Sands poor in the seconds of infinity I drown beneath the sands of time. The hour glass my prison. Unable to break the glass despite it being an emergency. My childhood slid like sand between lubricated fingers. Desperately grasping at nostalgic ghosts. Trying hard but never reaching, never finding justice for the untimely death of a childhoods innocence. Instead I was trapped on this forever treadmill of hardship. Running down pain in exchange for distracted survival while searching by hope for those lost sands of history. Yet I am still drowning. Unable to catch my breath. Maybe, if I stopped holding it in and gave into the fact that I'm drowning, this world, this life, this hope would be the light I go into and the sands would no longer drown me.
It Is What It Is
The real deals can’t be found in sharpened Blade newspaper pages or turpentine antiseptic news bits from fragile glass city puppeteers. True life happens in the unseen, It is what it is. When dark alleys grow darker as low cost apartments below screams from a cracked out mom dangling baby from on arm and shooting crack with the other before fill in dad hits her for dinner being cold. It is what it is. And the beggar down the way that heard her cry begs for just one bite more but the dimes he collects won't help him escape from the grave in the alley where red roses lie in wait. It is what it is. And next door a party is in full swing, DJ puts on Ice cube, wolves find a sheep and the grinding commences. One dances with her as the other slips a ketamine surprise into her rum and coke. In minutes one becomes many and the monsters converge on their prey. a rave to the grave. It is what it is. And as the world continues its blind midnights bullies in black hoodies ride shotgun on their bikes carrying knives, carrying a gun, absolving family matters by robbing their uncle's corner store. Smokes and dollars, blood and bondage, the ghetto bird rides high. It is what it is. Blood, sweat, tears and crack. Real world poetry in motion. It is what it is.
Painting Liberty
Health care, marijuana, flip-flops, conservative signs of the Apocalypse. Their so called anti-Christ sits at a computer in boxers that cover the naked truth while waging a holy war on ignorance. His vision is sparked by syllables, words, lines, poetic essence and fed by societal combustion exploding onto the screen as common sense in an age of idiocy. I slide my fingers over the keyboard and begin to type, black on white, on a canvas of hope and ideals, a colorblind Picasso attempting to master the Mona Lisa. Every line drawn waiting to come alive. We live in a gray world amongst gray lives existing solely on gray morals as red innocent blood is spilled by black hearts for just a little more green in their pockets. One word, and then another, bringing truth to light a homeless child at Cherry Street Mission, a gangbanger on Erie Street. Seen, but never seen, a poet's calling in the flesh. Red, white, blue, purple, green, We are all poets of the mind living technicolor dreams and painting liberty in a colorless world.
Bio: Craig Firsdon is a poet, painter and charcoal sketch artist from Holland, Ohio. He has been referred to as the "Toledo Renaissance Man" in an article in the Toledo Poetry Examiner. In 2010 he released his self published first chapbook, Opiate Dreams. He has been published in Rusty Truck, Red Fez, Zygote In My Coffee, The Poet's Haven, The Toledo Streets Anthology and more. He enjoys reading his poetry but due to being wheelchair bound he has to keep mainly to the Toledo, Ohio area and sometimes Cleveland. He was also a featured poet at the Zygote In My Fez poetry show in Toledo.