Raederle's Poetry

Monday, December 18, 2006

Dread

Dread
by Raederle Phoenix
2006-2007

One-hundred-percent dread,

Drumming to the beat of the dead,

Humming to this emotion fed,

Crumbs, the feeling in your bed,

Fluff the pillow, lay your head;

Down and feel the anticipation;

Foreboding and lack of concentration,

Holding onto a glass of fermentation,

Forwarding the path of procrastination,

Folding into a pattern of degradation.

I’m sauntering on a path of bleak mud,

I’m walking with creak and thud,

I am sinking deeper into this crud.

I’m circling a stale expectation of;

Grooving to a silent sickness that curdles my blood.

~Raederle Phoenix
2006-2007

Note: I was sixteen when I wrote this and experimenting with multi-rhymes (bleak mud / creak and thud) wherever I could fit them in. I was also in arguably the darkest period of my life. I'd been through a house fire, a move, a violent on-and-off relationship, drug experimentation, suicidal urges, and a desperation to find something better for myself. Thankfully, I did. But the darkness in this poem reflects that period of my life and how it felt.

These lyrics are the original work of Raederle Phoenix West. You may share them digitally for non-commercial purposes, as long as full credit is given and the text remains unaltered. Any commercial use, performance, or adaptation requires written permission.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Communal Wood

Communal Wood
By Raederle Phoenix
2006-2011

I want to rise at eleven,

in an elegant cottage in a wood,

and kickback by seven,

in a place too warm for a hood.

I want to live in a real community,

where everyone is listening,

built around the trees and into small clearings,

where I’d lounge in the breeze never fearing.

I want to live in loving situations,

no smelly gas stations,

no crime situations, drugged sensations,

evil temptations, meaningless salutations,

degradations, and one night relations.

Yes, I want to live where it’s sunny,

and where no one laughs when it’s not funny.

I want to live where I can stop feeling crummy,

a place that doesn’t rely on paper money.

I want to live in a cream organic village,

where no one would dream of theft or pillage;

I want to live where everyone stops to smile,

with hot springs, berry plots, wits, and wiles.

I want to live where there are horses without fleas,

where everyone has dreams and dirty knees,

where nobody needs keys, or master degrees,

where no one ever forgets to say “please.”

I want to live without fear of demise,

I want to live where no one ever cries,

and instead of all of these sad funerals,

we’ll have grand parties when one dies.

I want to live where I can hold my head high,

where everyone is gullible, because no one ever lies.

If everything were left to my whim,

I’d take down everything grim,

and replace it with beauty,

and cover the world with a flowered trim.

I want to live,

in a quiet little town,

where all can give,

with no mechanical sounds.

Let’s live off the land.

Let’s live where love is all that’s grand.

Let’s live where gold is like sand,

with none of society’s bold demands.

Let’s live without oil, trouble, and toil.

Let’s live without greed, toxins, and addictive needs.

Let’s live without politics, bloods, and crypts.

Let’s move somewhere far away,

Let’s run to where I’d never say,

“I wish it could move somewhere sunny…

Somewhere where my nose was never runny.”

By Raederle Phoenix
April 2006 – January 2011

Minor Edits on April 21st 2025

Previously titled: Forest Community

Tuesday, January 3, 2006

Drum Beat

By Raederle Phoenix

2006 (Senior Year of Highschool)

The beat of the drum
Is the beat in my soul
Is the beat that my feet
Have learned to step to

The beat of my heart
Is the beat in my soul
Is the beat that my feet
Have learned to move to

The beat of the drum
Is the beat in my heart
Is the beat of my feet
As I dance around the fire

The beat of the drum
Is the beat of the fire
Is the beat of my feet
As I dance, and I sire.

— Raederle Phoenix

I wrote this in 2006 when I was a senior in high school. I was experimenting with just how rhymical I could make the words. I was particularly imagining djembe drums, which I fell in love with the very first time I heard them.

