Brain Waves and Ghosts 

You can hear my voice, you can feel my skin against yours.
You know we’re not really touching right?
Our atoms repel each other, we never really make contact. 

We’re just atoms, smashed together, barely gripping one another to form our bodies.
It’s chaotic. When I speak, the sound crashes into your eardrums,
shaking them up in ways your brain can read.
When I touch you, my hands send heat to your skin.
When I release you, the heat remains. A signature. 

Our brains have so much power. So much electricity,
sending so many signals one way and the other.
There’s so much we don’t know.
What if our brains can leave signatures, like the heat from my hand?
What if our brains can leave emotional markers, like echoes of our former selves? 

Not ghosts, echoes. Reflections of who we were. 

— Shane Chamberlain 

Poem 

All poems can’t possibly be painful, 

Perhaps the problems can be for paintings, 

The probability is almost playful, 

Preparation for the pay-out pays me, 

Patiently proceeding to the pavement, 

Provided my property is pacing, 

Prevention from the pages that I’m placing, 

Is preposterous for you to play with, 

Practice is perfection for my patience, 

Practically progression is so painless, 

Prepossession properly will pay rent, 

Please prepare all the people for the prayin’ 

Pry the posture from penalization, 

Penitentiary packed for playa hatin’ 

Position planted perfect presentation, 

Planetary payment for the placement, 

Paternity pushes all pulsations, 

Placidly your placards will pull payments, 

Panicking profusely pains my plating, 

All poems can’t possibly be painful….. 

— Cooke 

LIVE PROUD 

WITH COMPETITION 

THERE'S REPETITION,

CONSISTENT IN DAILY LIVING,

NO FEARS ON MY BEHALF,

IMMENSELY DETERMINED TO BE GLAD,

FOR THE SIMPLE FACT OF

UNDERSTANDING LIFE AND ITS COURSE,

BELIEVE THERE’S A WAY OUT

THE STRUGGLE AND GET IN A HUDDLE,

FIND A WAY ACROSS THE PUDDLE,

THAT’S A CONUNDRUM,

BELIEVING IN YOURSELF IS A STATE OF MIND,

FIND A WAY TO DEFINE

YOUR PEACE OF MIND,

AND TAKE TIME TO OVERCOME

BEING BLIND,

REWIND THE WHEELS OF TIME,

AND LET IT PLAY OUT,

WHAT DOES NO REGRETS

AMOUNT TO?

NO REGRETS IN COMPETITION

LIVING CONSISTENT WITH CONFIDENCE

THAT THINGS GET GREATER LATER,

BE AN INNOVATOR AND MOTIVATE

— DEANDRE AARON 

I see you

Behind me is the devil

Ruthless rebels

Possessed men on saddles

Slaves admiring gravel

Oppression with shackles

Mental battles

Life milked like cattle

No compass to travel

Men afraid to dream

Hearts that scream

Pain that drowns the seas

Evil that comes in peace but throws away the keys

Scorching heat

Blistered feet

Boots that make a heart skip a beat

Eyes so dry it’s hard to weep

From ashes I speak

From the fire I rise

I won’t just be

Until this dehumanizing organized corporation dies.

— Abel Linares

Where to begin?

I been tryna take it easy 

Tired of duckin’ all the reasons for the grievin’ 

When she told me that she need me I ain’t believe it, 

now she don’t 

Time to figure out my purpose or my reason, 

Tellin’ people Im’a call ‘em when I know I prolly won't, 

nothin personal, but i just ain’t been feelin’ it 

I'm still alive, while they been out here killin’ sh*t 

So how can I complain? I guess I won't 

Out of sight out of mind 

the way that I been doin’ all my time 

never know just what u got until it's gone 

Lately I just ain’t been feelin’ it, 

Can’t even figure out what I want 

No direction like my compass is broke 

need to open your eyes 

u day dreamin’ while u woke 

done w/ spinnin’ my wheels like the rubber round the spokes, 

this where the rubber meets the road… 

— Anonymous

-indelible- 

Can’t get it off, it’s no erase 

like a permanent pen 

The stain'll have u sittin’ permanently in the pen 

Sittin’ here contemplating the difference between my folks ‘n’ my friends 

& if the means overshadow the ends 

the rules that we bend 

false priorities we tend 

relationships that we neglected to mend 

and when it’s over, do it over again 

— Anonymous

Freedom 

Freedom, What is freedom? 

Freedom is coming to a clear understanding and realization that all humans are supposed to be free and equal. 

For we know that if it wasn’t for Abe Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation we will still have that pandemic for African Americans called slavery. 

— Theo Fuller 

Poetry from Issue #3 of The Sankofa Migration, a publication of the Black Prisoners Caucus of WSP in Walla Walla, Washington.