Proofs of Purchase

The following thoughts have filtered from a mind that has been oversaturated with images, screams, romance, text, and sounds since The Carter Administration. If you are not satisfied, then I recommend a double chocolate brownie from Starbucks with a tall bold of the day.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Lew Alcindor

Kareem Abdul Jabbar
You glide on in a car
Stride to the left
Duck right
Sky Hook
You're Kareem Abdul Jabbar
Kareem Abdul Jabbar
You buy Coors at the bar
Dip, shake right
Head Fake
Jump Shot
You're Kareem Abdul Jabbar
Kareem Abdul Jabbar
Your Converse have one star
88 wins
6 rings
3 plaques
You're Kareem Abdul Jabbar
Harlem, New York
LA for life

Saturday, December 11, 2010

I Wil Not Apologize

The Apology
Accepted
The Apology
Forthcoming
The Apology
Hold on
The Apology
Say What?
The Apology
Sure
The Apology
For why?
The Apology
Not a thang
The Apology
Really?
The Apology
Word
The Apology
Expected
The Apology
Okay
The Apology
Maybe
The Apology
Because of that
The Apology
Not quite
Sorry
I will not apologize

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Old Tea Party Bags

To the last strike
Down and out
The Tea party digs in the Twitter Bowl
Last character and all
A skull filled with false entitlement
Birthed from the days of Michelangelo
Who painted their alleged superiority
When the fumes dripped into the blood of Constantine
Where ideas of Western Civilization were birthed
How slaves of yore were brushed off
With a sword then
They thrust a picket sign today
Threatened by pure civic duty
Once a pillar of sociological innovation
Daring today to project city regeneration
Instead of offbeat reparations
Like a vapid Alaskan vixen
To maximize reality
So that demographic economy
Can slow stock atrophy
Topical coverage of latent threats
To the nature
Of blatant republicanism
That runs from the Age of Aquarius
In a cloud of self-flaggelation

This Thumbtack

Sketch with chalk
Right to left
Fill the board like Bart Simpson
Etch a Sketch granules
Shake a thousand
Or three years of penance
Elliptical genius
An island like Revis
Concede this
Demeanor
As I crack your bone of femur
Fear this breath
Of comedy
Sire me
Slip your left arm in the sleeve
Part of mythology

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Lower-Case Equities

Evidently
Bricks of bond be
Fade to liquid
Ireland, see
South of Europe
Partly Cloudy
Acid rain drops
Singe the note leaf
Hairs on head thin
Follicles freeze
Feast or Famine
Glass is empty

Sunday, November 21, 2010

A Broken Face

Steve Biko broke the rules
Because the rules of apartheid needed to be broken
Sometimes, breaking the rules is bad
Oftentimes, some get all the breaks
A broke slave has busted pockets
That indomitable spirit, though, broke the chains
As broken iron fell to the soil
Digital wires today are breaking boundaries
Of the nation-state, who breaks to save dying currency
After issuing broke loan documents
Leaving homes broken in spirit worldwide
Breaking Bad does pay for television ads
Bryan Cranston breaks out of Malcom's middle on top
Being broke is eating cereal with a fork to save milk
In a broken moonlight
Where the fire is breaking in a dance
An even split from the land

Monday, November 8, 2010

The Red Planet

You shave the face of yesterday
Your city eyelids stop and start
Your boss lives inside your head
Your shower head streams live chills
Months of red
You still want a flame from high school
Your subway seat holds big raindrops
Your price tag reads $2.99
Your socks have toe holes in them
Months of red
Your colleagues don't trust you once
Your work outfit is just some clothes
Your sweat glands don't work indoors
Your heart beats slower than dub
Months of red
You are the king of dilettantes
You eat the bread of stale and dry
You play a silent wood oboe
You sink deeper than you know
Months of red

Really Blue

Knowing the enemy
Takes the open sixth sense
Simmering, sugary
Taking over briefly
Killing all your spring dreams
I still laugh out loud
As one
Teasing your memories
Dying to fly through breeze
I drive on the tarmac
With nerves that hold still
Shaking star poetry
Bounce with cacophony
I take
Your clouds
And blow them to splits
Past the veins, physically
Darkened with ancestry
Business, only, strictly

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Nights In White Notebooks

I draw the acronym
Syllable
Noun
Predicate
To a page of substance
Style Wars magnet
Twirled into a prefix
These phrases lick paper to taste
Test minds thrice time
Keeper of the vocab
Spellbowl bound
For the 22
Second sentry
Before night falls

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Nightmares

The song remains the same
The videos pause, then play
The colors
Muddy over here
Sharp pixels at that
The foyer beeps with Boost Mobile
Fingernails tap on the window
To scratch and claw your dreams
Into submission
While you drop your stub of admission
Into the trash can
That sits on the corner
Scratched and sniffed
Regrets come to trial
In wonderland
The mirrors in your dream
Reflect the ghosts of you
That linger on the tip of your tongue
Shaking
As your world stirs

Friday, October 15, 2010

Drillbits

In those mines
The air ain't new
Tuna cans are far and few
Ay dio
No hope
Digging for the copper blue
San José blocks the skyview
Futures
Unknown
China grows from day to day
Chile claws for little pay
How so?
No hago
Faces like the Magnum, true
UrzĂșa, he leads, he do
Pots of gold
Que bueno

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Color Me Chemistry

Never was a night hero
I got my own solutions
To bubble in this world
A mix of liquids, blue
At times froze solid
Test tube clinks
Into clouds of gas
Is this really happening?
Yeah
You best believe it is
You best believe it is
You believe so, you do
Yeah
You smell the air, stone breeze
Cold case
Crisp
Glossed one over
For the showroom
Twice
Don't blink
I'm dreaming
Once

Pony Express

Port to Port
Road to Road
Austin out to Charleston
You see that
You are invited
To anyone
You are invited
To thank the loved
You are invited
To break the rules
You are invited
To loathe the day
You are invited
To fall down twice
You are invited
To debate and curse
You are invited
To chat and chew
You are invited
To hold me tight
You are invited
For all times
You are invited
To plant those fruits
You are invited
To seek knowledge
You are invited
To laugh all day
You are invited
To stop talking
You are invited
To stop crying
You are invited
To kiss and tell
You are invited
To climb, then stand
You are invited
For all times
You are invited
To make the mold
You are invited
To hide forever
You are invited
To be a fat ass
You are invited
To leap, then fly
You are invited
To anyone
You are invited
For all times

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Killa Colon

In first grade
We saluted your journeys
We celebrated with costumes
we observed the day by closing
Then later on in grade school
We opened up
And stayed that way
A friend told me about the way
You dogged your kind and mine
The People's History spoke to the ignant
Confirming what we suspected
Despite what we know now
The city slows down
To ignore the fight against the mind
Letting the lie win
Even though history and artifacts
Remain true
Partnered with lore

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Card Stock

We once walked in Scranton for a few days
Sitting in a conference room at times between
We even walked between the campus courtyards
Dusted with coal mountain wisps
Before LeBron, we were witnesses in Cleveland
At the same time, but not in the same room
We easily chatted online
I typed a thousand heartbeats per keystroke
A streetcar named and filled with desire
You moved to the Emerald Isle
From the Andean Chilean archiplelago
I build a plan to take Gotham
You directly care for the core
With Jean Vanier
Today, I write to you in ten words per hand glide
A trillion senses in one direction
On card stock
Ballpoint
Black ink
Finely stroked

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

A Screw Sprouting From The Lawn

You could study
Reconstruction
Segregation
Miscegenation
Fed legislation
Old patience
Draws still animation
And not spark another owl
Resting on an iPad
Sad from the lost hours
Of viral depravement
Talking at Starbucks
In layman's terms
Those laid free connections
Scattered in grey pews

Intellectual Minded

I woke up playing air guitar
I woke up playing air guitar
Then I clutched the cold microphone
Rapping verse chorus verse
Iambic pentameter
Not be the body
Rocked by dead portfolios
But the rock can move Prudential
Next to the Ladybug and Snoop
From the depths of the sea
Back to the rack
You know you want it
I got it
Dripping like water
On the blue carpet

Monday, September 27, 2010

The Black Squirrel of Bedouin

Dust tickled your eyelashes
Which fought more than free particles
They batted themselves
From images made into memory
Once, an embarrassment of action
Acts of determination
Lunges of pain
At your furried brethren
Them of an auburn hue
Guffawing that you were darker than blue
You had been displaced like the Navajo
An odd relic in spaces of Brooklyn
Over the Antics on Atlantic
Spinning your revenge theatrics
As you like it
The love of wire crawling
Tapped, those fears of heights
Flowing, the river of revenge
Hustle, those rodent brethren
Daring to grin in the tent of Bedouin

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Sense With Coins

Attack of the currencies
Siblings Yen and Yuan
Tack on more Western angst
Unlike a ticky tack foul
From Erick Dampier
One senator wants to tax
Those siblings
Who dare to tack our living rooms and shoulders
Full of cloth, blocks of digital
Then tackle our stomachs
With Kobe beef and tactile veggies
A tack on our balance sheets
Pressed with a thumb

Friday, September 3, 2010

The Flood

I stayed up late
Reading until old
It rose above the white sands of Malibu
The super cleaned up the foyer
The Puget Sound floated notes above the Washington firs
I picked up my newspapers from the stoop
The Mississippi River leaked across the heartland
Kettles boil, then pour into cups and bowls
The Gulf of Mexico boiled out the Deep South
I greet my roommate
The Rio Grande viene mas grande
I spin a web with floss
A toothbrush glides across my molars
The Bronx Reservoir meets up at a party
With The East and and Hudson Rivers
Hosted by The Atlantic
The waves came from all corners
For this moment
They move downtown
I open my door
They arrest my body
I kick and push
I pull up
They pull down
I pull up harder
They push and pull down
I flatten on a Ford F-150 bed
Oxygen restored
Escape complete

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Push to Crawl

Moving
Through the stethoscope of fear
Punish walls with fist
Dry stench of wheat beer
Raging
Part man, full amazement
Minty fresh leaves
Punch Tyson in the basement
Trading
Decay of new millenniums
Commodity of copper
Conduct heat canned
By the aluminum
Driving
Push stones to the side
Polished fingernail scent
Unglued, shot with bromide
A snail's pace

