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

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

Sometimes, often…as I look off into the sunset,

I find myself asleep with open eyes
standing off to the side of a dusty road
in the middle of somewhere.
I can feel the appreciation of the sky
as it melts into a soft ambition
of radiance…and I hear the sounds of joy

whistling the soft song of familiar voices.
They echo, vibrate and are heard
as I listen to silent winds tiptoe
around the egos of thirsty trees and through the thoughts
of abandoned sidewalks. Through this vision of promise

life, itself, is a journalist
watching, waiting and writing the verse of a new day
where poetry’s eye ascends
into the horizon of tomorrow’s sunrise.
© 2012
Tarringo T. Vaughan

I once stood unknowing, unaffected, untouched

and uninspired

by their brilliance:  words sprinkled

on a canvas

abstract

in their meaning and obsolete in their influence.

I had no connection to their worth

as they were strangers to my intelligence.

To be honest, I found them quiet boring

and to me they were just whoring

for interpretation.
They, the words, were dressed up in tight similes

with high heeled diction

cruising around the boulevard of my mind

telling me that they had what I needed

but it would cost me inspiration

for a good time and my complete heart

for a really good time
The poets were their pimps

and these hustlers, the words, worked hard

to get my attention but I avoided

their temptation

as I refused to be just another john

desperate enough for quickie thought

from a meaningless stanza

until one day I saw those words

and their pimps
cry.
One day I begin to see them

dance the language of love,

orchestrate the sound of death

and sing the blues of injustice
yes,
I saw deeper and behind the overdone

make-up of meter and begin to understand

their demand.

They weren’t just splattered any longer–

they were arts of genius who finally lured

me into a mind seduction that stroked

my thoughts and inspired my emotions.
I asked how I too could be a pimp

But I already had become one because they, the words,

started belonging to me.

I became them and they became me

framed together in illustrations of relevance.
Now I am a portrait of a poet

So hang me up and enjoy me,

marvel at the texture of my lyrical voice,

capture the brightness of my sentence structure

and admire the fortitude of my emotion
because my own words have painted me

and now I art-iculate this poetic romance

for the world to see.

© 2015 Revised

Tarringo T. Vaughan

The Thirty-Ninth Song

            Written April 27, 2015

Time only pauses but for one day

and it is during this stillness of life that I take

the time to find my own reflection  through

the shadows of yesterday,  It is during this hesitance

that I log my thoughts into the journals

of tomorrow.

Years ago when I was the mirror of innocence,

I used to celebrate this day as if

the tomorrow I stand within today was miles away.

My mind would always sway

in a way that made me temporarily

rest the stranglehold poverty had over me.

I would always play to the many amusements of the world

Just long enough to drown out the loud

cries of shattered dreams around me.

I saw the tears, but pretended to be blind

to the fears within me, but that didn’t mean

they weren’t there.

I was just a child back then, but time

still only paused  but for one day.  It was always a moment

that allowed me to smile and roam through

the streets of life freely without sacrifice,

but that didn’t mean the sacrifice wasn’t needed.

Today, as I celebrate the brink of a new decade

in my life, I applaud my own growth as a child

who found away to smile through the challenges

that faced me.  I highlight all the times

my adolescence was bullied by prejudice.

Still somehow, I was able to rise above

the difference of my skin and prosper.   I recognize

my young adulthood when homophobia

threatened paralyze my mind

into a self-hatred .

Still somehow, I was able to become

a complete man accomplished; a married man

defined and a poetic man inspired.  Time only pauses but for one day,

and on this day, my day of birth, I salute

the next chapter as my time on this earth

moves forth.

© 2015

Tarringo T. Vaughan

…and isn’t it ironic how you find the growth in yourself that you felt would always be hidden.  And that growth is like a ticking time bomb just waiting to be triggered by fate.  For me that explosion usually happens after a mistake or situations of being at the wrong place at the right time.  Times that I feel like a character perfectly scripted by a screenwriter to be the plot point to transcend the ongoing action of my own existence.  Some say ‘shit happens’ as an excuse to give up on what was meant, but not I.  No I embrace all the shit happening as my chance to find that growth that plays hide and seek with my self-definition.  Without the shit happening at the right times I wouldn’t be the main character in my own sequel.  I would just be the observant silhouette watching my own life rolling with the ending credits of wasted time.

And isn’t it ironic how your thought process changes as that same shit happens.  I didn’t think I would be a fucking poet writing and writing to the masses who decipher my expression into the many interpretations of a man complicated by chance.  Everything I thought wouldn’t happen to me have happened too early but perhaps at the right time.  I wouldn’t have made connections if it wasn’t for loss and I wouldn’t have made many transgressions if it wasn’t for fear.

