Selected Poems by Jubilee S Forbess

curriculum

Take the curriculum

And pick up your pen

Take all the things out

That you didn’t want in.

Pick up your white-out

And subtract all the color

You’re so good at this

Making it us and other

What do you think you’re doing

Who is this better for?

You’re ignoring so much history

It’s the worst detour

And you’re hurting so many people

You’re avoiding the past

So it leaks into the future

And so the sins, they still last

This isn’t progress

You’re just sweeping all the dust

Too bad some people

Know that you must

At some point acknowledge

Otherwise, you’re lying

But go ahead, keep saying

That no one is dying

It’s not real!

It was so long ago!

Pick up your markers

Take the mittens from the snow.

You know exactly what you’re doing

And you should be ashamed

But I guess you can’t handle

The rightful blame

Does it feel too heavy

Are your arms getting tired?

Is the heat so much

That teachers get fired

For speaking the truth

What happened and continues

Is school a censored place now

Must we move to other venues?

No more, “I Have a Dream?”

What madness is that?

What next will you teach?

That the whole earth is flat?

I’m more than worried

I’m confused

What more do

We have to lose?

You’re taking things

One by one

Can’t have MLK

But you still want your gun?

Sure, just keep it

Have that “protection”

Keep on driving

In the wrong direction.

I’m mad for my family

And mad for my friends

I’m mad cause I don’t know

How to make the amends

The government is screwing up

All the things that needed fixing

I feel like we’re in a blender

And someone keeps mixing

We’re tossing the salad

But it’s going upside down

Trying to run a circus

But you’re only the clown.

How can I learn

If you’re cutting out the truth?

How is a mouth healthy

If you yank the last tooth?

There was a bare minimum

And you lowered it even more

You took the ladders

And cut them to the floor.

But go ahead,

Keep taking away

What we have

But we won’t stay

In your schools

If you keep going

You want the blizzard?

How bout knowing

You aren’t protecting anyone

From things too big to hear,

You’re just too scared to see it

And you’re covered in your fear.

So keen on freedom

If you’re the only one who gets it

But as soon as someone wants it to

You start to really regret it

Honestly, though, it’s pretty pathetic

The country needs a doctor, man,

Someone call the medic,

Too wrapped up

In things academic

To see what’s ahead

What you’re taking for granted

What you’re tearing apart

You’re seeing the wrong side

Of the double sided heart

Stop closing your eyes

To what you don’t wanna see,

It’s not living indivisible

If there’s no liberty,

No justice, no freedom,

Not for all, at least,

You’re setting up a table

But it’s an exclusive kinda feast

The lessons were already

Made for a certain group

Now you’re bending and buckling

To jump through every hoop

You can

To make it all sparkly white

You’re taking out

The struggle and fight

You’re making it fake

You’re making it bad

Your hypocrite is showing

And you’ll only end up sad.

You don’t tolerate bullying

And yet that’s what you’re doing

Hands outta the pot

But you’re the one brewing

The worst kinda trouble

Cause you think it’s the best

But what kind of school

Has wrong answers on a test?

Make it easier

For us to handle

Too late now

The flame’s a candle

You know, you didn’t seem to worried

When the children were crying

Because of their friends

And family who’re dying

Because of open fire

Gunning down their halls

But sure,

Keep your guns,

And keep making calls

To complain about how

Talking about race impacts your kids

Are you scared that they’ll realize

The racist things you do and did?

to the authorities

No, it’s not all men,

And that’s not what you should hear,

But believe me when I say,

People are living in fear,

Because nighttime is dangerous

But daytime is too,

So what, about that

Are you going to do?

I’ve been standing here

And asking you to listen

But you’re ignoring everything

And the truth you are missing,

You’re blinded by the neon lights

And you don’t want to see,

That I do have things to say

And every person has a story

Of a time they felt uncomfortable

Or rubbed the wrong way

Most people have been through this

Though we don’t know how to say

Because the people who could change things

They always seem to think the same

That our lives are some charade

That we can’t win at some game,

But I’m not lying

And I don’t want attention

I want to stop attending

This terrible convention,

I want them to stop

I want you to know

But hands over your ears

And you tell me to go,

Before I ruin a career

Before I make someone upset?

Okay, sure, I’ll leave,

But you ain’t seen nothing yet

I can’t stop breathing

And they won’t stop on their own

Someone has to tell them

Someone pick up the phone

I don’t care who you call

Their mother, father, or preacher,

These boys need a lesson,

I need you to be the teacher.

Don’t cap your marker,

Don’t you turn your head,

So worried about football?

The next time, I’m dead

Because you didn’t pay notice

Though I was here to report

You weren’t my first option

Just my last resort.

But fine, keep your promises,

To the flag that you fly,

The next time I’m hurting,

I won’t stop to ask why

The people who care

They don’t care at all,

Said that you’d catch me

And then supported the fall.

knives and flowers

"I’ve had so many knives stuck into me. When they hand me a flower, I can’t quite make out what it is. It takes time." Charles Bukowski

To have a garden,

There must be light,

To grow something,

Then there is life,

To have and hold

To not stay cold

To look for walls

Covered in mold

A basement

A staircase

A chair or a bed

An empty desk

A table

And flowers for the dead.

