"I'll be famous"

In "Question Mark" and "Ishmael’s Axe" I accounted for the sordid tale of Cho-Seung Hui and the Virginia Tech shooting. It is poetry most writers would not like to record.

Megan Meier thought that "Josh" loved her. The figment of a neighboring mother's imagination broke up with her and resulted in a sweet girl’s suicide.

Now we have Robert A. Hawkins in what is now the Omaha Mall shooting at the Westroads Mall: nine dead, including Robert and five injured at last count.

I'm old enough to remember when CNN debuted in 1980. Prior to that, HBO had limited showings and television shut down (the "snow" screen in the scene of the movie "Poltergeist") around 11 PM. If you were an insomniac, you REALLY had to work at it.

Not to say there weren't shootings: the UT tower incident in the '60s comes to mind. However, with 24-hour news and the Internet on which you read this commentary, becoming "famous" can happen in nanoseconds at near light speed with the voracious need for copy by the media.

Ironically, "Robert" means "bright and shining fame." I wonder if he knew this when he wrote "I'll be famous" in his suicide note?

In 2004, Nebraska ranked 41 out of 50 states in the rate of suicides recorded: 166 deaths reported in the state at a rate of 9.5. I'm getting this from www.suicidolgy.org.

From the CNN article linked above, his landlord paraphrased: "He basically said how sorry he was for everything," Maruca Kovac said of the note. "He didn't want to be a burden to people and that he was a piece of s--- all of his life and that now he'd be famous."

Mental health in this country is a phobia, a cousin in the attic no one wants to discuss. We've all got our issues, and they can be exacerbated by the economy, social situations and most importantly, lack of treatment.

It would seem silly if someone broke an arm or the femur in their legs and tried to "play it off" as if nothing hurts. Mind you, I've had my share of hairline fractures as a martial artist that I did the same thing with, but as I get older I'm a little more cautious and check out everything, EVERYTHING with my doctor.

When will we have this attitude about mental health?

Could crime rates be the result of desperate people finding themselves in desperate situations where nefarious criminal activity makes "sense" in warped minds?

Would their be a decrease in wars if we had clear-minded leaders that steered their countries towards peace and alternate energy sources so we're not beholding to despots and dictators to drive our SUVs, pay $3 in gas and turn on a light bulb?

If you were expecting poetry, I've already done it in "Question Mark" and "Ishmael’s Axe."

Sometimes I don't want to be brilliant in tragedy. I want tragedy to spur ACTION that will change or prevent such events becoming more frequent. I write because "I am involved [with] mankind," and I am concerned.

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

Those lines are John Donne’s From "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions."

My prayers to all Ishmaels before their cry for help makes them "famous."

The Griot Poet

Letter to Riley Ann Sawyers (Baby Grace)

© 29 November 2007, The Griot Poet

“Twinkle, twinkle little star…”

Song of Mozart from ages afar

You who were so innocent and true

Stolen from us by one whom

Your mother met

On the Internet

That with its freedoms makes us all act a bit like we’re two…

When we didn’t know a name for your beautiful face

We for a time called you “Baby Grace”

And every parent clutched their kids tighter

And determined to make their lives brighter

To count to ten

Before dispensing discipline

And be bread unleavened

When we receive our own packages from Heaven

Which is where we know now you are – “Twinkle, twinkle little star!”

Some fun on Amazon.com

Posting:

Travis Miller says:
While I appreciate your eloquent viewpoint and applaud you for overcoming adversity in your life, I have to ask, did you read this book? If not, I'm not sure why you chose the forum of a "book review" to express your opinions. Oh, and why is it that no one seems to mind the obvious playing of the "race card" by the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton as they seek to line their own pockets at the expense of the black community at large?

-------- ------- says:
Hello Mr.Travis Miller,

I don't buy their books either. I prefer to read widely from a variety of sources and form my own opinions.

My point was simply Dr. Hill is in his past. If he is truly not guilty of the harassment he was accused of (I recall his confirmation, and was initially in his corner), then his memoir should stand on its own merits without resorting to personal attacks. At most, she should be a footnote if any mention at all. Such a tactic is sophomoric, and in my opinion, beneath the dignity of the office of a Supreme Court Justice.

Black Americans don't need "leadership" or the media-ordained leaders like Reverends Jackson and Sharpton on the left or Justice Thomas on the right.

Since the assassination of Dr. King, some in the media have tried to replace him and others have exploited his (quite human) life to their own ends.

Dr. King, with all his accomplishments and personal flaws was not the movement: young people like the Greensboro Four from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University that galvanized the tactic of sit-ins across the nation; young people that are immortalized in documented images of fire hoses, dogs, police beatings, marches and mass arrests; young people like my older sister, my wife's aunt and their friends, they were the movement. Dr. King was the focal point and came under critic from the far left and extreme right almost simultaneously, especially after his stance against the Vietnam War. Malcolm X spoke of him derisively until near the end of his life and mission.

We, like all Americans need to accept responsibility for our futures. A Constitutional Democracy is a participatory exercise. Demagoguery only gets in the way.

I thank you for your candor and your gracious reply as far as my background.

PARADIGM SHIFT

© 16 August 2007, Thom the World Poet; © 5 September 2007, The Griot Poet

Dueling Banjos - an instrumental song made famous in the movie "Deliverance" (circa 1972), see http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Dueling_Banjos..... Dueling Poetry - a free verse conversation between two or more poets; the extension of social and/or political thoughts or ideas; a collaborative, creative work between two or more poets…. Definition by TGP

As soon as you change-everything else does
The idea of democracy as rough as ostracon
Pentagon military values override civilian infrastructure budget
Where you put your energies is where you get results
Voting machines programmed result elections
Candidates who represent only their monied interests
Daddy President Paterfamilias of fractious families
Corporate Plunderers buying expensive lawyers
Economic playground riches only for the rich
Millionaires buy from billionaires
Invisible poor in privitized prisons
Embourgoisement executive highrise condominia
Military SUV truck Humvees mercenaries
25 million illegals voting via Western Union
Border Patrol bribed for cocaine gangs
Invasive strikes casualty listings
Role reversal Manifest Destiny Gunboat Diplomacy
Wars to endless Wars.Budget deficit
who speaks of the obvious?Withdraw now!
One World Government for Iraq,Palestine,Afghanistan
Puppets dance for dollars .Yen for yuan.Chinese water torture.
Tibet.Mongolia.Taiwan.Olympic Gamers
Tiemannen Celebrity Squares.Protesters freed
to change the dominant hegemony-first you have to....
WORKATWHATYOUWANT! August 16,2007

* * * * * * *

We become the nightmare of
Eric Blair
We become death - "the shatterer of worlds"
We become the prophesy of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Bhagavad-Gita
Our military, according to Harper's Magazine, a politicized mouthpiece
Of a predominant, militant party
Of born-again militarist
Who would crucify Christ afresh given the chance
For His stance against the first Caesarian Empire...

Nukes flown over our heads for three hours by B52 air transports -- for what...?
Don't worry; it's not to harm us -- then, who?

We've allowed a mafia family to subordinate the Constitution
The resolution - Impeachment, mentioned 6 times not pursued
The resolve of elected officials: don't screw up before retirement!
Conspiring for $130,000.00 guaranteed pensions
Even Lewis Craig can pursue.

When you allow a crime family into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Strange days, myriad ways of wonder-working Sith Lord control
over every means of lazy information: corporate-controlled news
For Laissez-faire politicos and misinformation "Swift Boat" crews...

It's no wonder they wish to bar access to the Internet
Information is power: and we have it in our keyboards
But don't just sit on your political ASSets
Go to poetry venues,
Forward THIS
And DO (VOTE).

