PoetSpeak by Billye Okera

25/03/2024

So, I'm going through my office, sorting through years and years of multiple copies of poems and what not. I'm throwing extras away ... who needs them? But, I am also finding poems I have written and forgotten. Here's one of them, dedicated to my mother Evelyn Viola Epps:

I Told You So

ok, so i got all this rage
and all this pain and all these horrid memories
with your name ridin' hi-ho silva dreams
of meager touch.
and I got all these rantings and railings against you.
but ... i can't tell you the paths I've walked
that ain't been narrow
the places I been
that ain't been holy
the beds I've lain upon that ain't been mine
and, I can't tell you the chil'ren i raised
who don't exactly do what i want ain't exactly turned out
so the neighbors would want me to tea
i can't tell you the times i turned at 2Am
and it ain't been my ni**as name I called or God's
but yours mama yours. You
... knowing the voice of a fool but having loved me anyway. You ... having to got up alone and went on anyhow
washed fed clothed churches educated cheered forgived
helped when it ain't been yours to help
paid when it ain't been your debt.
You who cried when it weren't your tears
You just smile and say from wherever
God calls beautiful Black mothers of struggle
who make some thing from no thing
who shaped destinies of hope from molded clay. You.. sweetly say: "I told ya you'd get it, Baby
I told you so".

Billye Okera
c. 2000

10/01/2024

10/01/2024

10/01/2024

Congratulations young queen💕

08/01/2024

05/01/2024

Thursday good morning🌞

04/01/2024

🙏

04/01/2024

https://deephearting.com/the-teacher-changes-her-haircut-to-support-a-harassed-student-fostering-inclusion-and-solidarity-against-bullying/

04/01/2024

Happiest day 🤎🤎

07/12/2023

A young boy at IPS School 88 was having a rough day when Sgt. Precious Cornner-Jones, Indiana State Police Capitol Police Section, stepped in to show him a moment of kindness.
This little fella was having a rough morning and fell out on the floor. I saw his mother step back and look. She stated this is how he is expressing himself lately. I decided to get on his level and talk to him. He started to cry so I wiped his tears and told him it will be ok. As an adult sometimes all we want is one person to stop, get on our level and maybe wipe our tears. These children are entitled to bad days just as us, so give them that moment to bring it together. Get on someone's level today and make them smile!! Spread PEACE and LOVE you might be that person that gives them hope!

07/12/2023

Black Quadruplet Brothers, Who All Attended Yale, Just Graduated.
Black quadruplet brothers Aaron, Nick, Zach, and Nigel Wade, aka The Quad, aka The Wades, graduated at Yale together, but most importantly, developed their individuality.
The four small-town Ohio brothers did everything together and knew the same people for most of their childhood.
Aaron earned a double major in computer science and psychology. Nick received a degree in political science and a minor in Arabic. Zach majored in chemical engineering and economics. Nigel completed his study in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology.

18/09/2023

A Jewish family Karnofsky, who immigrated from Lithuania to the United States, took pity on the 7-year-old boy and brought him to their home.
There he stayed and spent the night in this Jewish family home, where for the first time in his life he was treated with kindness and tenderness.
When he went to bed, Mrs Karnovski sang him Russian lullabies, which he sang with her.
Later he learned to sing and play several Russian and Jewish songs.
Over time, this boy became the adopted son of this family.
Mr. Karnofsky gave him money to buy his first musical instrument, as was the custom in Jewish families.
Later, when he became a professional musician and composer, he used these Jewish melodies in compositions such as St. James's Hospital and Go Down Moses.
The little boy grew up and wrote a book about this Jewish family, who adopted him in 1907. And proudly spoke Yiddish fluently.
In memory of this family and until the end of his life, he wore the Star of David and said that in this family he learned "to live a real life and determination."
This little boy's name was Louis Armstrong.This little boy was called Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong. Louis Armstrong proudly spoke fluent Yiddish and “Satchmo” is Yiddish for “big cheeks, a nickname some say was given to him by Mrs. Karnofsky!.

18/09/2023

“See the thing is; my ROTC teacher told me I was gonna end up dead or in jail. I grew up without a father figure in my life. I wore most of the same clothes from middle till I graduated. We were on food stamps and lived in the hood. Those are circumstances that I did not let dictate my life. I did not become a product of my environment. Some of my friends called me stupid. Now look at me. I became aware that I control my destiny. I became aware that I could be the Man that I was intended to be. I became aware that there was only one branch that could build me into a Man. I became a Marine!”
Credit: Nathaniel Love

ALSO READ :
A man picked up a child with down syndrome who had been abandoned by more than 20 families 😳 An example of true charity and kindness 🤗💗 what does the girl look like today?
See their pictures 👉 aunett.com/a-man-took-in-a-child-who-had-been-abandoned-by-more-than-20-families-what-does-the-girl-look-like-today

16/09/2023

15/07/2020

POEM FOR THE DAY
BILLYE OKERA
2004

Not May II

That I was neither Angella, Asata, Alice or Mya
Never dawned on me till I was forty-two
And men - no longer called me sweetie
But ... Mam
And I watched them, not for the ripple of shoulders
Or bulged britches pondered over daiquiris and girl-talk
But for eyes too polite to notice varicosed veins
or pr*****ed stomachs.
Befor then, I lived in a dream of special me
Only waking to find the line to special
Marked ... crowded.

Billye Okera
from "ON THE GREYHOUND TO MEMPHIS"
publication date: October 2020

22/06/2020

Good Morning Everyone:
My Poem for today is below. People ask what can we do to get through (these) crisis, and as one who has written, heart, mine, soul, spirt and gut out since I was seventeen(let's see - that's maybe, 10 years..... I can tell you that writing and journaling has been an amazing balm for what ails.
You don't have to be "a writer" to get started. You don't even have to have a real plan. Just start by what's called free writing penning anything that comes into your mine without censorship and after a while you will find little gems of consciousness to that the whole of humanity may need to hear. And, then, just listen...to the wind, the songs of birds, the flow of ocean (and if you don't have an ocean, then the slow drip of water from a faucet, you grandchild's laughter, your dogs bark (well maybe not your dogs bark), the silence of time ticking, the greens of trees, the footsteps of a neighbor...there are infinite details in these and a myriad of other glimpses of glory in the universe...flow into them, and not only will you find a poem or prose, but you will also find the creator, glad that you too participate in his creation...Love, Billye Okera...Potomac Heights Drive, June 22, 2020
We want our water into wine
Billye Okera
©June 22, 2020
We want our water into wine
Shards of the spirit scouring boils
Anointed oils poured over cataclysmic tragedy
A bit of space, not much of course,
At the communion table where we’ll talk to You
Of such and such and this and that
Not repenting if our verse is not rehearsed
Chapter upon chapter,
Line upon line,
Precept upon precept
Or we’ve left the room
Gone standing in the narthex
When the ‘mand of god’
Done started another dialogue of us vs. them
Of him vs. her
Of heaven vs. hell
And who we’ll dwell there with
Given he’s got Your ear
And a clear prophesy for who You are
And what You are
And where You are
Standing as bar and judge
Of any - who might walk a bit different -
His dance askance, his music an odd symphony
For intolerant ears.
We want our own sight
Right into the third heaven
Where You abide tiding us over these storms
Forming on the horizon, destructive winds
Indefensible
Until You come from the gut of the ship
And we’ve but to lay down in Your peace
And be Still.