Rain

Rain
by Raederle Phoenix
2006: Senior Year

Raindrops are doomed to fall,
On hot spots where I can call,
A new genesis on the prowl,
To stop and hold still, just stall.

Just like all the wanders of the past,
Who withered, and didn't last,
Who felt small in the long shadows cast;
The masters of the beautiful, the stained glass.

And even though it's very late,
You can still set a new date,
For this new generation's fate,
We're all here just to wait.

And we're waiting in this rain,
And we're feeling all this pain,
Ignored, forming a new stain,
That is doomed to forever remain.

I'm in this teen denomination,
soon to be the working generation.
Starved of the real truth from creation,
by the mass appeal of the nation.

Youths taking E and Blow for elation,
getting these kids on probation,
such a sorry situation,
the illiteracy of this generation.

Even though this is modern democracy,
We all call this blatant hypocrisy,
And they all think it's their legacy,
Their right to a subjective dynasty.

We know the truth, all the lies,
We spread the truth in our cries,
All this deceit, it needs to die,
We need government in which we can rely.

And so there are those who speak out,
And then there are others in doubt,
But it's time to get up and shout,
Oil, money, and greed is not what life is a about!

So grow your own food,
Toss this paper money, crude,
Be nice, don't be rude,
Recycle and keep a good mood.

Because this is for the poor,
Who deserve so much more.
Because this is for the gay,
Who aren't at fault for being that way.

Because this is for the Jews,
Who were taken from their houses,
Locked up and killed like mouses,
Who were stripped of their rights,
And killed if they were to fight.

So it's time to stand up for what's right,
It's time to stand up and fight,
With every single ounce of might;
Before they lock us up 'n' shut off the lights.

By Raederle Phoenix
2006

This poem was written when I was seventeen years old and just beginning to learn about the world. I was full of frustration and writing was (and is) my primary outlet. I performed this poem in school when I wrote it and at many open mics in the years that followed.

Thursday, November 3, 2005

Beyond Reality

Beyond Reality
by Raederle Phoenix
2005-2010

Anxiety,
standing before society,
watching the confusion,
observing the diffusion,
coming to crying-conclusions

from your high-solutions
and dying-delusions.
Here you sigh,
cause you don’t wanna here my—
anthem, my mottos,
stuck in the ghetto

without the fro,
without the flow,
knowing

you want me to go.

Speaking,
defy your wishes of my sleeping,
let me spring something deep,
let it creep,
and crawl into you,
sprawl into your mind—
drawl and unwind.
You’ll find that I’m not as blind

as your stereotypes prove.
Hearing, “dyke move,”

n’ “you’re cool, but you ain’t got no groove.”

I’ll take the brunt of it,

fronts full of it.
Rage rising,
and turn the page,
and at this stage

fire pours out of a hole in time,
a gap that is mine,
a void, a sign.

Sign of change,
out of this derange

will come a reprieve for the repressed—

thoughts fighting to be expressed.
It’s a mess out there,
but under the hair,
the skull,
inside the mind,
you can find,
something worth saying,
something worth praying for,
something more,
for humans as a whole to endure

and come to adore.
Let the beauty of it soar,
because this is what I’m here for.

The flames from the void grow.
It has no vocabulary,

it’s sedentary,
but it knows all the words,
and burns brightly in each being,
each organism comprised

of these atomic

particles of truth.

You can’t touch it,
you can’t grok it,
and yet you are it.

Lights and energies,
with no enemies,
no wars,
nothing before,
nothing after,
no time,
nothing to find.

This perfect communication,
is the worlds salvation.
It’s been here since before creation,
and it lives in divination,
with a huge deviation.

Misplaced, erased and defaced

this common familiarity
and replaced it with sincerity
and intensity
of this discrepancy
that would be so easily avoided if you could see what I see,
and discuss over some bud tea.

No more one way conversations,
as comes true communication,
and substantial salutations.

This wordscape of perfection is made of energies,
lights so bright,
something beyond mortal sight,
beyond this physical fights.
This is something really quite spectacular,
this is the universal vernacular.