The Problem with POWER

Dueling Banjos - an instrumental song made famous in the movie "Deliverance" (circa 1972), see http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Dueling_Banjos..... Dueling Poetry - a free verse conversation between two or more poets; the extension of social and/or political thoughts or ideas; a collaborative, creative work between two or more poets…. Definition by TGP

© August 16, 2007, Thom the World Poet

The problem with power
Is that no one in their right mind
Wants nor needs power over others.
O we do not want them to violate our rights
Steal our property or diminish our lives
And we especially do not want bullies to attack
That is why we hire our own bullies-police/military
In a pre-emptive war upon violence
The problem is that our allies attack us
The conundrum is that they confuse themselves with law
They think THEY hold the power!
Have you ever been interrogated by an arrogant functionary?
Control over others' lives is not self-control
It is an invasion/an occupation
Like when the CIA/NSA spy satellites are used
Against our own citizens
And civil liberties are shredded in the name of "Terrorism"
And fear rules, and all rules are broken
By this simple mistake-
Confusing functionaries and agents
As the source of power… You are
And always will be in charge of your life
You are individually responsible for your actions
Every tenet of law and democracy is predicated upon this premise
Which has been violated almost to perdition
Power abuse has led to corporate and political and economic corruption
Just like Rome. Just like Athens. Our ancestors
Had to defend the same values we espouse
Via wars of liberation… Tyrants assume no one will oppose them
Which leads us back to the same question-
If we do not claim our own powers
Someone else will always steal them...
FIX IT! August 16,2007

© 18 August 2007, The Griot Poet

ENRON...
WORLDCOMM...
TYCO...
Afghanistan -- the Taliban OFFERED Osama!
Iraq -- with no WMD found under Bush's desk...
Guantanamo...
The so-called equal branch "formally-known-as" Congress...
The US (In) Justice Department...

And now, in our own back yard
Michael Dell
Faces an S-E-C hell
Of how 17 business quarters of sales... did not exist!

Erikah Badue would say: Oh, sh--! “You better call Tyrone…”

Power players are like actors and prostitutes
Imbued with political nymphomania
Empowered by an apathetic electorate
More sympathetic and involved
If their own American Idol dolls

Paris, Nicole, Brittany and Lindsay
Do a little deserved jail time for acting a FOOL in public!

Feeding on the paparazzi of flash bulbs and notice...

No one in their right mind wants power over others
Because managing one's own life is responsibility enough
Most of those in office would FLUNK the DSM-IV test for mental health,
Like most multinational corporations that have way too much influence on our elections... do.

That doesn’t note the video quote on CNN of two lionesses hunting calves versus an entire herd of water buffalo:

There IS strength in numbers!
(Any wonder why we fail?)

We are the numbers
That can make a difference:

WRITE your Senator, Congressman or Woman: even if you didn't VOTE for them!
Show up at public events, poetry readings
Because if you don't
K-Street lobbyists and green money is the only thing your representatives see.

Don't follow the sick twisted examples of Eddie Murphy and Brian McKnight: VOTE!

Rosa Parks and Dr. King gave their lives
So these FOOLS could make a million dollars
Pimping you on CDs, Broadway and the national box offices
And, any man that jumps from being married to a supermodel to divorcing same, a controversy with a transvestite
To an out-of-wedlock baby by "Scary Spice"
Meanwhile getting engaged to the ex-wife of Baby Face...
Is NOT playing with a full deck!

YOU are that herd of water buffalo to stop a train wreck
Led by the lionesses Bushwhack and Dick that their own parties just don't get
Yet
Cowardice and the spice of political office
That pays FULL retirement pensions
To convicted felons

Is the only thing
Keeping them from doing ANYTHING
To your benefit…

Stop looking
For Avatars
From Krypton
With big red S's on their chests...
YOU are that herd of water buffalo to stop a train wreck
Of democracy fleeing the shores of its modern birth
To become the formerly-known-as United States

Descended into the oxy moronic
Charging headlong, powered by apathy
At hypersonic speeds...

To a FASCIST state!

A tepid response...

Dear ------- :



Thank you for taking the time to write me with your support for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. As your elected representative to the U.S. Congress, I appreciate you for giving me the opportunity to comment on this issue.



As you may know, the impeachment process originates in the House of Representatives. This process is used to ensure the legal and ethical behavior of members of the Executive and Judicial branches of the federal government. At this time, I do not believe impeachment proceedings of President Bush and Vice President Cheney are warranted. I support our President and the administration in their actions to defend and support our nation. Should this matter come before the House of Representatives, I will pay attention to the proceedings and move forward with the best interest of our nation in mind.



Again, I thank you for contacting me on these important issues. Please contact me again if I can be of further assistance.


Sincerely,

John Carter
Member of Congress

For more information on what I am doing in Congress, please visit my website at http://www.house.gov/carter. If you would like a weekly update, you may also sign up to receive my newsletter while youre there.

28301-016

© 10 July 2007, The Griot Poet


“Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number [is] Six hundred threescore [and] six.” Rev 13: 18

* “Scooter Libby, AKA Federal Inmate No. 28301-016, walks free” …

And so does scoot our civil liberties out the door, out the window and the belief in a society where “no man (or woman) is above the law”…

The country guffawed when a black man named OJ Simpson – no matter which side of the debate you fall – found his color no liability since his ability to pay 10 million to my Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity brother, Johnny Cochran to set him free…

And Paris Hilton had no drinking problem – despite driving on a suspended license due to DUI

Had no drug problem – despite her face and verbal admittance to smoking pot plastered on thesmokinggun.com…

She HAS no street creds, whining and crying through 23 thousand dollar days of expensive, sequestered silence, despite all those self-defense and karate lessons daddy had to pay for, cringed from testing her skill accreditation when the thought of being amongst the “common” women’s prison population…

In ONE breath blaming it all on claustrophobia and ADD! Oh, please!

OJ, Paris, Scooter Libby…

G-R-E-E-N is the only color the blind goddess of justice sees…

So we have the Jena six, who after nooses hung in the “white tree,” retaliatory beat downs because the clowns in the school administration did NOTHING to diffuse the situation – racist taunts and threats by the DA to “sign away their lives with the stroke of a pen” face “attempted murder charges, and assault by…. ‘Tennis shoe’” and multiple, consecutive, immoral sentences…

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070307B.shtml

Mychal Bell faces a hell of 22 years in prison,

Five of his friends await similar charges on second-degree attempted murder and conspiracy charges.

On a case that most likely, since blacks are less than 20 percent of the population of Jena, Louisiana will get argued before… The Supreme Court!

Like the saviors these kids need are Alito, Roberts, Kennedy, Scalia and Uncle Clarence Thomas!

And I retort:

* “Scooter Libby, AKA Federal Inmate No. 28301-016, walks free” …

And so does scoot our civil liberties out the door, out the window and the belief in a society where “no man (or woman) is above the law”…

I’ll believe Paris’ change from party girl to charity when I see Scooter spill the beans on the neocon primates Bush and Cheney with an intact 5th Amendment in his back pocket, while they run out the appeals’ clock to January 20, 2009!

Essay - Impeachment: NOW!

I must insist that impeachment CANNOT be off the table!

What happened 7/2/2007 with Mr. Libby's commuted sentence is example of a White House and Executive Branch that thinks itself above the US constitution and the law. We have a Vice President that is conveniently a part of his OWN branch of government -- the US of Cheney -- when giving over documents to the National Archives is "inconvenient" to him.

In TheHill.com 7/2/2007, "Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) told Vice President Dick Cheney to 'resign or face impeachment' Thursday night as three more House Democrats lent their support to a plan to impeach the vice president."

Ms. Valerie Plame Wilson was responsible for interdicting Weapons of Mass Destruction [I believe we have a 'Global War on Terror,' so it might be important]. Her cover and the networks set up by Brewster Jennings cannot be recovered and information we could now KNOW about Iran cannot be gathered. If that is not a "high crime and misdemeanor" I don't know what is.

