Poetry of Orville Lloyd Douglas: I Still, Star of David, Unknown Territory

I Still

I still smell your breath when I brush my teeth
Your apology is so rancid and rotten as you
Slurring your words like a hobo
Swallowing my pride as I tip toe by you
Is like smashing a field of egg shells

I saunter into the bed turn my back not wanting to look at the labyrinth of you
I feel your anger
So strong it feels like a branding on skin
So hot, so, haughty, so hopeless
I don't want to remember you
Yet I still do

Star of David

Scatological statements smeared across doors is evidence of apathy and indifference
We are a darker shade our statements have no social currency no value
The language of alienation thrives here it grows like a cancer
The president waited seventy two hours to respond
Words are homicides that kill the respect we have for one another
Yet invisible codes exists when we speak out about white supremacy
If a Swastika was burned on a door
The results would be evident
The Star of David blinds me
It conceals the knives of hypocrisy
The bullets of false pretenses and concessions
Cloaks the sentences of double standards and betrayal
Millions of dollars available yet the security cameras don’t work

A speaker is blocked from talking about education and community uplift
The façade of unity is a dystopian nightmare
A pernicious lie that leads to the same detour
In the occidental world our thoughts are mute and dead
It casts an ominous cloud over all of us

Unknown Territory

They are afraid of nothing
Sacrifice means daily survival in this field of desolation
Ignorance is the decay of silence
Walking by dying dreams is easier then leaping past land mines
It vanishes just like reality
Blindfolded by the transparency of being caged
Hawks fly waiting to strike on false expectations
Handcuffed by the "few" that have access to words
This is like souls hemorrhaging
Leaking the melancholy through the rotten streets of hopelessness
If the almighty is divine why is death predicted by geography?
Where is the language of the heart?
Since when does climate change mean suicide?
Children drink the sewage like its cornmeal
Women scrub shredded garments in feces
Yet what about micro loans?
Aren't words nourishment for the soul?
Yet sentences, paragraphs, are a realization that thoughts are rage
If only they could understand it
Can anyone stand up?

Copyright 2008, Orville Lloyd Douglas. © This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.

Orville Lloyd Douglas graduated York University in Toronto, Canada, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History in June 2004. Orville Lloyd Douglas poetry has also been published in the anthology Seminal, Canada's first gay male anthology published by Arsenal Pulp Press in April 2007. Douglas poetry has also appeared in the Pedestal Magazine, Wilderness House Literary Review, and the Vermillion Literary Project. Orville Lloyd Douglas non-fiction has been published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Toronto Star, NOW Magazine, Xtra magazine, Word Magazine, Georgia Straight, and the New Zealand Herald.