Brainstorming…

The Ambition of a Writer.

I’d travel all seven seas, and spend a night in Atlantis just so one can understand the depth from which I speak.

On the days I feel all hope for my creativity has vanished,

My heart skips a beat, I begin to bleed ink,

I regurgitate my passion.

I speak,

My vocabulary expands its horizons, as my composition book fills itself with growth – and I am no master at life, but in my world imagination knows no limits.

I look outside my window, and all that appears is a blank canvas, a world unprepared for the voice of the unspoken artists…

-Leighrick

[My] Prince Matthew Jaden

July 14, 2011

[6]

My Prince
When I look into your eyes
I see nothing but pure innocence.
Never change not in morals but flourish in wisdom while you grow.

My Prince
Education is the main priority.
So be sure to maintain that GPA or Im sure moms will discipline you.
And I know as you sit there enjoying SpongeBob Square Pants –
I Know as your sitting on my lap and resting your head against my chest,
Your mind is consuming all the love I have for you.

My Prince
When I see you I smile
I go through slideshows of pictures and videos when I am away
just to see that smile…and that attitude when it decides to show itself.
Playing with you, I slip in encouragements and inspiration,
So that when you grow up Confidence is natural but so is being Humble.

I remember Saturday mornings I would rock you to sleep,
my little Einstein, ironic you never slept during that cartoon.

My Prince
I know you will make me proud.
Remember to let your Imagination flow and your Creativity Explode,
Born with natural rhythm let your deepest aspirations guide you on the path to your ever-so bright future
and remember to teach these values and morals to your little sister.
Protect Her.
Although she may be a pain now, I see in those almond eyes the love you have for one another.

My Prince
Accept that mistakes will be made, just be sure to learn from them.
Forgive and have Faith, but never be ignorant to your intuition.

And

My Prince
If Im gone by the time you are able to comprehend this
Keep this poem close to your heart, and know Im still beside you.
I will watch over you, and guide you.
I will remain in your heart
I thank God everyday for giving Life to you.

And in my absence
temporary or permanent
I may not be showering you with aesthetic gifts,
but with love and acceptance
for the Man you will become.

My Prince
If you need me
Shout my name silently in your thoughts, and while you are active
I will creep up on you like the sandman and comfort you in your thoughts.
You may not know if I was there, and wondering when I came….

My Prince
You and your sister hold my most sacred possession,
My Heart.

So every time you feel an unfamiliar but glowing warmth overwhelm your heart, and you cant resist to smile or giggle,
Relax…Thats just Auntie whispering she’ll always love you.

My Prince
Your throne awaits you…
and if you so happen to miss the seat,
Auntie will be right there to lift you up, dust you off,
telling you to keep trying.

Always know that this poem doesnt even resemble a quarter of my undying love for you.

-Leighrick

Healing Young Hearts : Optimistcally Faithful

Have you ever seen a child’s heart break?

 

When the ‘Mom’ is taken out of the ‘My’

and

The only thing left from the’ Daddy’, is ‘Y’.

 

When we can only escape hurt through our dreams,

but we cant decipher why a Disney movie is not like real life,

Why haven’t we received our fairytale ending?

 

Y is he so absent-minded?

 

Its like sometimes he forgets get’s he’s apart of us,

like he harbors some type of animosity towards U & I,

but we are only children.

 

Have you ever seen a child’s heart break?

 

When once familiar faces, soon fade into the distance and become unidentifiable,

but still s huge amount of love resides, in one of the empty spaces of our hearts.

 

Have you ever seen a child’s heart break?

 

When we feel that pain, and nobody can heal it, except the touch of my mother?

 

Have you ever seen a child’s heart break?

 

When they antagonize our matriarch,

Invade our happiness,

and hijack us again…only this time for our Brother.

 

Still,

We haven’t grieved.

 

We paint this picture with watercolor,

because the turmoil of our lives mixed with our tears are full with confusion.

and created a paint so thick, only we retain the brushes to retell our tribulation.

 

And in this picture, we paint ourselves,

 

We’re are anticipating the next visit from our Mommy in our dreams.

We’re awaiting the re-embrace of our brother.

We’re hanging onto the hope that our father, soon realizes we are only innocence duplicates of himself he sees in our face.

 

But we are confused, because others refuse to believe our family is heartbroken.

Yes, we are comforted by our ‘Na-na’, because that is where the unconditional love is everlasting

The Root Our Faith & Strength.

 

You see it?

 

Frame it.

 

So the next time you’re asked,

“Have you ever seen a child’s heart break?”

 

What will you reply?

Because we are only one story, the anguish of one family…

 

Think of all the millions more.

