Art/Poetry

Casted away exiled to be forgotten,

I hold on to one hope love.

Love doesn't judge you it understands you,

love embraces and forgives it never ends.

Love sees you for who you are

who you'll become not who you were.

God taught me that everyone deserves love,

even an exile like myself.

So please take a seat,

pour some coffee,

learn who I am and who I'll become.

I too will listen,

as my Heavenly Father listened to me.

All I ask for is somebody to love,

somebody to know,

somebody to one day hold.

For I am defined by Christ now,

not my past not by man,

but by my Lord and Savior Jesus.

So please take a seat.

Would you like one sugar or two?

For our time together will be sweet,

and filled with steadfast love.

So please come join me as somebody,

that special somebody to love.

By Justin D. DeRy

Being trapped inside a brutal prison complex that's designed to squeeze the breath out of you slowly. From the very beginning this system was constructed just for that purpose. I have always thought prison was for Rehabilitation, but I quickly found out it was only to enforce Punishment. Once in prison not only are you fighting for your sanity, but at most prisons you are denied the skills & tools to succeed once re-entering society. Remember the goal is not Rehabilitation, but Punishment. The system wants to conquer your spirits. Many fall victim because of the harsh punishment and abuse of officer harassment, excessive force & abuse of authority. However the main problem is the lack of understanding that society has towards the criminal Justice system, and the prisons complex's. People who are incarcerated need society to be a little more concerned towards the spiritual growth of those who are behind the wall. Remember many will return back to society, but the lack of care from society could play a major role with the recidivism rate. Therefore we need society to love us, support us, but most of all Understand our life Inside Prison.

I don't want pity or sympathy, I just need your empathy...

I don't want admiration, I just need respect...

I don't need lies, I need truths...

I don't want followers, I need  believers...

I don't just want to teach, I also need to be taught...

I don't want to bottle up my fears, I need to conquer them...

I don't want to stay down whenever I fall, I need to get back up...

I don't want to ignore the mistakes that I make, I need to learn from them...

I don't want to only forgive, I need to forget...

I don't want to walk, I need to fly...

I don't want to shoot for the clouds, I need to shoot for the stars...

I don't want help, I need opportunities...

I don't want to constantly profess my innocence, I need to prove it...

I don't want foes, I need friends...

I don't want to give up, I need to survive.

By: Troy Hendrix

I am amazed at the seeker of purity

Who when it's time to be polished

Complains of rough handling

Love is like a lawsuit:

To suffer harsh treatment is the evidence,

When you have no evidence, the lawsuit is lost

Don't grieve when the judge demands your evidence,

Kiss the snake so that you may gain the treasure.

That harshness isn't toward you,

But toward the harmful qualities within you.

When someone beats a rug

The blows are not against the rug,

But against the dust in it.

Mathnawi  III

4008-4012

A piece of dirt, nothing, carbon, mud is placed in a position,

stuck without being able to move, 

under intense heat and savage pressure slowly forms into a harder rock, 

years and years of pressure makes this rock more solid 

until one day it begins to shine, 

now this rock can cut out glass, 

now this rock is one in a million,

even though this rock is underground

no one ever knows what this rock has gone through to become a diamond, 

only diamonds understand diamonds

and what they go through to become what they are,

if you understand keep on shining.

With time we remain standing

Knowing we need to go to the end

Someone is watching over us

You don't need to look He is every where

Someone on your walk holds your hand

Don't doubt, have confidence in your destiny

Stay in the truth

We have gone at times in denying

Stay awake Stay engaged

Together we can make a difference

There is strength in numbers

It will make it equal

We are aware of the evil that reigns

Bring the peace knowing the end is near

and we are not ready

We have walked all the paths

We have dreamed of Paradise

With time we have stayed in the light

At all times we stay in the light

     Your Hope must be measured, your temperance must be measured, your joy must be measured, your peace must be measured, even when life's immeasurable, your intent must be measured, your peace of mind must be measured, your faith must be measured, even when death is ever patient and ever present, your tears must be measured, your rational must be measured, your attraction must be measured, your attachment must be measured even if life is immeasurable, you must be measured all the days of your immeasurable life/life lived under the sky's ceiling so you may fly, fly freely as an immeasurable life,

          always be measured

Also by Cevelino

OPEN

Open wounds, soars, and spots, the heart pilled back from

Words,

The pain of the past; what is worse

The pain or the past?

You look like my future, compatible,

You look like a healed soul; and is I could

I'd help you hurt no more,

But those words that hurt, they hurt yes they do, they hurt

Because the past, the past to you,

a past you had come out of, and are moving on too!

Open

3 am. My love and I
in our flannel pj's
on a blanket
of silver-lined silk.
Beneath us cool desert sand.
Above us a blue moon
in a blue-black sky
glittered
with blue-white start
twinkling
like her blue-green eyes.
A silver penny floats in
on a cool breeze and lands
in the warm palm
of her open hand.
It dissolves
into glitter and drifts
into eternity.
What do you wish for? I ask.
A world without nouns, she says,
without war and suffering,
without prison.
But what about peace? I ask.
What about love and community?
Relations and connections, she says-
hence prepositions
in my world-
and conjunctions too, she adds,
unless they subordinate.
A bronze turtle tiptoes over
and offers my love and me
each a cup of silvery tea.
We drink...dissolve...drift...
My love and I. 3 am.