Greater than 3,500 American lives, men and women, mothers, fathers, daughters and sons have been wasted for a lie based on Weapons of Mass Destruction that NEVER existed, that only exist now in the President's, Vice President's and Ann Coulter's deluded minds!

This pardon makes me wonder if we will remain a democratic republic, or slide the propagandized, slick road to a fascist dictatorship.

In Free Speech (for NOW),

The Griot Poet, © 3 July 2007

WHO ARE THE INSURGENTS?

Dueling Banjos - an instrumental song made famous in the movie "Deliverance" (circa 1972), see http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Dueling_Banjos..... Dueling Poetry - a free verse conversation between two or more poets; the extension of social and/or political thoughts or ideas; a collaborative, creative work between two or more poets…. Definition by TGP

© 25 June 2007, The Griot Poet

From an e-mail exchange between myself and Thom the World Poet:

THE USE AND ABUSE
of words,civilians,prisoners,concepts-
"friendly fire",plausible deniability","free fire zone"
"collateral damage"-we forget Somalia,Vietnam,Lebanon
were withdrawals and defeats
where values military met resistance effective
when the popular will -with a "surge" of WONT!
rose up against occupiers and invaders
much as we rose up against unfair taxes
to seek to create a better state
their wish for Islam need be honored...
Fundamentalist Taliban (now called TERRORISTS)
were once our allies in Afghanistan against secular Russians
Military dictators in Pakistan our allies against Islam
Church and State once so separate-now called the Church of England
Prayer Meetings in the White House
Bornagains vetted via interviews-to distill ideological purity
We are what our forefathers fought against!
Torture,bombings,assassinations-these are terrorist tools
We are the NUMBER ONE arms dealer in the world
All we need to do is realize-that finger pointing at others
is a mirror of our true intentions...
QUESTION EVERYTHING! June 25,2007

To Vice President "Dick" Cheney.

Dear Troglodyte:

"On June 21, 2007, it was reported that Vice President Dick Cheney has asserted that the Office of the Vice President is not an exclusive part of the executive branch of the US government (he is also the President of the U.S. Senate), and thus is not bound by presidential orders governing the protection of classified information. The White House has confirmed that Executive Orders governing the protection of classified information exclude both the President and Vice President."

According to the Twelfth Amendment, the Electoral College you gerry-rigged in 2000 selected you as President (the other dumb-looking one too).

Albeit with suspicious slight-of-political-hand: caging lists for innocent African Americans that
Obviously weren't going to cast their votes for YOU...

You canned your Texas residency to run along side of Dubya
As his "Dark Lord of Vice" candidate,

Changing to your original state of Wyoming -- who both conveniently enjoy the LOWEST gas prices at the pump in the country!

Now you have Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) conveniently calling for the latest "new-new" direction,
Along with other Sith (=Shit?) Lords from the Dark Side of the political force,
A deflection from their president's and "Dark Lord of Vice's" ineptitude at geopolitics!

The true terrorists reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
A rogue state we've become after an electoral coup,
Our standard of living down, jobs outsourced and deficits up
As Paris Hilton and her billionaire neighbors get richer from the reverse of David Stockton's REAL formula that should be called:

Trickle up!

Putting up puppet third-party candidates to drain votes from the lesser of two evils

(Perot = Nader = Bloomberg),

When the job should go to the most qualified to lead us through
The gray areas of diverse cultures; the danger of sadistic vultures
That despite party, gender or race of our leaders
Want us to bow down to their deities and Sharia laws
That call for our obedience... or non-existence.

But bombing them back to the stone age is NOT the answer, O'Reilly!
Blowback is the only guarantee of testosterone-driven diplomacy.
Gore Vidal would say "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace"
In an updated Orwellian prophecy
Yet, this is not VHS, blue disk or DVD
Which we can pause and go to the loo to relieve our bladders...

DEMOCRACY MATTERS!!!
This is the reality
That only impeachment can remedy

Starting with the "Dark-Vice-Lord-Troglodyte"

I let this piece end with a lascivious, humorous clue:

Dick Cheney,
Before he [continues] to Dick YOU!

"And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs [come] out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet (A.K.A. Dick Cheney)" Rev 16:13

A Morning After Shadows

© 30 April 2007, The Griot Poet

We have shadow warriors for shadow governments:
124-billion dollar appropriation bills sent to the hill that will surely get vetoed by our Skull and Bones pirate president…
Doesn’t count beyond the 145,000 active-duty forces the 126,000-contract mercenaries beyond our laws and given impunity…

Bechtel…
Blackwater…
Halliburton…
Kellogg, Brown and Root…

Beyond a famous SEAL, Scott Helvenston, that made his previous public appeal in exercise videos,
Finding his fiery end on a bridge over the Tigris and Euphrates,
Unlike Phoenix, at least for now, he will not rise again from the ashes…
How many have we NOT accounted for in the deplorable body count reported weekly?

Only
770 contractors killed and 7700 injured sounds like books cooked!

We voted Democrats into power on a unified anti-war stance and losses on both sides by their constituents and Republican opponents (because in graveyards, no one cares how you voted)…

Each side ciphers a bloody calculus of power looking forward to the future of 2008, and if either were to win, the midterms in 2010…

Sacrificed on the altar of democracy is the will of the governed expressed in our displeasure vetoed by a modern-day fascism Mussolini aptly described as “corporatism.”

I’m not here to advise we support third-party candidates, because they are expertly designed by the same corporate kings to drain votes: Reform/Libertarian drains Republicans, and Green Democrats

Which is just enough to keep the status-quo playing games of quid pro quo and selective amnesia regarding what the people sent them to the hill for!

I will advocate
What we the people of late has started listing ourselves as at a rate of 38 percent of the electorate:

Independent.

And I won’t be satisfied until that number is 90 percent with each majority party suddenly staggering at the notion – as I borrow from Maya Angelo – “on the pulse of some future morning” that they are in the minority!

Question Mark

© 22 April 2007, The Griot Poet

Cho-Seung Hui at 23 had enough of reserved occidental polity.

“You can’t hear me” rang loud and clear from his murderous spree on the anniversary of Holocaust survivors, preceding Adolph Hitler’s birth by four days.

A door blocked by Professor Liviu Librescu heroically to ensure his students could flee through a second floor window avoiding another needless tragedy.

At 23, he walked under the same spell as the demoniac, dwelling among the dead, breaking fetters, possessed by Legion, the same cast ages ago at another time into a herd of swine.

If
“The joy of the LORD is our strength,”
Then
This man was void.

Since a boy,
Weakened by
Masculine expectations
Of pride, honor and strength in violent machinations:

Rambo,
Commando,
The Specialist,
The Terminator…

Manhood in America

Celebrates

“Strong and silent,”
“Big boys don’t cry,”

Congratulates

Players,
(Name-the-sport) winners

Denigrates

The emotionally expressive male

The (name-the-art) creative

As gay…

On the day he decided was his last

The die he cast in arcane numerology

Matching numerically in bodies (excluding his own)

The age of Christ at His crucifixion: 33.

He was an instant hit. The sordid deed documented in multimedia flit from web sites to print to pod cast.

This will repeat and last

Until we

Treat the mentally ill

(Not as a “question mark”), but

With the same regard

As physical maladies!

Ishmael’s Axe

© 19 April 2007, The Griot Poet

Notes:

James Fenimore Cooper's The Prairie: Character Ishmael Bush had an axe. "And the axe, which created and transformed through destruction, clears the figurative way for the deflowering of the New World."

The axe is apparently both literal and symbolic, and references are made about the character's having moved from the east to the west, creating change through the destruction (using the axe), and the like. Just a possibility: especially for someone who was an English major? (Google search)

Amazon.com review: Set in the immense landscape of the Great Plains, The Prairie (1827) addresses many questions raised by the penetration of the American west: the displacement of the Indians, the destruction of nature, and the creation of a just society both ordered and free. Natty Bumppo, a man now in the autumn of his days, is the spokesman for the conservation of the natural environment. But as his physical prowess wanes he is ultimately unable to thwart the despoilers. In this, the last in the series of five Leatherstocking Tales, Cooper resolves the issues of The Pioneers and The Last of the Mohicans, but at the same time eloquently suggests that humility, self-control, reverence for God, and respect for nature are tragically lost on the prairie.

