Imani+Johnson

This is my poetry page!

"Poetry is the silent voice that is heard everywhere inside of us..."- Unknown


 * My Ode **

Raised with pure TLC after seeing the world From the city with the Arch to the city with the crime that's beloved At first site I knew you were my one and only My new love. We’ve been through a lot from thick to thin Just seeing you in the morning, always made me grin I’ve protected you and you’ve protected me We depended on one another like Honey and bees. Coming back home was supposed to be great Getting you from the airport increased my heart rate Nothing could tear my eyes from you Nothing could stop my love for you Soothing breaths mixed with calming eyes One of a kind, yeah that’s you Beautiful, silly, crazy, my number one prize The only thing to make me happy while I was blue Strong as a horse which backfired at times Walks were dreadful always such a climb It’s just you being in your natural state Beautiful and deadly but it was just your fate Without you there’s a hole in my heart Where your positive energy used to be Positive energy now residing in a new home All I have to ask is, have you already forgotten me?


 * My New Life (Sonnet) **

Never returning home to see loved ones On my own searching for new sanctuaries Missing warmth from my mother's hot cross buns Learning young to never trust, to stay wary Caution is key to surviving this life This life I have was not really my choice Having no control is a stabbing knife Cutting deep to my soul, taking my voice Remembering those good blissbul moments Now stripped away like stripping old lead paint Hard to rid, remembering as my lent Would they recall me as being a saint? Or remember me as this new darkness. The ghost of the past. My name is Sadness.


 * I Was Raised By.... **

I was raised by The Missourian and Pittsburg spawn Job changing just for fun Ideal neighbor, care taking "I worked hard to get where I am" Type of woman

A man to call when in need Could be mistaken for a superhero Known everywhere he walks As though he was famous "Just give me a call" Type of man

Went to Hell and back With stories irding on their shoulders Happy to share Whatever is helpful and informative "Need to know your history" Types of people

Sandy haired Grey eyed unlike no other Stands out but could care ess About presentation at times "A girl's got to dp what a girl's got to do" Type of parent

Law enforced kind of man Knowing wrong from right Due to his daddy's former job "I try to be useful not helpful" Type of parent

Hand holding To make sure your safe Enough to survive on your own "I'll always be there for you" Type of parents

I WAS RAISED BY MY  PARENTS

** The Trip to Writing Poetry **

Flowing sweetly through the waves of brain Sitting here believing I’m the master of all arts Waiting for it to finally hit me, Shouldn’t be hard since I’m full of smarts Rhyme after rhyme, thought after thought, This is such a pain.

Taught to use many descriptive words Tons of words coming in hordes None of them right enough to put pencil to paper As fast as they appear they turn to vapor Mystifying my body to a shock Now the door to the one shot to creativity is locked

What should be written, typed, said That hasn’t already been said No clichés, no repeating, let’s be different A block crashes down blocking all sights of a poetic movement Ideas ramming against the other side of the huge block As I attempt to scale the other side yearning for those ideas

A break is needed before having my breakthrough My mind travels to a different topic as it relaxes with a “whew” Thousands of seconds pass by without a glance back Thousands of seconds passed just to write a poet? Now that’s wack Rhyming is hard but not as hard as I make it to be Don’t have to go Shakespeare and use words like “thee”

Done with this poem that took to long to write For poetry you need the poetic light That fills your body and life with poetic words I would usually say poetry is strictly for literature nerds As the words I wrote flood back into me I realize poetry may actually be a part of

When I write poetry I always base my structure and words on memories. The memories could be really old, recent, good or bad. Or it could be a memory that I feel really strongly about such as my first poem which is an ode written about my dog that I had to give up. I felt really emotionally about giving her up and when I had to write an ode I just wrote how I felt about her. For my other poems I also wrote down whatever words came to my mind. Unfortunately because I just wrote down what my thoughts and feeling, my poems didn’t really flow. The first technique that comes to mind that really helps a poem flow well is rhyming. I tried my hand with creating a rhyme scheme in almost every poem. Rhyming in a poem is much harder than I thought because there are many words that rhyme together because you have to find a word that doesn’t obscure the message of my poem.

By: Mark Strand
 * Eating Poetry**

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees. Her eyes are sad and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone. The light is dim. The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll, their blond legs burn like brush. The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand. When I get on my knees and lick her hand, she screams.

