Why fight each other, as others
I fight for others, with others
we are more One, than an ‘other’
we are more as One, than another
I may not spell brother, without ‘other’
but I can’t spell teach, nor reach, without ‘each’
I see Us, as We
We, as You AND Me
Culture
“resilience energy through plight”
To You reading this, this was a musical performance poetry that I performed at Black History Month Symposium in Our Prison’s Harambee African Cultural Club, so hopefully the substance is soaked though the complete essence won’t be fully absorbed.
It was hyped with chants of “I got that energyyyyy” from me to the crowd to depict youthful hopeful and enduring resilience, choosing not to be victim but victor of circumstance, not being a theme of bad news and bad luck but of innovation and ingenuity thru it all by having a healthy view of self and culture without shame.
Culture is a celebration of people and their uniqueness of experience and tradition, it is an invitation, exclusively and inclusively! So I invite you to never feel left out or spoken against when I speak artfully of mine as a Black Human Being merely explaining my story from my point of view.
“Resilience Energy thru Plight”
there’s too many cold cases
we killing your own
because of self hatred
blood flowing into seams,
crevices,
and creeks-
creating a fatal oasis
history lost to blank pages
but this has been the story for ages
our culture is sacred
but we don’t take time to embrace it
to the world,
a black boy is a Man
and so are his charges
so trump up his charges
even before, Trump was in office
too many of us
was slumped inside coffins
made orphans and seen like the problem
police seeing robbers
just cuz we got hoodies
speaking more of what we were
than what we “could be”
my people keep struggling
cold getting heat from the oven
and sleeping wit oven mits…
accustomed to suffrage
assistance is cumbersome
living like savages, subjugates
HUD has us living in huts
so we hustling
misery loving company
seems like a coven that’s made by a covenant
that we call government
keeping us stumbling, funneling
bundles of guns and some drugs
that come in from others to smother our growth
while we tryna cater to stomachs that rumbling
ramen in tumblers
we ‘gotta ball’, we ain’t fumblers
position and dreams are a fable, we only speak of it
no wonder we wander and wonder
we never reap wonders
and never recovered
from slavery customs
our plight gets no coverage
institutional fundament
built up a system of classists-
the richest that prey on the hunger
no funds for the humblest
this where we come from, conditions its hard to come up from
live month to month just to hunt for a come up
by stunting the come up of
of our sisters and brothers huh?!
wit no hesitation, that’s facts!
feels like I was born wit a strap
life is a war when u black!
life is a war when u black!
war is the law, in a land that was built on our backs!
they warring on crime
warring on drugs
warring on rappers-
cuz they only niggaz
and thugs
and call all women bitches
they gangsters
they saggin
and never speak english
and only sell drugs
and kill they own just to be ‘factors’
yet fractions ain’t whole
tell’em ‘stay woke!’
statistics, when we a day old
say its ‘their’ fault, say ‘they’ ain’t owed
acres and mules-
but we settled for museums
and music
and muses
amusing,
our culture infused wit
some cubics
the blueprint
of new age solutions
yet ‘we’ stay in ruins
the cost is ‘us’ ruined
pursuing the jewelers
but not for no wisdom-we foolish
medulla polluted
now all of us shootaz!
you can’t fit in my shoes! no empathy!
life of a ruler!
clips like a movie
that shooting from uzi’s
when chasing that guda
on rims for influence
instead of in school or some movements-
we can’t see a human
if we never facing the truth,
and the music of what we keep doing..
but I got that energy
I face the truth and the music
lyrical entrepreneur
I found my grind from the sewer
I had to climb out manure
I turned the soup to dijour
I did this time to be sure
now I’ma speak out like a tour
cuz I got that energy!!
we I just need synergy
speak from the inner me
way before I was infringed with obscenities
lived for affinities
chasing amenities
never made sense to me
before my sentencing
since
my earliest memories-
misery
murder was kin to me
I hated colors, said I was black,
tho
I wouldn’t pretend to be
but
complexion offended me
cuz
the system befriended me
but
I ain’t need sinister sympathy
I was just livin thru repeated history
I felt defeated and misery
promise you I’m speaking literally
they was too scared of me physically
umm…
too dark to get empathy, sympathy
too dark to feel symmetry, chemistry
too bad to feel jimmeny cricket-
identity, finicky
talking bout pain-I’m the epitome
lived wit a pit in me
been thru the rough like a ligament
was hated but I loved too much like polygamous
they seen my pigment
put in predicaments
I paid my dividends
still never made a difference
they said I was menacing
I wasn’t victim
just plagued by my history
but I got that remedy
I’ve been resilient
I’m more than a villain-
cold blooded reptilian
no longer concealing
reflection appealing
my layers keep peeling
and only revealing
that I got that,
I got that
I got that energyyyy!
charged to the game
He wanna change his life but he can’t
cuz this just what it is he addicted to the game
he addicted to the gains
he never fears the chains
he rather rock ‘dem chains
he made it out the cage
his vision like a cave
he never thinks to change
he just wants some change
embodied his family’s pain
he always felt the rain
now he rather make it rain
he came up from the mud
a lowly rose bud
his thorns draw blood
it drops with a thud…
can’t get close to hug
he’s setting up pretense
distressed and he needs friends
obsessed wit the weekends
won’t confess that he’s weakened
when stressed thru the week’s end
…his girl at home wit his kids
hoping he makes it home
she was raised right
and knows what he makes is wrong
though he’s a thug
love is a drug
she’s had everything but love…
he loves her right
so tough advice
she’s stuck inside
thru the rough-
they stayed side by side
she’s ride or die
she fears he just might die
realizing
every ‘goodbye”
could be, bye
misogyny
Woman
oh, woman
wherefore art thou
how can your mystery be solved?
why do I believe that you are just to be desired
and your words only entice
how can I not peer at your cleavage
and believe it an invite
how do I not salivate over your angles
and succumb to an appetite
why do I turn your gaze into a wick
fueling me to ignite
how can even your cordial laughs and casual touches
become an added attribute that incites
why do I sexualize your every nuance
seeing you for far less than your insight
why do I fantasize less of sunlight in your presence
dreaming more of midnights
why does my male ego and its exploits
believe your advancements a personal plight and indict
woman
oh woman
how doth my quandary
or am I just left to evolve?
