Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    I am Soul
    I am Soul
    I am Soul
    Ebook105 pages49 minutes

    I am Soul

    By Yecheilyah Ysrayl

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    I am Soul is a short collection of poetry and prose from Yecheilyah covering Black History, Faith, Love and all things Soul.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherYecheilyah Ysrayl
    Release dateDec 22, 2017
    ISBN9781981791484
    I am Soul

    Read more from Yecheilyah Ysrayl

    Related to I am Soul

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Beyoncé

      Dec 19, 2016

      Beyoncé
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Case for Abolition

      Jun 19, 2019

      Our belief in abolition is first and foremost philosophical. It grew from watching, experiencing, and opposing decades of reliance on concrete and steel cages as catch-all solutions to social problems. We want a society that centers freedom and justi

      3 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems by Phillip B. Williams

      Dec 15, 2017

      The masters are yet dead. Wanting to be human,I tried to rewrite The Waste Land. The canon’s reachcasts ruinous light. The masters’ pens breachthis page where, above, my own hand spectates. Babylonrisen, exorcism in reverse, whose nature upended now?

      6 min read

    • Article

      Poetry Rx: This Is the Year

      Jan 3, 2019

      Poetry Rx: This Is the Year
      7 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      followed—in front, as horses—into daisy& silver dancing, knowing the jaw who unkeysin the danced earth to drink me down to haints,& will go again. was willed. distrusted happiness, addicted to it.a god needs of a god. here, i don’t want to reachfor g

      3 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Nov 1, 2022

      Day after Thanksgiving. I give thanks for Eveto beat the rush of appreciating hernext year and let her sleep inuntil three hundred o’clock.Thank you light on the mountainfor being my star on cloudy nights.Thank you all the guns I’ve never ownedand ki

      6 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Sep 1, 2020

      Five Poems
      4 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: September 2017

      Sep 11, 2017

      Isn’t that one of the purest goals of poetry—to justify our breaths? To recognize that we matter? The post Must-Read Poetry: September 2017 appeared first on The Millions.

      8 min read

    • Article

      Named After the Animal

      Oct 13, 2020

      Named After the Animal
      18 min read

    • Article

      An Interview With Xueyan

      Jun 24, 2023

      An Interview With Xueyan
      5 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2020

      The American linden sways nonplussed by the storm,a bounce here, a shimmy there, just shaking like musicleft over from the night’s end wafting into the avenues before sleep.I remember once walking down Clinton Street, and singingthat line returning,

      4 min read

    • Article

      All I Know

      Jul 1, 2022

      The Statue of Liberty was packed in crates of lentilsand there is a species of catfish with scalesso tough that piranhas can’t chew throughto red softness. I’m thinking of what is vital,today. The willow tree in my dreams that swaysand a little girl

      2 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Jan 1, 2020

      Pallets of bottled water on the back porchwere one evidence of apocalypseor the demise of the way of thingsor lazily written computer code backin the 80s, when I was a boyand the nightly news was just about all the doomwe had stomachs for, whenwere t

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for I am Soul

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      I am Soul - Yecheilyah Ysrayl

      Literary Korner Publishing

      I AM SOUL

      Copyright © 2017 by Literary Korner Publishing.

      All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

      This book is licensed for your personal use only. This book may not be given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the author’s time and work.

      No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For permission contact :

      Yecheilyah Ysrayl

      943 East Lake Landing

      Marietta, GA 30062

      yecheilyah@yecheilyahysrayl.com

      http://www.yecheilyahysrayl.com

      ––––––––

      First Edition: December,  2017

      I AM SOUL

      An Introduction

      ––––––––

      I AM SOUL is my fourth collection of poetry. It came about as a product of poems I have already published to my blog and wrote in my notebooks over the course of three years. People have always said that I have an old soul and so, these poems focus on all things deeply personal. These poems are all things soul.

      I AM

      SOUL

      HER SKIN

      She has heard for too long now

      that her pores bleed the color of slave ships,

      That chains have been seen in her smile,

      That her skin shines like a beacon of shame,

      sprinkled amidst Mississippi cotton fields.

      Sometimes

      her beauty sticks out

      like the moon against the pitch-black sky,

      They notice her

      and still—

      She is only pretty for a dark-skinned girl.

      Who does she think she is,

      being darker than a brown paper bag?

      The truth is that she is the color of the Goddesses.

      A dark chocolate kiss

      neatly wrapped in silk,

      I want to touch her face

      just to see if it’s real,

      just to see if it’ll melt

      underneath my fingertips.

      Instead

      I’ll keep my hands to myself.

      I don’t want to be the stone

      responsible for the wrinkles in her skin.

      This delicate rose petal of a woman,

      reborn in the spring.

      I don’t want my touch

      to taint her beauty,

      Where not even the bite of winter

      dares to diminish

      her light.

      THOSE WHO LOVE

      It’s their presence alone

      that lifts the floor

      commanding the clouds to unclench their fist.

      Love wraps its garment around

      their bodies

      like insane prisoners to compassion,

      confined and restricted

      to the affection that binds them.

      Stitched and knitted

      like a fresh garment,

      like fresh skin

      to the beautiful body of genuine,

      Call them

      the mentally insane

      ‘cause they’ve got to be crazy

      to be binding themselves

      like this.

      SUGAR-COATED AND SPRINGTIME

      They get tired of hearing it.

      Ain’t nobody got to say it,

      I know that they get tired.

      Tired of these distractions in brown-colored skin

      waking up from valley’s

      with muscles and tendons

      all conscious-like.

      Uncovering the blood in the American Flag—

      Tired, tethered, and intoxicated

      with his story.

      Unraveling the color of bigotry on a beautiful glass,

      Smeared fingerprints and fallen

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1