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Ruminations

The city is here
playing the scene of wondertown
as always
I just walk around it
from stride to stride
while its death has been proclaimed since its beginning
before the iroquois
dutch architects
english traders
don draper
bret easton ellis
ralph ellison
dr. jonathan golob
your favorite deejays
some catholic priests
your ex partners
philly folks
cali heads
midwest boys
miami mujeres
but the end never seems in sight
mr. softee whistles
duke ellington still takes the a train as a friendly ghost
central park glistens in the winter ice
i still live in the same building, same crib
same numbers
women still line up at 4 pm for the barney's warehouse sale
then slink into sweaty cabs at spring street
some buy parliaments first
one of them steals bit-o-honey
to put out her hunger
heard through her eyelash
sensed by the unsmitten
we love you for many reasons
they leave you for one reason
they can't hang

Monday, August 16, 2010

The Coals In My Neighborhood

I grab pine cones with my hands
Bare, but protected by starlight
I grab pine cones with my hands
The rush of blood from my thumb
Tells tales taller than Paul
More myth than the Loch Ness
More than words
To show how you breathe
More than words
To show your pain is real
That won't do
Brush of fire
Reach for fear
Jet black oil
Coats eye and ear
That won't do

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

My Cocoa Cure

I once knew a man
Who would walk the line
Pluck a cocoa bean
With a Ghana smile
He would give the bean
Gripped not but twice
Her lips touch the bean
Melting it at once
One day, an explorer
From whence unclear
Shook the trees sideways
From there out to here
Children in Berlin
Smile at newlywed bars
Colored costumes taped
Named Lindt and Mars
The fire this time
Singed Aztec tongues
Which whispered, thrice snickered
At moving gums
The Footsie raises it
From quid up to P
Love and cocoa
Shines from sea to sea

Monday, August 2, 2010

Raisins

Legend says that curiosity
Killed the cat
Of course curiosity killed it
Because the cat cannot
Transcend its senses
It lives by sight
It dies by sight
Looks can kill
For a cat
The mind of humans
Feels curiosity
It strips neuroses dry
To rest in the parietal lobe
Asking questions
Rolling the dice
For a big Crayola Box
A conduit for its cousin
Electricity
To light your earlobe
Since no one really dies
Ever

Sunday, July 25, 2010

The Microsoft Touch

Twice upon two times
Really long ago
An Allen and Gates
Build Voltron
From head to toe
Microserfs radiate electrowaves
Change pixels three degrees
Mr. Gates was out to please
With geek smarts
No college degree
We all agreed that the revolution
Of labor would minimize
Between big and small
In more dimensions
Undeterred by human error
Eat the fried eyes
Once sunny, now side up
Today, the revolution need not be televised
The sequel has passed us every millisecond
Without a sight
With plenty of sound

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Blue Country Hills

I've been around and around
And I've got somewhere to go now
But the funny thing is that
When I'm gone
I'll wonder
But I paid my debt
On time
I invested my hands
So it's not over now
You never been able
To cash right out
Balance the till
Because it's over now

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Beeswax

From one day
To the next
Texts jump from digital
To visceral
Punctuate with blended beans
Touched with honey love
Dipped by Portrait fingertips
Fine, smooth, clean
Purer than nectar
Blown by Cupid
Who doesn't lie
When you give it a try
Two hearts
Once beat
In the same room
Sometimes they stop
In both minds
Until then
Keep dreaming
Because it's too real

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Snap, Crackle, Pop

I know that in July
The rain falls on everyone
But I will clear your drizzle
I know that in July
The sun goes up
And scrapes your forehead
But I will soothe your burn
I know that in July
Fireworks pop your veins
But milk does a body good
I know that in July
Sam once ruled the summer
The Bronx hearts burn for Steinbrenner
But Jackson and Jeter stir the drink
Softly with sticks and straws

Friday, July 2, 2010

400 Meter Dash

I wish that I had independence
Want to freelance
Then dance to the music
Not a chance
Of happenstance
In our world ambivalence
Spit some long parlance
Circle out one Armstrong
Advance in the moonlight
Guide by progress
Word to Deliverance
Breaking wood blocks
Jumping fences
Into the white

Monday, June 28, 2010

Once Bitten, Twice Healed

The lights are on
The books were read
You walked in
Your ankles tied
Your mouth dried up
Your eyes just flew
A couple words
You walked out
I never knew once
I could feel so tough
Baby, Baby
I had that ice
Fire with water
Chilled with a twist
Of lemon
No need to look back
No reason to act
Baby

Monday, June 21, 2010

Strips of Cohesion

Slide in urban bases
A slick dharma bum
Ten kms on over
3000 miles out
Existential treadmills
Burning the lumberjack logs
Existential treadmills
Running on a full tank
Dickens' expectations
Met once there before
Break on out of the huddle
Throwing deep to score
Existential treadmills
A sneak attack chills your spine
Existential treadmills
Running on a full tank

Drum Flickers And Flicks

Yellow lines run
From East to West
Longitude
Latitude
To soothe your iris
Like bamboo leaves
Like nights in London
Like hits of sunshine
Like flutes from Freetown
With roots in beet fields
But.....
We never ride
Olly Olly
Oxen Free
We take all the bread
Shove it down
Burp pleasantries
Too little
Too late
To ride
Olly Olly
Oxen Free
Silly me

Monday, June 14, 2010

Great Expectations

I remember we met up one night in the Bend
In debauchery
Out by the basketball rim
Off the rainy deck
The party started
It lasted for 17 years
I tried to let you go
In so many ways
I dumped you in Deutschland
I tossed the images
Digital and unconscious
Only to have them seep back into my skull
Only to have you come back like Jason to Crystal Lake
Siphoning my willpower
Through glasses and pints
A feast on the sciatica
A mellow after the feast
But I realized that you were really
Just a figment of my silly imagination
Kind of like many romances
That were created and dissipated
Not unlike matter
I don't need you
I never really wanted you
I was just easily tempted
These days, more tricks are necessary
Let's see what you have
I'm ready to battle

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Fog and Sun Sitting In a Tree

An activist
A verbalist
Trade analyst
Peace terrorist
Tech scientist
City sociologist
Urban psychologist
Cunnylinguist
Epicurist
Horticulturalist
Sports Physicist
Exhibitionist
Macroenvironmentalist
Mysterious Countenance
Futurist
The Yay

The 110

On the freeway
I whirl by Staples
Center of the Finals
Core of Lakermania
On the freeway
Shift left on the 101
Not undone by puns
Big and small
On the freeway
City of Angels
Opens up on Slauson
Rep on corners, full flossin
On the freeway
Jack pops out the box
Feeding shortstops and vatos
Colorful homes
Chains snatched up at Roscoe's
On the freeway

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Isaac Newton

The hour glass starts
Grains fed on a dare
Take truth out
Shaved down
Cool with Nair
It takes a cold stare
To block Care Bears of crystal
Rub some angles
So content
Chill off that movement
Vent in space
Once frozen
Now municipal
Pushed with a cold jetstream
Going down in flames

Father MC

A tisket
A tasket
A Gulf Coast gasket
Blown to smithereens
Drops careen off primed walls
Newly installed with dry faith
Faith that dried the people's tears
Faith that calmed the wounds
From the gales whipping the Mississippi jellyfish
Aunt Katrina's mean old death wish
One night, BP fishes for trouble
Invites Vanessa over, a jeopardy double
After the Saints marched in, riding Colts
Filling the house with hurricanes from yours truly, Pat O'Brien
Hand grenades lobbed with heat
A Bourbon Street swap meet
Cupid throws drunk stars
Nessa opens up too far
Start to kiss men
Staining up salt beards
Before they hit bars
They were it
Her palms of oil said so
Men run to kiss Vanessa back
She's it
Then she runs to kiss Obama
He says nope, I don't drive anymore
Vanessa still has it
Swamp folk got it again

Monday, May 24, 2010

A Tale From Gizmo

I dip, dip, dive in
Kick my legs five feet
I pull, pull down there
Push my feet one inch
Liquid glass cream
Soaking up stones and shells
Punched by bright light
Iris out, shark I see
Slip in, cave one
Cavern two, door three
Three, a small crowd
Real strange company
Twist left, lunge right
Smell sweet, cocoa leaf
Brown hot pebbles
Soft, then real clingy

Mikhail Phruschev

I snuck into the tent at Bryant Park
I used to love Coca-Cola
I had a long, incredible relationship with Darryl Strawberry
I still hang out with Doc every now and then
I crashed this wicked graduation party on Park Avenue this Sunday
I dress up as a powdered donut from time to time
I travel all over the world
I swim in the seven seas
I am always looking for someone
I am always needing something
I once fucked your girlfriend
I never told you about that weekend
Because I always wanted your approval
Filled with words becoming lines
Lines groomed into thoughts
Thoughts sprouting into dreams
Of heaven, by day, and by night
But it's not you
It's not me either
It's the mystery force
Created by The Big Bang Theory
A lover of omnivores
Succulent carnivores
Pasionately dissin herbivores
Who introduced me to you
How dare he

Friday, May 21, 2010

Neurosurgery

I don't care what he does
I don't care what she says
Writers and photographers
It's not for me to know
It's not for me to know
My alarm clock, naturalized
Currency ebbs and flows
Germany short sells hope
So shifting, that circle
So shifting, that circle
The politics of the street
Polymorph from stride to eye
Senate builds a brick labyrinth
I wish I could care
I wish I could care
The tour bus kicks up dirt
Crushing chalk at 75
Guitars scream with no plucks
My vocals are blocked
My vocals are blocked
I can hum out tunes with you
But what's the use
Your ears are quiet
My flute dances like that bird
The Woodman
Woody The Pecker
Sensed, Heard, Believed
Yeah

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Ocean, by Lou Barlow

So you think you're in the middle of the ocean
Stranded on an island of your own
Or stuck in the top of a mountain
Either way you're gonna say you're all alone
And I hesitate to say that you're a liar
I never tell the truth myself
But I tried to chase you down and I got tired
So I'm leaving you to you or someone else
''cause you never wanna hook up in the middle
And I'd meet you there to talk if you would show
But you answer every question with a riddle
And refuse to even choose to let me go
It used to be I'd tell you all my secrets
Giving you the credit you deserve
I guess you didn't care to lose or keep it
And we never quite connected from the first
And I wish I had a way to make it better
To rearrange the world and make you smile
But it's dumb to even think I had that power
And we haven't been that close in a while
And I don't even wanna try to name it
Explain it for the one who couldn't care
''cause all that matters is the way you choose to frame it
And I hesitate to say that you're a liar
I never tell the truth myself
But I tried to chase you down and I got tired
So I'm leaving you to you or someone else
''cause you never wanna hook up in the middle
And I'd meet you there to talk if you would show
But you answer every question with a riddle
And refuse to even choose to let me go

