Tired of the monotony of maintstream writers? The Dan Browns, Stephen Kings being the only recognized voices for this generation? I am opening a website (http://www.poorpoets.com) for unheralded/undiscovered writers to display their work. All work you would be willing to submit will be credited under your full name. In addition, you will retain original copyright over the works. The goal of the site is to promote the hidden voices of this generation. Unlike previous generations, we do not have an intellectual, insightful voice to speak for us. There are no Vonneguts, Shakespeares, Voltaires, or the likes as heavily promoted as mainstream, simple (yes, I call them simple) writers that rake in the money. If you are interested in further information, you can reply to this post with any questions or message me via AIM (G O D SPELLS ME2). The people allowed to display their work will be censored to those who are committed and serious. Any and all inquiries are appreciated, though.

Brendon.

Rustic brown shoelaces;
mud-covered
from the years of unpaid labor.
Layers of sediment
caking the worn soles,
which cover the
warm, splintered feet
of a fourteen year old girl.

Cigarette-yellow toenails;
pedicured by
“services rendered.”
Leading up to
stallion strong legs.
Muscular
from the years
of marching for non-political
reasons.

Sand dusted knees;
layered
with a fine powder
from the time spent crying,
Pleading to god.
Hoping for some sort of
escape,
chariot.
Hoping for her knight
in shining armor,
carrying that twenty.

Callous covered hands;
massaged by
a creamy white lotion.
Once delicate, now
etched from
years of servitude.
Or solitude.

Chocolate brown hair
dangling from
her head,
waving as if for one
last time.
A desperate hope sinking
back into her pores.
Retreating back
into her mind.
Vibrant blue eyes
tantalizing every sense,

Eyes deep as nature,
shallow as the sidewalk
that she’s trapped on.

My name is Josie,
I’m eighteen and poor.
I am
- black
- white
- spanish
- muslim
I speak  in metaphors.
Hear me roar.
See me jump ropes
for food.
Will work
for inspiration
to fight for myself.

My name is Josie,
I’m twenty-three and poor.
I am
- unemployed
- uninspired
- uncooperative.
I write in broken tongues.
Watch me go and run.
Slowly undone
from years of meandering
through the streets.
Like a twig in a river.
That broken piece
of the dam
that rebelled and
just
went
with it.

My name is George,
I’m over thirty-five and white.
That makes me
- qualified
- rich
- powerful.
I have speech writers
with real problems
that I don’t face.
I could juggle
giants on my spoon
with silver lining.
I am the storm
that feeds the river.
Rain drops that pursue
perpetuation of
the economic system.

My name is Promise,
I am told by people.
People of
- power
- wealth
- ambition.
I am a hollow shell.
I am the shell
surrounding the twig.
I am all the twig knows.
A beautiful case
with flare
and pizzazz.
Still empty, though,
empty as the wind.
Empty as the wind
caused by the storm.
Fed to keep
the dam standing.

My name is Society.
I am the dam.
Filled with twigs,
and hollow shells.
My weight bears
enormously
on the river.
It cannot sustain
on hollow shells.
As empty as
the thoughts of
embracing twigs.
One day, I
will
fall
beneath my own weight.
Destroyed from the empty shell
of Promise.

The Earth, splitting
at its axis,
makes the world
lopsided since
1837.
I stand at
the equator,
staring
at the stars.
They speak
worlds to my soul.
I begin to
crumble.
I glance toward
the sun
it reflecting I,
I reflecting it.
My bones crush
into dust.
Collapsing,
I see heaven
and my
mind opens at
the
seam.
The devil
jumps out
of his dilapitaded
dormitory,
wreaking of
cigarettes
and
stale crackers.
He roots himself
in the ground
and out sprouts
metaphors
and similes.
Mind and
body.
Soul and
rhythm.

I remember how I curled
around your breasts,
as if made for them.
Disappearing at your
shoulders as another layer of skin,
smooth as skipping stone.
I leap from your mind
to your heart.
It feels as if I’m just
breaking the surface
of your puddles and lakes.
I’m waiting for scuba gear
and clear sailing.
For the mist to clear.
For your jagged rocks
to erode.
To let you wash over me,
and shape me.
but as I drift downwards,
and rest on the bottom
of your delta,
I realize I must move
forward.
I am a passing stone
to you.
you move me with common
rocks.
I’ll see you around
the bend.

Stop pretending like you are wanted,
you silly attention junkie.
You take their eyes and voices
in as synthetic heroin.

Everytime someone turns away,
you get the shakes.

People have grown tired of this
show called life.
Your addiction comes to
its inevitable end.

I try to get a poetess, but it is impossible.
They find everything lost in me.
Give them metaphors and similies are expected,
which are still unimpressive, because they simply see
every single thing inside that I try to hide.

Laying traps made of metonymy
that get side stepped,
with lofty dreams that only God and she
don’t buy yet.
I have to have a sense of humor,
but I have to do it ironically!
Fashioning ropes of recurrent motifs
with assistance of assonance
that attempt to wrestle with
her heart. The war is lost because
she wants a forest spot,
after I whisper that I will whisk her
to an island with “a cerulean sky
and invisible water where you and I can go to die.”

Still, though, she resists.
I insist on foreshadowing
but she is challenging my syntax,
saying I’ve misplaced words, in fact
my entire grammatical structure
is off,
so why would I be asking to love her?
I have to elevate my diction
before I can penetrate her fiction.
So I stick to quaint verses
but will they ever be made worth it?

Hold me in your breast,
which breathes with the ground.
It fluctuates with my indecisiveness
and punctuates my death sentence.

I’ve flown myself to Riker’s Island
in hopes of trapping some of this
sincerity you have shown.
Still, your eyes flutter
like a humming bird caught in the wind.
Snipping at my cowardice,

in hopes of striking oil.
But you are not some,
get rich quick scheme that permeates
my existence.  You are an elaborate
family business that grows
with each dying child.

As your hair floats in a river
of air, lend me your lips
nestle this contagious affection
in that tiny crevace you have
stowed away inside your heart.

I see your broken fin,
angelfish.
You are on the surface
of the smooth, black pool,
floundering, crying for attention.

Ripples catapult to my feet,
synchronized with your
distress like a beacon of morse code.

My toes curl into the water,
as you wade my way.
You wrap your fin around my ankle
like a snake suffocating
its prey.

I give in to your pressure
and drift aimlessly
like a lily caught in the current.

I live my life with my ribs showing,
they protrude through my skin

as my arms flail about in
disconnected patterns.
Striking imagined drums, hoping
to hit a familiar note.

No audience for this
sad, choregraphed disaster.
Just the silent whisper
of fingers tearing through the air

grasping wildly at some disposable faith.