The Possibilities of a Poet - Maya Angelou

Poets tell the stories of our world,
Like that of a 16 year old girl
Who refused to be told what she could not do
Her name was Maya Angelou.
She wanted to conduct street cars, but they refused to give her an application
She was called names and insults but that never broke her determination.
She went back every day for two weeks
And became the first female of color to conduct down those San Francisco streets.
She was a poet, Grammy winner, best selling author, who accomplished many things,
Like her autobiography, I know why the caged bird sings.
Where she described facing racism as like being locked in a cage which keeps people in, but it also keeps others out,
Like the young girls she describes who bullied her throughout.
But what do you do when you're age 10,
And the world makes you look at someone and say, "you two can't be friends"
And society separates you
From someone awesome like Maya Angelou
I guess in a way, racism made those girls victims too
Cause If they were friends with Maya they might have attended a presidential inauguration,
Where she read the poem "on the pulse of the morning" to our nation,
And said "each new hour brings new chance for a new beginning."
And though she's gone, the legacy of those words are still fitting,
Because her performance and poems,
Her presence on stage...
Taught us all together
We can break down that cage...
She was a phenomenal women
Dr. Maya Angelou
And if you work hard to achieve,
The next poet is you...

Supreme Possibilities - a poem about justice Sonia Sotamayor

Supreme possibilities of Justice Sotamayor

On the US Supreme Court

Nine justices serve

Their make decisions at the highest level,

That only an amendment to the constitution, or a future court decision can overturn.

Presidents nominate them for a lifetime appointment.

Congress and the senate vote to confirm “The Honor,"

Like in 1981 with the first female justice

Sandra Day O'Connor.

Supreme Court justices work hard and are driven to achieve more.

One example is justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Her life story’s unique

She calls it “My Beloved World.”

Even though she had a tough time when she was a young girl.

Her dad passed away at a young age,

She was diagnosed with childhood diabetes,

She had to learn a new language

Some things were not so easy.

Money was tight, housing projects inner-city,

But she would not be knocked down when she faced adversity.

She works to share her lessons

To be an Inspiration to kids

She finds time to give back

By going to events like Bronx children’s museum’s “Dream Big."

So when a case gets moved up from a lower court it can be a historic issue that needs a resolution...

And each justice makes a decision based on their interpretation of the Constitution...

They make judgements that are often split and they don't always agree.

But there's one judgement that's unanimous - to sit on this court - education is the key.

To unlocking the all important question of... What type of judge will you be?

Fear

The enemy of progress,
Betrayer of ideas.
Ally of the status quo,
Claims victims every year.
The father of racism,
The mother of bigotry,
Its children hide in shadows
Secretly impacting history.
Weary of exposure
Fear masks all revelation,
Wearing armor made of secrets
Forged in lowest elevation.
A hero rides to challenge fear
On horse named understanding.
The heroes name is wisdom,
"No Fear!" she calls commanding.
Her steed composed of pure light
Most shield their eyes at first,
But hero can reverse fears curse--
And wounds begin to nurse.
And all across the world
Watch villain fear, disperse.

by TimRWoods

The Genie

            Being young can feel like standing in the center of a maze. A genie appears and drops a treasure chest beside you. The genie looks at you and says, “If you successfully navigate the maze, you can keep all the treasure you can carry. But you cannot pick up any pieces that fall to the ground.”

            So you reach inside, trying to pick up as much treasure as you can possibly hold. You lock your arms and angle your elbows towards your body. Your hands are filled with heaps of precious jewels and gold coins.

            You take long, slow steps, watching gold coins fall through your arms with each movement. Every roadblock you encounter leaves you frustrated because you must go further back the way you came, and you lose more treasure along the way. As happy as you are about the treasure in hand, it is difficult to avoid looking back at the treasure that has already fallen.

            The journey is stressful. You hear stories of others leaving the maze with vast wealth. You are anxious to get to the exit before you drop even more treasure. After a few more tries, you finally reach the end. You’re holding a dozen gold coins in each hand and a few precious jewels strung around your neck.

            There is a troll standing in front of the gate. “One gold coin to pass,” the troll says.

            Beside the troll is an old man who is kneeling down, empty-handed and crying. He has stumbled along the way and dropped all of his treasure. Frustrated, you ignore the man and start to think about how little treasure you’ve got left. For every piece in hand, you’ve dropped five to the ground. You grab a golden piece, and place it into the troll’s stubbled palm, anticipating the moment you can exit the maze with your reward.

