Mannequin (By Choice)

A mannequin by choice
You know you’re not real
You believe you’re alive
But you can’t truly feel
You have flesh of plastic
A hardened heart of stone
Wires for veins
And rigid iron bones
You cry acid tears
Scorching the green grass
Burns solidified, like
The scars of your past
You truly blend in
A source of envy to your friends
Shaped like flawless art
With sleek glossy skin
You have the whole world
Yet have an empty soul
You lay in bed at night
Wondering where it will go
You have a thousands friends
Without having one
To be crafted by hands
Forever the product of someone
To be loved only in lust
For an instant you feel alive
Only to be left
Feeling dead inside
You feel the emptiness,
Of having no vision to see
To be trapped inside
An invented personality
A mannequin by choice
Crying out to be free
Behind solid glass
On display for the world to see
A vision an entire nation
Aspires to be
A mannequin by choice
Seeking its identity.


J.A. Wine

Bitter Poet

Bitter poet…

Sittin’ there with a blank stare
Suckin’ a blunt
With kinks in your nappy hair
A pen in one hand
A pad in another
As you attempt to emulate
The darker brother
With passion you write
Anger on a page

Bitter poet…

“Filled with un-channeled rage
Worthless nigga’
With nothing good to say”
But that’s just what some say

Bitter poet…

You continue to write
Pen mightier than the sword
Maybe you’ve struck a chord
Or perhaps a nerve
As in the last
Dead last in your class
A brilliant lazy ass nigga’
Trying to escape his caste
By venting with blue ink

Bitter poet…

Angry at the world
Or the injustice you see?
Personally you’re free
So what is it you see?

Bitter poet…

Lazy as can be

Bitter poet…

The price of freedom
Wasn’t free.


J.A. Wine

Mask

I can no longer hide my despair
The happiness on
This mask I wear
A constant lie
Every second of my life
I jump off the ledge
With arms spread,
I take flight.
Carrying with me
My heavy load
The happy mask burns
It troubles me so!
I was the circus boy,
Flying on the trapeze
“He’s so amazing!
He does it with such ease!”
My apprehension was growing
Like nakedness, my fear showing
Nobody could tell,
My happy mask still on
As I fell
The crowd gasped!
A unison “whoosh” of air
I see dread on their faces
The children in despair
My mask comes off
For the very first time!
There’s blaring light,
Shining in my eyes…
There I lay,
On cold hard stone
My head still ringing
Where will my soul go?
My mask was still happy
Although broken in two
I feel free now,
As if I can begin anew.
The circus is panicked!
As I remain on the ground,
I could see them all shouting
But I couldn’t hear a sound
A quiet solitude
I feel at peace now
With this weight lifted off
A new joy has been found
My lips formed a smile,
For the very first time
Here at the end,
Of my lifetime of lies



J.A. Wine

Forgotten

Forgotten

To be remembered.
Is that the meaning of life?
Is aspiring to be greater,
A meaningless prize?
Immortality is,
A beautiful a lie.
For everything I touch,
Is both dead and alive.
The flowers in winter,
They shrivel and die.
But unlike me,
They will live again.
And then I’ll say,
“Hello my old friends!”
I’ll speak to them
As if they could
Understand or hear,
As I grow old and
Age another year,
Realizing someday that
I will not return.
My breaths turn to words,
Inscribed on a page
My thoughts,
The forgotten themes
Of another age
My aspirations;
Merely a dream…
Will I be forgotten
And laid to waste?
A simple tale told?
As the Generations
Come and go
So too,
Would everything I know?
Like soft music I fade,
Not quite dead,
Not quite alive,
To be heard,
That’s why I’m alive.
To be remembered
By anyone who would
Dare to peer inside.
Oh to be cherished,
Not forgotten,
Remembered,
Amongst all things.
To be as the flowers;
Renewed by
The dawn of spring.


J.A. Wine