Lyricist Lounge Poetry Spotlight

Poems compiled by Maxwell Drati.

One of my favorite things about Black artistry and poetry specifically is it gives us a chance to hear perspectives we may have never heard before. People often see our community as a monolith but there’s so many different beautiful backgrounds and stories to each Black person. Black art is unifying in that way as it brings us together to hear one person’s perspective who may be radically different from our own. And in hearing their work we get to also hear how they learned from that experience, which may be different from how us as individuals would. But it’s still their Black experience. And it’s beautiful in its own right. Black Art unites.


Me and My Journal Entries

Madison Kai is a first-year nursing major

This man always talking about water,

Water in the form of H2O, saying one without the other is no longer water not in its normal form.

Then he talks about principles and,

yet again, how one without the other is not the same principle, not in its normal form.

We also talk about the depiction of the “real man” and how ones soul and body untied is no longer man not in its normal form.

However, I still feel like me when my soul and body are separated. I’m just me and not my body, not in the human form kinda way.

But my soul is still me and me without my body is still me in my normal form.

Now today (3/21/22) I use my pretty pink bunny pen.

I love my life, so, so much. I feel as though we take this life for granted,knowing that things could be so different or that they could change so quickly(for better or worse).

I am excited for what is to come and I know I don’t want to waste my life on things I find undesirable. 

I want to do what’s best for me/my future, but I also want to do what makes me feel genuinely happy and fulfilled. 

And yes, that means picking the right friends, right college, right major and career, but that also means putting me first and choosing to put me first and understand myself as time travels and things begin to unravel because I am my own hero. 

I continuously learn that everyone is not for me (and vice versa) and that is completely okay, as long as I learn that I am for myself. 

I have yet to be humbled, but I don’t feel like I need to be, as I understand the scarcity of goof. But, hey, yin and yang, good and the bad, it all balances me out.


Intimacy

Izzy Firtgald is a first-year Sociology major

Merriam-Webster defines intimacy as a noun. 

A close familiarity or friendship. A private cozy atmosphere or an intimate act, especially sexual intercourse.

But I don’t think Merriam-Webster has seen Black intimacy and love before.

Because the thing about intimacy is…

that it’s not in the moment when their clothes finally hit the floor and it’s not in the second that both partners gasp for air in synchronicity.

Intimacy is simply not seen within an act

intimacy is seen through that colored TV screen presenting a not so coincidental rose colored tint

To these universal phenomenons of a love like poetic justice or a ride or die like “Queen and Slim”

And it doesn’t have to be as hard as Malcolm and Marie make it out to seem

But sometimes things aren’t so “about last night” in these intimate moments

Intimacy feels like that person is your human NyQuil

Because you know your soul is settled

and your heart is healing and at that time, that kind of intimacy makes you want to sing

at long last love has arrived and I thank god I’m alive you’re just too good to be true

Can’t take my eyes off of you


Prolific

Lorenzo Jáuregui is a second-year English major

A profit off the weapon

You still expect us to forgive and not to wanna step in

Expect me not to weep when another brother dies

My eyes are traumatized by the truth of these lies

The roots of these ideas are encrypted from endorsements 

Weak mother f—er making sure there aren’t reinforcements

But why upset the balance when it clearly favors your plans

Zulu nation don’t create any ideas to remove your fans 

You lucky we don’t retaliate and eliminate your people

Always done dirty but we never gonna fall victim to evil

Trying to silence our voices but we are to prolific 

Go and insight violence just for your lucrific

Trying to run away from the new social gimmick 

I fear the power that I know I can’t mimic

Fighting these evils got me questions my true strength

You a weak mother f—er if you think I fold at arms length

Had me second guessing thoughts that running through my head

look the line over that s— needs to be reread 

Put me in between the crossfire trying to sympathy with both sides I’m tired of fighting for these weak ass lies

Dreaming of a land where a mother f—er  can ascend

Is a grand what I need to go make history bend

I wanna step into a world where the throne ain’t empty

Gonna steal that crown before I turn twenty

Fight the evils of the world with a f—ing pen

Put you in a song turn your life around again

I rule the world with my f—ing mind ain’t that a trip

dreaming of a world where reality more than a clip 

A clip in black in white cause I can’t imagine the real thing 

Even in my fantasy I’m still second string 

Is that my own fault or can I blame it on society 

Second class citizen just let me practice piety 

When I see rain I can only visualize my brain 

Helping end the drought but not for my f—ing gain

The walls are closing in but I still chase the fame

Soon these ideas will let me make my own game

We are so prolific and yet my ideas feel horrific 

I wanna fight this lucrific but I gotta learn specifics

S— I’m done with waking up and accepting my reality

Chin check mother f—er look at me and say I agree

Now lemme try one more time to escape this timeline 

My pen is all is all I got it let’s me stretch a fine line

Hold a sign fight for my life but there it is again

My weapon it’s a pen it gonna carry me to the end

Hypocrites critique my words but the metaphor they speaks 

Allows for shallow s— to look far to deep

Let the clip keep rolling and expand these plans I have

If I’m lucky I might just find own candy land 

Keep putting out a new name cause your fear our colorific 

These ideas are specific mother f—er we prolific

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