            The gate opens. You clutch all of your coins tightly as you prepare to leave. Before you walk through the gate, you look back at the old man, who is still crying. You think about how you have treasure in hand, and you’re unhappy, but that man would give everything he had just to have a fraction of your wealth.

            You hand the troll one more coin and tell him it’s for the old man. The old man hobbles beside you and thanks you as he exits the maze. The troll smiles and transforms into the genie. “Now I will grant you your wish,” he says as he waves his arms. As you leave the maze, you walk outside and realize that nothing has changed. You’ve got the same number of gold coins, you are wearing the same sweaty clothing, and your feet still hurt. You go home and place the treasure on your dining room table. As you look at the treasure that remains, you realize that you were prepared to come home upset. Instead, you think about how lucky you are to have come home with any treasure at all. For the first time in a while, you smile.

            It turns out that the genie granted your wish after all.

You’re happy.

            All it cost was a single gold coin.

- Tim R. Woods

Chasing a dream

A land of historical dreamers
Who had the courage to defy the odds.
Great Americans forged their path
Though others called them frauds.
The wright brothers were called hoaxes
MLK was urged to wait.
But he preached the "fierce urgency of now,"
Just like Lincoln won the debate.
Amelia Earheart chased dreams skyward
Though it would be her last flight.
But her journey continued for all time
As women were seen in new light.
Every dreamer faced challenges
Many died before their time
But are celebrated today.
Who will be the next in line?
This poem was inspired by Langston hughes - A Dream Deferred http://www.cswnet.com/~menamc/langston.htm

The Wait is Finally Over M-DJ is available online now

The Modern QL Crisis

High Aspirations

 

    It seems like every time we see someone in their twenties on TV, they are one of three things:

    A sports star.

    A musician.

    Or a hair-pulling diva, fighting over a man who promises her fifteen minutes of fame—and twenty minutes of relationship.

    When we were little, we were told that we could be "anything" we wanted to be. We spent our entire lives being conditioned to reach for the stars, and we believed what we were told. We weren't stupid; we just had high hopes for life. But somewhere along the line, society took our high aspirations and turned them into unrealistic expectations.

    We didn't understand that spending our lives expecting to touch the stars might ultimately leave us unhappy, even if we reached the stratosphere. How were we supposed to know that a great deal of success was not guaranteed to happen at an incredibly early age?

    We know that our friends are smart and believe in doing good things like volunteering, and raising money for worthy causes. But when we turn on the television, we mostly see young millionaires, or young idiots. And it seems like those are the only depictions of young people.

    We grew up idolizing musicians, movie stars, and sports figures. They told us to "be like" all of these people who typically achieve their success in their teens, or early twenties. And when we became teenagers, all of a sudden, here comes reality TV! They were literally picking people off the street and giving them everything they could want! But for every person who made it on the show, there were thousands of others who were absolutely crushed if they didn't make it! And the reason they were crushed… was because they knew that they were chasing a young dream. A dream that was not likely to be attainable past a certain age. These contestants knew that if this specific dream did not come to them right now… then, it probably never would.

    When we think about our dreams being fulfilled, we imagine ourselves as being young when it happens. We try so hard to work for specific companies, or perform specific jobs, and when we don't achieve those goals, the rejections are crushing… because we have all been raised to believe that we have a decent shot at achieving many of the dreams that are so prevalent in our lives.

    My generation grew up wanting things.

    Toys with commercials that end with the phrases like, "collect em' all," or dream-houses that just weren't the same unless they had every accessory.

    Today, we want to have access to everything that we like, whether it's having thousands of songs on our computers, or hundreds of friends linked to us via social networking. We multi-task by watching TV while chatting with five friends on our laptops and our best friend on our cell phone. We want to squeeze as many tasks as possible into our free time, because it never seems like we have enough time to do all of the things we want. We can access the world at our fingertips, but many of the answers we seek seem so far away.

    When we were growing up, those answers came to us exactly when they were supposed to. If we couldn't beat a video game, we found a walkthrough. If we asked someone to a dance, they'd say "yes," "no," or "I'm already going with someone." We got the results to our exams when they were supposed to arrive… and if we failed… they'd tell us the steps we needed to take to pass.

    Soon enough, our answers started coming to us on-demand.

There is a reason we get mad when our friends don't text us back within five minutes, or why so many of us get exasperated when we apply to jobs, and fail to receive a simple rejection e-mail.

