© 30 December 2005, The Griot Poet
Where to begin…
Tsunami wipes out Asia…
Hurricanes made super by nature and global warming…
“Our economy's on the mend,” the “our” meaning CEOs, CFOs, and the lot of his corporate friends…
Then, came Katrina, Rita, Wilma and a record breaking twenty-seven
And the world watched in horror as
The freest nation in the world
Had a third world visitation
With cameras filming the plethora of misery on its own soil in black communities in New Orleans (and un-filmed elsewhere)…
The boy-king-candidate promised we’d do no nation building,
Yet, that is exactly what we’ve cared doing in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Africa for natural gas and oil…
And now forced to by Gulf coast embarrassment to do after photo ops on American soil.
Foiled by Kanye’s declared salvo that shattered his very cold soul.
His popularity below 50 percent,
His gained political capital well spent
Now, he’s spying on us domestically without FISA court consent,
Protecting us from boogey-men and civil liberties stoking Reichstag fires
Patriot Acts resemble Article 48 of the Weimar constitution abrogating:
-Free expression of opinion
-Freedom of the press
-Right of assembly and association -Right to privacy of postal and electronic communications
-Protection against unlawful searches and seizures
-Individual property rights
-States' right of self-government
Supplementing this, the creation of the Storm Troopers and SS agencies.
Even he quipped, “If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator!”
The phrase “by no other name can men be saved”
Was first printed on Roman coins for the adopted son of Julius,
Named Caesar,
Then the son of Caesar, born Octavius, made himself Augustus: “worthy of reverence and worship”
Both faces graced an empire with the inspired words on both sides: “Divine Caesar and the Son of God.”
Power corrupts,
And absolute power corrupts absolutely
Until the moment transforms the mediocre into the megalomaniac;
Until lack of cerebral thought becomes strongly delusional;
Until he forgets that he’s a recovering alcoholic,
Until he talks of answering to a “higher father”;
Until his walk is that of a strutting peacock between vacations decrying terrorist killers and private golf course drives.
Until we live to see the abomination of desolation walk into the holy of holies and he and his followers follow the course of all Caesars and dictators… self-proclaimed divinity.
If he was a true believer of the Palestinian prophet he says he follows,
Does he hear “blessed are the peacemakers”?
When Yeshua said, “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s,”
Greater things would His followers’ do
As they defied the empire that crushed every Palestinian, Roman and Jew
And proclaimed Him as the “Son of God” and “King of Kings.”
Such a thing caused men imprisoned, crucified and hacked by the earliest SS.
For me, personally
I am one of the fading middle classes.
Squeezed between the availability of cheap labor within the US by Vicente Fox’s devalued Peso
(Wire transfers go back to their native Mexico)
And cheaper labor still overseas.
Jobs added are low wage, low or no medical benefits and degrading to citizens born here.
Yet, a man that has never had a hungered day in his life or career states “our economy is sound.”
I can see the madness of declaring a recession when there was none to be found.
He literally talked the markets down in 2000: a feat of mass hypnosis, neuro-linguistic programming, crony favors and the blackest of magic’s.
What was depressing was his rich friends that had the most wanted it ALL:
All the wealth,
All the gold,
All the monies,
All without spending in the highest category: wages.
When sages write about this,
I hope it will be on papyrus
And the wealth and resources they tried to hoard is more than well spent,
And the fears of Socialists, Communists, Compassionate Capitalists
Devolve
To a feudal society
Without technology...
That is our destiny
If we do not adhere
To the terrible lessons
Of this horrible year!
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Sunday, December 18, 2005
For Josephine and Other Queens
 |
| Ean Wood: The Josephine Baker Story |
Josephine Carson Baker was just dancing…
From dancing in the streets to
Prancing in bananas
From the ghetto of East St. Louis to the Ziegfeld Follies
Probably more sensual and revealing than the smut that masks as art
Presented on 24-hour soft-porn cable TV
Or music videos that celebrate our sisters’ posteriors,
She was also a civil rights pioneer, adopting 10 more of the earth’s dear children than Angelina Jolie, her “rainbow tribe”
Yet, I never heard anyone except racists in this new world or the last in English or French
Describe her as a bitch...
Dorothy Dandridge was a star before her time,
Carmen, Porgy and Bess
Got an Oscar nod
When the best job a black person could get was janitor in the theater coming in from the back...
Lena Horne
Was my forlorn father’s pin-up gal in the Navy,
And, even though it’s crazy,
There’s a picture on the Internet of Lena signing autographs among
Naval men of color…
The guy on the far right looks like my father’s twin brother (he didn’t have one)...
Perhaps I am amiss,
But I lament the days of
Old when we treated our women like gold
And would slap on a beat down if anyone of any stripe tried to call them out of their names...
Before video
Ruined music and created visual universes that are programmed by directors penetrating the hymen of our minds...
I remember the time when they were our queens
And how some of them – gone or still alive
Must feel when they see their beautiful daughters
Bump and grind
On a video
For a nickel bag pretend GANGSTA who hasn’t spent ten minutes in the ghetto, and
Whose first reference to them is “bitch” followed by “ho”?
I remember
Before Carter G. Woodson’s “Miss Education of the Negro”
Became the flipped script for MTV rap videos
And we in “Step-and-Fetch” followed this jest in our best-burnt cork face
To its Viacom clone: Bankrupt Entertainment Television
Until hip-hop like opera before it
Went from the streets to the board rooms of American aristocracy and became “hip-POP”
So that Gwen Stephanie can make hits on rhymes that make NO sense!
Skeeting our seed with Little John “to the window; to the wall!”
And pimping all our future mothers like those
Whom we pay for the oldest profession in the world...
I remember
When Josephine, Dorothy, Lena, Dianne Carroll, Lola Falana, Rosa Parks, Corretta Scott King, Betty Shabazz, Lieutenant Uhura (whose name means “freedom”), Ida B. Wells, Sister Soul Ja, your own MOTHER
When we treated our women like precious queens!
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
I'm Explaining a Few Things
This s a poet I can appreciate: I give you Pablo Neruda
You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs?
and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?
and the rain repeatedly spattering
its words and drilling them full
of apertures and birds?
I'll tell you all the news.
I lived in a suburb,
a suburb of Madrid, with bells,
and clocks, and trees.
From there you could look out
over Castille's dry face:
a leather ocean.