Cast Away
Preyed upon by light
I pray for darkness
a grim body cast
shielding my skin from the eyeing rays of exposure
to which I fought my whole existence
having yet to live
These stark contrasts battle inside
at war with light
darkness will suffice
who doesn’t hide
I rather hide
I…. need….. to….. hide….
for peace of mind
exposure steals a piece of my-
peace of mind
too hard to confide
within these lighted confines
as if I’m sequestered by detectives
I feel the building of pressure
fumbling my coerced existence
it’s not easy from this point of view
being a spectacle
amongst the biggest spectator
my truth isn’t one size fit all
so why speak what wouldn’t be believed
I’m nothing and no one to be believed
or believed in
believe me
what’s belief but a strong thought
I’m too weak for any strength to be invoked upon
or summoned from me
faith doesn’t exceed beyond my fingers
nor sight
I see more at night seizing my nocturnal sunshine
please keep me asleep in the light of day
fore if I come to, I may be blind
shadows captured and depicted
on the outer feathers of your wings
what’s a candle’s glow inside of the sun
still hidden,
so even you, light, can be hidden
only to the darkness can you be seen
but I bid you good riddens
because you arrive without permission
enchanting my vision as with any glow
beautiful promises arise
either advertised, or implied
so imagine a bug’s surprise
allured to light
just to die
with not enough time lasting regrets of all kinds
you’re clever darkness-
your blanket is poised, peaceful, serene
though the light cuts at you with its mighty sharp and searing sword
slicing a seam of ripped unknown and within one crack you are soon probed,
discovered then destroyed
there’s never been enough room for you both like me,
darkness you’re so misunderstood
light is anything but understanding
empathetic or compassionate
its savage-like and impulsive!
raging its way through everyone’s life
conceding to nothing and no one.
A power truly unchecked
laughing at its counterbalance’s weak attempts
my regrets
my shame
my hurt
my heartache
my trauma
my truth
All vulnerable now because of your insincerity
I’m victimized yet again
falling prey to your self righteous ego
what gives you such majesty
who grants your divine-like supremacy
why are you more weapon to each wound revealing my wreckage
causing more hurt than healing
more nakedness than clothing
more questions than answer
more fear than love
boastfully claiming my access to fulfillment
decreeing my wholeness, telling me to stand upright
while the gravity of your shine buckles my knees
bearing the weight of your accusations
I am no masochist
how could I exalt my own torment
I feel like a sheep within the jaws of a wolf
never wanting your company
only privacy,
now my secrets to bare
embarrassingly my privates peered at by peers
I’m not ready
you force me
you push me
you entice and egg me on
leading me astray leaving me stranded to deal with my unfolding
my feared undoing
I held it together for so long but now I’m unraveled like the flowers
you shine down on
who are you to look down on me
you’re no different than the others
at least darkness comforts clothes and blankets me
coming around me like a warm embrace
not looking down at me like scalding discipline I’ll never…
wait someone is looking at me
someone sees me
how could…?
everyone is seeing me
noticing me
as I walk by
even moving around instead of thru me
oh great they’re just avoiding me
now that’s worst than being invisible
now that they see me, how could they now ever stand to look at me?
to be seen is to want to be loved but who will love me more questions more fears you see?!
torment
how can you see me
why do you even see me
why haven’t you turned away
turning yourself off in my unveiling
I’m no beautiful bride of any kind
a lowly morsel or shell of a man human,
more like it
I’m no gift,
I’m unpleasant just presently a presented present of pretense a peasant with no presence
and still you allow me
to stand in your glory
casting my own shadow
I have a shadow?!
before you…
all I’ve ever been was a shadow
how am I deserving of a follower
how is my symmetry worth outlines
I thought myself deformed now…
reformed without saying a word
you said all there ever was to say
showing me what my mind couldn’t conceive
just look at myself
lights embrace my arrival cascading in my wake
never leave me again fore I wasn’t ready for you
but now I’m unready without you
every fear hasn’t dissipate
quite a few still bubble at my surface
but I blend in
just another promising spirit to be shined upon
and darkness now casted away.
keep your proximity
she looked out the window
but she’s scared of heights
she looked out the door
its too cold outside
she lives in fear
fairy tales seem realer
she thinks love’s a horror flick
crusading emotional thrillers
so she hates Michael Jackson
cuz she only see’s a wolf
inside she’s just a sheep
alone on her hoofs
she’s escaped by details
she thinks what she sees is the truth
but remember, she believes in fairy tales
so real, isn’t proof
she’s complicated
but she’s basic
her body sacred
so she saves it
she’s abrasive,
she’s evasive
people are too invasive
she hates her space invaded
mixed feelings with religion…
her worst fear, are critics
fitting clothes, but keep your distance
don’t cross her line of scrimmage
she likes attention, but with limits
touching, needs permission
because she freezes in an instant
her past, is never mentioned
more than just a witness, she’s a victim…
so she looks out the window
but she’s scared of heights
and she looks out the door
its still too cold outside
see, she lives in fear
fairy tales feel realer
she thinks love’s a horror flick
reoccurring nightmares of Thriller