The Soul Pitt Writer’s Block

More submissions from: Edward Murray of Braddock; Eve Hall of Atlanta, GA; Arthur Ford of Pittsburgh.

Edward Murray of Braddock, PA  

A MECHANIC

When I was a young boy I had a tool box for a toy box
I carried robots, screwdrivers, matchbox, wrenches, rocks and chalk for hop scotch
I soon learned toys were for little boys
I was no longer a young boy
See, I was a young man
I took my index finger on my right hand and drew a line in the sand
A man, looking at a boy, looking at a man

I threw away my toys and used the tools from my toolbox to help build this school of hard
Knocks
I used the belt my mom beat me with and 2 master locks to build shackles
The men of our neighborhoods wore shackles proud like the rich wear snap, crackle and
pop around their necks and wrists
I used hammers and fists to work the metal in this fire into barbed wire
I place the beaten barbed wire around my battered soul
And as the metal cools and constricts my soul bleeds
Better be it to bleed now than to allow weakness
I used a screwdriver to replace the weakness with terrorism, the terrorism that is within
me is the terror that is me
I use a pry bar to replace the part of my heart
Where softness sits and weeps
Where weakness lays and sleeps
My artificial heart beats like apocalypse
I lick my lips to they rhythm of the ticks
Ticking in my heart like a time bomb
I close the palms of my hands to calm me
My friends tattoo my gang name upon me
Stranger, Barbara Lewis sang that song for me
Three inch old English, I wear it proudly
A bar code, my name talks loudly
Louder than the radio in this old car
Clearer than reflections are
I look at the reflection in the rear view mirror
A man, looking at a boy, looking at a man

I drive the car slowly, creeping down the street and through the back alleys looking for
Enemies
Doing drive by shootings on people who look just like me
Solo sits in the back seat looking for the police
The devil rides shotgun
Difficult situations require difficult outcomes
Bullets never ask for forgiveness
And forgiveness will never reside in me peacefully
The sheriff’s deputy outside my cage lights a cigarette
The pale moonlight lays a shadow of bars across my concrete floor
The fluorescent light flickers down the sides of my fishbowl
The deception of dreams calms me
The blur cools my skin
The dream of freedom caresses me
The dream of sunshine bursting through the clouds after a rain
Sometimes the dream of rain
And sometimes the reign of one dream
I sometimes lay and listen, sit and watch the rain water glisten as it forms a dew
A few drops on my window
The softness of my pillow
I watch the cars pass by and each rain drop becomes every tear I cry
I lower my eyes
I hold my hands tightly to the cold bars
I watch cars through the bars that I helped build
I pray, I obey
I lay down my fists on my bunk in my cell
I dwell in the fact of my constitution that this institution can not save me from myself
God save me from slavery
I pace this prison yard like a free man
Trying to erase the lines in the sand
Grace and joy, hand in hand
A boy, looking at a man, looking at a boy

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 HeatA hot summer Sunday in Santa Ana
Mile Square park just before dark
Big heavy Chevys’ lined up
Rear bumpers laying down on the ground
Dayton wire wheels with wide white walls
Candy metal flake paints shimmer like napalm
Hit the switch, drop the bomb
The frame hits the ground like an artillery shell
Hell’s streets littered with land mines
Hell’s kitchen littered with fallen angel’s empty minds
No way to hide from this heat
Me and all my demons run these streets
Cropped head lights, low and slow
HK’s, chopped tops, Pachuco soul
Diesel fuels my fingertips
Inferno
A white hot fire storm
A new demon is born
2-11 armed robbery
AK-47s’ robbin’ 7-11s’
Would’ve robbed Heaven
If it were open to me
Factory of violence
Anger draped in silence
Half smile and a crooked grin
A revolver slippin in and out darkness
Sippin on gin
A stolen beer tastes better than
A hard days pay
Smokin pot out of a beer can
Smoken hot Cholas’ are better than
A hard days pay
Hard days just don’t pay
Easy days lay lazily like ice cold lemonade on a hot day
Crime pays like Christmas everyday
And then one day a preacher walked my way
He talked my way
He talked as if God signed his paychecks
He blew me away
He called me out of my name, said
I was no demon, I was one of God’s children
He said, the wild fire that rages inside of me are passions that all the saints
like to see
All you hustle is you
There is just one bible, the same one for me, the same for you
I was taken aback
I looked at the preacher through crooked eyes
Seeing his crooked hat
Crooked brow, crooked cane, crooked Cadillac
He solemnly looked at me and started to weep
He new that most of my friends and enemies lay quietly six feet deep
I keep a corner in my mind
Where friends and family sleep
I try not to fuss too much
I try not to cuss and such
I try to touch today, hold tomorrow
I try to handle yesterday
There used to be a thin line between love and hate
Now I grey lines between black and white
Instead of using my fingers for triggers and gang signs
I write
Smoke bellows from the tip of my pen
The ink becomes freedom
Freedom catches my paper on fire
My voice becomes my gun
There is no way to hide from this heat
Me and all my angels’ run these streets