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Pet Sounds

A first round knockout
First time knocking
That one flopped
Out the box
A libration
It's hard to be free
Truth be told at the station
Doors closing, one-two
Integration
I write a mile a minute
Manners in moderation
3-2-1-Contact
Over heads
Invasion

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Luncheonette Pancakes

A year from now
A time left then
Giving you just one more night
Followed by one more day
We would like to live forever
But we can only walk
One foot in front of the other
One heel behind five toes
One sun shining on my life
My life, my life, my life, my life
Is in it
Take a look around
What do you want me to say?
What do you want me to do?
I don't have to mean it
I felt that already
But thanks for asking

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Crisp Vegetables

If you thought about it
Then pantomimed it
Before dreaming of Method
You could have acted it out
At Morningside Park
To warm up for Shakespeare
If you wanted to get there
Using two arms and three eyes
Swiveled on two hips and legs
You could have been The Bicycle Thief
If you talked about it
In real stereo sound
Braced with mono from the Beatles
You can do it

Friday, April 30, 2010

Scrooge McDuck Hits Century 21

Analyze this statistic
Crossing the section
Time after time in a series
True world policy
Under my thumb
Like a testify from Team Goldman
Rolling like a stone
A fictional set of earnings
Unretained by capital markets
Unable to spend them with the speed of sound
But the science of light
That heat turned real
A page turned to blue
Blue haired politicians talked real
The Wall Street Journal printed extra
Not ordinary

Sunday, April 25, 2010

New and Old Amsterdam

Below the George Washington Bridge
Beneath the crisp blue place mat of sky
Bodegas weather the snow, rain, and sleet
Passing out hams with cheese
Sneaking loose cigarettes into worn hands
Neighborhood bars shake to merengue
Tube tops and ankle bracelets stretched to there
Hair and nail repair
Always included
To grab street polyester and synthetics
The part of mango
That stirs the strawberry
For the cup dost drinketh
Thoust green leaves burneth
The corners of 157 to 197

Creme of the Cream

Someday, somehow
Cheeks strong with bright sun beams
Light
Dark
Light
Fat Jacarandas
Someday, somehow
This book will be an old dream
Black
White
Fade
Bright Ipad canvas
Someday, somehow
My fingers dance in a V
Left
Right
Left
Full of sound and fury
Someday, somehow
You'll whisper something to me
Tart
Tense
Foul
Some suspect suspense
Someday, somehow
With the Maserati
Cruise
Through
Dry
Dank Endless Badlands
These days are spry

The Aegean Sea of Red

I could say that I'm surprised
France and Germany said no way
Then after further review, the words did not stand
Analysts battle the band
Mine, they do not
Neither do the politics of slave economy
Tinged with Greek physiology
The IMF, hmph, no accountability
They do not relieve the world burdens
From second to third base
Sliding in with chemical stimulations
Dusting villages built tough like Ford
Lowering expectations of lives taught minimally
Writing new tales of Greek mythology
Grand bailout, minor disaster
So they say
Then lay on their beaches, sucking olives
Tickling goddesses
Oiled with decadence and salt
An illusion of lore and lust
Sung by the Sea of Crete

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Dear Dorothy

I had never met you
Therefore, I haven't seen you
But we got acquainted
Through folk tales
Told in class
In February
Of your wisdom
Of your courage
On the roads
Tobacco and Day
Sweeping Main Street
Annoying Wall Street
Percolating blues joints
Spilled on 125th Street
You bit your thumb at Barnard
Who gave you the finger first
NYU called next with dots and loops
Rich like your service to
The people and lovers
They didn't want to pump the cause
They didn't need to fight the laws
Big statements
Sans a gun
Silent praise
Holy night
All is calm
You lived life

Saturday, April 17, 2010

My Own Military

I learned how to be a distinguished
Academic and gentleman
You taught me to remain calm like The Roots
You gave me dreams of globetrotting
Papers to read
Test tubes to mix
Ions to merge
At times, you would lose the calm
Collect the rage
Leaving us with a divorce bill
It's been paid off now

I trimmed the shrubs and handled the dirty work
Seen and unacknowledged
For you, it was tough but heartfelt
Hard work was a lifetime credit for pride
You wait to reclaim the marriage card
But it has expired
No extension available

I learned how to stop worrying
and love playing the beautiful game
In the backyard, on the astroturf
Through the rain
Cutting Hoosier prairies
Now you laugh at my romances
I smile that your battle with the Millers
Light and Regular, are over

You were the stealthiest
At times borrowing, begging, and stealing
But when least expected
You arrived, standing
We have not spoken in a while
Since you borrow, beg, and steal
But time seals a crevice

You let us pray
Five times for five eternities
You de go walka na 'treet
You ask for my queen
I say, one day, you go meet 'am

I remember you visiting
The Jersey Windsor
With bags of candy
Kinetic, dogmatic, elliptic
It's you that I mimic
Unconsciously

Things happened
Our treasury notes sunk to zero
Another DC agent
Whose late growth bled late efficiency
A boom in courage
Busted the elephant
Ballooning the room
Summer ice cream memories
Columbia Road tag runs back and forth

We played sports
We would wrestle
You always hung out in your room
Or in the side den
Weird but folksy
Like a Land's End sweater
Pure with conviction
A loyal dude, you are

You would always test me
Really thinking that you could win
I'd get a busted lip
You would cry a busted yowl
Our broken nucleus broke your spirit
Which you don't care to admit
Using dirty wit as humor and pain
You broke academic tradition
For endless fraternal exhibition
All things end though
I can't wait for your new beginning

My own military
Expensive
Enduring
Versatile
Many
Proud

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Luck Be A Dream Tonight

Sleep comes to everyone
Wipes the tears
Clean, no streaks
Sleep comes to everyone
Held by left arms
Faint neck breaths
Sleep comes to everyone
One sheep, two
One dime, four
Sleep comes to everyone
Newborns calm
Sales reps panic
Sleep comes to everyone
Lakes of Maine
Fields of Kansas
Sleep comes to everyone
Swallowed Pinot
Tylenol
Sleep comes to everyone
No loud salsa
No gun pistols
Sleep comes to everyone
Andes cliffs
Wood Dutch clogs
Sleep comes to everyone
Shadows you
See when there
Sleep comes to everyone
One half eyelid
Twice the loss

Monday, April 12, 2010

Beacon Theatre

Broadway glows
Marquee heat
The West Side
Smells like this
A cupcake
Some comte
Nicotine
H & H
Linen sheets
Old Talbots
Worn Filene's
The Greengrass
Of Barney
Riverside
Down by there
Strollers dodge
Hudson gales
Fresh dog shit
In a dish
Fluffy knish
In the can
Trash, it is
Treasured, it's not
Hay Fever
Swarms the eyes
Slows the nose
Not the nails
Of my hand
Of my mind

Sunday, April 4, 2010

I'm Back

Catch me if you can
Catch me if you can
You tried once with nails
Curses again
I rose up alone
I rose up alone
Your stained capital
Ha, whatever
Dead sea vandals
Allaleiluia!
Allaleiluia!
We forever eat grapes of euphoria

Friday, April 2, 2010

Hiatus

A man taken to Pilate
Accused of blasphemy
Envied by Jewish priests
Flaunted by elders
Verbal crucifiction
Physical scourge
Fists
Feet
Leather
Thorns
Vinegar
Gall
Myrrh
Romans
Cross
Black

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

IP Addresses

I'm home on the range
Watching deer and antelope graze
A rebel with a key
And a pen
Writing screenplays
Lifetime achievement
Blessed like Scorsese
Reeling eternal pixelation
Playstation
China blocks out
Google infiltration
Big trouble in a little dynasty

A Frosty

The snow warms your cheeks
After falling on dogwoods
Surrounding deciduouses
The snow invents playgrounds
Inviting young kids
Teaching cherubs rock and roll
The snow fights the passing of time
Losing in the end
Cause timing is everything
The snow dulls your windowsill
While brightening your spring fever
For days of romance, rain, and pollen
The snow blankets your eyelash
Slowing winks, but not stopping sight
Might as well make a snowman

Monday, March 29, 2010

Actionable

I should be able to help it
But I can't
And I want to
I had only this much to use
For the month
That grows into the year
Like stacks of GQ mags
Tipped with Stacy Adams
Who conversed with Marc Jacobs
After he whispered to Valentino
About the lounge in Milano
A dark room of home
By Calvin Klein
Selling mysteries from Zegna
And scents for Miuccia Prada
With love

Yellow Cave Mix

The life of a soldier
Dies but once
Walks soft, cutting bolder
A big ole man
With a big ole gun
Eyes scarred by sand
Dry heat crackles the pinkie
Arabic snaps the unconscious ear
Beautifully spoken
Artistically written
In the bazaars
With hits of fabric
And misses of cardamom
Popped by an irresistible force
Destroying a once immovable object
Tomorrow hits today
For the Iraqis
For the Afghanis
And our families

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Fort Tryon Park

The grass is greener
On the other side
The trees are bigger
Over there too
The leaves, almost the same
Who on this Earth are we to blame?
Since the heart pines for fame
Making us live forever
And ever
When your soft finger
Grazes my earlobe
Sparking spiritual neurons
Growing the castle
That K failed to see

Who Knows?

They don't know
They don't see
They want to feel
Maybe cop it
Before chewing up
A Big League pouch
Like I do
Like I know
Because I've been hangin around
Most of the time
Not really doing
A damn thing
Since I run Tyco tracks
Like Usain Bolt
Standing in the shadows
Full of light
From the Lord
His words nearly risen
Indeed

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

The Redshirts Are Coming

They dissolved once
They dissolved twice
Like Big Red, they lingered
Democratic. A Front. United.
Full of spice over Thaksin
Who dared to tease an agrarian
Rather than eat banana leafs
And swim in his baht sheets
Abhisit played absent minded
Claiming to be the rule
Yet he's hardly an exception
No heat for the Bangkok secularian
Thais cook with color
Thais fight with color
Can they work in grey?
Solving for P?