My house was called
the house of flowers, because in every cranny
geraniums burst: it was
a good-looking house
with its dogs and children.
Remember, Raul?
Eh, Rafel? Federico, do you remember
from under the ground
my balconies on which
the light of June drowned flowers in your mouth?
Brother, my brother!
Everything
loud with big voices, the salt of merchandises,
pile-ups of palpitating bread,
the stalls of my suburb of Arguelles with its statue
like a drained inkwell in a swirl of hake:
oil flowed into spoons,
a deep baying
of feet and hands swelled in the streets,
metres, litres, the sharp
measure of life,
stacked-up fish,
the texture of roofs with a cold sun in which
the weather vane falters,
the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes,
wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down the sea.
And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings --
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,
bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to kill children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children's blood.
Jackals that the jackals would despise,
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate!
Face to face with you I have seen the blood
of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives!
Treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain :
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers,
from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes,
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull's eye of your hearts.
And you'll ask: why doesn't his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land?
Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
The blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
In the streets!
-- Pablo Neruda
You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs?
and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?
and the rain repeatedly spattering
its words and drilling them full
of apertures and birds?
I'll tell you all the news.
I lived in a suburb,
a suburb of Madrid, with bells,
and clocks, and trees.
From there you could look out
over Castille's dry face:
a leather ocean.
My house was called
the house of flowers, because in every cranny
geraniums burst: it was
a good-looking house
with its dogs and children.
Remember, Raul?
Eh, Rafel? Federico, do you remember
from under the ground
my balconies on which
the light of June drowned flowers in your mouth?
Brother, my brother!
Everything
loud with big voices, the salt of merchandises,
pile-ups of palpitating bread,
the stalls of my suburb of Arguelles with its statue
like a drained inkwell in a swirl of hake:
oil flowed into spoons,
a deep baying
of feet and hands swelled in the streets,
metres, litres, the sharp
measure of life,
stacked-up fish,
the texture of roofs with a cold sun in which
the weather vane falters,
the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes,
wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down the sea.
And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings --
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,
bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to kill children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children's blood.
Jackals that the jackals would despise,
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate!
Face to face with you I have seen the blood
of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives!
Treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain :
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers,
from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes,
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull's eye of your hearts.
And you'll ask: why doesn't his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land?
Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
The blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
In the streets!
-- Pablo Neruda
Monday, December 12, 2005
12:01 AM (Stanley “Tookie” Williams)
© 12 December 2005, The Griot Poet
We lamented the birth of Margaret Sanger,
Bombing abortion clinics; stopping women from exercising their personal consent...
We compared Saddam Hussein to Hitler,
Bombing his country back to the stone ages in our rage to “kick someone’s assets” for 9-11...
We made Terry Schiavo our poster child,
Years having decayed her brain stem, most actions autonomic; all the while politicians’ manipulated events – “erring on the side of life” – making her husband look selfish, inhuman...
We convicted Scott Peterson
On circumstantial evidence, though he’d personally made his life a mess with premeditations to murder, perjury, adultery and a double life…
We've set double standards
Between the hyphens: birth – abortion; vegetation – euthanasia, imprisonment – death.
We speak of Christian virtues:
“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [these]; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
“Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
“Envying, murders, drunkenness, reveling, and such like...”
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
“Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”
We speak with forked tongues
As the natives once said: recidivism versus redemption; straddling fences, going down two paths, splitting our pants as our groins stretch over an infinite chasm called...
Hypocrisy!
Gal 5: 19 – 21; Gal 5: 22 - 23
We lamented the birth of Margaret Sanger,
Bombing abortion clinics; stopping women from exercising their personal consent...
We compared Saddam Hussein to Hitler,
Bombing his country back to the stone ages in our rage to “kick someone’s assets” for 9-11...
We made Terry Schiavo our poster child,
Years having decayed her brain stem, most actions autonomic; all the while politicians’ manipulated events – “erring on the side of life” – making her husband look selfish, inhuman...
We convicted Scott Peterson
On circumstantial evidence, though he’d personally made his life a mess with premeditations to murder, perjury, adultery and a double life…
We've set double standards
Between the hyphens: birth – abortion; vegetation – euthanasia, imprisonment – death.
We speak of Christian virtues:
“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [these]; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
“Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
“Envying, murders, drunkenness, reveling, and such like...”
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
“Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”
We speak with forked tongues
As the natives once said: recidivism versus redemption; straddling fences, going down two paths, splitting our pants as our groins stretch over an infinite chasm called...
Hypocrisy!
Gal 5: 19 – 21; Gal 5: 22 - 23
Saturday, November 12, 2005
She Sat
© 12 November 2005, The Griot Poet
She sat.
After a day of working for another, she sat with swollen, tired feet and beaten spirit.
You see, her mediocrity was reinforced by de facto writ: signs that said “whites only” for the best services rendered; “coloreds only” for entrances, seats and water fit for dogs.
She sat.
And the writ said she should not hog her seat, but give it up and go to her place at the back of the bus. But…
There was something about that day.
There was something about the way the bus driver said:
“Move back, heifer!
“Get a moving, gal!
“Get on back there… where your kind belongs!
She was a 42-year-old mature, married black woman:
Not a heifer.
And, no one's gal.
She’d worked in the budding Civil Rights movement, planned marches, sang songs of faith like “we shall overcome, someday,” truly the “substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not [yet] seen.”
In her belief
That her faith would bring material reality to her expectations;
In her belief
That she would soon see the evidence of the labor everyone said – black and white – would bear no fruit.
In her belief
That she would live to see a country without the demeaning signs on entrances, seats and drinking fountains,
That she would live to see her people vote every November without the need of voting tests or poll taxes,
That she would live to see lynching become less frequent, southern trees bearing “strange fruit, blood on the leaves, blood on the root” and white sheets minimized (though now they where Armani three-piece)
She straightened her back, giving backbone to a movement that had otherwise stalled.
She nodded her head “no!”
She sat.
For our American hero, Rosa Parks: "My feet may be tired, but my soul is at rest."
Rest in peace, Rosa. We love you.
She sat.
After a day of working for another, she sat with swollen, tired feet and beaten spirit.
You see, her mediocrity was reinforced by de facto writ: signs that said “whites only” for the best services rendered; “coloreds only” for entrances, seats and water fit for dogs.
She sat.
And the writ said she should not hog her seat, but give it up and go to her place at the back of the bus. But…
There was something about that day.