 

With Love,

 –The Heart Broken

 

-Leighrick

Personal Statement

c/o 2010

I sit at my computer. I allow my conscience to marinate some of my best qualities and passions into my fingers — I begin typing. I enable my mind to go through this vigorous hard-laboring pain of molding my love for basketball into words. It is a love compiled of harsh metaphors and unimaginable personifications. Basketball is my poetry; my words wrap the ball like Spalding. Anything I am able to write on is my canvas, and any court, concrete, wooden or rubber I am able to play on. Half a piece of paper cannot stop me from expressing myself, and half of a court will not stop me from playing to my maximum potential. An empty pen and a flat ball will not dictate my future.

One night I dreamed so close to reality, I almost did not wake up. The announcer was calling out my teammates. Maya Angelou was the point guard, because she threw the most creative behind-the-back passes that ignorance could never capture– a true definition of The Heart of a Woman. At shooting guard appeared Alice Walker because her explanation of living as a black woman in America is perfect. She continues to put up shots. Hatred’s hand tries to contest the shot, only to fail and become the reason her eye has turned The Color Purple. As I gazed toward our locker room door I had to blink twice, because through those doors shone The Beloved power forward, Toni Morrison. She was ready to box-out all who would try to annihilate our chance to score, and to restore our rights as a culture. Right after her came Gwendolyn Brooks, the center, helping rebound our “Black Love” when the direction of the love and respect is unpredictable. She is the backbone and the strength of our team’s pride. I stand integrity as the small forward the smallest punctuation being the biggest part of the sentence. I call a huddle at half-court, and we all place our hands in the middle. Five minds, five hearts, five different personalities defined as one team. We all cross-over to a new chapter in the same book of life. The scoreboard buzzes, and I go to grab a last drink before the game resumes; only the last time I blinked, I opened my eyes only to find I was staring blissfully at my ceiling.

Every poet/author in my dream has taught me to be culturally and self aware. In basketball they say “practice makes perfect”, and in writing perfect practice makes an incredible writer.  So in every practice I allow my writing utensil to dribble my emotions across each page with sentences like quick passes, and every stanza is another quarter I’ve given my all. Each time I step onto the court all troubles seem to cease. The ball is a symbol of life. I know that the ball gets passed around to people and sometimes even plagiarized and mistreated. I understand the players in my life may come and go, some people may pass a way, but the lessons they have taught me are still invaluable.

 

-The Graduate
-Leighrick

Haleys Comet

Quick Bio: 3 years ago a friend of mine Cheyanne aka “Mariah Haley” was assigned in her Intro to Philosophy class, to describe her philosophy in a poem as her Final. This was to be strictly her opinion, and she came to me in aid of expressing her thoughts into poetry. We ended up collaborating on this philosophical poem, and I hope you all enjoy it.

I believe that through experience we realize, that we create our own reality.

One not founded upon other peoples visions, but through our own day to day experiences.

If we learn to embrace each breath, and rejoice because we’ve have gotten the chance to feel every day, then we will learn that knowledge itself is power.

The power to recreate your world, and at the same time be the survivor in the “big picture”.

In this race against time, to live and to learn, one will always encounter numerous hurdles.

Some are higher than others, and whether you fall or not; what keeps you running is ambition.

What separates our souls is that some looked to be saved, and others look for another alternatives.

If you fall you cannot wait for someone to pick you up, you must get up on your own and dust yourself off.

Ambition is a value embedded in the soul. It is who you are, and like sweat it seeps out from all over your body and overwhelms you with strength.

In order to stimulate that strength we must stand strong in our beliefs, but not ignorant to our mistakes.

Although religion is man-made, our souls are spiritually molded; a connection with a higher power feeds your conscience, and that is how one is able to digest this food for thought.

Look who’s left deserted. What about the living others around us?

Trees and plants provide us the oxygen, which replenishes our lives and animals revitalize our stomachs, but also protect us with and without training..

However, we as humans don’t see each other as equal.

Only the strong survive, but how do you know whose the strongest if everyone is authentic.

Just like the equator individuality is invisible, but it’s wanted across the world.

The planet needs people who take everyday to learn something new, and surround themselves with inspiring dreams because a life without dreaming is not a reality at all.

We have been leaving the truth behind and hiding behind our walls of comfortable lies.

We have become a society so in debt to wealth and power; that we refuse to acknowledge our duty to the planet

Lost in this battle of greed and war, consumed by pollution, it is killing us slowly…

Education that teaches us to climb the corporate ladder instead of to live peacefully with our neighbors.

Our neighbors who are literally next door and physically across the world.

We don’t even realize that we share this planet with everyone, and at the same time, we share the same fate.

