This is pretty sweet. If you aren’t following this pirate, you’re missing out on some fine booty. I’m taking about his poetry. Geez
Read Tosha’s Book! – http://wp.me/p78s22-J4
Category: Poems
On Becoming a Raven
The beautiful edgy woman
with the death stare
is sure I’m a one way door.
The all American girl,
a one shot deal in
illuminated skin.
She would never suspect
that I drink in
crows like the sky,
that I find clarity in chaos.
that I drowned Barbie
in a pool of cement,
that I may look like a black and white
1950’s candy sweet darling.
But inside my heart wears
leather, tattoos, a storm brews
beneath my skin.
The years giving me
color and form.
taking me from
red blush to blood red.
as summer turns to fall.
Underscoring the
damp edges of my soul.
Finally, growing
into my backbone.
I’m the other side of her
projection now.
A soul reborn feral.
Finding beauty in asymmetry.
Nurtured by rainfall that pools
into darkness.
Filing my nails on thorns.
Naive Southern Belle no longer.
The nightingale turned
into a raven with teeth.
-Tosha Michelle
My Plea
Typical, I’m already lost
and you house is nowhere
in sight. Dusk is setting in
and there goes my light.
All day I sat near the
pine tree watching the
birds fly away from the cold.
The long limbs of the branches
shedding their yellow and gold.
Fallen leaves all around me,
crushed to the earth. I see
just the tip of the solitairy
orange leaf I have hoped for.
-Tosha Michelle
It’s a Trap
It’s a Trap
COIN
Written byJay JoyceZach DykeJoseph MemmelMore
I don’t know where I went wrong
Is it fate or just bad luck?
Tangled up like crawling vines
I’m back here for the hundredth time
I could wait for you
If you want me to
And it’s a trap my dear
And it’s a trap my dear Creep out for a midnight drag
You said you’d quit, this one’s your last
Maybe I take it all for granted
You only need me when you’re heavy handed
All the wasted youth
Tells a bitter truth
Oh, oh
And it’s a trap my dear
You weren’t always eager to follow
I could wait for you
If you want me to
Oh, oh
And it’s a trap my dear
Starlight
Sleep unraveling from her soul,
she takes his hand.
They walk through a garden
at midnight.
Her bare feet sinking into the
lushness of the grass.
The moon plays hide and seek
between the weeping willows.
In the morning, she won’t remember
her dream, but she will remember
a feeling and the residue of moon dust.
In a poem she’ll reflect on
how the stars drew near to her.
In words, those stars become
her constellations.
They are like a million hearts
yearning…. burning.
Her poem reaching back to
the sky. Beckoning-
-Tosha Michelle
Winter Song
Winter will always take the light.
The birds will go too.
The cold returns.
The leaves abandon the trees.
You live with it.
You survive.
Knowing it doesn’t matter,
you still hold the birds in the
lushness of green.
The magnolias bloom.
Alive in your mind.
-Tosha Michelle
Life in x’s and o”s
On those rare occasions when the
stars in the sky fail not to disappoint
And even the earth is winded from
the sky’s beauty.
Stop. Just for a moment
and let the night light absorb you.
Our lives are painted as simply and as
haphazardly as a pre schooler turnned loose
with their first art kit. Leaving a trail of x’s
and o’s behind us in the grass until the
entire lawn shifts.
Tonight, for a second, let’s tear away
the leaves from a trees and dance
with the branches to the song of
a whippoorwill
In the morning, the sun
will pull us forward.
-Tosha Michelle
Cold Heart
Our love was a dark continent
we shared, violent and untamed.
It was unholy and seductive and left
destruction in its wake.
We were wind and fire.
Hot beginnings and painted
roads that led to secret gardens.
How quickly heaven was lost to us
when the sky destroyed the night
and the night decimated the sky.
When the lightening struck
we weren’t surprised when
the tree limbs splintered.
Knowing the branches couldn’t save us.
The storm burning away what
was left of the twisted roots
but never the wildness of our hearts.
The moon and I still yearn
for the chaos. Stealing our
breath and taking out sanity away.
God, how I wanted the pain,
the pleasure to abide,
but you can’t control the weather
Now the aftereffect remains.
and the wind goes on.
Closing all the windows as the
chill sets in. The cold comes
and you live with it.
-Tosha Michelle
Feel This
What if feelings were simply
make believe, and the pain
we suffer just a made up thing?
But they aren’t.
They’re real, aren’t they?
How they rule out hearts.
We let them lead us around
and try to explain to our mates
why we just had to have one more
pair of shoes, or to our parents why
we snuck out of the house to
meet our boyfriend again.
I remember how I used them to
explain my relationship with a
higher power, but ended up
doubting, because I felt like a
prisoner about to be hung.
How quick the righteous were
to drop their blade of intolerance
of judgement. But I escaped.
Briefly, I was absent of feelings,
and free from authority. I thought
I had moved out from under the
snide mouth of the patent leather
of life, too naive to understand there
would still be judgement from those
other misconceived safe places.
My heart breaking like a glass.
Coca-Cola bottle on the sidewalk.
My life there between the cracks
and crevices, where it’s ninety-nine
degrees in the breeze,
but there is no breeze.
Pain grieving in the hot sun of truth,
and in my existence. Do we give into
the black and blue assortment of scars
in the making, or do we fight to move
past the doubt and adversity and
into a peaceful existence?
Can we choose happiness even
if our feelings have no proof?
-Tosha Michelle
Dream
Today I sat on a swing
and swung for hours.
I could do this forever.
Perhaps I’ll be a child,
cradle to grave.
Flying through the girlish shadows
of the magnolia trees.
Eternally in love with the beauty of life.
I am most myself when
I recall my innocence, the nectar of sweet fruit
You’re welcome to join.
Come swing with me.
We’ll sing a duet and watch
our melody fly high above the breeze
our lyrics floating into the evening,
marking the setting of the sun.
In the aftermath, we’ll sit moonlit, and heart swept.
There in the meadow with our spring minds
and a cotton candy glaze.
At peace we won’t begrudge
the extinction of the day.
-Tosha Michelle
My rendition of “Dream”
Everything I Never Told You 