There was something about the way the bus driver said:
“Move back, heifer!
“Get a moving, gal!
“Get on back there… where your kind belongs!
She was a 42-year-old mature, married black woman:
Not a heifer.
And, no one's gal.
She’d worked in the budding Civil Rights movement, planned marches, sang songs of faith like “we shall overcome, someday,” truly the “substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not [yet] seen.”
In her belief
That her faith would bring material reality to her expectations;
In her belief
That she would soon see the evidence of the labor everyone said – black and white – would bear no fruit.
In her belief
That she would live to see a country without the demeaning signs on entrances, seats and drinking fountains,
That she would live to see her people vote every November without the need of voting tests or poll taxes,
That she would live to see lynching become less frequent, southern trees bearing “strange fruit, blood on the leaves, blood on the root” and white sheets minimized (though now they where Armani three-piece)
She straightened her back, giving backbone to a movement that had otherwise stalled.
She nodded her head “no!”
She sat.
For our American hero, Rosa Parks: "My feet may be tired, but my soul is at rest."
Rest in peace, Rosa. We love you.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
A Lament of Global Lynching
© 11 October 2005, The Griot Poet
We are “Amusing Ourselves to Death”
In pantomime rhythm with the mission of “big brother”: deception and derision.
Skull & Bone Trilateral conspiracies: a global, hydra hegemonic manipulation of presidential elections, like Jepetto played Pinocchio: heresy!
Each action of our so-called “democracy” is merely the bargain basement selection of the next “American Idol”: version 1.0 with southern drawl and sax, version 2.0 with southern drawl and cowboy hat!
Ahem: both graduates of Yale.
We got the “kissing cousins” in the last national fire sale; clever and blood lined to playboy Hugh Hefner.
And the elite has us railing at each other in arguments, speeches, threatening violence and chicken flinch (for them, people we’ll never meet) in a national and global application of the letter by Willie Lynch!
Our reality is someone’s Straussian fantasy.
And our “reality shows” a Faustian shell game,
With corporate owned news numbing us and dumbing down our minds
With the kind of control Hitler and Mussolini only DREAMED of!
Now, we can download our dogma and diatribes at light speed
Without the need to feel the least guilty for not using our gray matter
Feeding our thought process with the prattling manipulative chatter
Of radio talk show hosts’ diatribe rants,
Pushing agendas with repetitive chants
Using “bogey men” fears to quack us in our pants… to our chagrin.
As our way of life is in the warped justice balance of MADMEN!
We are “Amusing Ourselves to Death”
In pantomime rhythm with the mission of “big brother”: deception and derision.
Skull & Bone Trilateral conspiracies: a global, hydra hegemonic manipulation of presidential elections, like Jepetto played Pinocchio: heresy!
Each action of our so-called “democracy” is merely the bargain basement selection of the next “American Idol”: version 1.0 with southern drawl and sax, version 2.0 with southern drawl and cowboy hat!
Ahem: both graduates of Yale.
We got the “kissing cousins” in the last national fire sale; clever and blood lined to playboy Hugh Hefner.
And the elite has us railing at each other in arguments, speeches, threatening violence and chicken flinch (for them, people we’ll never meet) in a national and global application of the letter by Willie Lynch!
Our reality is someone’s Straussian fantasy.
And our “reality shows” a Faustian shell game,
With corporate owned news numbing us and dumbing down our minds
With the kind of control Hitler and Mussolini only DREAMED of!
Now, we can download our dogma and diatribes at light speed
Without the need to feel the least guilty for not using our gray matter
Feeding our thought process with the prattling manipulative chatter
Of radio talk show hosts’ diatribe rants,
Pushing agendas with repetitive chants
Using “bogey men” fears to quack us in our pants… to our chagrin.
As our way of life is in the warped justice balance of MADMEN!
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Near the Levee...
 |
| Architecture About.com: What is a Levee? |
Inspired by the article from Dr. Cornel West: “Exiles from a city and from a nation,” 11 September 2005.
Note: I corrected the spelling of levee in the title and text (it was originally "levy" as a double entendre). On reflection of the carnival barking political times we're in and to avoid the appearance of xenophobia, a preposition and country name were both exchanged from their original versions. The piece still hits powerfully, and clarifies instead of stereotypes, origin of the demand for drugs in this country is this country in total, and no one group in particular.
Dedicated to my cousin from New Orleans, John (Gus) Holmes, Jr., his beautiful family, and the survivors of Hurricane Katrina (note: they're all fine, and relocated to another state).
**********
“When you live so close to death”
You create songs in the French Quarter on Slave Sundays that follow no pattern.
Rhythm set by clap and tambourine; washboard and kettle drum,
Old people hum in accompaniment in a Constantine Christian jubilee celebration of no cotton bailed; no backbreaking labor toiled.
The one suit you own is spoiled from overuse, and your children’s children carry on the tradition of “dress up” to anesthetize their pain.
“When you live so close to death”
The Mississippi delta builds a sediment foundation for your tragicomic pain:
“Laughing to keep from crying” births the blues!
“When you live so close to death”
People of your hue fought and escaped the French back in the day, and each day are turned away each year as they try to escape the death-hole now known as… Haiti.
“When you live so close to death, you live (life a little) more intensely,”
You create order out of chaos, from Massa raping your sisters and mothers to slaves tipping with another man’s lover: “hey baby, can we JAZZ around a little bit”?
Fighting fiercely in mock duels modeled after “southern gentlemen,” feeling disrespected, passing it down from Jazz procreation to your Hip Hop great-grandchildren’s generation as being “dissed”: with the same deadly consequences.
“When you live so close to death”
What are scraps from Massa’s table become culinary creations:
- Craw dads;
- Jambalaya;
- Gumbo;
- Shrimp Creole
- And Etoufée!
“When you live so close to death”
Lead and pollutants they allowed for your kind to warp your minds & drive the I.Q.s of your babies down scarred your psychology
BEFORE the levees broke;
BEFORE the drug flights to America!
“When you live so close to death”
You are not counted; clouded – an invisible majority under the all-mighty shadow of insignificance: exiles in your own country, resembling from years of neglect more “third world” than ninth ward or US citizenry
Hence, their news media in their quest for a ratings spree mislabeled you “refugees.”
Now, suddenly they are on our side, “shocked and awed” back to the reality of their sacred duty to inform the citizenry of a democracy… neglected for five years.
