But a wall divides this side
From the dreams on the other side

Here we weep on the inside
As we smile on the outside
For Life’s hard on the Darkside
For Darkies on the straight side

We’ve got no love for the other side
And expect none from their side
And if you ask me to take sides
I won’t choose that side

For theirs is the upside
There’s bright lights on that side
And the crime wave and homicide
Is not as heavy as this side

Here everyday on our side
You’ll find by the street side
Bodies lying on their side
All victims of homicide

Knew a girl on the Southside
Who lived on the wild side
She was the darling of the wayside
And wanted to flee that poor side

She worked up the roadside
Selling her soul on the side
Sometimes her little girl by her side
Both hooked on the highside

She was charged with Infanticide
For leaving her baby’s side
In grief she took to the deep side
And committed suicide

And there by her grave side
At last by her baby’s side
They planted Lilies on every side
Where they lay side by side

On the stone that marked the head side
Read these words by the grave side
“Here lies a victim of the Darkside
Who lived on the wrong side

She didn’t take to God’s side
So God will be on her side
How could she refuse the Lord’s side
She knew it was the best side

She died by her bedside
Lying naked on her side
Bleeding wrists on each side
Dead eyes staring upside

This beloved of the wayside
With her baby by her side
Lies buried on the hill side
Overlooking the sea side

And as the thief by the Lord’s side
Saw Paradise for choosing the right side
She will find peace inside
For casting her burdens aside.

© Tyrone Terrence 2008

The Best Of You

in the poetry of your smile
i see a glimpse of the infinite
and i just want to look at you
and see the way you're looking at me
then i'll close my eyes as you walk away
and though you're not coming back
i will not hurt... not yet,
cos you gave me the best of you.
i'll always remember what i saw
in your eyes when you looked at me
i'll remember the magic of that first kiss
and the sweet fragrance of you
i'll remember because you touched
the deepest chords within my heart
and provoked in me something so divine
and i'll remember that deep stirring within
as i looked deeply into your eyes
and the way you laughed
until your eyes sparkled like stars
i'll remember because you left
your heartprint on mine...
and you gave me the very best
all the best of you...

(c) Tyrone Terrence

Debt Burden

Staring… dreamy eyed
Dreaming… starry-eyed
Under this mop of tumbled dreadlocks
Life’s a cell block, no roadblocks…
In my empty mind
Gaping with empty eyes
Burning the white line
Threading the thin line
Between the finger
And the trigger!

My thoughts are enslaved
What must I do to be saved?
I’m the black trash, the street trash,
Dangerous, delirious, gun-totting
Gang banging, indo-smoking killer!

You think I’m in a phase
But tell me who’s in a daze
Blasting to outer space
On a billion dollar rocket ship
Or a one dollar Indo trip!

You think I talk bullshit
But the real shit you don’t know
Who knows…? I don’t know!
But White House fact sheets
And fat World Bank cheats
Label me a burden… a debt burden
And I’m burdened by this shit
Cos this whole shit is bullshit!

And cos I keep saying shit
You label me uncivilized
You’ll have me psycho-analyzed
To see if I’m synchronized
Or should be institutionalized
But I tell you no lies
I hope one day you’ll realize
That your mind has been toasted
Treated and over-heated
By this deadening technocracy
And pseudo-scientific lunacy!

So don’t say I talk bullshit
When my rights and my liberty
When my economic prosperity
Rests on the goodwill of Babylon
Those architects of Armageddon!

Yes I’m not full of shit...
And stop telling me to Shh!
See they polarize world economy
Enforcing my gasterectomy
Eroding my independence
Making me dependent
On humanitarian aid
Inhuman politicized aid

You remember nine-eleven?
And how they tried to get even?
Now they talk about world peace
And a new world order
But the war will not cease
In this comic disorder
Babylon will burn
Lebanon will burn
How can they talk peace
Behind the Prince of peace!

So don’t tell me bullshit
Cos I’m worn-out and stressed out
Spaced out and burned out
By their democratic hypocrisy
That hypocritic democracy
That labels me a burden
A debt burden...
A third world burden
And I’m weighed down by this burden
Bent double by this burden
I’m burdened by this shit
Cos this whole shit is bullshit!