Saturday, March 13, 2010

It Falls On Bricks and Firs

The rain stops strides
Right at lunchtime
Pouring drinks
At brunch
With loved friends
Talking about unloved scenarios
That arise and fade
Like Oreos in milk
Like a hand raised off of a Bible
Unlike Polaroid photos
But like Jimi Hendrix solos
Electric ladies
Landing

A Pilot

Back in the day
We were young
Not children
Nor adults
But young
Hanging out
With dialogue
Without monologue
Heights style
Under peach trees and Georgia breezes
We reset the video
Amplified the speakers
Turned up the mikes
The film has not unwound
Since you are a now a manager
While I perform through dreams
A duet could fill those clouds
Distance may dissipate them

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Kirkwood

One day in Atlanta
Twenty-five years of friendship began
One day in Atlanta
Memories of yore ran
In the film stock with Indiana
Blurry as the traffic of Georgia
Clear
Into a visual info plan
Turned by Ted
That grew many peaches
For those states united
Flowing safe breezes
Cool and warm like The Replacements

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Aristotle Would Be Proud

I heard a rustling in the forest
I sensed an air of unrest
My radar knew it
The werewolves smelled it
Bruce Wayne lives for philanthropy
Batman solves for criminology
Your body was tied in vine
While your mouth bit a cloth, thirsting for wine
No footprints in the dirt
Many footprints on your skull
I picked you up gently
Carried you onto my back
To the valley of nectar
We nourished ourselves with fruit
Then returned to the batcave
Factored with labels
Of grace and justice
Those labels grew to granite
Entrenched on the blue planet
Once unconnected on Mars
The batcave opened your eyes
The metal bars kept them closed
Although soft, those bars were
An old illusion from a sinking ship
I charged free shipping of laughter
Since I was Bruce Wayne
A giver
A lover
A thinker
An enigma
To himself and others
Including you
You charged me for your spirituality
Swinging beneath God's society
Rather than within
A concrete paradise, belying Babylon
I returned the invoice
Paid with cash, then bonds
Short-term, since decisions are made
Quick, in a superhero's time
One day, you defaulted, hiding your assets
I wondered why, but learned the reason
You matured before the payout
Unusual for the market
Perfect for a superhero
Justice was served

Monday, March 1, 2010

A Rubrik's Cube on Steroids

Yet again, I sit alone in the library
Yet again, I am losing the motivation
Yet again, my eyes stay open with fear
Once again, I am my own worst enemy
With no timing
With no grace
I have respect near and far
Yet my psyche wrestles in the mud
Over the angles of life
Its chemistry
Its physics
Its biology
Its ecosystems
Its vagaries
I observe, but rarely listen
I act at times without thought
I think at times without action
I contradict with power
Therefore, I am secretly lost
In space rather than Earth
I reach out, touching few
I take more while giving less
More and more, though
I am seeing
The clues to the last pieces
Of the puzzle
Nestled under my nose
Beyond my large, busy mouth
One day it will all make sense
One time I will cross the finish line
With the cube of Rubrik
Its bright colors set in my hand

Saturday, February 27, 2010

i am new york city, by jayne cortez

i am new york city
here is my brain of hot sauce
my tobacco teeth
my mattress of bedbug tongue
legs apart, hand on chin
war on the roof
insults pointed fingers
pushcarts
my contraceptives all look at my pelvis blushing


i am new york city of blood
police and fried pies
i rub my docks red with grenadine
and jelly madness in a flow of tokay
my huge skull of pigeons
my seance of peeping toms
my plaited ovaries excuse me
this is my grime my thigh
of steelspoons and toothpicks
i imitate no one


i am new york city
of the brown spit and soft tomatoes
give me my confetti of flesh
my marquee of false nipples
my sideshow of open beaks
in my nose of soot
in my ox bled eyes
in my ear of Saturday night specials


i eat ha ha hee hee and ho ho
i am new york city
never change never sleep never melt
my shoes are incognito
cadavers grow from my goatee
look i sparkle with shit with wishbones
my nickname is glue-me


take my face of stink bombs
my star spangled banner of hot dogs
take my beer can junta
my reptilian ass of footprints
and approach me through life
approach me through death
approach me through my widow's peak
through my split ends my
asthmatic laugh, approach me
through my wash rag
half ankle, half elbow
massage me with your camphor tears
salute the patina and concrete
of my rat tail wig
face upface downpiss
into the bite of our handshake


i am new york city
my skillet-head friend
my fat-bellied comrade
citizens
break wind with me

Centrifugals

Solid Gold Bullion
Streaking Flash Gordon
Fish down in the City Atlantis
Throwing tulips at Candace
Man, look at this
Centipede liturgy
Never feisty
Combine these
Adverbs, predicates, subjects
Into proverbs
Made for the many that came
While few are chosen
Like the Jewish
You ain't wishing well
Trying to kiss and tell
These vivid fables
Memorable like Aesop
Rocking rough and stuff
With my Afro puff
Laughing with Melvin Van Peebles
Spitting watermelon seeds
Bigger than Greek bonds
Unforgettable like Barry
In every way

Thursday, February 25, 2010

A Quick Glance

You want to change things
But things don't change
You want to take this away
But the bill ain't paid
Strange legs
Gain weight
In strange places
This time
Razed up the centimeter
Asking Peter to pay Paul
Rather than borrow
Subprime mortgages razed
Our 401(k)s
And blood pressures
Which people find amazing
Why?
Why didn't California Raisins have golden hues?
Why didn't Bill Clinton admit what he did?
Why did Kraft have to buy Cadbury?
Why does hip hop love the industry?
Why does the price of cigarettes rise and health care fall?
I wonder
Without the bread

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Shall Not Be Moved, by Kashan Fields

I am a man
A black man
I am song
I am the writer of song
I am poetry
I am the spoken word
I am the Renaissance
I am Christian
I am creative
I am my past
I am the present and the future
I shall not be moved

My history is golden
Filled with stories of triumph & silver
In spite of the situation
I am all that
And non apologetic about it
Who am I to be president?
Who am I to be King?
It is a part of my present past
Therefore, I am King & I am President
I shall not be moved

My skin is enduring
Elastic to no end
You can age me, tear me, and abuse me
And it stays strong
In fact, the pain that you bring
Gives it a newer hue
Called Wisdom
Thru adversity
Rising to my very best
I learn the lesson
I shall not be moved


Days were long
With the sun on my nape
Knowing soon would come the escape
From my captor
Who held me for some 400 year
A people can only take so much
Especially since we never asked to come here
But now,I am here
I shall not be moved

No announced recession
Can make me lose my rock
We have always known how to make a little into a lot
No depression could ever stunt the path
You tried your best to break us
But, it couldn’t last
The solidity of the family
Stands so tall
Even if we lost it all
We’d count our blessings
And know who to call
We shall not be moved


The foundation was laid
Many debts went unpaid
Senseless bodies were laid
Because of the color of skin
To day there is no real win
Unless we accept this
And change our real ways
And accept they we all are kin
A nation of sisters, & brothers
Uncles & cousins
Mothers & Fathers
Grandmothers & Grandfathers
Aunties and Friends
It can only end
When we all make a move towards the end
Ending Racism, that is
We all shall not be moved

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The Loss of Love, by Countee Cullen

All through an empty place I go,
And find her not in any room;
The candles and the lamps I light
Go down before a wind of gloom.

Thick-spraddled lies the dust about,
A fit, sad place to write her name
Or draw her face the way she looked
That legendary night she came.


The old house crumbles bit by bit;
Each day I hear the ominous thud
That says another rent is there
For winds to pierce and storms to flood.


My orchards groan and sag with fruit;
Where, Indian-wise, the bees go round;
I let it rot upon the bough;
I eat what falls upon the ground.


The heavy cows go laboring
In agony with clotted teats;
My hands are slack; my blood is cold;
I marvel that my heart still beats.


I have no will to weep or sing,
No least desire to pray or curse;
The loss of love is a terrible thing;
They lie who say that death is worse.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

200 Rand

The Afrikaners like to be apart
The British like a human mart
The Zulu spears were shot down
The Xhosa impuphu, grounded out
Indians served tea and curry
Without cardamom
To flavor the dulled countenances
Of the coloured
The Rainbow nation rose
Out of apartheid rubble
ZA's future rests on many shoulders
Along with billions of dreams
The World Cup of 2010
Begins the REM stage
As 2010 continues the reality
Of a land glowing
With velds, mountains, and springboks
Oceans, rivers, and huts
Weathered by knives, abuse, epithets
Ignorance, avarice, and indigence
That the Big Five alone can't make alive

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Her Lips Are Copper Wire, by Jean Toomer

whisper of yellow globes
gleaming on lamp-posts that sway
like bootleg licker drinkers in the fog

and let your breath be moist against me
like bright beads on yellow globes


telephone the power-house
that the main wires are insulate


(her words play softly up and down
dewy corridors of billboards)


then with your tongue remove the tape
and press your lips to mine
till they are incandescent

Friday, February 12, 2010

These Yet to be United States, by Maya Angelou

Tremors of your network
cause kings to disappear.
Your open mouth in anger
makes nations bow in fear.

Your bombs can change the seasons,
obliterate the spring.
What more do you long for?
Why are you suffering?


You control the human lives
in Rome and Timbuktu.
Lonely nomads wandering
owe Telstar to you.


Seas shift at your bidding,
your mushrooms fill the sky.
Why are you unhappy?
Why do your children cry?


They kneel alone in terror
with dread in every glance.
Their rights are threatened daily
by a grim inheritance.


You dwell in whitened castles
with deep and poisoned moats
and cannot hear the curses
which fill your children's throats.

The Eagles Never Land In The San Fernando Valley

A sharp moon glow
Dusty pebble trails
Wispy magnolia trees
Heavy cotton thorns
Pointy ones poking at thumbs
Thuds from bold foot strides
Shudder at first
Later stamp with pride
Balding like eagles
Trampling tulips from Tupelo
After forty days of lashings
The conscious mind soiled
The unconscious mind haunted
From sodomy mixed with rape
Soaked with teeth spit
Malnourished blue veins
A right cheek slit
Owls mimic watchtowers
Harriet Tubman climbed through much uraniums
Sprouting Canadian trilliums
The distance from thence is clear and a past danger
The journey to later is nebulous and a lottery winner

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Liberty Needs Glasses, by Tupac Shakur

Liberty Needs Glasses
excuse me but lady liberty needs glasses
and so does mrs justice by her side
both the broads r blind as bats
stumbling thru the system
justice bumbed into mutulu and
trippin on geronimo pratt
but stepped right over oliver
and his crooked partner ronnie

justice stubbed her big toe on mandela
and liberty was misquoted by the indians
slavery was a learning phase
forgotten with out a verdict
while justice is on a rampage
4 endangered surviving black males
i mean really if anyone really valued life
and cared about the masses
theyd take em both 2 pen optical
and get 2 pair of glasses

Monday, February 8, 2010

We Real Cool, by Gwendolyn Brooks

THE POOL PLAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.