Shocked by the sight of dead bodies marred by dogs and crocodiles, piled in stairwells like logs… floating downstream! It seems perceptions change once you’re beyond a sheltered, suburban political haze, and find YOURSELF for many days
Breathing the stench,
Your own eyes seeing,
Your own ears hearing the gunshots and screams… in this country,
You cannot believe you could stay reasonably SANE…
Living so close to death!
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Son of Invictus
© 25 August 2005, The Griot Poet
I am Invictus!
"My head is bloody, yet unbowed."
Two years removed from the game by
Downsizing,
Rightsizing,
Outsourcing
Have only revealed that I AM the source
Of my reality;
I AM the cause of my destruction or salvation.
I don't have to look beyond my own faith to know "every need is met"
Because
I AM!
I am Invictus!
"My head is bloody, yet unbowed."
Two years removed from the game by
Downsizing,
Rightsizing,
Outsourcing
Have only revealed that I AM the source
Of my reality;
I AM the cause of my destruction or salvation.
I don't have to look beyond my own faith to know "every need is met"
Because
I AM!
Friday, August 12, 2005
The Gunslinger
(For Cindy Sheehan)
© 12 August 2005, The Griot Poet
"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." Stephen King
And, her face was grim.
Fixing her chin like flint,
Her silent vigil
Appealing to tens,
Then hundreds, then thousands…
Sitting in a lawn chair
Can cause such despair
To one who birthed war
And, ironically afterbirth
Aborted the lives of many.
Is it any wonder?
He sends lackeys
To answer her questions
While KBR, Halliburton
And Carlyle
Plunder
With the thunder
Of “shock and awe”
And the "iron triangle"
Of the military-religious-industrial
Complex?
Answer her questions!
She is the mother of loss, Casey, every mother’s son.
She has not crossed nor betrayed patriotism.
Those who suggest it with derision have no comparative, equivalent experience.
His unscripted comments are vexed,
Only mentioning her name
And taking flight in Marine One
For her guns are more lethal than his:
Birthed from a mother's burning love
For one she knew nine month's longer
Than even her son's best friend.
Yes, Stephen King:
"The man in black fled across the desert," to off-site meetings, to the White House "and the gunslinger [still] followed" him.
© 12 August 2005, The Griot Poet
"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." Stephen King
And, her face was grim.
Fixing her chin like flint,
Her silent vigil
Appealing to tens,
Then hundreds, then thousands…
Sitting in a lawn chair
Can cause such despair
To one who birthed war
And, ironically afterbirth
Aborted the lives of many.
Is it any wonder?
He sends lackeys
To answer her questions
While KBR, Halliburton
And Carlyle
Plunder
With the thunder
Of “shock and awe”
And the "iron triangle"
Of the military-religious-industrial
Complex?
Answer her questions!
She is the mother of loss, Casey, every mother’s son.
She has not crossed nor betrayed patriotism.
Those who suggest it with derision have no comparative, equivalent experience.
His unscripted comments are vexed,
Only mentioning her name
And taking flight in Marine One
For her guns are more lethal than his:
Birthed from a mother's burning love
For one she knew nine month's longer
Than even her son's best friend.
Yes, Stephen King:
"The man in black fled across the desert," to off-site meetings, to the White House "and the gunslinger [still] followed" him.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Purgatory
© 30 July 2005, The Griot Poet
Eye am below Heaven and above hell
where familiar spirits dwell.
Teased between what appears to be
the "light at the end of the tunnel";
and the licking flames of discontent.
Oldies songs take me back to the seventies:
before sex;
before bills;
before marriage;
before responsibilities.
Eye remember
all eye ever wanted to do was to
make an honest living.
Somewhere in my story, eye discovered
[John] Milton's nine-level purgatory.
Vision... became lust;
"doing whatever it takes," violating sacred trusts.
If the soul is
the mind,
the will,
the imagination,
the emotions
and the intellect:
eye sold it!
When do visions become vain imaginations?
When does goal-setting lead to coveting?
Thrust into responsibilities before eye was trained and ready,
eye skipped down the "Primrose path" -- eye wide shut -- in "no mind,"
forgetting that
"action without thought"
takes prior planning
and much practice.
So, here am eye
at forty-three
feeling less like
Solomon
and more like
Ecclesiastes *
My prayers as the
vain repetition
of a heathen
Teased between what appears to be
the "light at the end of the tunnel";
and the licking flames of discontent.
*: Ecclesiastes 1: 2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all [is] vanity.
Eye am below Heaven and above hell
where familiar spirits dwell.
Teased between what appears to be
the "light at the end of the tunnel";
and the licking flames of discontent.
Oldies songs take me back to the seventies:
before sex;
before bills;
before marriage;
before responsibilities.
Eye remember
all eye ever wanted to do was to
make an honest living.
Somewhere in my story, eye discovered
[John] Milton's nine-level purgatory.
Vision... became lust;
"doing whatever it takes," violating sacred trusts.
If the soul is
the mind,
the will,
the imagination,
the emotions
and the intellect:
eye sold it!
When do visions become vain imaginations?
When does goal-setting lead to coveting?
Thrust into responsibilities before eye was trained and ready,
eye skipped down the "Primrose path" -- eye wide shut -- in "no mind,"
forgetting that
"action without thought"
takes prior planning
and much practice.
So, here am eye
at forty-three
feeling less like
Solomon
and more like
Ecclesiastes *
My prayers as the
vain repetition
of a heathen
Teased between what appears to be
the "light at the end of the tunnel";
and the licking flames of discontent.
*: Ecclesiastes 1: 2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all [is] vanity.
Friday, May 06, 2005
April 30, 2005
© April 30, 2005, The Griot Poet
April 30, 2005:
Thirty years after the fall of Saigon,
Now Ho Chi Men City,
Truth and Tet Offensives
Get kind of gritty
As political parties – Donkeys and Grand Old Parties both look like asses
Having their hands covered in the blood of saints that Pilate’s goblet
Cannot wash away.
