What Is poetry?

What spoken word is -Slam

What is a word spoken on a stage
What is a line written down
What is a mind open on a page
What is a sentence beyond verbs and nouns
What. Is. Poetry?
Is it like a walk in the park where stimuli is received and it's decoded so it can be perceived? Like feet walking in cadence and your feet take you on a voyage that's maiden?
Is poetry like a fight where right jabs pierce your heart, where heavy words leave a scar, lines like punches hit you like a book but you only remember the hook? Like that initial bumping of the chest with your head turn sideways and arms go crazy like 405 freeways?
Or is poetry like the unpredictable path of a sugar crazed preschool kid looking for more candy, and when it gets that chocolate rhyme then everything is just dandy... for now
Because then its too late, that sugarholic, toy braking, 5 year old, knee-scraping, screaming, cry faking, chocolate mess, has a pencil date with fate
And those rhymes push accelerate and have no understanding of brakes, and you may try to e-brake but your mind is too curious about what it could make, so you raise the stakes, as your brain races and speeds past 208 thoughts per second and then in a second, you crash and just take a look at the wreckage
Spoken word is all that and more to me,
Because in my writing Jews were never killed and Africans were always free
Strangers are never danger but a lesson waiting to be
Paraplegics can walk and blind people can see
That's what poetry means to me
They make my happy but also make me nervous
And I think is this trash or is this really worth it?
I struggle on wether or not I'm revealing to much
To the point where it gets awkward like a stranger's hand grazing your butt
Sometimes, these poems are like stares that never end
That stare from a stranger, not a friend
That state that gets you thinking "is he looking at me?"
And you look back and see a wall behind you so you think "this guy is crazy"
See these poems are like stairs that never end
And these stairwells and obstacles blend
And make it hard to climb
So you hold onto the rail and pull for one more rhyme
See, These poems are not meant to be understood, because these poems are change and change is complicated but good
Not always as simple as getting guns out of the hood
Or occupying Wall St. for the 99%
Because to them you're all dollars and cents
And so their kind sentences are pretenses and the pretend but they're senseless
See poetry lets you go off on rants
Cause the paper always listens even when your friends can't
So stop bullying an stop fighting
And Pick up a pen and start writing

Dreams

I like dream journals so I figured that every now and then I'd write about them if they're cool or trippy.

The only dream I can remember started off at the house of a crazy old lady that lives in the same apartment building as me named, Penny. Penny sells candy and snacks but sometimes they're expired so you have to be careful. Anyways, I was in her house trying to find something to buy and I realize my friend, Vanessa Cosio, is there working for Penny as if this were a liquor store! As I was looking at the array of candy and chips I saw two boxes of Double Stuf OREOs that she was selling for $3.30, which is like $1.20 less than at any store! The thing with the OREOs was that one was open and the other had been resealed. Vanessa told me to buy it and I thought about how much I love OREOs, so I ran out to go get more money from my mom. When I walked in, I saw my family and some other people preparing the house for a party. I just quickly ran down the hall and I was stopped by a boy, about 12 years old, that looked shockingly like my brother-in-law, Cisco. He was wearing a blue, felt track suit, a blue hat backwards, and a silver chain. I guess he was the son that my sister had and I never knew about him (it's funny because my sister met Cisco only 7 years ago).
I couldn't stay too long so I ran in my parent's room grabbed a five and booked it. As I walked down the hall a beautiful woman asked me if I'd go with her to pick up some stuff from my dad's storage center in Culver City (in real life he doesn't have a storage center anywhere). I obviously couldn't deny a lady's request so I happily walk out of my house, hand-in-hand with this girl.
As we walk out, I see Penny's house but now it's turned into those southern ranch houses that you see in the movies and she totally changed into a likable figure with 5 kids. I saw her sitting on the porch with her youngest as they were celebrating the boy's first birthday. I felt compelled to go over to Penny and her son and talk but the pretty, nameless girl was in a hurry. I gave in and I ran up to Penny and hugged her and her son and I talked to her for a minute or two about family issues. As I was talking to Penny, the pretty girl went to her car and pulled up to Penny's house. Apparently she drove a Mini Coooper Limo and she had about 10 model-type guys in the car and she was waiting for me. I became upset that she had so many guys going with her because I felt like a tool. So I decided to not go with her, and she took off.
All of a sudden, I looked to my left and I saw a huge water slide and there was a guy on it and I tried telling him that the water slide wasn't real but he didn't believe me. He told me that the glaxonomy and the buswertif determined his point in space time. I said "those aren't even words." Then, I instantly was put into the water slide and I ended up in some closed down building and I was playing a game of tag/hide n go seek. It was Juan and I running away from four nuns that were trying to catch us. (They were really slow.) Eventually they got Juan and so, since Juan and I were a team, we were both it. We counted and as we were counting Juan wanted me to cheat and open my eyes to see where the other people were (they weren't nuns anymore). I did, and we caught everyone after running around for about 30 seconds.
For some reason when we finished the building became an arcade. And at the arcade this one kid started throwing coins at me, which made me very angry, so I started punching him and the he grabbed a coin and very zombie-like put it into a machine because he was practically hypnotized by some girl there.
And that's all I can remember because my alarm went off after that. Hope you enjoyed the trip in Erick's mind!

God bless you,
Erick Lima

p.s. Live Radically