We real cool.
We Left school.


We Lurk late.
We Strike straight.


We Sing sin.
We Thin gin.


We Jazz June.
We Die soon.

Timeline of the Elements

Matter cannot be created
Nor destroyed
Isis developed commandments
Misconstrued by pagans
But a structure for citizens beyond
Imhotep diagnosed the human anatomy
Hippocrates received warm fraternity
Ashanti kings and Egyptian pharaohs
Laid down the bricks for Mexican Olmecs
Columbus and Cortés pretend to destroy this fact
Mr. Washington Carver created a peanut empire
Mr. Carter nearly bankrupt this country
Pierre L'Enfant started to draw the angles and diagonals of the District
Benjamin Banneker finished the plan, but the Library of Congress won't tell
Charley Patton pulverized moonshine and his acoustic
Elvis Presley forgot to give him a little more conversation
Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry weaved the pop standard
John Lennon and Mick Jagger shook their hands
Without greased palms
Cleopatra IV maintained the Ptolemic dynasty
Until the zealousness of Caesar cut close
Babe Ruth hit majestic shots, spawning tall tales
His broad nose and full lips destroyed that myth for Ty Cobb
W created his own word craze
Barack Obama destroyed the fraction with endless number ones

Friday, February 5, 2010

Cultural Exchange, by Langston Hughes

In the Quarter of the Negroes
Where the doors are doors of paper
Dust of dingy atoms
Blows a scratchy sound.
Amorphous jack-o'-Lanterns caper
And the wind won't wait for midnight
For fun to blow doors down.


By the river and the railroad
With fluid far-off going
Boundaries bind unbinding
A whirl of whistles blowing.
No trains or steamboats going--
Yet Leontyne's unpacking.


In the Quarter of the Negroes
Where the doorknob lets in Lieder
More than German ever bore,
Her yesterday past grandpa--
Not of her own doing--
In a pot of collard greens
Is gently stewing.


Pushcarts fold and unfold
In a supermarket sea.
And we better find out, mama,
Where is the colored laundromat
Since we moved up to Mount Vernon.


In the pot behind the paper doors
on the old iron stove what's cooking?
What's smelling, Leontyne?
Lieder, lovely Lieder
And a leaf of collard green.
Lovely Lieder, Leontyne.


You know, right at Christmas
They asked me if my blackness,
Would it rub off?
I said, Ask your mama.


Dreams and nightmares!
Nightmares, dreams, oh!
Dreaming that the Negroes
Of the South have taken over--
Voted all the Dixiecrats
Right out of power--


Comes the COLORED HOUR:
Martin Luther King is Governor of Georgia,
Dr. Rufus Clement his Chief Adviser,
A. Philip Randolph the High Grand Worthy.
In white pillared mansions
Sitting on their wide verandas,
Wealthy Negroes have white servants,
White sharecroppers work the black plantations,
And colored children have white mammies:
Mammy Faubus
Mammy Eastland
Mammy Wallace
Dear, dear darling old white mammies--
Sometimes even buried with our family.
Dear old
Mammy Faubus!


Culture, they say, is a two-way street:
Hand me my mint julep, mammy.
Hurry up!
Make haste!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

The House on Moscow Street, by Marilyn Nelson

It's the ragged source of memory,
a tarpaper-shingled bungalow
whose floors tilt toward the porch,
whose back yard ends abruptly
in a weedy ravine. Nothing special:
a chain of three bedrooms
and a long side porch turned parlor
where my great-grandfather, Pomp, smoked
every evening over the news,
a long sunny kitchen
where Annie, his wife,
measured cornmeal,
dreaming through the window
across the ravine and up to Shelby Hill
where she had borne their spirited,
high-yellow brood.


In the middle bedroom's hard,
high antique double bed,
the ghost of Aunt Jane,
the laundress
who bought the house in 1872,
though I call with all my voices,
does not appear.
Nor does Pomp's ghost,
with whom one of my cousins believes
she once had a long and intimate
unspoken midnight talk.
He told her, though they'd never met,
that he loved her; promised
her raw widowhood would heal
without leaving a scar.


The conveniences in an enclosed corner
of the slant-floored back side porch
were the first indoor plumbing in town.
Aunt Jane put them in,
incurring the wrath of the woman
who lived in the big house next door.
Aunt Jane left the house
to Annie, whose mother she had known
as a slave on the plantation,
so Annie and Pomp could move their children
into town, down off Shelby Hill.
My grandmother, her brother, and five sisters
watched their faces change slowly
in the oval mirror on the wall outside the door
into teachers' faces, golden with respect.
Here Geneva, the randy sister,
damned their colleges,
daubing her quicksilver breasts
with gifts of perfume.


As much as love,
as much as a visit
to the grave of a known ancestor,
the homeplace moves me not to silence
but the righteous, praise Jesus song:


Oh, catfish and turnip greens,
hot-water cornbread and grits.
Oh, musty, much-underlined Bibles;
generations lost to be found,
to be found.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Act Seven

Sometimes we are good
Other times we feel bad
Often we talk
To crack jokes
To make fun of tourists
Or idiots unworthy of our village
Created through kinship
Islands that form into a land
Returning history before
Magellan, Vespucci, and De Gama
Beating Columbus even
They call it Pangaea
Pangaea loved to sing, talk, dance, and eat
We all do the same thing
Many moons later
When we feel like Kafka's aliens
When we feel enlightened
When we just don't care
But watch out
Our boxing gloves are strapped
If necessary
Our love for one another
Beats through our shirts and blouses

87 Rafts from Lungi

It's been a while
Longer than that magnificent Chicago mile
We met after a date with Amsterdam
Followed by a lam with Casablanca
Then Sam played it again
At the Lungi airport
With female robes called lapa
Merchants of clothing
Palm Oil
Peanuts
Cassava Leaves
Bunga Fish
Yuca becoming fufu
Spinning faster than a Spiderman web
Despite the old Victorian squalor
Laying on Bent Street
Forgetting Kissy Road
Daring not to muss
Your silky white beaches
Your crystal waters
I de ask mesef
How for do
I ge'fo go to toun
When I finish me study
Aha

Ka' Ba, by Imamu Amiri Baraka (former Leroi Jones)

A closed window looks down
on a dirty courtyard, and black people
call across or scream or walk across
defying physics in the stream of their will

Our world is full of sound
Our world is more lovely than anyone's
tho we suffer, and kill each other
and sometimes fail to walk the air

We are beautiful people
with african imaginations
full of masks and dances and swelling chants

with african eyes, and noses, and arms,
though we sprawl in grey chains in a place
full of winters, when what we want is sun.

We have been captured,
brothers. And we labor
to make our getaway, into
the ancient image, into a new

correspondence with ourselves
and our black family. We read magic
now we need the spells, to rise up
return, destroy, and create. What will be

the sacred words?

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Technical Difficulties

According to you, I'm fuckin' up
According to you, I forgot thangs
According to you, I'm not down
According to you, I should fry
My hair, my food, and my serotonin
And break my English
But ain't no reason for that
Not only does North America place the welcome mat
At my feet
My ol' pa invented it
Not only is my destiny claimed
The world is my oyster
Not only do I remember five hundred years
I have walked them, and am still moving
With power steps and stealthy verbal spits
But you think the pigs wouldn't do a cavity search
Cause of my Ferragamoes
You think because I can't dance
I'm not here and living a lie
You think because I'm with Bai, Indira, Rosa, and Carmela
I don't want Lena H.
Please
If you woke up in my pores
In this cocoa epidermis
You would be in a Huggies box
On the mutated Hudson shore
Acting hella nervous
So what you talkin' bout, Willis?

Before you knew you owned it, by Alice Walker

Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.

Friday, January 29, 2010

The Soul Tailors featuring Alvin, Simon, and Theodore

You taught me about the nightshift
Before I could unzip my onezie
You crooned that hearts of fire sing love's desire
You perfected the dub for getting up and standing up
You told me that blacks are africans, even in poland
You had the gall to not worry if hell was below
Since we are all going anyway
And do it super bad
In a little red corvette, going much too fast
I asked my father to play this record again
Did the freaks really come out that night?
Should I keep it and myself in the closet?
I won't be an extension of a boy
But I can get next to you, baby
Tearing not only the roof off this muthasucka
But that soul, wit yo hot butta.

Father Vincent D'Angelo

Lou Carnesecca dribbled from the meadows
To the Garden, at 40 degrees below
Normal body temperature
Chris Mullin's jumper hit from every prefecture
Malik Sealy hovered above the planks
Mark Jackson was the deity of shimmy
As a nondeity, I confessed my egalitarianism
Your welcome mat euthanized my unconscience
The road to Queens was long
The subway to Tribeca is shorter
Six years of darkness
Succumbed to one beam of promise
You forgave me, Father
I now know what to do

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Barnard College

In good ole Indiana, I hit from downtown on the court
Once in awhile
In DC, I was a multiple All-Star
But the nation's capital started to finance
A priceless adjunct fellowship
The first term had a German mandate
We dominated the tennis circuit, four years straight
While you sprechen deutsche
You taught me generosity, sacrifice, and diligence
Bitte Schoen
Before retirement, I cultivated a bonzai garden with seeds of art, soul duets, and technology
In two years, it sprouted wisdom, motivation, and elegance
Arigato
The garden was blown away by steely Honduran winds
Cut with sunny, spiritual Tuesdays
Eight months of consistency paved a trail for railways
Gracias
Those cabooses hid for comfy Korean cirrusses
They glowed with grace and empathy
Nine months of clear days then turned into a heavy downpour
Soon after, a higher village beamed
Komawo
Six years stitched for a doctorate in romancology
Good for conquering society
Thank you, feminologists

Du Lacs

I cheered and cheered for your old golden suit
The echoes woke up my dreams
My mother nourished international fruit
LaFortune Center gave out the snacks I love
Snite films sparked awe left behind
In the unlit walks through John Adams
The stadium reeked of catechisms
Beyond the Du Lac gel of blue
Into the cytoplasm of many
Those vessels stay full for those chosen
Mine froze after echoes of joy
Twisted into shouts of ignorance
A quizzical glance
When my hair fried blonde
As Greg Lemond rode cerebral laps
Of love and confusion
I know that Earth is under me
But Notre Dame pulled its rug out
To swat a supposed alien
Bigger than Jeff Goldblum