They’re sitting in a vase

On the dresser, by the sill,

They’re blinking in the moonlight

But they’re very still.

There’s curtains,

But they’re ripping,

And everyone can see,

That things are not okay,

They are not as they seem.

The candles are all melting

And the sirens never stop

The popcorn’s under pressure,

But yet it never pops.

A knife

A knife

Stuck in the sky

Good folks leave

They often die

And what do you do

If they leave you behind?

How do you go on being good

How do you still have a kind

Heart

A soul

And mind.

Hand me the wrench, would you,

I need to fix something broken

I didn’t say it out loud

But still, I have spoken,

I’m scratching through paper

I’m leaving my head

Where should I go

To spend time instead?

Sometimes I’m dizzy

Sometimes I’m not

Sometimes I’m allergic

To things that I bought

Why did I buy them,

Remind me again?

Was I replacing a thing

Or was it a lost friend?

I’m trying

And going

To wake up soon

I’m hoping

There’s someone

I know in this room.

mountains

The fire inside me grows hot,

But the cold dread inside me leaps higher,

Will I be a martyr tonight?

I’m inches away from the pyre

As I walk my feet turn gray with ash

I feel the darkness splash my back

I’ve wandered too far from the track

And I’m scared of shadows

That bend around each corner

That send my heart to shock

That echo in my eardrums

Each beat another clock

Mark marching me to end

I think I’ve lost my friend

Just around this bend

I can’t see too far ahead

For the fog is far too thick

But I think my friends are dead

And it’s making me quite sick

I want to jump and run and hide

But what if the danger’s just inside

The next door, the next hall,

What if I don’t know at all

My mind is spinning winning falling

My eyes are slipping dripping calling

Out to someone,

No one answers

I am screaming

But the dancers

In the sky have flown away

They do not care and now I stay

Hands outstretched

Towards lonely clouds

Have I done well

Is mother proud?

Was everything I did in vain

Was the journey worth the pain

Or in the end an open vein

For the monster goes unslain

And I wonder if again

I should lay down and weep

Is going on the right decision

Would it be best to curl and sleep

Or should I, with precision

Continue up the winding road

Keep one foot in front if the other

Should I stop against the fog

Or still search for friend and brother

In destruction there could be

Hope for some, hope for me,

But tears inside my eyelids swell

I can’t go on like this, I fell

I tripped on violence

Stabbed my heart

My feet are shattered

Thrown apart

Each bone in my hands destructed

Eyes unwinded, deconstructed

I am slowly melting

Gradually to dust

I feet my stomach churning

But a voice tells me I must,

“Just go forward

Please don’t stop

You can make it

If you swap

This despair

For hope unshuttered

Your dry skull

For something buttered

Find your strength

Put it back on

Wrap yourself

In this new strong

Remember what you’ve lost

To see all you will find

Don’t you know you’re almost there

And the top is worth the climb?”

A light inside me switches on

I think that I may make it

This new fire like a song

And nothing more can shake it

I step to a different path

One filled with brighter skies

The fog around starts clearing

I smear it from my eyes

It slides down like the tears

I haven’t missed in ages

They plague me so deeply

Staining floors and pages

And now for once my face is dry

Save for the fog rolled down

I do not feel like I should cry

I laugh just like a clown

My voice it carries past the valleys

And the people down below

They all look up and wonder

Why so loudly I bellow

But they don’t have to know my joy

Unbridled rampant soaring

But this is mine not their new toy

Unmasked and finally warring

There is a reason to keep fighting

I see it now, I touch it

I keep crunching over rocks

I kick them with force, such hit

Would surely ruin any man

But rocks then, they can handle

My feet that shoot out eagerly

Smothering danger’s candle

What can hold me now, I think

I’m almost to the end

I reach for ones beside me

But there is not one friend

Success is nigh

On summit’s shore

But final treasure

Is no more

My team

My group

My family

They are no longer here, you see,

So I will get to town for them

I will eat supper thinking of

Those who I lost along the way

And then I’ll send a dove

So docile and innocent

So grave and thus divine

I’ll send a dove for each of them

As they would do for mine.

I see the town a ways ahead

I’m almost there, I know it

Is sorrow weighing deeply now

If so, I shall not show it

This anchor I must cast away

Throw it to the sea

For grief I may now know

But it shall not know me.

I’ll not be a martyr tonight

Nor tomorrow, though I may doubt it

I will be the victor once more

And from the mountain tops shout it.

Jubilee Forbess is really into poetry, music that sounds like a.) flowers b.) the inside of being buried alive c.) the feeling of being alive d.) Broadway f.) cotton can-day. She also likes to read three books a day, Facetime people she hasn't seen in person for eight years, and pretty much anything but riding horses. For some reason, this one is horse adverse. Forgive her insolence though, because she likes weasels instead. Jubilee’s dream job is wandering around in a field and asking people if it's okay if she writes poems about them, then writing them even if they say no. Her actual job is somewhere between Waffle House and the scary movie theater behind the local mall. She's also been considered Miss Universe (as in where in the universe could that crazy girl be now?) by many and Miss Ed The Boat by a select few.