It's because…

    The answer "no" is better than no answer at all.

    We demand instant answers—and usually get them.

    But all of a sudden, the things we deem important no longer come within a set timeframe. The answers are not readily available. And when we seek out the answers, they stop coming in the forms of strategy guides and tutorials but in the forms of "top seven things you need" or "five essential steps to…" And even though it wasn't easy to learn long division in grade school, when we followed the exact steps, it always seemed to work out the way it was supposed to. The Quarter Life Crisis is the first time in our lives that it takes time to get the answers to the things that matter to us, and the crisis sets in seemingly overnight.

    We are dealing with this in a mature manner. Many of us joke about it and continue about our business. Studying for an exam in our free time, or working full time while taking night classes. We don't necessarily believe that we are all going to live the dream lifestyle every day… but in the back of our minds… many of us believed that a fair amount of success would come to us very early in our lives, and when we found out what it took to even achieve the basic things we wanted, the results simply caught us off guard.

    Everyone posts all of the best pictures, reveals all of the funny stories, and celebrates all the milestones. We share the "great," the "good," the "cool," the "funny," the "interesting," and the "wild," in a virtual high school reunion of profiles and status updates. We are provided with mini summaries of people's lives through social networking and we typically walk away saying… wow, they're doing pretty well. It seems like everyone around you is doing well, because most people only tell you about the good things in their life. But what happens on those days when we aren't doing so well?

    We spent our entire lives going in the "right direction."

But now for the first time the path is no longer decisively clear. The quarter life crisis is about facing uncertainty in a world where so many things always seemed to make sense. A world where we spend all this time, making choices that will affect the rest of our lives, but we wonder what happens if we don't make the right ones?

    We have to achieve to get what we want, but what if we don't want what we achieve?

    America is the land of opportunity. The land of adventurers who would pack up all of their possessions and go West in order to stake a claim. I started writing this piece wondering how we define the modern American dream. I wanted to explain how my gene-ration was being forced to buy into this ideal of happiness that would never be delivered. But over time, I realized that I did not have the right perspective.

    While I was sitting here blaming modern society for these ills, I thought of my friend's great-grandparents, who came to this country from Austria believing that the streets were paved with gold. But when they arrived, they packed into tenement houses and sacrificed in hopes of putting bread on the table. Friends of mine were complaining about applying to jobs and not getting a response, but our great grandparents were facing employers who posted signs that said… "Irish… Italians…Blacks… needs not apply."

    Why was I viewing this Quarter Life Crisis like it was something new?

    It sounds like those travelers who ventured West were going through the same thing we were. Those explorers did not have it easy. They traversed a very difficult path, in which many people got sick along the way, and a great number arrived to discover that all of the gold had been removed from the pay dirt. Did they give up because they didn't have their specific dream fulfilled? No. They built general stores and formed small towns, because they knew that they had made the right decision when compared with the prospect of never having ventured at all.

    I wrote this because my Quarter Life Crisis stems from the struggle to understand whether I'm making the right decisions in life. It's not easy to admit that I don't know, because the goal of writing is to come up with a resolution. I should be taking the term, Quarter Life Crisis and pairing it with action words like "Mastering…" "Coping with…" or "Overcoming..." That would be the most effective way to package this idea to the reader. Make them believe that I am an authority on this topic, and that they will walk away with direct knowledge of the inner workings of every emerging adult of the millennial generation. But I do not write the words on this page as an authority. I write these words simply as a recent graduate who is struggling to figure things out. But that may be the point of all of this.

    Maybe our parents were right to instill this value of the "possible" in us.

    Maybe we do live a world where we can be whatever we want, or make it our reality through ingenuity. This piece was supposed to be a reflection on the promise of a dream made simple, and how it wasn't as simple as advertised, but when I look at the possible things in life, sometimes I feel like it's not so bad to dream. Perhaps that is that point of a dream. It is one of the few things left in life that can never arrive on schedule.

    A dream cannot be purchased on-demand.

    You can't save a dream, or replay it, or catch it next week. A dream is a story that must be experienced first-hand, with an ending that can only be ruined if left untold. We need to have dreams, because we need to have things in life that are not handed over with the expectation that one day, we will be able to obtain more. Whether you are living the dream, working to live your dream, or just daydreaming, the simple fact that you have the opportunity to dream at all makes life great.

TimRWoods.com