Poetry for the Soul - SANDRA M. REED

SANDRA M. REED

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Using Haiku Poems in The Fight Club, I used music to highlight the themes: denial, realization, acceptance, and escape.

Without just one nest
A bird can call the world home
Life is your career

Flowers bloom and die
Wind brings butterflies or snow
A stone want notice

A tiger can smile
A snake will say it loves you
Lies make us evil

Raindrops on roses
Happy Disney animals
This makes my parts hurt

Watching the white moon face
The stars never feel anger
Blah, blah, blah, the end

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"Our Hands Need Cleansing”

By Sandra Reed
May 5, 2010

African American hands are still soiled, bruised and scarred.
When I see African Americans homeless with their hands out begging for money or food,
When I see African Americans in long welfare and unemployment lines waiting to sign papers,
When I see African Americans on the streets drinking, smoking marijuana, snorting cocaine and injecting heroin,
When I see African Americans shooting guns, killing their own brothers and sisters,
When I see African- American children being abused by parents that just don’t care,
When I see African Americans still waiting for Uncle Sam and Poverty Pimps to feed and shelter them,
When I see African Americans being humiliated and defeated,
When I see African Americans with no values, integrity, dignity or pride,
I am an African American, and I see that our hands are still soiled, bruised and scarred.
Written by Sandra M. Reed

Believe

By Sandra Reed
September 13, 2012

Believe in me.
Believe in who I want to be.
Believe that I can make it.
Believe that I can take it.
Believe I walk by faith.
Believe I walk by sight.
Believe I have hope.
Believe I have hope in the Redeemer.
Believe I am loved.
Believe God loves me.

Believe, believe, when all else fails believe

Believe God is the answer.
Believe God is present.
Believe the Counselor is with you.
Believe He exists.
Believe He died for our sins.
Believe there is redemption.
Believe no man but God
Believe that He is the Healer
Believe He has the cure
Believe God is love.

Believe, believe, when all else fails believe.

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“The Negro Woman”

By Langston Hughes

Children, I come back today
To tell you a story of the long dark way
That I had to climb, that I had to know
In order that the race might live and grow.
Look at my face -- dark as the night --
Yet shining like the sun with love's true light.
I am the dark girl who crossed the red sea
Carrying in my body the seed of the free.
I am the woman who worked in the field
Bringing the cotton and the corn to yield.
I am the one who labored as a slave,
Beaten and mistreated for the work that I gave --
Children sold away from me, I'm husband sold, too.
No safety , no love, no respect was I due.
Three hundred years in the deepest South:
But God put a song and a prayer in my mouth .
God put a dream like steel in my soul.
Now, through my children, I'm reaching the goal.
Now, through my children, young and free,
I realized the blessing deed to me.
I couldn't read then. I couldn't write.
I had nothing, back there in the night.
Sometimes, the valley was filled with tears,
But I kept trudging on through the lonely years.
Sometimes, the road was hot with the sun,
But I had to keep on till my work was done:
I had to keep on! No stopping for me --
I was the seed of the coming Free.
I nourished the dream that nothing could smother
Deep in my breast -- the Negro mother.
I had only hope then , but now through you,
Dark ones of today, my dreams must come true:
All you dark children in the world out there,
Remember my sweat, my pain, my despair.
Remember my years, heavy with sorrow --
And make of those years a torch for tomorrow.
Make of my pass a road to the light
Out of the darkness, the ignorance, the night.
Lift high my banner out of the dust.
Stand like free men supporting my trust.
Believe in the right, let none push you back.
Remember the whip and the slaver's track.
Remember how the strong in struggle and strife
Still bar you the way, and deny you life --
But march ever forward, breaking down bars.
Look ever upward at the sun and the stars.
Oh, my dark children, may my dreams and my prayers
Impel you forever up the great stairs --
For I will be with you till no white brother
Dares keep down the children of the Negro Mother.