(c) Tyrone Terrence 2008

Missing Person

God left Africa on a slave ship years ago
And He hasn’t come back since

He left behind vast green pastures
His orchards and pineapple fields
Little Hannibal was but a suckling baby
And Nefertiti was yet to be queen

Did he survive the middle passage;
Shackled and starved, the whipping,
Or did he arrive covered in sores?
I hope they respected who he was
That he wasn’t sold for a few pennies
Stripped of his dignity on the auction block
Examining his teeth like a pedigree horse
While well-bred ladies blushed at his majesty

And which Massa found him worth the price
And carted him away to his plantation
To work the fields for Massa’s economy
And sire his Massa’s dwindling colony
How many of his children did he see grow?
How many were sold off before his eyes?
Did he live a fulfilled peaceful life;
Or did he die at the ripe age of twenty-one?

If only they knew who he was
And let him be, to graze his cattle in the savannah
And cultivate his cassava and cocoyam fields
And watch little Hannibal become a warrior
And live out the fullness of his life
In the bosom of Nefertiti
If only they knew who he was
And let him be to farm his land.

God left Africa many years ago
And we have not seen him since

© Tyrone Terrence

Argument

After a war of words
And a mouthful of arguments
The sun finally admitted
That he was just a shadow
When he stood next to me!

(c) Tyrone Terrence

Kiss From An Ivy

Though yours be the poisoned kiss
I'd drink a thousand times from your lips
And having you'll be my greed
My love, a shadow of tragic need

Though yours'll be my last kiss
I'll not deny myself the bliss
Slain by love and into the pit
I'll go to hell and pay for it

(c) Tyrone Terrence 2008

Morning Prayer

The sky is blue and the grass is green
The morning sun is beautiful and warm
Thank you God for another chance
I'll try not to step on a land mine today

(c) Tyrone Terrence

Star Struck

You best not mess with me
Or I’ll mash you for meat
I will back slap yo’ face
Push you outta this space
I will burn through you like a laser
Science fiction beating you must get
I’ll be Star Trekking all over you
Mashing up yo’ galaxy, yo' milky way,
Wrecking events in yo’ horizon
It gone be a Star War Trilogy son,
A Challenger explosion
Scientific commotion...
Disappear like the Fourteen-hundred
To where no man has gone before
So you best not mess with me son,
Or I’ll mash you for meat, and eat!

(c) Tyrone Terrence 2008

On Knowing

What do you know
That I don’t know?
About life after death
Or life before birth?
Do you know anything
That I’m yet to know?
You know where you’ll go
When life says no?
When green leaves fall
And shadows grow tall?
Do you know the end
And what it’ll portend-
Judgments and condemnation
Lakes of fire and damnation
You better un-know
What you think you know
T’will only bring you sorrow
T'will kill all your tomorrow

© Tyrone Terrence

My Whys

Some things you can’t understand
Why the light in my eyes glow
When I see the yellow moon in throes
Of lunar ecstasies...
Why I quicken my steps when I
See the shadows lengthening,
Hollow Shapes portending woes,
Phantoms and fantasies...
Some things you can’t understand
Where we live, how we live, why we live
What we live on...
Condemned to quench our thirst
With our sweat and tears
Banishing our fears for the unknown
As we move on...
Some things I can’t understand
Why I am here... doing here... why here
In this corner so far
Looking up to Jah
All praises to Allah!
Some things I can’t understand,
These things I will never understand.

© Tyrone Terrence 2008

Ships That Pass

"Who am I to you?" she asks.
And I'm afraid to answer,
Too afraid to tell the truth-
She's a ship passing in the night.

(c) Tyrone Terrence
2008

Neo-Auschwitz

They have a million surrounded,
American-Equipped, in for the kill
Supported by a mean air assault
Let the world stand and watch
And engage in hollow diplomacy
The sight of dead little girls in
deep freezers will not upset us
It's only the latest episode
of an old action drama on cnn
So kill them all, each one and all,
every man woman and child;
Let Gaza become Auschwitz,
Rwanda, let it be Darfur
The world likes watching
So let the world stand and watch
As Gaza burns to the ground
Then Israel will finally have peace,
That deafening peace of the grave.

(c) Tyrone Terrence
Jan 2009

The Murder Of Mrs Jones

Not guilty, he pleads now
Now he can plead
Not then, he ignored her pleas
Deaf to her appeals
A man possessed
Devoured by vice
Caught in the grip of insanity
Eaten by the worms of hatred
Consumed by something vile
Mouth dripping with slime
A rabid dog...
Deaf to the cries of anguish
Possessed by a mind incapable of
Comprehending the value of mercy
A tortured soul…
Cain consumed by rage
Seeking the blood of his brother
I look at him in the dock
What is sadder than the face
Of a murderous man
Seized by the tremour
Of a murderous rage…
His body wracked by the urgency
Of a hellish ambition?
What is sadder than
The voice that trembles,
The lips that twist,
The knees that buckle,
The eyes that bleed,
The hands that shake
Those hands that strike
Again and again...
Dripping with blood.
What is sadder than
The sight of a man
Possessed by the need
To harm a woman?
Not guilty, he pleads now,
Now he can plead.
Not then, he ignored her pleas
Deaf to her appeals…
And so I call the only witness-
Little Miss Jones, crying,
Hiding in the closet, confused,
Watching her beloved father
Murder her beloved mother.