Yes…fear

Because there were times, and still are times I want to fun from the clarity that will continue my growth of further exposure.  To befriend poetry and leadership in the midst of an alternative lifestyle where childhood fears because I was the quiet one and the unseen one.  And now I stand in the eye of observers inhaling with anticipation my awakened silence.   So it’s pure irony to me that I have shifted into every reason I hid behind silence.

Many of those reasons being sculptured by success.

But why fear success and exposure?  Because then you have no choice but to live when irony checks for a pulse.

Life peeks at me just to make sure I’m living

© 2009

I listened to the clutch of her heart
whisper an apology asking for the forgiveness/of my hunger.

I wasn’t mad at mama,
she was younger;

younger than most mother’s.

Twenty-one years of age
standing in welfare lines
reaching
for free cheese and powdered milk
to go with the half empty jar of mayonnaise
and three slices of bread
sealed with a rubber band
to protect
from the rats and roaches.

I didn’t like when mama cried

because I knew how hard she tried

to hide the desperation that strangled her;
to fight back against the deep kicks of poverty
that was like a bully on a playground
laughing and tripping
until she was just tired of falling –

but she kept strong for me,

because a five year old didn’t know
the strange man at the door
was there to shut off the gas

and a five year old didn’t know
the rent was two months late
because the fifty seven dollars

worth

of food stamps just weren’t enough
to keep food on my plate

and a five year old didn’t know
his daddy was just a sperm donor,
more like a dead beat cloner.

I didn’t like when mama cried

but She did

and didn’t hide her tears
to well…because her eyes
always would sing to me

the blues

andt they told me, with a soft voice,

that things would be alright
and they eventually were

because my eyes were enough

to give her the lyrics of strength; lyrics
which created a song still echoing

and spinning on the turntable of life

I’ll always remember mama’s tears.
They flowed to give me a future;
a future built off struggle and commitment
and those tears were the fuel
that energized our survival
but still,

I didn’t like when mama cried

because even within the silence of her smile,
I heard the blues in her eyes.

© 2009
Tarringo T Vaughan
“Tears Of A Poet”

It is when I open my mind that I – not only see – but recognize
that I am just one of many questions
who camouflage as the answer trying to find a way out
of the curiosities and possibilities locked and chained
inside the cages of isolated thought
with mental freedom being held hostage by the knowledge

that I am just one of many poets
trying to stand strong against the inertia of time
held back only by fear and the protection
of my own escape – desperate to rise
but sinking in my own environment of unreached
dreams that dangle out of reach but right there
for the taking,

but until I realize
that I am just one of many aspects
in an abstract world, I can only be recognized by literary progression
and the ability to aspirate through the suffocation
of a crowded maze of imitation as one of many
trying to find the correct path towards translation
of the mind and find the focus

to stand tall upon the concrete stairs
of creativity,
because without creative innovation,
a destination to stand apart only justifies
the paths leading to dead ends where possible dreams
remain uninspired.

And without distinction I am one of many poets
translating words into nothing
but just words
sculptured from meaningless expression;
an expression that can only be defined
when I find that way towards transcendence
and step away from being one of many
into the spotlight where I am one in many
unlocking the chains of my voice
to become one me

© 2009
Rewritten 2011
Tarringo T Vaughan

They were reminders of who I used to be,
just a child exploring the playground of life, unafraid;
filled with laughter, much to be taught
and together we all learned
how to grow and how to fear, how to fail
and how to care
on the street’s of yesterday’s past.

Together, we were the reunion of innocence
as I looked into each eye. I was reminded
of how we each wanted to reach the sky,
some of us never left the ground,
while others fly high.
But we will always be connected,
each of us a product of a place that will
never forget our name, a place where each of us
is a vision of yesterday’s past.

© 2010
Tarringo T. Vaughan

A moment of greatness is when one recognizes
his own identity.  I was just a young boy,
barely fourteen years of age staring down at a blank
piece of yellow lined paper with a pencil
twirling in my right hand. There were so many
things to write but my mind couldn’t find
the voice to articulate my emotions; the words
wouldn’t formulate the thoughts hidden deep
down inside of me. I was a young boy, barely
fourteen years of age searching for his expression.

I looked out the window and saw life
slightly tapping against the smudged glass and I watched
the wind tickle the clouds as the sun played
peek-a-boo with my vision. It was a moment that stood still;
a moment I found the birth mark of my soul to be
the words I couldn’t grasp clearly enough

until I allowed every sadness and every joy
to caress my heart. I allowed my every dream
to hold witness to the paths of my hope
and I allowed my every fear to breakthrough
the silence of an adolescence nameless and voiceless
defining himself
as the pencil begin to write the many
conflicts of growth

and the many transparencies of discovery.
I looked within me to find the self; I looked
within me to discover transcendence and in that moment;
the greatest moment—just a boy barely fourteen years
of age, I found the language of written identity.

© 2011
Tarringo T. Vaughan