Poem:

In his twisted mind… he was Ishmael. As an English major that savored the macabre, he crafted a tale in blood.

An odd, occidental male, quiet and quite weird that lived more in fantasy than reality with an imaginary girlfriend named Jelly.

The fire in his belly was from a hellish psychosis that blamed everybody else for his maladies.

The carnage of 32 bodies plus his own and 22 wounded does not atone for the lack of progress in this civilized society and country on treating mental illness and pathological difficulties.

The axe in James Cooper’s The Prairie described as both “literal and symbolic.” And Cho-Seung-Hui chose a similar path, east to west using his personal axe to grind for offenses only existing in his mind and like Ishmael Bush change his landscape by carving a path of destruction.

I had to stop reading his play Richard McBeef, because his logic had no sense, dénouement or relief.

Two stalking charges and diagnosis as a “danger to himself and others” he left “bread crumbs,” clues to his personal seclusion that now gun advocates would love to use to ensure every college age student and professor is packing heat!

In this 24-hour news cycle, how many other Ishmael’s walk our streets

The seed of destruction planted firmly in the firma of their minds, how many have their own axes to grind?

Our current gun laws allowed him to purchase not one but two guns and pass a criminal background check

That currently does not vet the emotionally unstable, the mentally disturbed.

April is a month for showers that birth May’s flowers,

Orbiting the anniversary of Hitler’s birth we now have:

Columbine,
Waco,
Ruby Ridge
Oklahoma City

Spring gets kind of gritty when lives are snuffed out without impunity or regard to the great human beings these young people were becoming, or the professors that gave their lives protecting them… already were.

We answer pathologies with the ideology that violence begets peace… note its effectiveness in the so-called Middle East.

The carnage of 32 bodies plus his own and 22 wounded does not atone for the lack of progress in this civilized society and country on treating mental illness and pathological difficulties… to ignore such a responsibility goes beyond the pale.

Was 9/11 our destiny, were we fated for the belly of the beast when another pathological beast named Osama traces his own patronage to Ishmael?

Imus Mourning

© 11 April 2007, The Griot Poet

What duck-billed platypus had the temerity and demented sense to pass down the twisted, christened name of Don Imus?

Because I must admit he is literally the “pot calling the kettle black” as his own mane looks most mornings whacked, like beavers in heat used his mop for bedding, flip-flopped and tossed, tingled with static like he’d stuck his tongue in a light socket!

Yet,
I cringe at the chagrin of our two-faced outrage: 50 cent has spit worse epithets than “nappy-headed ho” or “jiggaboo,” and we get mad at Oprah because she challenges LUDACRIS to up his game and won’t allow that kind of trash on her stage or show!

We need to turn a page on this long-needed discussion on gender and race in the public square.

Thank the noble women from Rutgers University that were achieving athletically and academically for pulling the sheets off this bed of public hypocrisy (and forgiving their repentant tormenter).

Let’s not forget:

Rush Limbaugh calling Barack Obama a “Halfrican”;
Newt Gingrich: “Spanish is the language of the ghetto” (news to me);
Bill Bennett on CNN: “Aborting black babies would lower the crime rate”;
Michael Richards N-word rant

And Howard Stern, Savage, O’reilly, Scarborough and other “schlock jocks of slant TV and radio”

Dancing between their own “views” and real “news” like lying Pinocchio

Puppeteered by their corporate master Jepetto

The same CEO that controls the rap music industry with the driving beats

Hypnotizing urban and suburban kids with a love for the streets

Glamorizing a “diamond in the back, a sunroof top, digging the scene with a gangster lean”

Until living clean is perverted and obscene, and smoking blunts, performing illicit sex stunts and shooting guns at images of your own reflection a path to glory and a quest for Nirvana!

I must thank Don Imus before ending this story, his professional mishap (chronicled over the years) revealing this work so well:

If WE want to stop the hate-filled words, WE must stop using them ourselves!

Stripper

© 5 March 2007, The Griot Poet

Dedicated to Pamela East Alexander (circa 1961 – 1977), Vicky Lynn Marshall (1967 – 2007) and kindred spirits that struggle through domestic violence, rape and the depravity to women known as pornography.

Under the stupor of liquor and throbbing neon disco lights I fight for my right next to the stage, throne of your stripper pole.

I am in a bestial rage to see flesh.

I don’t care to hear that you might be a wounded spirit, or that someone might once have held you dear.

For I fear that will make me lose my self-infatuation with fantasy gratification, and make me place the dollar behind my ear soberly back in my pocket.

Like, I don’t care:
That your own mother ripped an electric cord out of the wall to beat you bloody and senseless because you told her that her latest boyfriend stole your innocence (‘cause eleven-year-old girls have to be lying!).

I don’t care:
That you spent your nights crying yourself to sleep for peace and recompense and that the same lowlife creep offered you MONEY for the precious gift of your husband’s honey he’d already taken…

I don’t care:
That the one time in your history you met a nice boy who loved YOU, the “beast that walked like a man” * splayed buckshot into his torso and through his love struck heart, or that a stray bullet hit your baby sister (a favor: she had just turned eleven!).

I don’t care:
That the two loves in your life are safely in Heaven,

That you left home five years past eleven,

That you went to L.A. for a “model agency” and met a Hugh-Hefner-want-to-be clone that spread you prone on the casting couch of sorrow…

That your tomorrows are measured by hits:

Hits from a blunt,
Hits from hard liquor,
Hits from a needle,
Hits from ecstasy to dull the hits from fists that planted his seed in you that you now have to raise his child as a single mother: he tried to put a murder contract on you to cover his tracks (‘cause married cops aren’t supposed to act like that!).

Your two great loves safely in Heaven,

Your life a swollen bread of leaven,

Your natural affection turned out to women,

You play your role on a stage with an Asherah stripper’s pole,

Throne room of hell’s fires below

Surrounded by lusting demons with dollars behind their ears, “beast that walk like men,” * like me.

Marvin said, “Makes me wanna holla” and run Joseph’s sprint from Pontifer’s palace

Away from this place of sorcery and malice

And pray for your and my souls

Before we are both consumed by the very thing we think we can control!

* Maya Angelo, CD: Black Pearls – The Poetry of Maya Angelo, © 1969 & 1998, "No, No, No, No."

Through Gritted Teeth

© 12 January 2007, The Griot Poet

I stole a photo cutout of her in nurse’s white: her graduation as an LVN.

She was so beautiful then, but the most beautiful I’ve ever seen her is in a nursing home bed smiling at me in her right mind recognizing that I am her son…

So, imagine my rage when the report comes that someone at 5 AM on 5 January of this New Year… some young PUNK tried to break in to my childhood home…

Leaning on the back window from the oil tank, he was outflanked by the ADT alarm.

Though my mother wasn’t there to be harmed… thank God! What if she’d been?

I felt like catching a red-eye special, steeling my warrior vessel supplying myself with one hundred and twenty five of Ninjitsu’s deadliest weapons.

Dressed in black I’d bivouac beside that same window hidden in the shadows… and wait! Kill or be killed, mate!

Though I cannot relate to the demons that cast sorcerers’ spells in crack pipe smells over his very soul…

Like him,
I’m from “the ‘hood.”
If you’ve seen “The Wire,” that’s outside my living room.

“BOYZ ‘n the ‘Hood”: my life’s story. Though I’m sorry the brother’s fallen on bad times… this is MY mother!

Though for my father I had reverent fear: a promised 38 to my forehead stating no drugs will be done here, it was the love of my mother that steered me clear of things that led him to… this.