Today, in 1945
A tyrant, still for strange reasons revered, killed himself most cowardly,
A bullet for him and poison for his 24-hour wife, Eva Braun,
A man who may have been secretly a closet homosexual
And openly killed his fellows, Gypsies and the relatives of his Jewish mother
In a six-million plus human slaughter
Encouraged by Ottoman efficiencies in the murder
Of Armenian Christians
And their wholesale “Ministry of Truth”
Treatment of Orwellian “un-person” histories…
This mystery of this iniquity
Can easily be solved:
When evil wants to rear its head,
It does so when activists and poets do not have the resolve
To declare the truth
And remove the spiritual scales from the eyes
Of the “bewildered horde”
“Entertained to Death”
By “fair and balanced” news and reality show media outlets.
April 30, 2005:
Is a date that spiritually resonates in our history
One of the four shortest months of the year remembered in the short ditty:
“Thirty days has September, April, June and November”:
If this is the end of April showers to usher in May Flowers
Then let our light sabers curse the darkness
And hear the words of poet prophets
And give land colonized by occupying armies back to the people who live on it
Replacing not one tyrant like Saddam with another like Ahmad Chalabi
Replacing not truth with lies about “weapons of mass destruction”
It is our function to purge the earth of Sith Lords that see life in black-and-white “us versus them” terms.
Shoulder shrugs from apathy are deadly!
I dedicate myself to this for as long as I am blessed alive…
For what will they say about us on April 30, 2035?
April 30, 2005:
Thirty years after the fall of Saigon,
Now Ho Chi Men City,
Truth and Tet Offensives
Get kind of gritty
As political parties – Donkeys and Grand Old Parties both look like asses
Having their hands covered in the blood of saints that Pilate’s goblet
Cannot wash away.
Today, in 1945
A tyrant, still for strange reasons revered, killed himself most cowardly,
A bullet for him and poison for his 24-hour wife, Eva Braun,
A man who may have been secretly a closet homosexual
And openly killed his fellows, Gypsies and the relatives of his Jewish mother
In a six-million plus human slaughter
Encouraged by Ottoman efficiencies in the murder
Of Armenian Christians
And their wholesale “Ministry of Truth”
Treatment of Orwellian “un-person” histories…
This mystery of this iniquity
Can easily be solved:
When evil wants to rear its head,
It does so when activists and poets do not have the resolve
To declare the truth
And remove the spiritual scales from the eyes
Of the “bewildered horde”
“Entertained to Death”
By “fair and balanced” news and reality show media outlets.
April 30, 2005:
Is a date that spiritually resonates in our history
One of the four shortest months of the year remembered in the short ditty:
“Thirty days has September, April, June and November”:
If this is the end of April showers to usher in May Flowers
Then let our light sabers curse the darkness
And hear the words of poet prophets
And give land colonized by occupying armies back to the people who live on it
Replacing not one tyrant like Saddam with another like Ahmad Chalabi
Replacing not truth with lies about “weapons of mass destruction”
It is our function to purge the earth of Sith Lords that see life in black-and-white “us versus them” terms.
Shoulder shrugs from apathy are deadly!
I dedicate myself to this for as long as I am blessed alive…
For what will they say about us on April 30, 2035?
Thursday, March 10, 2005
One Thousand Faces
© 10 September 2004, The Griot Poet
And yet another milestone crossed... 1,500.
One thousand faces
Stare at me from a web site.
One thousand smiles
Communicate hopes for a future, education, living standards, pride.
One thousand uniforms
Of various branches and ethnic stripes,
Spit and polished, strac and true.
One thousand families
Once beaming with pride,
Bury their heads in tear-soaked pillows
Photographer’s punished for letting them see their children’s coffins in the news.
I cry one thousand tears
And pray a single drop of moisture here
Will seed their resurrections.
“The day became a day of wrath, of trouble and distress, of waste and desolation. Darkness. Gloominess. A day of trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, against the high towers.
“We walked as blind men.
“Our blood poured out as dust and our flesh as dung.” *
One thousand faces
Attached to bodies
Charged into battle bravely,
For the charred remains of their brethren,
For a threat unrealized in ancient Babylon,
For their loved ones they’ll see no more.
For our country.
Demanding nothing more from
Their nation
Than: TRUTH!
* “That day [is] a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of waste-ness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers. And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the LORD: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung.
” (Zephaniah 1: 15 - 17)
And yet another milestone crossed... 1,500.
One thousand faces
Stare at me from a web site.
One thousand smiles
Communicate hopes for a future, education, living standards, pride.
One thousand uniforms
Of various branches and ethnic stripes,
Spit and polished, strac and true.
One thousand families
Once beaming with pride,
Bury their heads in tear-soaked pillows
Photographer’s punished for letting them see their children’s coffins in the news.
I cry one thousand tears
And pray a single drop of moisture here
Will seed their resurrections.
“The day became a day of wrath, of trouble and distress, of waste and desolation. Darkness. Gloominess. A day of trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, against the high towers.
“We walked as blind men.
“Our blood poured out as dust and our flesh as dung.” *
One thousand faces
Attached to bodies
Charged into battle bravely,
For the charred remains of their brethren,
For a threat unrealized in ancient Babylon,
For their loved ones they’ll see no more.
For our country.
Demanding nothing more from
Their nation
Than: TRUTH!
* “That day [is] a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of waste-ness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers. And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the LORD: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung.
” (Zephaniah 1: 15 - 17)
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Innuendo
© 19 February 2004, The Griot Poet
This piece originates from... a lot of pain. Pain I am growing out of daily.
I give to those who have suffered pain as I have suffered it at the hands of those whom you've placed your trust in. You are not alone.
I
did not know
the pulpit
was a
Weapon of Mass Destruction!
I
thought
it was your
function
to deliver
the Word of God.
I find
it odd that
intimate conversations
has become
your revelation
from on high!
I
pitch and
falter as
I spy
the altar filled
with gullible
souls
absorbing your
vitriol
as manna from
Heaven; your words
a bread of leaven.
Not knowing
you've thrown
down the
gauntlet in
a pitched
battle of
spoken words
like dueling
hip-hop
stars,
verbosity
slicing
literary
and literal
scars,
the by-product
of your
clever
shtick!
And,
I
don't give a
lick
if this hurts
your feelings:
since
your attacks
sent my senses
reeling;
as a writer
I OUGHT to
have FUN with
this!
I will not
chase your bitter
pill with the
putrid swill
of hate:
before my own
mother conceived
me,
I was known
and wonderfully
fashioned by
the same
Designer
whose Word
you TWIST
to berate me!
(Jim Jones would be so PROUD of you!)
I
did not know
the pulpit
was a
Weapon of Mass Destruction!
