Black Against the Wall: Rhymes in Desperate Times

By Martin T. Shepherd

We live in a golden age of information and idea sharing, yet the information communicated by and about Black people is often simply wrong or, at best, fundamentally fl awed. The public, therefore - including Black people - has a distorted view of nearly everything, including most notably: self, family, society, political ideology, love, morality, and God. Frequently, bad information and preposterous ideas about Black people drive the decisions, attitudes and opinions of the information-consuming public, reinforcing negative stereotypes, prejudices and baseless assumptions.
Martin Shepherd compiled Black Against The Wall in response to those increasingly inaccurate representations of Black people. This collection of poetry captures his thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable perspective on a variety of topics and themes. His personal observations and experiences blend with the unique breadth of his imagination and poetic talent to present a reading experience that is honest, seductive and entertaining at the same time. The topics and themes he explores in this collection are breathtaking in range; he touches on life and existence, the nuances of love, the complexities of relationships, spirituality, politics and the entropy of world events. Whatever the subject matter- a stranger on a plane, the battles fought by the working class, the plight of tsunami victims, or yearnings for love and pleasure- all of his poetic pieces are animated by unique personality, mood and metaphor.
Black Against the Wall is a brilliant collection of masterful poetry. It will inspire you to think differently of yourself and others. Most of all, it will encourage you to get Black off of the wall!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469143460

Martin T. Shepherd

not provided

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by Martin Shepherd.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011963292

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4691-4345-3

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4691-4344-6

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4691-4346-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

104317

Dedicated to Ingrid and William.

CONTENTS

1 Woman

100 Pennies

A Message On Memory

A Real New Lease

A Session With Stevie’s Past Time Paradise

A Song For Tsunami Victims

Add Love

Against The Grain Fed (Chicken Roost)

American Idol

An Aids Clinic In Libya

Art Official

Flirting With Balance

Battle Ground (Character Act)

Beauty’s On The Go/Caves Of Paper Mache

Black Against The Wall

Bottom Of A Slippery Slope

Breathing Corpse

Bridge Of Truth

Chipped Medicine

Choose

Concerning Detention

Consumer Clone

Don’t Call Me Nigga…

Elixir

Eye Test

Family Man, Company Time

Feed The Hungry

Show Yourself A Man

Focusing

For King James And Savannah

Free (To Write Poetry At Work)

Free Cable

Free Fall

Freestyle

Getting Naked

Grand Rapids Doubt

Has The Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?

Heart On Sleeve

Heavyweight Fight

Hip-Hop Is Love

I Believe (Your Words)

I Manifest (Guru’s Credo)

If I Were A Poet (Inspired By Nikki Giovanni)

In The Beginning

Legalize It

Letter From Earth

Little Brother And Sister Holding Hands At Jax

Lucifer

Matter Of Color

Message To Azizi

Metamorph

Mlk 09

My Breezy

No Other Room

November 2004

Old Photos

On Hustle And Flow

Onion Peel

Please Don’t Kill Ms. Lauryn Hill

Purple

Purpose Seeking Kiss

Quick Sand Tornado

Rico’s Inspiration

Shoot Memories

Soft Sharp Sword

Solitude (In The Mind)

Sonho Meu

Soul Down

Spending Spree

Spirit! Get Your Free Spirit!

Spiritual Furnishings

Stature Of Liberty

Swing

Tattooses On Muses

Temple Of You

The Berg

The Black Agenda ’04

The Dream Of Leah And Sam

The Dumb… . Da, Da Dumb

The Formula

The Real Fake World

This Night

Top Of The World

Trouble

Truth Pursuit

U R Universe

Vodka And Whips

War Protest

Weighted Decision

What I Like About You?

What’s Goin’ On?

When We Fight

Words Is Like Girls

Write, Read

Writer Ego

Xx Addiction

You’re Smile

You’re The Sweetest (And I)

Zoom

1 WOMAN

One Woman

Away from sun shining days.

Between happy dreams

The Things that sustain human beings.

One man, one hand to give

To this relationship.

One heart to beat a rhythm

One rhythm to speak, to chant:

I Love

Ta-doom

I adore

Ta-doom

I commit

Ta-doom

I submit

Ta-doom

To rant and rave

Give me one woman to save or

Even slave for.

One woman to feel, to appeal to

Protect and be a shield to

One woman to go with

To stop with

Hell even a woman to shop with.

One to confess to the mess that has infested my life.

One who’ll fight for what’s right.

A woman to hear my thoughts and

At all costs foster understanding of those thoughts.

And even scoff at my conceptions

And count my confidences as blessings;

Trusting in our thoughts combined

One woman, one man, one mind.

One woman to visualize when she’s absent.

Discuss to others with passion.

One woman to comfort and understand,

So her needs proceed that of this man.

One woman.

You being the one.

Woman.

You being the sun.

Woman.

In a distant universe

That heats the galaxy

You are the one transcendental, endless

Heavenly, celestial, tremendous

Source of potential worth.

Worthy, other worldly.

The one woman

The savior

You gave the spice of life its flavor,

And ended my relentless militancy

Against intimacy.

You’ve given birth to a universe unconditionally.

I just wanna leap from a beam of light with you

And catch the next one that travels beneath our fall, and leap again.

From light-color-beam to light-shine-beam and glean our energies

From each light-bright-beam,

Until we swell and burst and immerse the cursed earth in love tones’ rainbowed light glow.

100 PENNIES

These days it seems like we’re sheep-like.

People don’t want change.

They’re like dollar bills

When we need pennies.

Send me some soldiers.

Fold those whose comforts control

Into prison cell sized

Rooms with no view;

They have no vision anyway.

Free—in their place—the modern day slave.

Give me soldiers.

Those who have nothing to lose, but life itself

And fear not the powers despite their wealth.

Give me soldiers

To hold the heat and stand next to me;

To cry ‘freedom’ with tears of wisdom,

Streaming freely to heal our present condition.

Soldiers to fan the flames of a fire

that’ll burn higher than the towers of the empire.

Soldiers whose words will strike like ammunition,

Each letter making incision with pointed precision.

Some soldiers.

A critical mass to smash the

Perception of upper and lower class.