List my broken tongue on your perfect English
My black mind around your literature these burnt

Hands on your white canvass
I wrote when I couldn’t tell an essay from a scribble written

On a bathroom stall Shakespeare from an illmatic verse.
I watched the student’s heads bow as if in prayer

Silence hug their thoughts palms grip pencils mark,
Was uneasy with their religion where I’m from to kneel

Is worse than living quiet’s a sound to avoid
Yet I was there I put the one thing I possessed

On that blank sheet told the only story I know
The one where the hero bleeds down someone’s

Dim lit hallway with an ach’n for life
and a good grade from the Lord

© Demitri Tyler

Excerpt from the book “Measuring For Balance”

Visit Author Page At:
http://www.ctupublishinggroup.com/demitri-tyler.html