This is MY podium!
You
don't know
what you've
started!
As a writer
and poet filled
with aught,
I ought to
know also
how to
decipher
and use
INNUENDO!
This piece originates from... a lot of pain. Pain I am growing out of daily.
I give to those who have suffered pain as I have suffered it at the hands of those whom you've placed your trust in. You are not alone.
I
did not know
the pulpit
was a
Weapon of Mass Destruction!
I
thought
it was your
function
to deliver
the Word of God.
I find
it odd that
intimate conversations
has become
your revelation
from on high!
I
pitch and
falter as
I spy
the altar filled
with gullible
souls
absorbing your
vitriol
as manna from
Heaven; your words
a bread of leaven.
Not knowing
you've thrown
down the
gauntlet in
a pitched
battle of
spoken words
like dueling
hip-hop
stars,
verbosity
slicing
literary
and literal
scars,
the by-product
of your
clever
shtick!
And,
I
don't give a
lick
if this hurts
your feelings:
since
your attacks
sent my senses
reeling;
as a writer
I OUGHT to
have FUN with
this!
I will not
chase your bitter
pill with the
putrid swill
of hate:
before my own
mother conceived
me,
I was known
and wonderfully
fashioned by
the same
Designer
whose Word
you TWIST
to berate me!
(Jim Jones would be so PROUD of you!)
I
did not know
the pulpit
was a
Weapon of Mass Destruction!
This is MY podium!
You
don't know
what you've
started!
As a writer
and poet filled
with aught,
I ought to
know also
how to
decipher
and use
INNUENDO!
Saturday, January 22, 2005
Mourner’s Bench
© 18 January 2005, The Griot Poet
I hear the cries of my ancestors.
A beautiful sister on a microphone in long, flowing choir robes
Rears back and belts out a tone originating from the tragicomic pain of American blues.
I hear the cries of my ancestors.
A people of differing tribes, customs and hues, herded through Goree Island gates; stacked end-to-end between bile and crates on slave ships
Subjugated by the threat of noose and becoming “strange fruit,” burning crosses, night raids and the incessant crackle of whips across backs stripped of skin – but not dignity.
I hear the cries of my ancestors.
On the one day (with chagrin) massa gave us a measured freedom: a Constantine-ordained Sunday measured by massa’s presence, measuring each word of the “Word” from the pulpit for content;
Raised fingers to ask his permission to relieve themselves during services.
I hear the cries of my ancestors.
As Invictus from William Ernest Henley: “their heads were bloody, yet unbowed.”
Bowed only to a God and a hope for a people they could not (yet) see.
I hear the cries of my ancestors.
Laying on hands made sense, as we had no access to medicines other than folk remedies from Africa, forcing us into a deeper spirituality, speaking in unknown tongues in intimate communion with the ultimate reality.
As I am juxtaposed between here and then on the unbowed backs of women and men like: Phyllis Wheatley, Ida B. Wells, Shirley Chisholm “neither bossed or bought”; Barbara Jordan whose “FAITH in the constitution was complete and whole,” Zora Neal Hurston, Toni Morrison, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Dubois, Carter G. Woodson, Medger Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.
All this as I sit on the mourner’s bench, reciting the coded one-hundreds in unknown tongues giving the signal to Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, hands laid on my countenance imparting to me the freedom cries of my ancestors!
I hear the cries of my ancestors.
A beautiful sister on a microphone in long, flowing choir robes
Rears back and belts out a tone originating from the tragicomic pain of American blues.
I hear the cries of my ancestors.
A people of differing tribes, customs and hues, herded through Goree Island gates; stacked end-to-end between bile and crates on slave ships
Subjugated by the threat of noose and becoming “strange fruit,” burning crosses, night raids and the incessant crackle of whips across backs stripped of skin – but not dignity.
I hear the cries of my ancestors.
On the one day (with chagrin) massa gave us a measured freedom: a Constantine-ordained Sunday measured by massa’s presence, measuring each word of the “Word” from the pulpit for content;
Raised fingers to ask his permission to relieve themselves during services.
I hear the cries of my ancestors.
As Invictus from William Ernest Henley: “their heads were bloody, yet unbowed.”
Bowed only to a God and a hope for a people they could not (yet) see.
I hear the cries of my ancestors.
Laying on hands made sense, as we had no access to medicines other than folk remedies from Africa, forcing us into a deeper spirituality, speaking in unknown tongues in intimate communion with the ultimate reality.
As I am juxtaposed between here and then on the unbowed backs of women and men like: Phyllis Wheatley, Ida B. Wells, Shirley Chisholm “neither bossed or bought”; Barbara Jordan whose “FAITH in the constitution was complete and whole,” Zora Neal Hurston, Toni Morrison, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Dubois, Carter G. Woodson, Medger Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.
All this as I sit on the mourner’s bench, reciting the coded one-hundreds in unknown tongues giving the signal to Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, hands laid on my countenance imparting to me the freedom cries of my ancestors!
Friday, January 21, 2005
On the Occasion of the Inauguration of Caesar
© 21 January 2005, The Griot Poet
Inspired by William River Pitt of Truthout: http://truthout.org/fyi/.
On the Occasion of the Inauguration of Caesar…
As I swallow the bitter swill of pundit largess: “free speech zones” for the restless peon hordes told to “eat cake” by Marie Antoinette administrations and BLOGS for the alternate press.
Watching his Skull and Bones fraternity brother mouth the Oath of Office stone-faced… for what could have been – without much difference – his place?
On the Occasion of the Inauguration of Caesar…
Jesus, blond-haired and blue-eyed moves stealthily under Iranian skies spying on the next spoke in the “Axis of Evil” wars without end.
Any Melanin-rich Aramaic representations of Him or His mother’s visage’s long ago conveniently PC’d and purged by Michelangelo’s genius.
“The poor you will have with you always” did not mean CREATE even more in the rape, plunder and murder for 2nd and 3rd world resources from Malthusian slaves for cell phones, pagers, computers, TVs, Nikes, blue jeans and SUVs.
On the Occasion of the Inauguration of Caesar…
We are a hare’s whisker from totalitarian rule, in the image of “We” by Zamyatin and Orwell’s “1984”; one more terrorist attack from a Declaration of Independence and constitution also seeming “quaint” and inconvenient… like Geneva conventions, reducing the ideas of deistic founding fathers to the dreamy wishes of idealistic fools!
