#Askia Bilal

[askiabilal]

Take a minute with me in this short video and remember your immense potential. There’s so much going on in the world and as we deal with it, we can’t let the chaos and uncertainty consume us. Finding balance in the self to take the world head on. You have a vital role to play. Video and score by Ismaeel Bilal  Words and delivery by Askia 

#poetry #inspirational words #motivational words #meditation #soothing words #spoken word

[askiabilal]

this heart starved.

before you, this heart starved. stumbled in and out of a maze of destitute feelings dazed and was always whole but was always hole, cup without a drink to hold and then your eyes opened on me and opened my chest and planted a river of poems that flows fierce and carries two souls off the edge of the earth and under the look of a moon of bronze I hand you this heart and you planted a feast of poems that grows more entangled every time your mouth says my name in a way that dresses my wounds and makes the letters buckle you planted an itch I resist scratching I want it to grow before you my heart starves and drown my cup in you

#heart #love #spilled ink #poetry #askia bilal

[askiabilal]

untitled

never turn your eyes sour on an American fable "keep pitchin till u sink one cross the plate" let your eyes flicker in the dim we never could really get a grip of letting ghosts whisper to our only fountain of hope drowning in radio never take your eyes off the trap peepers fail in a blink of an eye close and don’t open back detoxing off that oxygen we stopped praying again lord bring me back after I fled

#america #poetry #spilled ink #askia bilal

[askiabilal]

when

when Your health fails priorities crystallize— “Get well” no more pin ball machine life wandering through day mazes the latest craze You could care less now You pay attention to minutia: how easily people suck air in how they climb stairs tie shoes lift forks and stuff their faces in between their list of complaints You reminisce on the time when that was You it’s the simple things now You see ants in a new light You count the number of heartbeats in between random events You marvel at Your veins pushing quarts of blood through You You wonder how it’s possible that You think without even thinking about it You don’t feel like saying much because much of what You say isn’t much You've decided You laugh at how oblivious You are at how weak You are how fortunate You think about all the things that could have possibly gone wrong at Your conception Your birth and You can’t for the life of You figure out how so few things actually did and You weep from the sheer weight of it.

#poetry #poem #Askia Bilal

[askiabilal]

when

When passion turns poison when love corrodes when the wounds salted tears rust when hands can’t hold and gold goes copper and Cupid gone fallen Icarus from his own arrow awry and the illusions stripped armour scraps when you know but don’t want to say when the weeds grip the last rose when we are foam and dust and you take your crown off bow and drown softly in what was then when we are ready to begin.

#poetry #poem #words #spilled ink #askia bilal

[askiabilal]

I’ll be your kill.

spill my shimmering guts to you

drag me dangling between clenched teeth

into the still of your trance

Your voice, the Trojan Horse whispers gifts

amplified inside me

tempos in my temples

it mushroom-clouds showers of

you Sistine Chapeled me into pristine colors

ran each other down scaffolding

you vertigoed my vertebrae

stared my spine into a rollercoaster accordion

misshapen and alive wailing hymns of henna of

showers of pins needles that tattoo your gaze to my phrases

you fogged up the panes of the windows of my soul

and in your breath on the glass with one index finger

you wrote riddles in reverse

#askia bilal #poetry #poem #spilled ink #words #madness

[askiabilal]

I want you to taste what my eyes taste when they steal a glance of your trance

If you could feel the way my face felt as it melt in your glow

Then you would see what this beauty lays at the heart of madness

#askia bilal #poetry #poet #poem #spilled ink

[askiabilal]

knowing

Knowing when to speak and when to keep silent is difficult, but great

Knowing that everyone should not and cannot be spoken to in the same way, and changing the way you address different people doesn’t *necessarily make you unreal, fake, imaginary, etc.

Knowing that being human is very complicated

Knowing that everything isn’t for everyone

Knowing that you could offer a word to a certain person at the right time and help them change their direction 180 degrees

Knowing that you could offer a million words to that same certain person at a different time and have absolutely no impact

Knowing that sometimes you might still have to say those words, regardless of the outcome

Knowing that you could do nothing and it could work out

Knowing you could do everything and it could still never work out---- and to not become bitter, hard-hearted or cynical during the process may be difficult, but beneficial, and does not necessarily translate into naivety

Knowing that things “working out” doesn’t necessarily mean “working out”

Knowing that the world does not perfectly fit into the conventional binary of “good, evil” no matter how much easier it seems to make things

Knowing that there are infinitesimal worlds in this world, each containing infinitesimal stations, that people are all at their own stations, and that they arrive at wherever they are to arrive at the time they should, not when anyone else thinks that they should

Knowing that on some level well beyond ours, everything is truly in its right place

#askia bilal #knowing #poem #words #poetry

[askiabilal]

"Landscape over there" askia. nasir bilal

#askia bilal #trees #landscape #art #artist #painting #digital #landscape over there

[askiabilal]

An important question to ask oneself frequently: “would I be comfortable dying with the way I’m living right now”

#quotes #aphorism #poetry #askia bilal #death

[askiabilal]

"a series of attempts"--this a spoken word/poetry piece I performed....filmed by my brother Kamau Bilal in my art exhibition- "the (w)hole part."

#poetry #performance #spoken word #askia bilal #series of attempts #poem #art #artist

[askiabilal]

the way we knelt in streets that night on one knee under the brilliant twitching burning eye of a distant planet Jupiter I think it was or maybe the Moon or a streetlamp or the headlights of an approaching motor vehicle or maybe it was within us

#poetry #poet #writing #spilled ink #askia bilal #poem

[askiabilal]

People play with the wrong things such as hearts and sticks of dynamite books of matches

#poetry #poem #art #writer #askia bilal #spilled ink