Though I cannot in my wildest dreams relate to the doublethink demons casting sorcerers' spells in crack pipe smells over the life of this young bro’…

Through gritted teeth I reach within for spiritual strength I’ve only believed to be from Job…

And I pray for this young addict’s soul!

Surge

© 9 January 2007, The Griot Poet

Forgive me.
I am usually not so salacious,
I mean to be efficacious.

I feel time is short
and we have graciously been given
tick-tocks on a winding-down clock...
time is of the essence!

*****

The only surge he understands is the warm feeling he gets and self-initiates behind the Oval Office desk with the “five fingers of funk!”

He and his VEEP were both too PUNK to go serve when it was their turn as young men in another needless war – Vietnam – started by another Texas President!

The little creep as the current White House resident (the 2000 election BOGUS) protected the Houston skies and Go-Go bars from the Viet Cong in the rich-boy-hide-my-baby-from-the-war “Champaign Unit.”

The little Troglodyte behind the scenes, Mr. Cheney had “other priorities” logging five deferments rather than answering the “call of duty” to his country.

And neither man would DARE commit their own daughters on the front line at this or any time: whether you call it a Civil War or not, no sane person consciously puts their children in a meat grinder!

655,000 plus Iraqis dead… 3,000 plus soldiers dead… deploying 21,000 more…

THIS is supposed to even the score, despite the imminent judgment of Dr. Hans Blix that Iraq’s capability could not be, nor their hidden weapons a reality?

We went from “weapons of mass destruction” to “Saddam and al-Qaeda” collusions to “democratizing Iraq” at gunpoint.

The “cheer-leader-in-chief’s” cheerleading squad consisting of:

Billy “Boom-Boom” Krystal;
Mike “Gangsta-lean” Leeden;
Charles “The Grinch” Krauthammer;
Peggy “won’t-reveal-the-source-of-the-Valerie-Plame-leak” Noonan

Of the
PNAC,
American Enterprise Institute,
Washington Post
And the New York Times respectively

Helped build this president’s neo conservative legacy

Now IN RETREAT
Repudiating
Their previous hawkish stances rapidly!

We ran herd to hang Saddam for 148 because we could not tolerate being associated with the deaths of 180,000 PLUS Kurds for which we sold Saddam chemical supplies in the “me-centered” 1980s!

This IS a crime against humanity for which WE are guilty!

The only surge he understands is the warm feeling he gets and self-initiates behind the Oval Office desk with the “five fingers of funk!”

Whether called: “surge,” “plus-up,” “SWELLIFY” or “VIAGRIFICATION,”

His speech is a neo conservative oblation uninhibited by reality, hanging on the faith-based megalomaniac fantasies…



…Of a dry drunk!

Godfather

Dueling Banjos - an instrumental song made famous in the movie "Deliverance" (circa 1972), see http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Dueling_Banjos..... Dueling Poetry - a free verse conversation between two or more poets; the extension of social and/or political thoughts or ideas; a collaborative, creative work between two or more poets…. Definition by TGP

The first poem is from my friend, Thom the World Poet sent to me via e-mail today. My response follows his poetry.

At the age of 73
still doing the splits and performing regularly
with a history of domestic abuse
and public entertainments-
"the hardest working man in show business"
smart enough for HIT records
dumb enough to hit his women
That chasm divided all of us
who paid to see him sing
and knew he carried violence within
Perhaps his age was gone long before ours-
when men were patriachs
and women audience
Perhaps soul music encourages
a masochism and misogyny
that fascinates and appalls
enough to jail him
and to release us
from daemons who needed to sing and dance
"get up offa that thing-and dance!"
His mantras remain-but no one
can ever be James Brown again
We have all moved on-he has become
rock hard his story-leaving wife and children
locked out of the marital home
while he goes offf(for the very last time)
to the Apollo
DEC 28 REMEMBERS Thom

(c) 28 December 2006, The Griot Poet

He was probably
more important to us
than Martin, Malcolm or Gandhi
with the same foibles, faux pas as each of us
(magnified to the nth degree because of his celebrity):
drug usage, jail time, striking his white wives...
his music, however reached us
deep within our "minds, wills, imaginations, emotions and intellects"
for a definition I suspect
atheists and theists can agree to be: soul.

He was bold enough
to use his talent
to ruffle the feathers of the establishment:
"say it loud - I'm black and I'm proud"
did more to establish identity
-- for a movement in which Malcolm and Martin
were polar opposites --
displayed by Afros, bell bottoms and dashikis.

at a time when our country fought
an unpopular war
(started by another Texas president)
that one mantra birthed the pursuit of knowledge
about ourselves
almost Occult -- so hidden on sociology shelves
and cobweb periodicals in Mezzanine stacks.

He did not slack
in his civic duty
to visit and perform for presidents
38 to 43: Richard Nixon to George W
and used his celebrity to quiet riots
after King's assassination when he could
have fanned fires with his celebrity.

Now, we have "step-n-fetch"
21st Century minstrel shows with
pants below the waist,
no knowledge or appreciation
that displaying one's male booty
is the preferred state
of one sexually submissive
to cellblock rapists!

He is the originator
of "shake your money maker,"
before LUDACRIS
Yet, self-help advocates forget
"I don't want nobody to give me NOTHING.
"Open up the door -- I'll get it myself!"

Self-help and politics
are to be avoided
in lyrics
that only focus
on sex, violence and ignorance
for a corporate, plantation paycheck!

Hip-hop, like protest music and "Dixie Chicks" is neutered.

That pride has been locked away
on a dank, dusty shelf
not by systemic,
endemic,
xenophobic
racists:
but by
James Brown's
spiritual children
themselves!

R.E.I.T.

© 18 December 2006, Reginald L. Goodwin (The Griot Poet)

The ‘hood IS a government project!
What you don’t get is how the money flows:
First, you need hopelessness…
Started in master-slave Jazz procreation
From Po’ Charlie slicking and pimping
To the modern Step-n-fetch hip hop great grandchildren’s generation
Minstrel shows have to become “status quo”
And relegated to “Bankrupt Entertainment Television” and “U People’s Network”
You can’t have a major show like “Friends,” “Sex in the City” and “Seinfeld” (all praise to Michael Richards’ rant unveiling the hypocrisy!).

They wrote Alfre Woodward crazy on “Desperate Housewives” with a murderous 'normal' son and a crazy one in the basement!

Glorify the Pimp/Hustler/Drug Dealer as the urban entrepreneur one step from Sean Jean and FUBU.
Relegate Rhythm And Poetry – RAP – from revolutionary knowledge to the safe subjects (quoting Cornel West) of “highly sexed, violent, and ignorant.”

Voila: you have a self-hypnotized generation reciting the mantra of their destruction
Sisters “dropping-it-like-its-hot” and brothers jumping in as a “thug-for-life,” “keeping-it-real” with much drama and strife

Repeating the same lie I heard as a child that studying for my future was “acting white.”

This is a better operation than CONINTELPRO or the “Manchurian Candidate!”

Making prison male sexual subjugation – pants below the waist for easy penetration by the dominant, deviant cellblock rapist – a FASHION statement!

Repeal all the laws that put their kind on that side of the railroad track,
Let them attack suburbia and become in debt up to their eyeballs in net worth lack,
In an idolized Cliff and Claire lifestyle

Meanwhile: give your friend the cushy positions for which like “Brownie” they don’t have a horse’s assets qualifications!
But can afford those exclusive neighborhoods the sons and daughters of former slaves are salivating
So they can have the elation of a neighborhood entrance and dues sucking “lawn Gestapo” association

Make laws that subjugate them under the 13th amendment happily:

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, EXCEPT as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,

“Shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction…”

And, if their kids get addicted, THEY get therapy!
You need some sorcery to enslave them.
When they beat one – Angel Dust, create another – Crack Cocaine.
Systematically, meticulously so that individually you can’t be blamed for racism!