As I search in the political and spiritual darkness for my epidermal RFID chip (used for tithes and offerings at certain Constantine mega churches and approved by the current FDA)
On the Occasion of the Inauguration of Caesar!
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
”To the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools
the way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!
”Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Inspired by William River Pitt of Truthout: http://truthout.org/fyi/.
On the Occasion of the Inauguration of Caesar…
As I swallow the bitter swill of pundit largess: “free speech zones” for the restless peon hordes told to “eat cake” by Marie Antoinette administrations and BLOGS for the alternate press.
Watching his Skull and Bones fraternity brother mouth the Oath of Office stone-faced… for what could have been – without much difference – his place?
On the Occasion of the Inauguration of Caesar…
Jesus, blond-haired and blue-eyed moves stealthily under Iranian skies spying on the next spoke in the “Axis of Evil” wars without end.
Any Melanin-rich Aramaic representations of Him or His mother’s visage’s long ago conveniently PC’d and purged by Michelangelo’s genius.
“The poor you will have with you always” did not mean CREATE even more in the rape, plunder and murder for 2nd and 3rd world resources from Malthusian slaves for cell phones, pagers, computers, TVs, Nikes, blue jeans and SUVs.
On the Occasion of the Inauguration of Caesar…
We are a hare’s whisker from totalitarian rule, in the image of “We” by Zamyatin and Orwell’s “1984”; one more terrorist attack from a Declaration of Independence and constitution also seeming “quaint” and inconvenient… like Geneva conventions, reducing the ideas of deistic founding fathers to the dreamy wishes of idealistic fools!
As I search in the political and spiritual darkness for my epidermal RFID chip (used for tithes and offerings at certain Constantine mega churches and approved by the current FDA)
On the Occasion of the Inauguration of Caesar!
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
”To the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools
the way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!
”Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Sunday, January 16, 2005
In Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
These are two tributes to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They are written with the hindsight knowledge of Dr. King the man: preacher, teacher, prophet, adulterer, sexist, misogynist. I do not say these things lightly.
I prefer the whole package with all its strengths and flaws. I prefer to think of Dr. King as a man and honor him with these pieces. It takes away our excuse to be "perfect" before we get to the task he set before us.
April 4, 1968
© 4 April 2004, The Griot Poet
America deciphered: “I am race,”
Skated the slate of liberation,
Twisting freedom via litigation,
Stating we were three-fifths human.
The delusion kept alive from a pulpit
For Sundays and centuries
From slavery and bitter memories
Until a vilified, controversial
Whore-mongering warrior poet
Would take the stand.
After Rosetta Park’s
Defiant, seated stand
Put boldness in backbones
Stooped by noose,
Night raids,
Razed townships like:
Rosewood;
Greenwood, Archer and Pine
(Black Wall Street before the GAP Band)
Jim Crow and burning crosses.
He
Would put into practice
Philosophies
By Mahatma Gandhi
And Palestinian Prophets
Taking action against
Pharaoh’s factions
Daily hurtling
Towards being a noble sacrifice.
April 4, 1968:
Bethlehem Community Center
In East Winston-Salem, North Carolina…
Teachers sat down a kindergarten
Class relaying the sad news
That their Moses,
Who had “been to the mountaintop…”
Died.
Urban children,
Spread three-to-five
Shed hot tears
In an understanding
Beyond their years
Until time for
Their 11 o’clock
Nap.
After that,
Recess was recessed,
The slow build never
Really got to the
Typical level of activity
We enjoyed.
Confederate flags
And pick up trucks
Rode through our
Section
Honking,
Cursing,
Hoping
To start
A ruckus.
No joy
In the usual
Toys; no joy
In parent pick up:
My father
Solemn
And red-eyed.
I held him tight with
Five-year-old
Arms,
Needing his strength on
The day
Moses
Died.
Mountaintop Sermons
© 14 January 2005, The Griot Poet
“I’ve been to the mountaintop…”
But, I want you to understand,
I was just a man
Just as flawed, just as human
Prone to mistakes
And at times, degraded women and my own race
In unintended ignorance
Playing a slave singing dark ditties
In Margaret Mitchell’s film version
Of the novel “Gone With the Wind.”
“I’ve been to the mountaintop…”
But, I want you to understand,
I was just a man
And don’t take this day
As a day off
But a day ON
Do the marches; sing the songs
Don’t go back to “business as usual.”
You see,
If you let them
They’ll make a symbol out of me,
They’ll use select verses of my
Most heart felt sermons
To propel a commercial agenda
And a political bent
Which is meant
To keep you behind a neon
Mental sign of exclusion
More powerful than the ones
I viewed
On water fountains and theaters saying:
Whites only; Coloreds only
“I’ve been to the mountaintop…”
And, I want you to understand
I was just a man
Like David,
A man after God’s own heart
That if he lived today
Would be vilified
On 24-hour news stations diatribes
Before this and every nation
Until he
Abdicated dignity and civility
In costly impeachment investigations
You will see
People still trying to vilify me
Years after I’m gone
Fallen by natural causes… or other means
Using FBI tapes and illegal wire taps
I was just trying to follow Jesus
The living revolutionary
Who told me in His sermons “they will hate you, as they hated me.”
But that didn’t stop His march to Calvary,
And it didn’t stop my march in Selma,
It didn’t stop my march in “Bombing Ham” for four little black girls,
It didn’t stop my march in Atlanta,
It didn’t stop my march in Chicago,
It didn’t stop my march in Detroit,
It didn’t stop my march in Washington, DC!
It won't stop with YOUR march...
You see,
“I’ve been to the mountaintop…”
If you really want to honor me,
"Try to love somebody,"
Be a "drum major for justice,"
And realize,
One person
YOU
Can make a difference!
I prefer the whole package with all its strengths and flaws. I prefer to think of Dr. King as a man and honor him with these pieces. It takes away our excuse to be "perfect" before we get to the task he set before us.
April 4, 1968
© 4 April 2004, The Griot Poet
America deciphered: “I am race,”
Skated the slate of liberation,
Twisting freedom via litigation,
Stating we were three-fifths human.
The delusion kept alive from a pulpit
For Sundays and centuries
From slavery and bitter memories
Until a vilified, controversial
Whore-mongering warrior poet
Would take the stand.
After Rosetta Park’s
Defiant, seated stand
Put boldness in backbones
Stooped by noose,
Night raids,
Razed townships like:
Rosewood;
Greenwood, Archer and Pine
(Black Wall Street before the GAP Band)
Jim Crow and burning crosses.
