She Gave Me Life

(A Mother’s Day Tribute)

Her smile shared laughter when pain and poverty

challenged her soul.  Her eyes sparkled joy

when sadness weakened her courage

…but she stayed strong

because through her journey on this earth

the gifts she birthed

were the reasons she knew she belonged

she was just sixteen years when she labored

me into this world, instantly transforming

into a woman as she held me in her arms

and from that moment she gave

me vision, as through her eyes

I found my path towards success.  There were sticks

and stones on those long, winding roads, but she showed

me how to keep going and never like fear

blind my ability

she gave me talent, as through her artistry I learned

the skills of written language.  There were times doubt threatened

to challenge penmanship, but she taught me

how to find the poetic language of my heart

she gave me strength, as through her struggle

I learned to never give up.  There were times when the skies

darkened and drenched me with internal pain, but she guided

towards the sunshine, brightening the confidence

of my definition

and she gave me hope, as through her being

I learned how to love.  There were times I felt

locked in a closet, afraid to be me and afraid to feel, but

she accepted everything I am, giving my individuality

the freedom to heal

though I miss her presence still,

I celebrate her memory,

I celebrate her continued nurture

as I will always be thankful

She gave me life.

© 2020

Tarringo T. Basile-Vaughan

6:58 A.M the sky cried

through the misery of darkened skies

the rain came down

harassing sleepy eyes

and solemnly splashing

against drowning curbs;

it bullied

blind windshields and bloated

thirsty fields

it welted drowsy highways

and feed angry puddles

flooding hurried streets – like a tempered

soul the rain emptied

causing the morning

to surrender in defeat

before soothing into a soft spoken

drizzle.

Then after the rain,

the sky smiled

releasing a greeting of good morning

down upon the subtlety of life

now awakened.

© 2012

Tarringo T. Vaughan

August 28th

A Four family house, all white with a trim of red;

stain glassed windows and steps of concrete stone.

A house no longer a home is now a picture frame

where memories still live

and now it stands there alone.

The scent of nana’s cooking still lingers/an aroma

I can smell from all those Sunday’s past where we

use to all gather just to inhale the natural perfume of her soul.

I still see her in that kitchen feeding our appetites

and nourishing our hearts with love.

Now I smile as I hear that childhood laughter/the way

we played on the open streets of innocence

with no fear threatening the air we breathed.

I remember before times got wild how fulfilling it was

just being a child and growing with so much strength

surrounding me; a strength that still holds the foundation

to a home that will always house

the values of family and support.

Decades have now passed as growth has brought change

And loss but pieces of our hearts forever beat

in empty hallways with long lasting echoes of warmth

comfort and care.

A four family house, old, abandoned and condemned

now stands there alone. I still see pieces of my youth

sliding down the banister; pieces of family survival

still bonding in strength and rising with love.  It is empty now

and no longer maintained but there will always

remnants of what time left behind.

©2011 Tarringo T Vaughan

Winter’s Song

The snow fell today, and

and silence lifted throughout the streets;

no whistling winds or chilling air

blowing against the breath of my mind.

Just the stillness. This moment.  Here alone

making footprints on the dusting

over cobbled stone/with poet eyes dreaming the sky.

Walking, through the birth of winter night

I think of this freedom to feel and wonder why we search

to heal the past when the present

has embraced the strength that has grown into

our existence.  I wonder about the life that has already been written

and the life awaiting its journal entry upon the process

of thought and I continue to walk.

It is just me and the night.

I watch the tree branches crackle through the shadows

of moonlight

and listen to cars glide through

a harmony of traffic/barely in sight.  The capture

of the stars gleam down on the façade

where lampposts spotlight glimpses

ice stained curbs.  The temperature is barely literate

but it reads me.  It reads my shiver as a residue

of Malbec aromatizes my scented breath

with just a hint of sobriety.

Sometimes it takes a glass of wine and a long walk

in the brisk air to recognize

this romance with society/ as coldness

brings fourth the warmth of the heart and dampness

dries our minds to believe the process of renewal.

The snow fell today, and time hibernated

Inside a pause of a moment.  This moment.  These minutes

of conversing with life /searching and finding

my reason to belong

right in the embrace of Winter’s song.

© 2011

Tarringo T. Vaughan

uplift through the cracks of shattered sidewalks

where footprints of promise have faded…

and there are always fields of inspiration

where one finds the golden gleam of sunlight

shining down through gray skies of tears.

Standing on those sidewalks and in those fields

is a young boy who is chasing dreams.

You can see it in the spirit in his eyes

and within the language of every step he takes –

even in times of suffering and pain;

during times when a broken education system

challenges to sink him deep down into failure’s embrace

There is always a smile on his face

because that young boy knows he can catch those dreams

you can see within his hidden feelings of pain

on those dark days when the world

empties down upon him the wrath of poverty’s rain

and cast over him past shadows

of inequality’s seemingly unbreakable chain.

But he will never be broken, because that young boy believes

and will never stop chasing dreams

as within his heart there is pride standing tall

and beating through the vessels

of his mind

is courage paving paths of strength and prosperity.

He’s going to be somebody – that young boy – he’s going to be

the prize in tomorrow’s eye because within his soul

determination lies and within his spirit there awakens

an inspiration that will reach high and above his own limitless sky.

© 2016

Tarringo T. Basile-Vaughan

Poetry @40

“A Different Kind Of Blues”

A man does not become a man
until he unlocks himself
from the grasps of fear
and rise above the barb wired barricades
of challenge.