Friday, January 22, 2010

Unhooked Phonics

Nouns get crutches from a predicate
Esoteric subjects funnel into objects
Entities that build paragraphs on beechwood
Would Minwax complete the sealing
Stopping newborn cracks in the essay?
Before the sentences sprout into hearsay
You say, but what about heresy?
Well, let me tell you about heresy
Our old buddy
Our old pal
He cloaks as typed doctrines on a typewriter
A yellow sheet of pronouns, past participles
Present perfect syllables and conjugations
Rather be perfect from now on than later
Later ends up in city wastebaskets
Reuniting with his eternal conqueror
The spoken word of Jahweh

Eyelash Academy

Pull up the wall, then brace your hips
So that your right leg catches up to your left one
Pull up on the boulder, then push your body
Over onto the ledge, with chest chlorophyll stains
Take advantage of that powder and green leaf
Filtered from your nails through your sciatic river
Voices only exist in blurry prints
Physical beauty exists in front of your eyelashes
Euphoria dances beyond the light shower
Stillborn revelations stay in it
Believe it or not, wisdom and euphoria have had an affair
That The New York Post missed on Page Six
If you want to know more about it
Don't ask US
Tell it to the people that don't climb boulders
They run around on the track in diagonals

Thursday, January 21, 2010

First The Pence, Then The Pound

I could say how the mighty have fallen
But that would be a fallen statement
Cadbury eggs will now have Kraft cheese
Manchester United is run by American single slices
Canada sliced out its own Constitution
Germany platooned your midshipmen
India brought restitution to its shores
Africa was left with destitution
But economic revolutions are coming soon
Australia worries about no solutions
New Year's resolutions live again in Hong Kong
Sure, the language lives everywhere
But your pulse ticks
While the European Union talks
To cut the pound into a cent

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Standing Tall, by Jamie McKenzie

Some kings rule their kingdoms sitting down
Surrounded by luxury, soft cushions and fans
But this King stood strong
stood proud
stood tall

When the driver told Rosa
"Move to the back of the bus!"
When the waiter told students
"We don't serve your kind!"
When the Mayor told voters
"Your vote don't count!"
And when the sheriff told marchers
"Get off our streets!"
using fire hoses, police dogs and cattle prods
to move them along
This King stood strong
stood proud
stood tall
Speaking of peace
of love
and children
hand in hand
free at last
free at last


When some yelled for violence
For angry revenge
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
He stood his ground
Preaching peace

And when some spit out hate
He stood there smiling
Spreading love
Until it rolled like the sea across the land
Sweeping away Jim Crow
Breaking down the walls
Ringing the bell
Joyfully
For Freedom

Until
Standing on the mountain top
They shot him
Coldly
Hoping to see him fall
Hoping to put him away
To bring him low

But this King
even in death
even today
stands strong
stands proud
stands tall
And we remember

Osaka's Comet

I got word from above
The Chrysler Building, blocking a dove or two
A star, with a fist, lay in the East
When the East is in the house
You think danger
This time, I saw a ranger
I heard of your food labs
You told me of soul collabs
We use legos to create a virtual soul dance
Without a hangover, fiction and non
Our dance blends into a myth
Greater than Halley's Comet
I stand witness to your arrival
The beacon sprays a sea of light
For us, the sons, and daughters
Of New York with Illadelph
You defy astrologers, saying that comets reappear twice in a lifetime
I wanted to believe
Then, I thought I knew better than to wait
Now, I wonder at times if I did

Monday, January 18, 2010

Deuce

You hit a serve from Dusseldorf
I returned it at the Phillips Collection
You collected the shot
Lacing a forehand, skirting the line
I argued that Becker had retired
He, the ball, and Berlin's Wall were out
The ump called it a winner
You smashed an ace at 120 km/h
I stood, kicking the hardcourt
Trumped by Deutschland
Unlike Kurt Russell, I escaped to New York
Plotting for the rematch in Flushing
You served promises
You volleyed threats
We competed again on Labor Day
Outdrawing Sampras vs. Agassi
You see my developed backhand
We play ballet on the court
Aces followed by winners
Borg and McEnroe were envious
Your lobs continue, coated with "Mein Susser!"
My returns up the line, shoot 'Vas?'
The forehand punctuates the stripe
Ich liebe dich!
I backhand over the net
Ich liebe dich?!
Deuce
I serve for championship point
I nick the corner angle
Game, Set, Match, Saleoneusa.
We shake hands at the net
Whispering of future doubles
You train in DDorf
I train with Fort Tryon
We run the doubles circuit
Our electricity generates fortune, domestic and global
Weary of US Open dominance after three titles
We put on new uniforms in Germany
Forming into Tennis' Voltron
Destroying foes in Berlin, Frankfurt, and Cologne
Bonn nominates us as speech ambassadors
We play a special friendly in Amsterdam
In the Van Gogh museum, I curse
Damn, I pull a hamstring
You curse my vices
I yell about your strategy
Our minds and bodies plateau in Dusseldorf
Foreshadowing a retirement
Later on, we play under the Flushing moon
We burn down Boston, setting back Brady's platoon
Then outduel the Philly jewels
New York holds up a mirror
Wrinkles, sore shoulders, and bruised knees shine
From the long tour
You are hungry for more winners
I am full from success
My heart needs to recoup rhythm
For the next tour
You rave about our past adulation
I talk of stopping for present meditation
You compete in Cologne at the German Open
You find an old friend from tour as a partner
I meet a budding star from Osaka
We meet in New York, going for the gold

Friday, January 15, 2010

Walter Payton

Your perfume colors my nostrils
As your dialogue blocks my ambition
I stiff arm your negligence at midfield
As your stubborness tackles me at the 40 yard line
But a first down is made
John Madden drools about his nuclear turkey leg
While I puree black beans with orange juice and crisp peppers
The trick play catches you off guard
As I leapfrog your defensive back, whose curly mop pokes out the helmet
You reappear as a safety to rip my arms off
It's far too late, though, as the ref calls an illegal hit
First and goal is where the beat reigns supreme
Logic can tackle you when the goaline lies past Minnesota
I do a biscuit shoulder shake and the goaline morphs into the Pacific Coast
The crowd noise coasts with the blue velvet
Purifying my legend as a clutch player
Rather than a choker
Game over. I got you.
Six points

Alka Seltzer

Two Alka Seltzers cannot clean me up
Eight glasses of water cannot neutralize
The assassin acids cramping my senses
Suffocating from malpractice
Beginning a hollow era
Stacked with invoices for Honduras
Cuts to be sown from the stabbing
Questions pondered
Was I tortured?
Attacked even?
Was she The Manipulator of Limon?
Or a construction worker for our village?
Was the whole thing adult's play?
Or children's work?
Transition should be trusted
When the glass is empty
I'm finished now

Hatianology

You were the first to break shackles
De la consquitadors y Napoleano
You shrugged off the deadwoods in office
You stopped the glass bullets that jumped from behind the shanties
You share land, but not fruits, with Dominicana
You gave us Basquiat and we got an art futurist
You gave us The Fugees, and we were not ready
You somehow, someway, brushed Aristide off of your shoulder
You got bored cleaning up from all the hurricanes
Your children went everywhere like Johnny Cash
The Lord tried to shake you into the ground
But you stood still, with your palm skirt flowing
You are Haiti
An undistressed damsel

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Winks, Twitches

Stirred and shaken
Kissed with lime
Sizzling hot with a frozen core
Bold taste holding a smooth finish
Indomitable passion punched
By unpredictable anxiety
Indigence diverting the stones of excellence
That roll through the prairie
Gathering all dust but no grass
Nor moss beneath the firs
Whistling sounds by the Puget

Rainforests and Bonzai Gardens

Our voices dance together in dreams
Full of rainforests and mountains
Melting the ice caps
Drying the oceans that separate us
So our minds can unite
My smile knocks down the Statue of Liberty
To free the land
For the growth of our future
Your purple tulips
And my tomatoes
That reach above the pine trees
To speak with our sun god

The Cabinet Is All the Rage

Too often we see one thing
With x-ray vision
Developing one thought
When reality makes us think of several thoughts
But reality can be drawn by the brick houses
Sitting on top of blueberry hills
Tickled with thin ferns and thicker dandelions
Then reality can photograph the rusted can of Progresso soup
Emptied by the mother upstairs who had to steam the bellies
Of her four children, whose gazes lived too short
And turned into a wide look at the cupboard
For the last few Triscuits or Chicken In the Biscuits
That one of the brothers ate
Out of sight
Into his hands

Sonnet 116, by Bill Shakespeare

I had to post this one just to emphasize the wonder of this man's lyrics and warm those cold January Hearts.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments, love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:

If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.


Lower Sodium

ConAgra took out a couple tablespoons
Of tomato soup by Campbells
More tomato, less salt
Well, it's about time
Suddenly companies are making healthy choices
To help their unhealthy balance sheets
Citizens still can't balance on one leg
Much less two feet
Filled with diabetic surges
Stopping the marriage of feet to sidewalk
To lawns
Tennis courts
Mountains
Around school tracks
To feet, this movement does not taste great
But your body has more filling

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Sparkling Swarovski

I burned up gray matter
Sprinkling ash flakes after
Blown by echoes of confusion
I peeked behind my elbow
Seeing the stone crevices
Follicles rise, to controlled chaos
Then one day, I ran into old cheeks
Then old foreheads
I laughed
I swallowed Crystal Pepsi
I am a stud
Freed from the dark christian spiral

The Dolo

Metamorphosis
Transcendentalism
Reflection
Wisdom
Light
Egalitarianism
Connection
Four of them
In black
In red
Symmetrical
Inevitable
Betamax galactic
Eternal

Tony Shafrazi

27th streets are far between
Bustling at day
Dormant at dusk
At one art luminaries
Emerging and historical
Splash consciousness
At 85 years of age to 7
With 7 decks looped
To the cacophony of
Grand Concourse, 1981
The Boogie Down produces
Soliloquies from KRS-One
Verbal vignettes by D-Nice
Photo illustrations etched
With the lips of Lord Finesse
Where patrons proceed
Continuing to rock the mic

Monday, January 11, 2010

Chinatown to Chinatown

Twas three days after Thanksgiving
Dark touched the streets
The Lions stopped roaring
Mariah Carey's breasts kept bobbing
The Nation's Capitol started boiling
Skins got redder with another loss
Asiatic indifference
Lost and found upon 7th street
Pushed by exoskeletic gymnastics
That gain a 10.0 on the balance beam
Heightening the unbalanced din