– Raederle Phoenix

Note: This was originally written in 2005 when was a junior in high school. It presents a stream-of-consciousness experience of how I felt about school, my life, and my newfound perception of energy-patterns behind everything which was said. It was a universal language – or a universal vernacular. I was inspired by this experience and thus attempted to capture it in a poem.

This poem/song/rap is the original work of Raederle Phoenix West.

You may share it digitally for non-commercial purposes,

as long as full credit is given and the text remains unaltered.

Any commercial use, performance, or adaptation requires written permission.

Saturday, October 8, 2005

Can’t Relate

by Raederle Phoenix

2005: Junior Year

You probably can’t relate,

You probably think I’m outspoken,

You’ll probably be late,

You’ll probably leave me broken.

It’s not okay. I’m not well.

I’m alone and miserable.

And you can’t even tell.

I know you can’t relate,

I know you think I’m outspoken,

You are always late,

You always leave me broken.

It’s never okay and never well.

I’m alone and so miserable.

Can’t you tell?

You don’t relate.

You’ve left me broken.

You’re too late.

I’ve already spoken.

I’m okay, I’m well.

You’re alone, you’re miserable.

Revenge was inevitable,

Couldn’t you tell?

— Raederle Phoenix

2005 (Age 16)

This poem is the original work of Raederle Phoenix West. You may share them digitally for non-commercial purposes, as long as full credit is given and the text remains unaltered. Any commercial use, performance, or adaptation requires written permission.

Tuesday, April 5, 2005

Hood Boo

Hood Boo
by Raederle Phoenix
2005: Junior Year

Note: This poem is written in this style for effect, and is designed to capture an essence of a life that existed at the time it was written, which was when I was a teenager. More notes at the end.

wasting my time, on a dick boo;

he’s sellin’ those great dimes, and nics too;

chewing on sweet lime, and licking the dew;

hearing through the grape-vine, about weed inna bic, true.

he don’t know how it hurts inside, when it all falls through;

he don’t even confide, in his crew;

he don’t ever lie, but he’s never all true;

he’ll make you cry, and make it up to you.

he makes it so I can’t concentrate.

we quake and always debate.

he always making me wait

on the only way I sedate.

he want me to spit, and not read what I writ,

I want ‘em to slip, and dig outta a crypt,

sayin’ I’m not fit with no right knit,

he tells me to shut up and sit.

he talks about big clips, and eating me up,

he lickin’ my sweet ‘lit, and eating it up.

he thinks he’s all that, and a bag of chips,

he calls me hypocrite, while hugging my hips.

he makes it so I can’t concentrate.

with myself I always debate.

he always coming home late,

but he’s the only way I can sedate.

spending my time, on this trick,

he sellin’ the great dime, and a nic,

eating this sour lime, for a lick,

he buying me sweet wine, and making me tick.

awake, I can’t concentrate.

please take away my debate

about whether it’s too late.

but he’s the only way I can sedate.

he don’t know...

but look a little closer,

you will see,

he’s not a poser,

and he loves me.

— Raederle Phoenix

2005

This poem is the original work of Raederle Phoenix West.

You may share them digitally for non-commercial purposes,

as long as full credit is given and the text remains unaltered.

Any commercial use, performance, or adaptation requires written permission.

Notes:

In 2025 I have edited some of the punctuation, changed the title to Hood Boo rather than Hood Relations (which is clearly a better thematic fit), and a few words to help the rhythm flow a little better; but it is mostly unaltered from the original 2005 version written when I was sixteen.

It was inspired by my relationship with my second love, especially the particulars like hiding weed in a pen (bic), and his penchant for half-truths (never all true). I believe it was actually an acquaintance rather than the boyfriend pressuring me to learn to freestyle (spit) rather than writing/reading my (writ) poetry.

This poem was intended to capture more than my own experience, however, and to be more broadly about other girls in my cohort who were in similar relationships which were full of turbulence – yet also intimacy and deep affection.