Exit tests that with single parents barely past 14 can’t get you or themselves ready for
Set you up for a certificate of completion versus a diploma.
So, the only positive thing you can do (besides HIV) is being cannon fodder for the military.

You are standing on “Acres of ‘Blood Diamonds’”.
Cause the industry is NAFTA/CAFTA/outsourced overseas!
The top 1% is cutting you off at your economic knees.
East Winston-Salem, East Austin, South Central and New Orleans, you are allowing modern DeBeers and Trump Tower Developers to steal the one true measure of wealth development!

For my suburban sisters and brothers:
As you live out “Huxtable fantasies,” you leave
An aged population more concerned about ‘the next life’ than owning property
It is a historic loss to our own duress.
What we call “gentrification,” they call “real estate investments!”

Open Letter to Kramer

© 27 November 2006, The Griot Poet

“Cosmo Kramer” has left the building!

As Michael Richards launches a chilling tirade

Of the shade I'd overheard and seen at a Cross lit Klan meeting

During a JROTC overnight in NC we cadets happened upon amongst the trees…

You used the n-word a symbolic SEVEN times,

Added injury to insult describing a violent, sodomy crime,

“Stick a fork up” my rear

50 times for 50 years ago when WE were the de facto slave labor of the “land of the free; home of the brave”: building houses; picking fruit and cotton; working for pennies on the dollar (without health benefits)!

Our prophet, Marvin said:

“Makes me WANNA holler, throw up both my hands!”

As real soldiers like Rosa Parks, Corretta Scott and Martin Luther King Junior, Medger Evers, Malcolm X and others fought & DIED for us to “rock the vote” and get up

From the back of the bus for our

“Inalienable right” to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”: our brothers PAID for this abuse!

Your behavior has no reasonable excuse.

Your “penis envy” of Jerry Seinfeld evident, every star used the president of the hit show to boost their creds… not you!

I’ll be honest with you: I watched maybe three episodes of your hit show the whole TEN YEARS of “Much Ado About Nothing” to quote Shakespeare,

Since it is hard for me to digest “whites only” characters and NO black regulars on a show based in New York City (include “Friends” and “Sex & the City” in this offense!).

You looked as if you'd hit new heights after smoking a large CRACK pipe before you hit the stage!

I am enraged for my brothers that you made cushy public apologies to David Letterman, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson: for one,

We haven't watched much late night since they canned Arsenio Hall!

And, your little, well-acted pouting to the presidents of the National Action Network & Rainbow PUSH do you NO good at all!

You want redemption? You want a career?

Lean your ear to this advice and hold it dear:

It is not repentance
Until you humbly face those you've offended,
And offer DOUBLE restitution
Asked for in recompense.

Let me repeat it:

It is not repentance
Until you humbly face those you've offended,
And offer DOUBLE restitution
Asked for in recompense.

FACE the brothers you crudely fronted and be a MAN!

Until you do this,
You will not satisfy our
Sense of justice,
Else your career – such as it was – will be over, “past prologue”* and SPENT!

* “What is past is prologue.” William Shakespeare

50 Pesos a Day

© 20 October 2006, The Griot Poet

They are the sons and daughters of the Aztecs,

And they went from Vicente Fox-in-the-henhouse to another louse named Calderon

Like: going back-and-forth from John Gotti to Al Capone means anything?

They work for 50 pesos a day.

At the current exchange rate, that's less than 5 bucks, or a little less than $100 American dollars a month.

Which really sucks when the poor – our servants –hollered at the ballet box, outnumbering the elite more than 10-to-1 clamoring for change waiting in the hot Mexican sun.

They got more of the same: different person, same party and no change to their small change of 50 pesos a day.

Their compensation: $100 American bucks, which effectively doubles their meager wages as bellhops, waiters and pages for hustling after tips, which coincides with the going rate for UPSCALE lower class living arrangements!

The same game is played in the states, as the stakes are NAFTA, CAFTA & FREE TRADE for the Americas: the political elite only change horses midstream to make you and I think we have a choice in this horserace.

As our high-tech jobs fly overseas at breakneck pace, the fastest growing employment is in the service industries: Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, grocery and department stores, waiters, maids and butlers.

Things that make you go: "hm!"

The only recompense is political independence from a two-party system more skilled in playing our political heartstrings than solving real problems beyond the Washington beltway!

The only recompense is political independence before we have a country we all deplore:

Waking up to a "Brave New World" of Code Orange threats and getting by on

50 pesos a day!

Blogging for Change

(c) 6 November 2006 (on the eve of the election)

"This election is too close to call...
"This election is too close NOT to call!"

We've stalled the constitution,
Habeas Corpus needs a reunion
With laws of governance
That at a glance
Were thrown out on a whim of chance!

Don't be a "football fan" electorate,
Whether you have a Casey Sheehan,
2,800 + of men and women died for us
(655,000 Iraqi cousins of the human family as well)
For pundits who during Vietnam had
"Other priorities" and protected Texas
Skies scoring in the LOWEST percentile
Of pilot candidates, and now advises us
As a previous member of the Texas
"Champaigne Unit"
With NO previous combat experience
"To stay the course!"

I am blogging for change,
On the eve of this election game
I have voted for the opposition
Two weeks before this rendition
Of the democratic experiment:
"A government of laws; not men."

I am NOT voting for the Democrats
As the panacea to this morass:
It was 1994 when this mafioso
Staged the "Contract ON America"
From the Democrat's previous sins.
I'm sure K street is ready to switch it's focus again!

And Tom Delay's mission
To re-RE-district
After the 2000 Census
To ensure a permanent, Republican
Majority in Texas
And the US.

I am blogging for change.

For people who got shot, hosed, beaten
For me NOT to vote,
Would be a sin...

"Fool me once, shame on... shame on... shame on...
"You can't get fooled again!"

The Exception

© 30 July 2006, The Griot Poet

“Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

And that is section one of the 13th Amendment!

And: the zenith of your life’s achievement is to be “jumped in” to a gang of criminality, joining illegal fraternities’ labeled ostensibly:

- Crips,
- Bloods,
- Latin Kings,
- Asian Tongs,
- Black Gansta Disciples,
- MS13…

And: you THINK because PHAT Farm ®, FUBU ® and JC Penny ® made your fashion an American icon, you have position, power and importance?

Brother, PLEASE!

Never
Ignorant
Getting
Goals
Accomplished

Is a clever acrostic metaphor of a racial epithet popularized by TUPAC (whose heart by the way is still stopped).

Biggie followed him, both of them dying at the statistical life block of 25 after actuaries lower your insurance and you start accumulating wealth, position, political power and importance.

Dead presidents reach beyond the grave, but dead men can’t father boys that become thug knaves: perpetuating generational curses in myriad bloodlines mass-producing docile knaves:

- Crips,
- Bloods,
- Latin Kings,
- Asian Tongs,
- Black Gansta Disciples,
- MS13…

“Keeping it real”: with the new titles for corporate American Fascist slaves!

Tribute to Dr. Ronald E. McNair (circa 1986)

Thanks to Dr. Sandin (Ron and my General Physics professor at North Carolina A & T State University), this was found among his many papers in semi-retirement. The letter and poem are 20.5 years old. I record this to not misplace it again...

*****

My Dear Friends,

Since my commission, I have traveled many miles, seen many places. I have laughed, loved, enjoying life as an alumnus. My casual wear-about-town has slowly developed into my Aggie class ring, any Aggie Shirt, and my Aggie cap. I also spend my Aggie time trying to explain to the average Texan that I am not from Texas A & M!

I wish that these times were not so sad. As you cried, I cried too. My sadness was magnified as I thought of you, all of you. When the tears no longer flowed, I realized this was not the way to remember our friend.