I am a new man. I snarl at her and bark. I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

The poem achieves the sense of feeling like an animal due to the line breaks. This poem does have a set form. Each stanza only has 3 lines. Plus the last word of the first two lines in a stanza rhyme except for the last stanza where the words of the last two lines rhyme. There are periods in this poem, one after each line. Each line is very simple and easy to understand and because the content of the poem is about eating something, the poem makes it seem as though you are reading an animal’s thoughts. The effect the line breaks in this poem has on reader is imagery. It gives the reader a chance to actually image the scene the poet is writing about. The language of the poem is very informal and simple. The tone of the poem is smug because around the end of the poem the character seems to feel accomplished something by eating the poetry.

From the Long Sad Party By: Mark Strand

Someone was saying something about shadows covering the field, about how things pass, how one sleeps towards morning and the morning goes.

Someone was saying how the wind dies down but comes back, how shells are the coffins of wind but the weather continues.

It was a long night and someone said something about the moon shedding its white on the cold field, that there was nothing ahead but more of the same.

Someone mentioned a city she had been in before the war, a room with two candles against a wall, someone dancing, someone watching. We began to believe

the night would not end. Someone was saying the music was over and no one had noticed. Then someone said something about the planets, about the stars, how small they were, how far away.

The poem was able to create multiple images without confusing the reader by turning each stanza into one big question. It’s kind of hard to tell who this poem is addressing because there are so many different ideas combined into this one poem. Each stanza has it’s own idea or topic. So the poem is addressed to anyone who can relate to this poem; people who are interested in space or nature, or people who has experienced war. Almost every stanza starts off with “Someone mentioned” or “Someone was saying.” There is no rhyme scheme, which is good since it seems as though a rhyme scheme would slightly destroy the poem. “Someone mentioned | a city she had been in before the war, a room with two| candles | against a wall, someone dancing, someone watching.” This image is definitely not a metaphor because it actually describes an actual room. The poet used descriptive words and actually added objects, which helped create an image. It’s similar to how you need more details to draw a picture in art. First you have the room, then you can add the to candles and after finishing that image you have people dancing. Opposites in the poem are difficult to find. There are opposites such as ”morning” and “night.” However, those two opposites aren’t related to each other, meaning they are not in the same sentence or are part of the same idea. So there is “one sleeps towards morning” and then there’s “the night would not end.” Since those two lines are in two different stanzas they should not be considered true opposites. There are also no repeated images because as it was stated earlier, each stanza has it’s own idea. The lines start with going short then long. So it’s a pattern. Only once does an enjambment appear in the poem and that’s around the last stanza. It’s when the pattern of the poem changes. The poem is like a big question. This affects the reader because it makes them really think, kind of like a teacher teaching a child.

Man and Camel By: Mark Strand

On the eve of my fortieth birthday I sat on the porch having a smoke when out of the blue a man and a camel happened by. Neither uttered a sound at first, but as they drifted up the street and out of town the two of them began to sing. Yet what they sang is still a mystery to me— the words were indistinct and the tune too ornamental to recall. Into the desert they went and as they went their voices rose as one above the sifting sound of windblown sand. The wonder of their singing, its elusive blend of man and camel, seemed an ideal image for all uncommon couples. Was this the night that I had waited for so long? I wanted to believe it was, but just as they were vanishing, the man and camel ceased to sing, and galloped back to town. They stood before my porch, staring up at me with beady eyes, and said: "You ruined it. You ruined it forever."

The poet achieves great imagery and a sense of wonder through storytelling in the poem. It addresses an audience as though Mark Strand is telling a story about the oddness of a camel and man. The poem does not have a set form/structure. Repetition isn’t a problem in this poem besides the image of a man and camel walking together but that’s because the poem is about those two characters. This poem is filled with imagery and the parts of the poem that helps produce these images are the line breaks. The line breaks in this poem has a huge effect on the reader because it causes the reader to stop and imagine what’s going on. . “I sat on the porch having a smoke | when out of the blue a man and a camel | happened by.” The image depicted by these few lines is not a metaphor. This line uses small descriptive words that could be understood by any age group. Although the words are not very big or sophisticated, it is still very easy to create an image in your head. The language of the poem kind of sounds a little old-fashioned. Similar to how an old man tells a story and you are sitting on his front porch trying to imagine the scene he’s trying to depict in the poem. The tone of the poem is surprise, sorrowful, and thoughtful. This leaves the reader feeling the same way because it leaves you wondering what the camel and man’s purpose was.