© Tyrone Terrence 2008

Inspired by true events-
Courtesy of the Crime & Investigation Network

Death In The Night

The windows rattle in the night
The children scream in fright
Death falls in a flash of light
This morning will bring mourning.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls
Ask not for whom the bombs fall
The bell tolls anyhow
The bombs fall even now
Heralding processions in black
Protesters burning flags
Anger seething across the globe
Impotent anger, without hope;
So we march side by side
Protesters and mourners
Mourners protesting
Walking the road less travelled
Now the road often travelled
We go to the Children’s Cemetery.

(c) Tyrone Terrence
Jan 2009

Junkie

Music is my weed
My dope;
The cure for my grief
My hope;
The irresistable temptation
That slips the poisoned needle
Into my soul...
And I'm lost in wonder
My soul and music
Sweating bodies in tango
Coupling... fucking...
Ecstacies and climaxes
Deep sighs and melodies
Then sated we hear the music
again and again... and again...
We are junkies on dope;
And music is our coke.

(c) Tyrone Terrence
2008

Computer Smile

She knows she's beautiful.
She does not know yet
what to do with her beauty;
And so she teases me...
And goads me,
And lures the beast in me.
With sultry lips and daring smiles
She plays the ancient game
Delilah played before;
And I gasp for breath,
As I drown in her eyes,
Sinking deep into the waters
of her cold beautiful eyes
As she stares back at me
From my facebook screen.

(c) Tyrone Terrence
2008

A Spider's Gift

Before I died I saw a fly, and a spider.
The fly perched over my glassy eye
He washed his hands, free of guilt
And wished me well, he said goodbye.
The spider wove a web, a silky yarn
Supple swaddling for my bleeding bed.
Before I died I saw a fly, and a spider,
And they fought over my bloody clothes.

© Tyrone Terrence
29/05/2009

A Poet In Love

in the throes of this carnal ritual
as I braced to take the sweet plunge
she opened her eyes and looked into mine
" do you love me?" she asked.
and suspended in agony, I answered-
" i am a poet my dear,
i fall in love every hour, of every day,
there is so much beauty in the world
i am looking at you now, at this hour,
and I think I'm in love again.

(c) Tyrone Terrence

Night Thoughts

Last night I thought about suicide
And I laughed, it being so ridiculous
This night the thought will come again
And I won’t be able to afford a smile

© Tyrone Terrence

Made In China

You think you understand
When you feel this heart beating
Your face lights up a smile
You think it's beating for you

Not all broken hearts keep on beating
Some are thrown away, replaced,
Discarded for newer models
With longer life waranty

Some are traded in for mended ones
Second-hand models with lower mileage
Like this one that you feel beating
With your happy head on my chest

It was cheap, a real bargain,
Made in China, Shanghai, I think
It's a prototype model, brand new
Hard and durable, it's made of stone.

(c) Tyrone Terrence
June 27th, 2009

One-Legged Ghost

Jack was a one-armed bandit
Who run a one man business
He bought one horse
And rode into One-Horse Town
His one liners got the girls laughing
And one by one he stole their virtues
He run into a one man band
Led by a woman, funny that,
They had a one night stand
It was a one off, then he rode off
And she became a one-parent family.

Jack made one stop
To rob a One-Stop shop
He brought out his gun
And took a shot in the shop
But Fate was laughing at Jack
Watching him in a one-way mirror
He had no idea this was a trap
Because one sheriff was about
Who heard that one shot
He crouched, and did a one-two
And fired one deadly shot
Straight up Jack’s lonely heart

Now this one horse town
Was haunted by a one-legged ghost
The leader of the one man band
Who now run a one parent family
Complained that her daughter Jackie
Had seen this one legged spirit
And sore afraid, this one horse town
Set about to catch a ghost
They called in one medium
And one priest who laid the trap
The trap caught Jack
And this baffled the whole town
How a one-armed bandit
Became a one-legged ghost

© Tyrone Terrence
From Silly Poems