Many are what they are not
They do not know what they want
They make the wrong choices and don't admit it
We are like that and full of pride
We wear a mask to fool those around us
We are blind by the light
We close our eyes
We are open wounds
So God dreamed of reaching the heavens
We men have resonated the new era
We are not happy and don't know what we want
We are the angels returned to earth to fulfill the wishes
It takes time for change
Now or later we realize
That we can always do differently
Must stop arguing
Live in peace quietly
Get out of the grey zone to have no blemish at judgement
We are on the edge of the chasm where no one wants to fall
We are alive until the last breath
On the road of the unloved
We are doubting
It would be time to decide
It's up to the man to open the vault or have our keys locked
We are observed from above
Because down here have lost the vision
Have not seen the moon or counted stars one by one
Having not made one without the other
Realizing how lucky we are

Tear drops running from down my eyes.

So much pain in my veins.

The system won't unleash me.

The inner-beast inside me won't cease

even if I'm ever released...

The struggle is real even under all this penitentiary steel! 

Freedom I cry like blood in my eye...

Chains can't even keep me restrained.

Cause revolutionary ties keep me trained.

Discipline keeps me lined-up in life. 

I'll forever be conscious never to give up...

Cause victory does come to those who wait. 

Even if days turn to years passed-on...

     This is my ol to the president- I miss you man, Sasha, Malia and first lady Michelle, yes we did-but where do I go to be home again, being a Black man in America over and Over again,

     I miss you Mr.President I call you my great uncle, I see you in the tears of our

four fathers, as a King as a sequel with our Queen as a equal,

     It happened again my president, that Emancipation, they sold us again in high class segregation, my years evaporated my heart is obliterated because you left eight years like Abraham's first wife Haggarth and we see what the right hand is doing, president Obama

     I walked like you, I wish I could talk like you, you ran the country and the world off so such faith, believing we'd make it some day black as Africans across a ocean this is my ol to you black man,

     black man in this room-remember your freedom was held, held like June too. Will you to assess it too, or leave- with it to a betterment, to a better defiant, you are a black president that president, relevant, molded by god in tombs, entombed to the noses of triumphant melodies to world called Zion,

     raisin our children under the same moon that our fore fathers sang to, believing that yesterday wasn't a monsoon, re surfaced-on this earths plantoon, black moon, black tears, black fears, right here, right now, why hear, black man in this room

     you are your father keepers-you are your mother deepest-you are the hardest envied-

     you are emancipated don't forget, you are emancipated, un shackle you mind and become a celebration,

     black man June is you to, you June too.

     This is my ol to you Mr.president I miss you.

I watch the clock as the minutes pass hours,

It keeps slipping through my hands like

grains of sand;

Dreams of sandcastles, palaces, and things

I could've built;

Or of cars, planes, and ships I could've used

to see places that I often dream of;

Instead I sit behind bars and bricks and

bidding my time;

Watching the world change from a TV

as I slowly age;

They say "Time doesn't slow down for anyone,"

But why does it feel like it's moving faster?

I sit and wait for the shifts to change

It finally happens! I pace the floor and look out the window

And watch the guard open the mail bag and starts his day.

He's walking towards my cell, I feel my hopes begin to swell

I've sent out lots of lines, lots of ink

Ex-communicated from family and friends, none of the support or care

But with every letter I don't let my hopes or feelings sink

He stops at my cell, Today's the Day!!

"No mail today Edwards" as he continues on his way

The weekend is still four days away

Surely some mail will come my way

All I hope for is a letter from someone to say...

Hello

Dedicated to: Every African American assassinated unjustly in Amerikkka

Paraplegic foot steps embracingly caress uncharted dimensions...

Masterly duplicating synchronized events...

'I have a dream.'

Effortlessly touching rummaging words of empowerment...

'say it loud...I'm black and I'm proud!'

Blasphemous, uncle tom, luke warm ass (Covfefe's)

predominantly unlettered captives assigned numerical identities,

strangulated chains.

Massively hourding...

'make it plain!'...(bystanders scream)...

revolutionized within amerikkkanized auction houses...

judicial court rooms.

(#'Fake news')...

#"Fake enumerated revolutionaries"...

"guess who?"...

enthusiastically entomb inflammatory suggestions...

(#'Hands up don't Shoot!')

Self-evident assassins pronounced...

(#"Not guilty").

Scribble...Scribble...Scribble...

"Who am I?"...

The Unknown Pen.

The time I was given

I never appreciated, not until I

started doing time.

There are no take backs

I started out with a clean slate

free of blemishes or tarnish, but humans

are messy - it's just nature.

Time is the school in which we learn

and Hell is the place in which we burn.

If I take the time to work thru my

problems I'll backtrack and find the

root of my problem.

But suddenly a pattern presents

itself and how could I have been

so blind for so long?

I'm the problem! A neurologist once

said that "It is an extremely human

response to look outward when a

problem arises"

We have a tendency to excommunicate

and lash out at the wrong ones.

The purpose for peripheral vision is

so we can get a fuller spectrum

of the world.

A horse who pulls a carriage or buggy

has "blinders" on for a reason

because anything outside of a

specified path is, can be over whelming

to ones senses.

Time is the eyewitness testimony that

will always, over time tell you what

you need to know.

Use the time given while doing

the time you were given.

There are always lessons to learn

some just take longer to hit their

mark.