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GOD’S CRAYONS

Tupac Shakur said only God can judge me
The police and the politicians, the Muslims and the Christians, black, white, brown and yellow judge me
You judge me and I judge me
I grew up in a concrete street jungle
Red wood trees of street lights and stop lights
Graffiti red rose bushes lay on brown stone walls
Shiny glass walls reflect like pools of crystal clear blue water
Grey sidewalks of white daisies
Black asphalt streets of green grass
Our green fields
Our killing fieldsI grew up before colors was a movie
I walked colors
I grew up before violent video games were a form of entertainment
I survived violent gangs
I grew up before Star Wars
Darth Vador had a badge and a billy club
I grew up before Rodney King was on TV
And I was beat

I grew up in a concrete street jungle
Blue skies melded through the skyscrapers green trees canopies
Bright yellow sunflowers hid in the dull darkness of the back alleys
Poison ivy intertwined the windings of the rusted rot iron fencing
Trash cans sat like tree stumps
Herds of burnt out cars loitered at the curbs grazing
Our grazing fields
Our killing fields

I played old maid with pimps and hookers
Played crazy eights with dope peddlers
Played go fish with cat burglars
I played solitaire
In solitary confinement
Violence
My drug of choice

I grew up playing hide and seek with God
Playing shoots and ladders with pistols
Playing Russian roulette with the police
Playing kick the can with the devil
And playing sorry with my Mom

I grew up in a concrete street jungle
The Santa Ana winds whimper through the leaves on the trees like a gentle breeze
Garbage trucks saunter like rhinoceros
The natives pace the streets with machetes and Molotov cocktails
Big rigs creep in herds like elephants tail to trunk
The emperors live high above the trees in tree houses
High above the jungle fever
High above our killing fields

I grew up in dark blue dicky pantolones with crisp creases
Black and white Vans zapotos crip slippers
A white T-shirt with a wife beater underneath
And underneath my white painted skin
I wear a brown Mexican heart with black African bones and yellow slanted almond Chino eyes
And I realize you judge me, only, by my white skin I reside in
My friends I keep are browner than you
My son blacker than you
My skin whiter than you
And you
You judge me a wigger, skinhead, snow ape, white boy, peckerwood, mud shark, wanna-be-wetback
God painted me with crayons from the inside to the outside and from the front to the back
And though I lack a definition of color
I fought twice as hard as you to earn half the respect that you got back from my neighborhood
I grew up in the same neighborhood as you a gunslinger since the seventh grade
I grew up in a concrete jungle wearing brass knuckles and carrying tire irons
I grew up knowing god spent his nights in our back alleys recruiting
I grew up knowing that the lions lay in wait in the tall sun burnt brown grass
I grew up playing in the killing fields

I may look like a dead president though I talk like a Mayan and walk like a Buffalo Soldier with the fight like a Kamikaze pilot
I lay in ambush like a brown Aztec warrior with the angered black hands of an African king with yellow eyes swinging a samurai sword and I sit silently
I sit softly at the greet feet of the bamboo trees
I make no sound like the sand in Sudan
I lay in wait at the Aztec ruins
Ruined
Knowing that you and me are painted from the same box of God’s crayons and yet you still judge me
Tupac Shakur said only God can judge me

 About the Artist

Stranger was born in 1970 and raised in southern California during the tough times of the nineteen eighties and nineties. He grew up in an economically challenged neighborhood with gangs, drugs and violence. Sometimes he would choose to participate in certain activities and then would find relief or therapy from the difficult situations by writing, drawing or taking pictures. He was nick named Stranger because of being away from the neighborhood on many different occasions. Barbara Lewis sang a song named, “Hello Stranger,” this became his adopted name. His last stay in jail provided an opportunity for a reduced sentence in exchange for enlistment in the US Army. He spent ten years in the US Army, where among other things he met and married his wife. He left the US Army with an honorable discharge in 2001 and attended dive school in Los Angeles, California. They eventually settled on the east side of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They celebrated fifteen years of marriage in July of 2008. His loves and interests are family and friends, poetry, cars, art and photography.