He
Would put into practice
Philosophies
By Mahatma Gandhi
And Palestinian Prophets
Taking action against
Pharaoh’s factions
Daily hurtling
Towards being a noble sacrifice.
April 4, 1968:
Bethlehem Community Center
In East Winston-Salem, North Carolina…
Teachers sat down a kindergarten
Class relaying the sad news
That their Moses,
Who had “been to the mountaintop…”
Died.
Urban children,
Spread three-to-five
Shed hot tears
In an understanding
Beyond their years
Until time for
Their 11 o’clock
Nap.
After that,
Recess was recessed,
The slow build never
Really got to the
Typical level of activity
We enjoyed.
Confederate flags
And pick up trucks
Rode through our
Section
Honking,
Cursing,
Hoping
To start
A ruckus.
No joy
In the usual
Toys; no joy
In parent pick up:
My father
Solemn
And red-eyed.
I held him tight with
Five-year-old
Arms,
Needing his strength on
The day
Moses
Died.
Mountaintop Sermons
© 14 January 2005, The Griot Poet
“I’ve been to the mountaintop…”
But, I want you to understand,
I was just a man
Just as flawed, just as human
Prone to mistakes
And at times, degraded women and my own race
In unintended ignorance
Playing a slave singing dark ditties
In Margaret Mitchell’s film version
Of the novel “Gone With the Wind.”
“I’ve been to the mountaintop…”
But, I want you to understand,
I was just a man
And don’t take this day
As a day off
But a day ON
Do the marches; sing the songs
Don’t go back to “business as usual.”
You see,
If you let them
They’ll make a symbol out of me,
They’ll use select verses of my
Most heart felt sermons
To propel a commercial agenda
And a political bent
Which is meant
To keep you behind a neon
Mental sign of exclusion
More powerful than the ones
I viewed
On water fountains and theaters saying:
Whites only; Coloreds only
“I’ve been to the mountaintop…”
And, I want you to understand
I was just a man
Like David,
A man after God’s own heart
That if he lived today
Would be vilified
On 24-hour news stations diatribes
Before this and every nation
Until he
Abdicated dignity and civility
In costly impeachment investigations
You will see
People still trying to vilify me
Years after I’m gone
Fallen by natural causes… or other means
Using FBI tapes and illegal wire taps
I was just trying to follow Jesus
The living revolutionary
Who told me in His sermons “they will hate you, as they hated me.”
But that didn’t stop His march to Calvary,
And it didn’t stop my march in Selma,
It didn’t stop my march in “Bombing Ham” for four little black girls,
It didn’t stop my march in Atlanta,
It didn’t stop my march in Chicago,
It didn’t stop my march in Detroit,
It didn’t stop my march in Washington, DC!
It won't stop with YOUR march...
You see,
“I’ve been to the mountaintop…”
If you really want to honor me,
"Try to love somebody,"
Be a "drum major for justice,"
And realize,
One person
YOU
Can make a difference!
Friday, January 07, 2005
Pastor Feel Good
© 6 January 2005, The Griot Poet
Since when did the disciples rock mansions and Bentleys?
Wed million-dollar Barbie-doll models (on their second or third marriages)?
Tele-evangelists fleece their flocks of millions of desperate souls
That no pundit pollster is LIKELY to poll
Sending silver and gold “Reverend Ike-like” prayer cloths tracing my hand and foot for a two hundred buck investment into your 50-foot yacht – WHAT?
Pastor Feel Good:
How do you sleep damning the memory of Palestinian Prophets receiving a Roman “empire-strikes-back” beat down and rusty nails in His hands and feet?
“Depart from me, you workers of iniquity” was preached when the Hebrew sect called Christianity did not exist – YOU were on that list!
They say “war is a racket,” then church is a hustle!
And the bustle to merge the twain that never should meet frees us of the guilt of stealing civil liberties in
Guantanamo;
Afghanistan;
America and Iraq.
Torture memos disavowed by the author of the same in confirmation investigations;
Having corporate selections and calling them elections.
Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. had to go!
“Their dead bodies lying in the streets of the great city spiritually called Sodom and Egypt.” (Rev 11:8)
Because the beast could not suffer the truth told by servants humble, humanly flawed and meek.
But each, as Ozzie Davis said of Malcolm, were seeds planted in the ground nourished by their own blood coming up not just as “trees planted by rivers of water” (Psalms 1:3),
But like Langston, just as deep and resurrected in spoken word prophets: some Christian, some Hebrew, some Muslim, some Buddhist, some Atheist, and some Anarchist,
Spoken word prophets preaching peace to power in venues instead of pulpits where TRUTH can’t be warped, spun or STOPPED!
Since when did the disciples rock mansions and Bentleys?
Wed million-dollar Barbie-doll models (on their second or third marriages)?
Tele-evangelists fleece their flocks of millions of desperate souls
That no pundit pollster is LIKELY to poll
Sending silver and gold “Reverend Ike-like” prayer cloths tracing my hand and foot for a two hundred buck investment into your 50-foot yacht – WHAT?
Pastor Feel Good:
How do you sleep damning the memory of Palestinian Prophets receiving a Roman “empire-strikes-back” beat down and rusty nails in His hands and feet?
“Depart from me, you workers of iniquity” was preached when the Hebrew sect called Christianity did not exist – YOU were on that list!
They say “war is a racket,” then church is a hustle!
And the bustle to merge the twain that never should meet frees us of the guilt of stealing civil liberties in
Guantanamo;
Afghanistan;
America and Iraq.
Torture memos disavowed by the author of the same in confirmation investigations;
Having corporate selections and calling them elections.
Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. had to go!
“Their dead bodies lying in the streets of the great city spiritually called Sodom and Egypt.” (Rev 11:8)
Because the beast could not suffer the truth told by servants humble, humanly flawed and meek.
But each, as Ozzie Davis said of Malcolm, were seeds planted in the ground nourished by their own blood coming up not just as “trees planted by rivers of water” (Psalms 1:3),
But like Langston, just as deep and resurrected in spoken word prophets: some Christian, some Hebrew, some Muslim, some Buddhist, some Atheist, and some Anarchist,
Spoken word prophets preaching peace to power in venues instead of pulpits where TRUTH can’t be warped, spun or STOPPED!
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