Cupid Takes a Long Lunch

The place where I dwell
Is where the warriors dwell
With the storytellers who sell
Images and syllables
That string along heartache tales
Of a retrograde complex
Concaved by lemon bites
Not sweet lemonheads
But bitter like Heineken
So sour that Chuck Berry smiled
A toothy grin, polished with Crest
Another tale of an undergrad nothing

Benson

What happened to real racism?
Back in grade school, the haze of corn
Began with questions of sartorial matter
Why do you dress so well?
Wow, you talk like a Senator from Capitol Hill?
You play the violin?
Your family lives in that house?
You take algebra in the seventh grade?
Nowadays, white people slide by faster in the office
Than the long O without slurring
The 20th century was soaked in racial tea leaves
Double helix intertwined into the crinkled sciatica
Of all youth
Erudite, youthful vernacular inverted into pop-culture slangonomics
That board rooms coallate into white powdered Jolly St. Nick hedonism
Ties around the black man still seem
Unusual to the classic Anglopolis denizens
Unlike their Zen memories
Of Benson serving pot roast and floating sarcasm
Eyes eating up Pac Man pellets
Of visual brutality

Dear Mr. Mugabe

Why do you buy this expensive shit in Switzerland?
That drives petrol up to 5 bucks a third of a liter?
Forcing the collision of awkward dialects
And unfriendly scorn, the only fuel that drives
The malice, the heartbreak
That washes away the joy from killing
Cecil Rhodes, the unfriendly, scrambling ghost
Who mined the velds, pushed out the springboks
Swallowed whole the Ndebele ids, Shona egos, and Zulu birthmarks
Only cause his pupils could not let go of
The gold glitter
The glitter cut down Rhodes
And will cut you down too, Mr. Mugabe
You filled your manor with Benzes
And earned the phony respect from your big sister, za
Isn't it enough?
Just go to Londontown and diversify your portfolio
At Barclays off of the Thames
Then you can leave the Zims to the Zims
The gas lines will get shorter
Bread will sprout again on supermarket shelves
You will not have to be exiled
By a Ginzu strike from my main man and your son
Nyasha. Big up, playboy

Candyman Has Big Shoulders

He used to whisper three times
Taunting shrunken hearts with sharp metal
In the foreground of a brick Atlantis
They called it Cabrini Green
But Grant Park did not give Cabrini any trees
Nor bicycles nor Ipod shuffles
Princess Lake Michigan gives us legendary gales
That leave ears blue and shiny Rudolph noses
Aorta stay warm, growling with anger
Years are longer in the city of wind
1919, 1959, 1983, 1993, 2000, 2003
Short bats twisted with shorter luck and fell
Lowering shoulders of many
Yet the spirits gleam white
Like Marshall Fields at Christmas
Even shining the hubcaps of my 88 maxima.

Ninety Miles

The distance to there isn't here
Except when Mother Nature
Sneezes from October to May at 75 miles an hour
Then Milwaukee hides in the background
With Waldo smiling and sipping on tea at 5 p.m.
You ask why not at 4 p.m. like our neighbors across the pond
Because the distance is close enough
To hear the biscuits crunched, the lips pursed, the gloves worn
And think that the isolated English mindset
Distances their thoughts from the jovial side
Of the emotional football field

Rejected Again

Wind pushes the eyebrows down
Of the city, and my frail torso
Not enough to shake my lonely teeth
To slurp two-three slices of cheese
Finally, I tasted my true value
To our wide world
That pizza cures the common cold
One that freezes my sexual desires
Along with my large balloon
Gravity pulls it toward Uranus or
Toward the gum dotted sidewalk
Nesting on a dry cigarette butt
The mission to Burma is off again
But I can’t reach for my revolver
It’s too far away, in my old pizza box

Listen to My Demo

The audio stimulates the nose
The nose scratches the ears
As the ears widen the eyes
Close until the mind
Opens the cerebral cortex
Vexed by dim blue clouds
Thundering with tornado swirls
Split open as yellow streaks pierce the sun
Shone behind me
Bushels of yellow, red, and brown leaves
That gather in the scrapbook

Newly Minted

Nirvana rose from Mt. Saint Helens’ winter dress
Winning the hearts of men
Completing sentences
Giving answers to the Daily Double
Trekking the globe
With sacks of bitterness
Axes sharpened with anger
Angered that the globe
Draws its own bile
Severs the confused
Into a singular particle
Left with two atoms
Rather than four
Dissolving the compound
Into a fractured element
That needs hydrogen

The Puddle

Throwing a fit in the sky
Leaves consequences behind
Not only the 8 ball, but also between the toes
And over the ankles
Cuddling over the textile fortress
Turning into a molten drawbridge
Where hydrogen comes to dance
With oxygen on the second date
Stopping to set date and time
Before it contends with soil
For natural supremacy

Don Imus

The amazement of faces
Never waits for our peek
Nor our stare at 1 a.m.
From a police car on 176th
It arrives at sunrise
On the face of the Gray Lady
Reeling video thoughts
And clouds to our conscience
Don Imus and Jackie would agree
That to look is human
And to judge not divine
My eyes are brown because of Africa
My heart booms with red blood
My mind bleeds from another lesson
For another shock jock

Whole Dreamin'

Don’t wake me
Don’t tempt me
Don’t touch me
Don’t blow on my face
Don’t shake my shoulder
Don’t tickle my elbow
Don’t lick my ear
But you know what you can do?
On the real?
Blow me

Claimant forms

You claim to want stability
But you missed Mr. Precocious
Desires of personal attention
Tumble out of your lips
But you missed my reference to the movie’s plotline
Your belly screams for a tomato with mozzarella
I smothered your stomach with Penne Rigate and Pesto
Mesclun too
You prefer a voice to digital discourse
So of course, I call to wish you well for the next school day
After I tell you that your bumbling of the word, “Polka-dot”
Needs to quit
On First Avenue, you claim to need a man
I order a cab, pay the fare, let you freshen up at my place, and whisk you home
While eggs drip from your lip corner
To the crumb on your cheek
They say that you can’t fight what you can’t see
It seems like you can’t see shit

Sandbox of Freedom

They bomb our country
No shades of shame
Guiliani and Pataki once added up to enmity
Which tenacity threw out to the Hudson
Nine years later with 9,000 Century 21 bags
We sift through sand
Tossing rubble into our eyes
Burning blueprints with egos
Stuffed with dry ice
The horns of the Bull sink below the Path
Stabbing Sam O’Neill
Nuclear families and diplomats
The FDNY, NYPD, EMS....Hill Street Blues
Lose bones to The Port Authority
Who throws them to Silverstein
Without asking Dr. Evil
Forgiving them is not divine
Since they love to err
As they forgot the human

The Dragging Bullet

You suck the life out of chicken wings
That never flew
Rarely thinking of their pain
You preach empathy to the sick
While practicing apartheid
Not of race, like South Africa or Australia or the United States
But of consciousness
You touch with tenderness
Yet move like Robocop
Dreams of bright sun from Calilfornia
Spotlight your words
The harsh snow of the Yukon Territory
Emits from your soul
Your educated doctrine beams with effervescence
But your fingers spit slow bullets
Leaving pains in my heart
While dystopia captures my mind
Regardless, my soul rebuilds
The bricks of my skin
Then it paves the ventricles of my legs
For the waves of humor, of grace, and of justice
That nourish my brain and nudge it
To seek a red trail
Leading to a wonderland
Where I can meet Alice
And ask her for the phone number of Donna

Perception versus Reality

Perception is a helix of pictures
Constructed by pieces of a Jenga tower
That peruse the psyche of man
Oozing through the pores of the epidermis
Expediently building particles in our area
Particles shaped into passions
Realistic or figments of
An imagination locked up
A music chord unbelted
Parts perceived to be pedestrian
Skipping across Delancey Street
To participate in the sludge of the East River
Corroding into real viruses, to limit
DNA generations, overture collaborations, and solar stimulations

Eastern Market

The streets tapped with looters
After Dr. King collapsed
U Street sizzled with Duke, then Lucifer
He sent his henchmen for the Invisibles
Lucifer had league championships
His team even beat the Yankees
He had it made. Fame. An Ethiopian girlfriend
A house in New Zealand
He made Jerry Jones jealous
And that’s hard to imagine
Or is it?
Then, one invisible man had colored visions
Ones of a transparent metropolis
He swept around K street, collecting blue chips for blueprints
Until his white lips stained his blue suit
Ben offered chili dogs, spicy on a toasted bun
High rises begot high tax brackets
Invisible hearts burn at the feet of Abe Lincoln
Four score and five years today

The Noise Doctors

Feedback of Chords
Going portal with the post-punk
Sending out white shrills
From the green pumps of Kim
The commissioner of feminism
The princess of dancing tonsils
Your Downtown Royal Highness
Who would fight Mr. Moore onstage
If he dared to sing on key
Daring to pretend
Their thrones had been conquered
But Drew and Fabrizio
Seeing the forest for the trees
Salute the greenery of our favorite rock botanicals
Since Kim and Thurston could eliminate them
With 10 minutes of blissful guitar dissonance
Clearing the skies of acid rain
Hamptons excursions and drunken nights at Quo
Whoa, dude
I’m like, cured

Fitness

A fit mind needs fitness
Dream exercises to develop
Biceps that tackle questions
In our daily musings
Kerry or Bush?
Will the Yankees fall again?
How did Kim get her fiery hair?
Why did Europe mobilize their currency?
Is a beer really worth $7?
What if Africa returned to global prominence?
Only through daily doses of dreams
Can we imagine the answers
To concepts that challenge our social structure
Giving answers that Bill O’Reilly will claim as his own
When we know that is a bullshit thing to conceive

Unsleepy

The gray matter sprays thought around a circle
The Indycar race has a photo finish
That Mr. Sandman waits to judge over
Once he sprinkles the track with a photo flash
Judges can cut the mental fat
Brought on by months of late payments
4 a.m. crawls on the A train
Without a dash of female touch
Not necessarily an angel’s
Just a touch of butterscotch
For her sweet tooth, as well as mine

Haters' Rock

People sure have a lot of nerve
Saying that it’s weird for me to rock
Like David Bowie when I think like a b-boy
But fuck, David Bowie could never
Do the damn thing like Little Richard
To prove his point, he put on makeup
And made up crazy phrases
Like Mary Poppins, another icon of
The Tutti Frutti aura
Awopbopaloowopalopbamboo
Foaming pirates need a history lesson
That Fats Domino didn’t make shitty pizza
He make the rock and roll that you bought
To bounce your headphones
So your mother, a Donna Reed stunt double
Wouldn’t cry Reefer Madness
I will roll the rock and talk this way
To write a Letter with 23 strawberry fields
Forever