Our existence depends on the way we spend every beautiful breath, the way we step and every stride we take.

Even though the footprints we leave behind in the sands on this planet, are washed away…

Life is our choice, we have the power to create something beautiful.

We have the resources to build and live in this web of life.

-Leighrick

 

Photo on 2011-02-25 at 23.26 #5

Letter to the Future [Lost Children pt 1]

Dear Lost Children,

I am writing you this letter, asking you to take my hand. I would like us to take a trip to see this countries past. I am writing you this letter letting you know not to be scared, because I am here to prepare you. I know you yearn for knowledge and guidance, but they’re hiding and burning the books in which some truths are kept (in order to sustain this well lit Hell). I know you are starving, but please child, do not kneel to the Golden Arches of the Burger Kings. I know you want to play, but please don’t roam these streets following the blind, and unattended.

You may ask, “who am I?” or “who are you?“; I am the Present and you are the Future. You see — I am writing you this letter as a gift, so TURN OFF THE TELEVISION and READ. I know you’re young, therefore you need to understand they are killing Our Mother, Our Sisters, and Our Brothers! But this Nation was founded on lies and corruption, so you have every right to blame our Fore Fathers.

Lost Children you may not be concerned because they’ve put you in a box, and marked the target with an “X“, but Ive come to help heal you. They are trying to strip you of everything. I hand-down to you any and everything I have to ensure your Knowledge and Safety.

PLEASE PAY ATTENTION! I know it’s hard because your young, don’t let them trick you into thinking you have some disorder, they are just scared at the fact that I’m lining you up like soldiers and preparing for you the take over. I can BET my life and guarantee that these next couple of 16 years wont be so sweet. You’re absorbing all this like a sponge, but I refuse to let them dumb you down like Patrick.

TURN OFF THE RADIO! Don’t repeat those demeaning words, I know its hard because the tune is catchy, but my generation is the victim to the venom , and are now they have become lost generals. Listen to me, you Lost Children are our not so distant futures last chance at hope. But you don’t need the whips and chains, to see that this countries is trying make your life worth less  rather than change. Be the change, and the sense, you are worth everything I’ve wrote.

Do not eat the shit they feed you, because it’ll only stunt your growth and widen the chances of you being incapable, but NEVER GIVE UP! And if I am not present, and they so happen to knock you down its okay. Just GET UP, do not stand by and allow them to keep thinking they’re stronger. PUT THAT HAPPY MEAL DOWN!

Lost Children, I know it hurts, but I’m trying to ease the pain and heal you, because these battle scars leave marks embedded in you physically and mentally. I am sorry my children, but war has been declared. I’ll just end this first letter asking you to join me on the next journey, our brother and sister countries, and prepare to save them too….

Reminding you to DROP THE REMOTE & PICK UP BOOKS.

 I will be here to help guide you…

 

LOVE ALWAYS,

 

Leighrick, The Present

Honesty’s Amenity

I’m sitting in my room

Reminiscing back to you

Images pass;

My head was pressed against your chest

partly on your shoulder, curving your neck

I try to clear my thoughts of fear

and let go of the day

How this began,

You whisper my name…

 

Dim red lights between us falling

filling in precious silhouettes, beryl

Beautiful and flowing down upon us

Sparks flying towards us dancing all around us

Evaporate in air

 

But I left before I knew

My future holding you.

All you saw of me-

My heart should speak for me,

But I should understand

that pushing you away-

It craves compassion and

strong arms to hold her.

 

You and me

Orbiting

Paper wings

Fluttering

Ink gold

Sunsets bold

Star filled nights

Deep as Atlantis.

 

Still

A glow surrounding you

The love notes blew

Our wishes to the wind

Come and bring him back again

 

Gentle coral lights between us falling

forming into precious memories, beryl

Beautiful and flowing down upon us

Rays gliding towards us dancing all around us

Vanish in air

 

And I wonder how you felt

-I was fading inside

Opened my eyes

-Felt so bright this whole time I was blind

The room we hadn’t left

You closed the door

behind

-And he wished he could take me away.

 

I left before you waved.

By then it was too late.

I wished on the moon

I’d always remember-

 

You and me

Revolving

Paper wings

Sulking

Amber gold

Heart bold

Star filled nights

Sweet as Fantasia

 

Calm black lights between us falling

forming into precious silhouettes, beryl

Beautiful and raining down on us

Ashes flying towards us dancing all around us

Dissolve in air

 

I look deep inside my eyes in the mirror

and your still there staring back.

I’ve tried, tried to out grow you

Savor just a part of you

and now..

Every thing has gone black…

 

-Leighrick