Currently, Stranger is a member of the Langston Hughes Poetry Society of Pittsburgh. He is working on Pictures Speak. He is a regular blue-collar worker at a steel mill in McKeesport, PA. He can be seen snapping pictures and heard regularly at the Braddock Carnegie Library and all around Pittsburgh.

Edward welcomes feedback from his readers. You may contact him with questions, comments, or for an exchange of ideas by writing to Edward Murray, PO Box 194, Braddock, PA 15104 or through his email address at: edleemu@verizon.net.

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Eve Hall Body Language
 
I see you across the room,
Your eyes are fixed right on me.
They start at my head,
And go down to my red, high-heeled shoes.
I try to concentrate on something else,
But my eyes continue to return back to you.
I become uncomfortable, uneasy,
As you begin to approach me.
You ask me for a dance, I hesitate,
Then I slowly enter into your embrace.
Bodies attracting like a magnet,
Sticking together like glue.
Your body speaks fluently, mine…
Listens.
 
more about Eve Hall . . .Bio-Evelyn (Eve) Hall is a self-published author & poet, living in, Georgia. She has been writing for more than thirty-five years.
 
Her work has been featured in several magazines including, “A Poet’s Cut” “Skyline Publications” “South West Sentinel” “Purpose” & “Mature Living.”She has won several writing awards, winning 1st-5th places. She came in 5th place in a Boomer Woman Essay Contest with almost 400 entries. Two of her poems have been finalist for the, “Chicken Soup Series. Her poem, “Transformation” is in the anthology, “Life’s Spices from Seasoned Sistahs: A collection of life stories from Mature Women of Color and her work is featured in, “Love & Romance” a poetry anthology, 2008. She won 2nd place in an essay contest at:www.thecondomzone.com.
 
She has self-published three poetry chapbooks and five books entitled, “Dontay’s Alphabet Book of Color” “Dontay’s Poetry Playground” “Enter Eve’s Poetic Paradise”  “Enter Eve’s Musing Moments” & “Dontay’s Dog.”
 
She has been nominated for several awards including, “Poet of the Month” & “Poet of the Year” at: www.poetryinacup.org &“Poet of the Year” at: www.sormag.com. She has been interviewed by the African-American Children’s Writer’s & Illustrators.
 
She has appeared on television and was a featured guest several times on: www.artistfirst.com & kruufm.com. She has done several book readings & signings at libraries, bookstores and schools in Ohio & Atlanta.
 
She attended the Hurston/Wright Writer’s Workshop at Howard Univ. in 2001. Alexs Pate, the author of “Amistad” was her teacher. One of her goals is to publish over a dozen books that she has written for children. She is available for readings and book signings.

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Arthur Ford The Deep South
 
Came not just from the South
But the Deep,Deep South
Five sisters,two brothers, you know?
Alligators, giant mosquitos, now you know.
High humidity
High temperature
High pop-cane
High cannabis
High- hallelujahs!!
Us swimmed, Us swammed, Us swummed
in deep polluted waters
We didn’t speak “bad English”, we royally butchered it!!
Saw organic bodies
Hanging from organic trees,
Saw inanimate lawyers
Create abominable laws,
Saw “crackers” that grew six feet tall
Couldn’t dip or drown them in my gumbo!
 
Where “albino king kong judges” sat, and spat on me
their ready-made judgments!
Where women tempers were as high as their
shorts- year round
And cookin in tall pots for their families-
And anyone passing by!
Where we ate plenty of pork, no matter what
     those  re-pre-sen-ta-tives, of some fleshed-god
would say.
Where a cup of sugar was always free next door!
Where we didn’t just “baby-sit” their kids-
We raised them!
and taught Huckleberry Finn, how to survive!
Where finitudes of justice, were published.
 
Where I tried to turn the other cheek
but the National Guard broke my jar!
Where the “White Man’s War” was
misnomered-the “Civil War”.
Where the perpetually blue skies looked down-
on filthy white robes-and my flowing blood-
which gave the flag its colors!
Then I followed my ancestors to
the North,
To see whether it was cold as
its weather.
 
By: Arthur Charles Ford, poet
P.O. Box 4725
Pittsburgh,PA. 15206-0725
Toll Free# 1-866-234-0297
EM:wewuvpoetry@hotmail.com
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