Ibrahim+Ridley

Poetry is above all, an approach to the truth of feeling.....a true poem will seize your imagination intellectually-that is, when you reach it, you will reach it intellectually too but the way is through emotion what we call feeling.- Murial Rukeyser

Flames go up high reaching the stars ahead Light together with radio waves, dead Light life organism alive and well Dark hands grope across to hell Huge globes of fire swallowing all sight Cleansing burning purifying shoots all to fright Futile running people scrambling about as I stand above laughing In oblivion wings stretch karma proving As I disappear I think how many sin I see bright lights burning my within Hands push and pull causing me wonder I feel salvation as I see all who blunder -//Ibrahim Ridley//
 * Apocalypse**

Fangs of Dragons Claws of lions Eyes of Eagle Flying through the air with wings of the hugest span Eyes that slice the soul Spilling fear into it fellow man A beast that can take the wind and make it its own But tears the sky with its claws and fangs Wisdom beyond the bone -//Ibrahim Ridley//
 * Ode To The Griffin**

Boils inside Hotter than soup Hotter than lava As it grows Grows inside Until it burns your veins And makes your fist jump -//Ibrahim Ridley//
 * Anger**

Brother of the blowfly And godhead, you work magic Over battlefields, In slabs of bad pork And flophouses. Yes, you Go to the root of all things. You are sound & mathematical. Jesus, Christ, you're merciless With the truth. Ontological & lustrous, You cast spells on beggars & kings Behind the stone door of Caesar's tomb Or split trench in a field of ragweed. No decree or creed can outlaw you As you take every living thing apart. Little Master of earth, no one gets to heaven Without going through you first. (analysis)-This poem has in its own way is a timeline. The history can be seen it goes from what he has seen in his home and what he has seen in the battle. The poem also has a “dark praise” like a sign of death maggots something that we all see as disgusting he praises only on the fact that it ends up eating the dead. No matter how powerful, it sounds like he looks at maggots as a force of nature rather than a bug that eats the dead. **Face-It by Yousef Kamunyakaa**
 * Ode to the maggot by Yousef Komunyakaa**

My black face fades, hiding inside the black granite. I said I wouldn't, dammit: No tears. I'm stone. I'm flesh. My clouded reflection eyes me like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning. I turn this way--the stone lets me go. I turn that way--I'm inside the Vietnam Veterans Memorial again, depending on the light to make a difference. I go down the 58,022 names, half-expecting to find my own in letters like smoke. I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash. Names shimmer on a woman's blouse but when she walks away the names stay on the wall. Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's wings cutting across my stare. The sky. A plane in the sky. A white vet's image floats closer to me, then his pale eyes look through mine. I'm a window. He's lost his right arm inside the stone. In the black mirror a woman's trying to erase names: No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

Lime by Yousef Komunyakaa Opens into a dust cloud of hooves **
 * The victorious army marches into the city, **
 * & not far behind tarries a throng of women **
 * Who slept with the enemy on the **
 * edge Of battlemnets. The stunned morning ****
 * & drums. Some new priests cradle **
 * Stone tablets, & others are poised **
 * With raised mallets in a forest of defeated **
 * Statuaray. Of course, behind them **
 * Linger the turncoats & pious Merchants of lime. **
 * What's Greek Is forged into Roman; what's **
 * Roman Is hammered into a ceremony of birds **
 * Headed east. Whatever is marble **
 * Burns in the lime kilns because **
 * Someone dreams of a domed bathhouse. **

My poetry by Ibrahim Ridley. My poetry is usually free-write but I occasionally rhyme on certain poems. I cannot describe my poetry but to me it’s just a feeling written out on paper so if it doesn’t flow with my pen, paper, hand, arm, and mind. When I start writing I cannot stop writing unless I’m completely satisfied with my current emotion or attitude. I’m not good with restricted poetry such as sonnets, almost anything with rhyme schemes. However, I have a certain talent for haikus. The moods of almost all of my current poems are dark themes such as lost love, describing certain feelings of emptiness etc. I have also written happier poems that describes the feeling of flying or something as plain as the joy of a person when the look into the sky.