I’ll remember my first glimpse of Ron McNair as not in person. I was fourteen, reading an A & T alumni newspaper. Trying to decide what I wanted to do with my life. Reading the article inspired me. The fall of 1980 found me on the campus of my hero: quiet, bright, undisciplined. The path I had chosen was wrought with traps of failure. And I did fail, but I would not quit, because he would not.

I’ll remember the first time I met him. He was hailed our conquering hero, our knight in shining armor. I was involved in the festivities until days end. By this time, Ron had graduated from my idol to my friend.

I had hoped to see him again in Houston, Texas since I lived right next door in Austin. Now, that hope is gone but, I will not despair. He would not want us to.

I will remember him as a winner in the true sense of the word. His presence was dazzling, yet his attitude humble. He remembered the road many of us are still traveling.

If we can learn anything from this tragedy, let us learn from the example of his life. In all his travels, he knew of his obligation to help others. He knew his light must shine “from Dare to Cherokee” and the four corners of the earth. He never forgot about his second home, A & T, and never let any opportunity slip by to tell someone what a special place it was. This home is Ron McNair’s heart. If this is so, he will live forever.

My love to you all,

An Epitaph for my Hero
© 1986, Reginald L. Goodwin

He would come from humble beginnings,
A young brother with great dreams,
And a strong will determining
His own tomorrow; It seems

A&T has produced leaders, some
Giants in their fields,
With humble knowledge of whence they’d come,
Always befriending others in need,

McNair too on the ‘Aggie Struggle’
In pursuit of his degree,
Then onward to dare, challenge and trouble
MIT for his PhD

He was our hero, this Aggie gladiator
Yet: on this note we all must think,
Each person has a pre-scored
Date with destiny we must keep.

As phoenix met its fiery end,
So too will he rise again,
And on that day of happiness we will then
Meet and greet a long lost friend.

Think not of our great loss,
But of history’s gain.
Let us remember him by paying the costs
He did to rise to fame.

An Aggie is best remembered
Not just in the tears we shed,
But in emulation and earnest meditation
Of the inspiring life he led.

We can only pray our loss
Is to God’s saving grace,
And know that Ron still thinks of us
(As we him), out there… exploring space.

At What Cost?

© 12 June 2006, The Griot Poet

When we integrated: our high schools became middle schools; our middle schools elementary, our colleges secondary.

The teachers who cared for us as 2nd mothers and fathers systematically retired, placed on medical or disciplinary leave or fired!

Suburban districts of white flight could not find suitable teacher candidates of color to hire (therefore, fewer black principals in their municipality).

“Soccer moms”: soccer, a slang term from England for “football association.” Women preening like peacocks with children in parks, a hybrid between the regal bird, Jewish American Princesses and WASPs as their men in the height of nepotism gave themselves the top salaries, rapid promotions, spiffs, bonuses, accelerators and stock options while they kicked us and our collective assets to the curb!

The WASPs further stung us numb as we lapsed into the somnambulism of sitcom unrealism: Cliff and Claire Huxtable set us up to have under performing children indulged by the wealth of overextended lifestyles and paycheck-to-paycheck slavery.

Someone has to stay home with the babies before pharmaceutical companies addict them to reconstituted forms of cocaine, lowered life goals, self-esteem and expectations.

When we integrated: we set up idols of wood, stone and cul-de-sacs in “master”-planned communities,
- In “master”-planned communities,
- In “MASTER”-planned communities,

Achieving the right to get in debt, get on the high speed Internet and shop in the same malls, our creature comforts stalled our spiritual progress.

Our secular god, knowledge was replaced by “Pimp My Ride ©” and “bling - bling.” Asians and Anglos study hours to capture global industries versus the 1 in 16,000 chance of landing a spot as a pro athlete!

Our churches, synagogues and mosques became overpopulated with women holding out hope to find a leader-protector-lover: only to find the conversation after preaching no different than the previous night’s venture at the club/meat market.

So, our women began “shaking their assets” in gangster lean hip hop video fantasies, female capitalists passed around from bed-to-bed by masters of staccato poetry: just like their mothers had been previously in choir robes by revered pastors.

No roots to Public Enemy or KRS-1, the corporate formula for hip POP from Cornel West = highly sexed, violent and ignorant.

A successful CONINTELPRO operation: the black messiahs Medgar, Malcolm and Martin assassinated,

When we integrated: we went from strong aromatic roast to watered-down coffee, highly creamed, over-sugared to be the “acceptable taste.”

Form without substance; talent at a waste.

Not realizing in our buffoonery

We are weak!

Bodhisattva

© 26 May 2006, The Griot Poet

A true martial art
explores the limitations
of one's ignorance.

The Invasion of Forrest Gump

© 21 April 2006, The Griot Poet

"Today there is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence." Martin Luther King, Jr.

We have been invaded by “Looney Tunes,”
The freaking CRAZIES have entered the room
President Duck Dodgers-in-chief
Has a decades missed date with reality to keep.

He “hears the voices”… but of who?
It’s from the “cuckoo’s nest” where that comment flew!
One more Long Island Iced Tea than he should have bothered.
He says he answers to a higher Father,
I have no qualms or bother with his religious beliefs
Except it shouldn’t be the basis for global policy and domestic relief
(Especially in New Orleans!)

His VEEP, Sir Elmer Fuddle the first did one more draft deferment than needed.
Had he heeded the call of his country,
His quail/fish-in-a-barrel shooting skills might-have-been a little less shabby!

He is a pacemaker glitch from the “big one!”
Slurring his speech like he’s in the first throws of a stroke,
Yet, he’s the privileged son we have in a secret bunker
To keep order in case Duck Dodgers goes AWOL again?

Dodger’s approval rating is one degree just above freezing,
Congress is THREE below that
Elmer’s TWELVE below them… Shh! Be very, very quiet!
In this morass, we’re hunting common sense.

It is to the chagrin of sense
That we are in this present mess
Fed by co-religionist rapture theories
Listen: no parent gives absolutes to any punishment,
So why do you box God into the role of warrior-tormenter for the last judgment?

And when did He attach a nuke to his promise to come back?

Refresher: During the Cold War, M.A.D. stood for Mutually Assured Destruction,
And Carl Sagan computerized and prophesied a “nuclear winter.”

Since Yeshua Himself said “no man knows the time or the hour”
How do you have the power to see that tactical nukes are the key to our salvation?

The only oblation that makes sense
Is that you are “the man of sin”; “the son of perdition” the “6-6-6”
Along with your 3-6 Mafia cabinet of Vulcan fools…
Fixing elections as a matter of rule.
Decrying gay marriage, Terry Shiavo, and “family values”
While families suffer from your brazen rule.
Your brain Karl Rove is a college flunkout,
Yet, he advises you on how to appeal to baser views
On hot-button issues designed to motivate the electorate to move
On things that will not prosperity net them,
Yet in the end, pay off your rich friends.

The one prophesy I’ll leave you with for what it’s worth:
“The meek, not the rich, will inherit the earth!”

A Prayer For Australia

© 20 March 2006, The Griot Poet

Sent to Thom the World Poet (an Aussie Poet and Friend in Austin, Texas)

My prayers to your countrymen…
The chagrin of “ignorance is strength”
Is the proper Orwellian quote,
Not the “bliss” misquoted and we note that
Global warming like evolution is not a "theory"
That can be ignored due to it not playing well politically
With “the base,”
Which is the literal translation of the phrase “Al-Qaeda."
Shall we then devolve to Neanderthals
For the prediction that Einstein made
(though not one for prophecy)
Was chilling in any age:
"I do not know what weapons they'll use in the Third World War.
"But it is assured in the fourth; they will be sticks and stones."
Shall we deplore factual gathering as moribund
as tsunamis, earthquakes and cyclones wreck biblical havoc
On Asia, New Orleans and now Australia?
On shores we could protect
were we not connected to political bloodsuckers
more intent on winning than dominion; on domination than governing?