Ronald Reagan

Fits of depression skated in my varicose veins
After the Gipper won a battle over the frozen castles of Prussia
He desperately pursued the public endearment
Wanting the granite to melt away
That he had to purge all the soul from public discourse
Soulful soup kitchens stopped singing a capella tunes
Tuned out by thoughts of extraterrestrial wonder
Circling the red planet
Dilating the world’s pupils so much
That German limestone played the mis-en-scene of CNN
A beginning for a viewpoint of dilated expression
Breeding the suffocation of civil consciousness
Of Oliver North transactions to Saddam
To the proliferation of foreign investment
For the Nazist apartheid vision of P.W. Botha
Both of those men got their wishes granted
Just because Ronald Reagan knew how to act
And direct like Mr. Scorsese
The Steven Spielberg of politics
Even got Margaret Thatcher to put on a happy face
Citizens of California want him on a dime
I say a three-dollar bill
Since he felt AIDS was so queer

Pictures of the Post

Mesopotamia has been a place of negativity
Before Rumsfeld, there was Saddam
Landlords often smell like NBA armpits after Game 7
The vibrant odor smacks the wall of blood
Accented voices screaming at a lung’s peak
Ears hindered from barred windows
Opening the sky for a bird to chirp
A sky without sulfur and carbon monoxide
But with a salty tingle
Of crispness, clearing a beach
Unwalled, missing seashells and pebbles
Pebbles lodged into the brains of a few
To the detriment of many that are chosen

23rd Street

Saddled with wet jeans and eyebrows
The layer of Afro-sheen slides onto my forehead
My forehead still has a clutter of rain, sweat, and worry
About the next morsel of bread
The bread doesn’t have to be smothered in Danish butter
It doesn’t need jam
It does need to be in tune with Roger Waters on the wall, as he
Elevates my slumber to satisfaction

Gateway to the West

Black unemployment lines stretch along the grey block
Pimpled with Newports
Tensions circle like Tyco
Western leaders created buts
To make us think about drugs, chicken, and candy
Rather than leadership lines
Leadership rather comes from ones own perspective
Pushed forward with the strong arms of God
Allowing the chance to break through the wall of buts
That separate the thin line between self-hate and self-love
That cement our superior depth of imagination
Only with visualization of wealth and health
And the stealth physical execution
Begin a linear dissolution
Of the walls of buts
Or whatever you call it

Indiana

Most don’t believe that I lived with you
For seventeen years we danced together
I dreamed of exiting stage left
Interstate 80 was my favorite destination
You were so vexing and tempting
I hated that you were only aware of the rusty grill in your backyard
I hated the same flat grassland dress that you wore
Sometimes you dared to wear apple trees on your green blouse
Ears of corn even
It killed me that you always smiled in my face
But you hated that I was an African
Not even a nigger, mind you
But an African wearing Calvin Klein Jeans
You hated that I could Speak and Spell
Better than my toys
You hated that the fam kicked it to Our Lady
That was your Garden of Eden
Pure with Roman Vanilla Extract
You made up for it sometimes though
Friendly families open long distance tables
Tickled with fruit pies, brownies, potatoes, without a trace of romaine
You blew summer breezes that whispered into my ear
To pick strawberries and toast the sunset with a waffle cone
But after years of buying music and driving endlessly
Wishing that you would go away
I did what every man tells their first love
Fuck off

They Love Me

I stepped into the elevator
Filled with black and hums of Duran Duran
The white man breathed cigarette smoke out of his suit
A couple of Asian women spoke and giggled
I had to make sure that I could speak about my last job
The 9th Floor opened, a pool of orange
A meeting kept the boss an hour behind the schedule
One that had my name on it
I thought, that’s what is in a name
Monika shook my hand, not understanding my suit sans denim
We sat in separate chairs, locking our eyes into one path
Our eyes helped us talk about our professional needs, our desires, our last nights
Then we felt comfortable, and excited
At the same time

Brilliant and Cancelled

I leap into the subway door slit
Squeezing my spine out of place
The grade schoolers eat up oranges
My eyes are eating up the subway photos
Of another show that ended earlier
Only it will also get an endless run of fearless syndication
Tears shed for joy in my tiny room
After the unseen footage airs
Without the trouble of tearing off that DVD shrink wrap
HBO and NBC will take a commercial break
To laugh at you, white people of the world
For laughing with Carrie, Samantha, Monica, and Ross
I am laughing too
Because watching Donald Trump fire an Orwellian drone
Is must-see TV

Turtles' Fables

Fabulously green like a $50 bill
The turtle glowed in the black cloud
Of a Halloween storm
He hid his head in the blackout of the office building
When the winds escaped
Battery Park and the feet of Lady Liberty
He slowly climed down the Soho sidewalk
Passing the hurried heel clicks
Outwitting the debt-ridden college students
Steadying his sharp irises
He knew that he was slow to match
The pace of a rabbit
But he strode quickly
Unfolded his elbows to plant his shell
And blossom on the bank of the Hudson River
His bed was a lilypad, sponge-worthy
But his bed was not in the ocean
It was in the plan

Tainted Gifts

The boy peaks through the redwood portal
Spooked by its distant orange claws
That pierce the grape sky above his head
Red blood bubbles into the blue pathways
Of arms calling to subdue root beer thoughts
He then walks along the brown trail
Combing down branches from his eyes
Rose bushes are unavailable to love or poke
His toes of determination, full of sand
Rocks living in his toenail
Slide off as water massages the blood
Growing into plasma
Looking pretty in pink

Gentrification

George Clinton has a brain
Brighter than a Zenith Technicolor
When he colored the cities chocolate, and the suburbs vanilla
The city smelled like fresh urine
Too many black people bleeding on the concrete
Defeat pushing their eyebrows down
But never out of 125th street
Or Bed-Stuy. Or Oakland
Or Benton Harbor. Or Detroit
Or Atlanta. Or D.C.
Or New Orleans
HMV dared to scratch up the mixtape. But they got scratched off the block
Mixtapes are now compact discs
Compact with hooks about
Platinum, Vandalism, and Sexualism
Romanticisms about the things in the hood that have changed
Changes in the faces of the crowd
From Black on Black to Black on Carribean on White
On Dominican on European
Adding itself to the true testament of Hobbes’ Leviathian
That the state has absolute legal power
To build a Disney store
For children without memories and floating balloons
Of their own superheroes
Mighty Mouse, even

Recession Endurance

Disappointment, strong without ointment
Our lady anoints me with the plague
Bubonic, shook like a catatonic
Same as it ever was, but won’t be
General Bush, thou canst reduce me
Beneath the radar, my star defies missile sparks
Dark clouds, night hours of gun claps
Snap, crackle, pop on iron walls of capital
I sear the meek like a Kenyan jackal

1:30 a.m.

Boutiques flow to darkening
Vikings maul the limestone, sailing and pillaging
Pleased to meet ya, Lolita
Range Rover seat flipped down, three seconds flat
But Atlanta like them girls with the Daisy…
Sheeat. That age been over
And it’s nothin’ but a number
1977, a plague on all our houses

Conflicted

Double stuffed, with no cream of vanilla
I watch Earth asking brown to do it for me
Break chains, plant maize, say hey Willie Mays
The New York Knicks can’t play
Nearly 25 spins in, I still can’t recommend
Calculus, mathematics to you phony phanatics
Spinning currency on your gold trimmed atlas
Because we all know that Africa is the land
Of human mates, ready to return the pride
Burning with justice, egalitarian, extraordinarily proletarian
Lead by yours truly, Frantz Fanon

Gratuity

To be honest
Being black and gifted sucks hard at times
We then call Martha Stewart to whip up
Lemon tarts to sweeten the lips
My effervescence even
Yet they say that less is more
That missed me

Mount Osmium

Pop Culture needs black intellectuals
The world brims with 18-year old basketball prodigies
Decorated with soft drinks, Armani pinstripes, and Afro-European wonder
Flashed through the Clear Channel vocoder and ESPN plasma
Ralph Ellison gave up, on the black thought pool
Calling us invisible
My two negligible eyes see clearly
The brother on Sutter Avenue
Playing mixtapes of 1985
Live Run DMC walking that way to your earlobe
Heavy voices saluting Malcolm X
The X factor of Black Psychology
My eyes also see that one woman
Cascading on the West Village cobblestones
Pushing the stroller for little Joey
Not little Freddy
Because little Freddy needs money for his school field trip
To the Brooklyn Museum of Art
Where Zulu spears, Ashanti bricks, and Egyptian hieroglyphics
Answer the question
That one about black thinkers

Thank God it's Midtown

I want to quickly celebrate
The existence of Midtown
With the King Midas Touch
Making long block strides
Rocks the blinding LG science
Diamonds encrusted of dull glow
As Charlie Mingus, so sweet to show us that
The toe tap meets the hand clap
Bebop flares out to Art Rock
Critics judge, review, and follow
Drones listen, read, and saunter
I float through with magic like Orko

An Eclipse

Live from the Hudson Hotel
Draped in ornate glamour
You beamed with modernity
Curious, I spoke of Earth, Wind, and Fire
You yelled, "Marvin Gaye!"
I laughed, filled with excitement
You were the Sunrise, my chance at redemption
After falling suddenly in a Korean battle
Unseen by my neurons
Then you set in the Far East from whence you rose
I spun from the Heights to Queens, through Brooklyn and the South
To cleanse in Miami saltwater
I memorized your laughs, your smiles, your whispers
September, you rose at half set
Only to fade slowly in October
I ran through the Lower East Side
Viewing your sunspots with a telescope
I ran to Philly and recruited Maxwell
Planning a new era
But the battle had been lost
Way back in July
When your rays fried my skull
And grace was stolen from my soul

Knowledge was Power

To enlighten is not to dwell
But to inflate the masses, from Massachusetts
Into the wild of Myanmar
Wild nights in Tribeca
Are killing my brain
Whispering taunts and illusions
Of grandeur, steamed with mussels and lip gloss
Staining my shirt and chest
Before, my ventricles beated
The words of Malcolm
Who yelled through Baldwin
Who sweated with Ellison
Who ate with Reed
Who rapped with Newton
Who strategized with Seale
Who laughed with Davis
Who counseled with Hampton
Who sparked Fanon
Who inspired Biko
Who built Mandela
Who warned Nkrumah
Who then told Rawlings
To watch Charles Taylor
So that he would keep Sierra Leone
Off his nails, out of his clutches
Now I walk the city
Unsure of grabbing the torch
For shame