A man does not hold his tears
as prisoners of captivity,
for it is his tears
that becomes the fuel
to nurture his growth and healing.

A man does not use life
as an escape
from his own failures
but conquers his fate
as a weapon towards success.

And when blood has been shed
from his epidemic layer of confidence,
a man does not wilt down
upon bended knee and fade.

It is he who triumphs
against the army of ridicule
for in his beckoning he rises
from the dusts of defeat
and becomes a king amongst men.

© 2012

Tarringo T. Basile-Vaughan

Art By Antwan Sargent, www.i-d.vice.com

Voices silenced;

minds hypnotized, stereotyped by violence –

HANDS UP, DON’T SHOOT

the injustice of equality no longer paused on mute.

I write America

begging you to see, that even as an educated

black man the sirens of brutality still scream towards me.

At just the young age 12 police targeted my skin

not because I committed a crime, but simply

for being at the wrong place at the wrong time;

that was my only sin.

I fit the description – questioned

just because of someone’s fear and fiction.  I was accused of being

trouble even though I was not one to step outside

morality’s bubble.  I had dreams, but at that moment

I realized what hopes I had could be dashed

in a flash if that someone decided I was the one

that was the description; any chance of a future would’ve

been slashed.

I was presumed guilty, but what they never assumed

was my innocence, because I was –

I was just a child coming home from school;

A poetic dreamer who wasn’t even considered cool

I was a mama’s boy studying to find a way

to escape the inner city of poverty and rise up in a world

that was constructed to hold me down, but in their eyes

there was nothing I could say.

Now today as I look back I frown, not because I was accused,

but because I allowed that moment to abuse

the mission of my mind to achieve and the intuition

of my heart to believe; any goals I had almost drowned.

I allowed that moment

to temporarily halt my desire to be a somebody.

Luckily it didn’t shrink me down into a nobody,

but it could’ve —

and that’s what scares me.  So I write America,

not for your sympathy or even your empathy–

I write to give you an example

of why the lives slain on the streets

matter,

of why those suffering daily just to survive

matter,

of why dark skinned children in failed education

systems matter,

of why those who fall victim to the cycle of welfare dependence

matter,

and most importantly why Martin, Malcolm and so many other’s who

marched on the streets of civil rights lost their lives

so that today’s Black Lives could Matter…just the same.

I write America — to give the ink of courage and equality

a name.

Tarringo T. Basile-Vaughan

© 2016

Poetry @ 40

Somethin’  was a knockin’ at the door this morn’

I said somethin’ sad was a knockin’ at the door this morn’

and I didn’t want to get up to see what was a knockin’ at that door

because I was feelin’ kinda down you see; yes I was feelin’

down and dreary and I was even too lazy to pick my mind

up off this dusty floor.

Mama always said there would be days like these; she said

there would be days where the sun wasn’t gonna shine.

She said “Hell, the sun don’t owe us a damn thing”

but we still will have to pick up our hearts and sing.

She said we were born to have the blues and I had them

this mornin’ because the knockin’ at my door wasn’t gonna stop

til I answered the door to my internal pain.

My heart felt like shit and my feelings were arguing

with my morals; my common sense was even growlin’

when my conscious decided to start a howlin’

I had the blues and I had them bad.  I felt the fingertips

of my anger snappin and the energy from the shoe bottoms

of my sadness tappin

because I was brokin’ with my tears steamin’ and smokin’

from a different kind of love walkin’ out that door

and mama said there would be days like these

but she didn’t tell me it would hurt this bad.

© 2010

Tarringo T. Vaughan

In summer, the song sings itself.
~William CarlosWilliams
I hear the songs again.  Back when my mind
was in the body of innocence – before growth
when adolescence stood still in time
and the playfulness of youth
filtered through the poetry

of nursery rhymes.  I hear the songs again.  Memories
dancing on aged sidewalks of granite decay
just beneath sunsets of golden brown

– drifting off into the brilliance of another day.

We played.  Girls double dutch(ed) to the rhythm
of freedom – pigtails sweating within the humidity of laughter
as smiles journeyed through the warm winds of hope

and us boys played tagged.  Running freely through streets
where dreams had promise.  Our shouts

were the lyrics of energy as childhood synergy
is still heard through many centuries of June.

I hear the songs again
in summer.  Back when the genius of sunrise
lit up the playgrounds of imagination.  A time when
a child’s eyes orchestrated
the perfect vision of  summer’s sky –

I hear the songs again.
© 2012
Tarringo T. Vaughan

if there were no words – I wonder how he would’ve
taught the world about deferred dreams if there was no way
to write the blues.  I wonder what would become of language
if the fears of Shakespeare didn’t tell tales
in old English rhyme and didn’t retell history in line
after line of rhythmic poetry  — I wonder if the beat poets

would ever be – if they weren’t allowed to write
the bullshit we all thought but were afraid to pronounce
in four letter words.  What would’ve become of Poe & Plath
with the ability to communicate the dark maze
of the mental wrath?  And would there be a Bukowski
if words couldn’t express their anger about the digestion of life
in the transformation of obscenities

yelling off pages of obviated temper tantrums.  Without words
the world would be a population of
mimes; faces written with no expression and histories told
with no embrace of future challenge and without words

the language of poetry would be absent of style.  The grammar
of our emotion would be lost in the evolution
of silence and then there would be no one to discover
our internal voices and where would I be –  If there were no words

to discover the poetics of my heart.
© 2012
Tarringo T Vaughan