The Official Website of

Terence E. Jackson

Visionary Multi-Media Artist

Poetry

TO DREAM

With Death

The Legend

Life Comes

Completion

_________________________________________

WISH

I Wish

You could walk

This Burden road

Just once

Sing

This terror song

EARNING MY

MISTAKES

How Can I teach you about life
For I too have walked
Walked away
Torn
Between feeling partial joy and partial sadness
The great divide
The me
The my
The mine
My mo me me me-might have
I too have sat
Listening to good people and good things
Talk talk
Talking about the yester
The day until today
When I bring the unfortunate news
Crisp white linen is not enough
For God is a void
Devoid
This void
This hole disparately aching to be filled holy
By that something
Or that someone missing
Missing miss ing Liss ing
Listening to people
Talk talk talk talk ing
Speak speak ing
Change chang ing
Hands
Swaying
As preachers preaching
Speak only to the choirs of their God
Devoid
A void
Of this void

But where is the talk of ole wives tales
The lessons lesson lessoned learned
Not written but spoken in long drawn out musty text
Beautifully unfolding over the course of hot humid do-dog days
While we sit motionless
Nose wiped scented
While in nostrils our memories of mint julips and biscuits
Lay fading like tattered photographs at our feet

I too have lingered like oms in the temple
Unwilling to move towards enlightenment
I too have been forcibly spewed from the mouths
Bittersweet like the snuff chewed by the old women
Rocking rocking rock ing on porches
While the old men waited and waited unwelcomed
Broken
Defeated
At the gates of Carthage
All the while
Remembering the weight of their separation
Remembering their struggle struggled struggling
To grip grasp grab whole to
The magnitude of it all
While their children children burst adult like
Mother father strung up strung out of and on something or someone
Disparately realizing that to live motionless
One has to find a way to squeeze past the honoring of oneself
By doing doing do ing
The unspeakable
Spoken holy not in truth but in tongues
Tongues long since forgot
Language languishing untamed

I to have come to realize the importance of revalidating the journey
My journey
A Journey past mirrored halls
Reflecting reflections of
I who no longer am committed to the cultivation of success
Learning to live
Having learned to learn
I am having to pick up of the sharp shard remnants of my things unfulfilled
I am learning to live life by earning my mistakes
And loving the holiness of loving that which is deemed unlovable.

TO BE HERE OR ON THE NILE

I am looking out of someone’s eyes

Standing so close

So still

That my shadow falls

Into another song

Other places

Other stars

Eclipsing moons

I am standing all alone

Wondering

Which is better

To be here

To have stayed on the Nile

Helpful

Arrogant

Kind

Cruel

Honest

Liar

Gentle

Hateful

Loving

Selfish

TO J. B.

The world

Thinking it was

James Brown

Took a sip

Of nectar

Only to fall

Down

Laughing

All

Her beauty

PUTTING GOOD HANDS TO USE

There are times

I want to tear out my eyes

Seen enough violence

To last lifetimes

There are times

I want to cut off my ears

Heard more suffering

Than one heart should bare

There are worst times

When hate wells up

Mouth burning like oven

Unsure

Nothing comes to mind

Shove fist in mouth

Quietly

Walking away

LOST

I am

Memory

Retaining

Names

Numbers

Lost

I am

Black

On call

Waiting

Lost

I am

Remembrance

Like water

Fire water

Paradise

Lost

ABORTIONS AND GREEN TEA

Approaching my car

Protesting abortions

Right light green sweaters

On shoulders

Play clothes

Unaware how I feel

Minimum waged

Out paint your sign

Rattling inside

Mind the cause

Will find you

Making green tea

Waiting like me

For your nails

Light red

To dry

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