I Am The Storm

 
I am the whistle
That taps your spine
Echoing bone and gristle
To play your mind
The barren lifeless leaves
That whirl the breeze
A chant in trees
Plants you on knees

I am the breath
That howls your name
An undead eternal death
Cast upon the flame
The perversion of sin
You exult with grin
Stripping me of skin
You could never win

From birth I was created and born out of a song that wasn't really love only lust of the skin and flesh but yet my life was not my own, as it belong to my mother who gave me birth to have life but yet that wasn't enough for it left me fatherless, with no man within my life to teach me on how to grow to be a real man raised by his father but all I had was just this empty feeling buried deep within my soul pulling at my heart questioning did he ever loved me his son.                                                    
                                                                   For as the years came and gone I grew up in an dysfunctional atmosphere that never felt like home were I felt safe and loved for even as those days and months passed by, my mother decided to marry a man that was not my father who was an abuser and a drinker of hard stuff for once when he got his mind fucked up, I became his punching bag as my own mother stood by saying nothing but that's why you need a man in your life to keep someone like you in line.                                              
                                                                     
For after to many years of the mental and physical abuse I fought back with the hatred that has been building up in my heart and mind making me cold as ice with evilness buried deep within my soul, but what it got me was a 5 year stay for a crime that I did out of abuse of my younger years but yet upon my release the streets is were I lived away from the abuse at the hands of someone eles.     But as time moved on and I grew up on the mean streets of East New York Brooklyn were hustlers roam among the dark shadows of the night upon the streets, that will teach you wisdom and knowledge from those who will show you what is real honor and respect, for a hard life that takes more than it gives for through those trails and tribulations I learned to crave my own way of life but even that came to a crashing end before it can begin as again had to pay the price in prison for living that street life.            
                                                                                                                                   But through all that I have been through and gone through it was my grandparents who saw within me that which that I couldn't see of thyself for it was my grandfather who taught me, how to be a real man and stand upon my own two feet to be me that which I have now become, as a man of heart and soul with emotions and feelings to know love with understanding with honor and respect to love the me I am.

I’ve been through a storm in a raging sea,
Beaten and battered by nature’s fury,
Lost in darkness as far as I could see,
The tempest was my soul’s judge and jury.

I’ve been blinded by the dreadful lightening,
Hanging on in the depths of the unknown,
Pummeled by monster waves it’s quite frightening,
Scared and terrified that I was alone.

I’ve been stranded in grim situations,
Losing faith and hope tossed in the vastness,
And then I felt a swift indignation,
Facing death my fear turned into madness.

I’ve screamed at gale winds and horrendous skies,
Arguing with the ominous thunder,
Mad as hell unafraid of my demise,
Roaring: Go ahead and pull me under!

I’ve survived the rage and live to tell the tale,
I‘ve reached safe shores that are sunny and warm,
When my fear disappeared after that sail,
I realized I too had become a storm.

 
I was brought to this place
as a rain storm, in an exodus,  
in a grand hope of a people
 
the color of another storm
that used to destroy
to make room for new life.
 
I was born in a land by the  
ocean, surrounded by palms;  
trees not native to the land.  
 
Of bean fields and eucalyptus  
& pepper trees, and makeshift  
 
film studios in barns, paying  
the extras in coin realm, before  
the First World War and talkies.  
 
And migrant workers in pickup
trucks, with their straw hats  
& bandannas, heading out  
 
to the orchards & vineyards  
at daybreak, like twilight,  
and the valleys still murky
 
with a low lying haze from  
smudge pots to ward off the  
chill that set in each evening.  
 
‘Til morning when even then  
you could see one’s breath  
in the air that settles deep  
 
in the lungs along with a  
faint sick of wildfire that  
had laid bare the hillsides,
 
blocking onshore breezes  
from the ocean. But still,      
while bareback on horses,  
 
one could taste the stench of  
carnage months following  
its aftermath. And yet,  
 
it all took me back to the  
scent of the sea along with  
the lone cry of seagulls, and  
 
the reek of oil derricks  
on the way from San Pedro,  
 
and my fondness for the  
cuisine of the pampas.  
 
The lineage of an adopted  
land’s culture that runs  
through me, breath & soul  
 
long after there’s nothing left  
of it. Except people like me 
who remember the blood  
 
from their ancestry that  
never wilts, it never flinches,  
it won’t let it be forgotten.  
 
If you forget it will simply  
haunt you, but I don’t forget.  
I remember it all, because  
 
it’s so much a part of the  
generations that brought me  
to this place of my birth.  
 
From the Missions & Pueblos.  
While the sagebrush explodes  
from the conflagration  
 
that spills from the mouth        
of the Malibu hills      
and down to the coastline.  
 
Dark ash swirls in an updraft  
before descending on the few  
natives who straddle the surf  
as they cast their nets in vain.  
 
And piers smolder, then burn;  
the bones slowly collapsing  
into the whitecap breakers.  
 
Everything tinged orange from  
the sun’s agony in the smoke
and from the storms.

Raindrops fall, yet I still persevere.
Thunder makes its cry against a pitch  
Black sky, yet I am standing strong
Like a warrior and I have no fear
As I face the storm directly. Some flinch  
or cower away, but in the throng
Of people I hear the whispers of
The wind and I embrace the storm
That is always within me. Usually it is
A storm that tears everything we love
Apart into pieces, but it transforms
And makes everything that was frizzy  
All around the edges like curly hair  
Coming undone hold together like
Firm glue. Wild eyes that have seen
Everything from peace to warfare
Become clear and focused. A strike
Of lightning does not faze me. The green  
Pasture is where I make my bed and  
I am the storm nobody understands.