On The Cusp of Things...

© 7 March 2006, The Griot Poet

I am forty-three.
Admittedly, I am supposed to be at the apogee of my career.
I once was.
Because of the “good” of the global economy,
My job was downsized, outsourced without apology
(Or lubricant) for the entrance of my cubicle
And the exit of my own self assurance
That I could provide for my family.

I have not the perspective that politicians see on official visits across the sea to India that this is a good thing! This is not Martin’s “let freedom ring.”

I wrote a blog called “Outsourced American”
As spiritual breadcrumbs
I refuse to be dumb
About the pain I’ve gone through
The changes I’ve endured
It’s a wonder my family is together, whole...

If I’d taken a poll six months ago
I wouldn’t make a fair bet that
I’d yet be typing these words…
Corpses don’t do diction well.

Though these thoughts are dark,
No one contemplates
Heaven or hell
When the very meaning of one’s existence
Falls into question...

I have had
Crash learning sessions
With ecliptics and reflector telescopes
Labs and homework
Working with people almost half my age
At the stage of their life where things are just beginning...
I remember well!

I remember when my time had ended
At my undergraduate matriculation
Volunteered service to the Air Force
That started the first seeds of strife...

Forced to leave for a lie, I had to recreate another life
As a semiconductor process engineer
For reference, see the first stanza
Of this piece, first line beginning: “I am forty-three.”

A midterm approaches
As I appeal to the UNKNOWN God
Of Paul (and me)
That created all
To recreate in me a mind that recalls
Everything on Black Holes and Binary Stars
Because it is through favor that I am even here at all…

Failure is not an option
Because I have fewer decades ahead of me
And more behind
The only motive that spurs:
Cadet Colonel Wall of Army JROTC stating to me
“Your kind will NEVER rise to this rank.”

I’ve had this shank stabbed in my chest before
And when I was younger I endured
And fought hard
To let the enemy know I deplore his tactics
That he’s a PUNK;
A chump!

And just like you didn’t stop me then
You WON’T stop me now!

However: I am forty-three.
I am further from my birth and closer to forever.
Even though I tire of the assault: face bloody, wind sucking, knees buckling; boxed ears ring; I will not be defeated.
I feel... I am on the cusp of things!

Sovereignty

© 27 February 2006, The Griot Poet

To answer without answering:
The definition of the word is… itself.
George Orwell would be so proud!
Though Webster seems locked away
On his dimwitted, Ivy League shelf
I can hear the faint sound of snickers
From the once moribund press corps
On his ironic struggle
To describe
What Native American tribes
DO NOT have
Because of his elite ancestry and their
Robber Barron thievery many scores before:
“Sovereignty: Supreme power, especially
Over a body politic;
“Freedom from external control: the right to self-govern: autonomy!”

A Prayer For Amy

© 11 February 2006, The Griot Poet
Amy Green Dickerson
Sunrise: 7 February 1915. Sunset: 3 February 2006
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His Saints, Psalms 116:15

We laud those assembled here
For the home going of our precious Mother Dear.

Many a summer we can remember
Visiting before the rigor of school in September

How HAPPY she’d be to see us…
That lasted about a day!

After that welcome,
She’d task a detailed list of chores for us

Keeping us too busy for Satan’s mischief,
Making us render due reverence at each meal served.
We read the Bible; studied the Word, learned from her example how to pray.

Though diminutive in stature, she was a WARRIOR on her knees:
Supplexing principalities and pimp-slapping demons
Petitioning God-Almighty for the life of her assaulted husband Horace,
A noble soldier in the Civil Rights struggle
And each blessed one of her children’s, children’s children.

Mother Dear imparted “her mind, her will, her imagination, her emotions and her intellect” to you

It is this soul-glue that holds this family together
To weather the storms of wars;
Economic downturns and political struggle…

“What hath God wrought,” Samuel Morse, from this man of God and this matriarch?

All those chores she had you do,
And the beatings she’d administer with the switch you’d pursue
Imparted her character: “never quit, never give up”
To each one of you…

She breathed out her spirit long before this assemblage.

The tears we cry of her spirit’s departure, but not as those without hope!
We will se her again in that great day of freedom, “true North”
In the air with the LORD
And beyond the fear of violence, death or rope

“Jesus wept.”

And afterward, raised Lazarus like He will Mother Dear and each one of us.

Have HOPE and not distress!

Heaven has gained three noteworthy angels:

Rosa Parks;
Corretta Scott King;
And Amy Green Dickerson…

And “Pa-Pa” is reunited with his princess!

Future Venues

© 12 February 2006, The Griot Poet
Inspired by an e-mail from Thom the World Poet and the article “Crossing the Rubicon” by John Pilger on truthout.org

Prepare to sing sonnets in foxholes
And haiku in bunkers
As the only theology will be the pleas
Of human beings to thunder deities
Reigning down "shock and awe"
With "rods of god"
And weapons of massive destruction
For an addiction not just to oil which withers and sours,
But to broad, maniacal unadulterated power!
"Better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven,"
John Milton knew us so well,
And we will soon have dominion over a cinder of what's left of earth:
Home of our birth
As ideologies replace ideas and scientific curiosity,
As scientific experts on global warming are silenced by
Politically appointed "hack-artists" lacking the graduation
Credentials from Texas A&M: he worked on the campaign;
He is our friend, is the only acid test of rampant cronyism
That spread from Texas to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Prophets Of Eternal Truths: sing loud at venues,
Like Pablo Neruda, we do not have time for "lilacs and
Poppy-petalled metaphysics."

We speak to megalomaniacs in ivory-glassed towers of babbling fools
Determined without consideration of consequence
Mjolnir's clap of nuclear lightning and sonic thunder:

Or, prepare to sing sonnets in foxholes
And haiku in bunkers!

Promotion to a New Conservatory

© 5 February 2006, The Griot Poet

1 Corinthians 13:13 "And now abide Faith, Hope, Love, These Three; but the greatest of these is Love."

Nary a word spoken on their first date
When a young philosophy major stated: "The four things that I look for in a wife are character, personality, intelligence and beauty. And you have them all."

She would fall under his spell a year later.

They would marry, have children, preach sermons, organize and participate in marches; dodge rocks, bullets, bombs, and CONINTELPRO pre-FISA electronic surveillance and death threats.

Yet, when she became a single mother and a famous widow, she picked up his mantle without hesitation.

It would be her purview to carry on his message of Civil Rights, Human Rights, Poverty Rights for workers in Memphis before her husband was buried, and like him: the sum total of her living was not the accumulation of things.

Yet, she fought hard to get the Martin Luther King Center for Non-Violent Social Change built. Despite seen by many as aloof, competing for monies from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and more concerned with Martin’s legacy than his struggle.

Character

Before Bill embarrassed Hillary, she had to drink the bitter swill of his confession of infidelity. Even though he tried to justify it by saying “she reminded me of you,” the anger was probably hot and the suspicions of his not liking her on the trail coalesced on infidelity, not about her or the children’s safety. Yet, she stayed, through adultery, bombs and death threats…

Personality

Coretta had her own dreams and her own mind before the Morehouse fellow nicknamed “Tweed” turned on the charm. She caused quite an alarm to both Martins, father and son when she demanded the word “obey” from her wedding vows stricken: she was her OWN woman. She got her wish…

Intelligence

Coretta Scott was born April 27, 1927, the middle of three children born to Obadiah and Bernice Scott. She grew up poor, picking cotton in the hot fields of the segregated South, watching buses full of white kids pass to “separate but equal” schools or doing housework.

Coretta graduated first in her high school class of 17 in 1945. She thrived at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

She studied education and music. Coretta Scott competed for and gained access to the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Not an easy feat even today! Her goal: to become a classical singer. She worked as a mail order clerk and cleaned houses to augment the fellowship that barely paid her tuition. Sister was on a mission…

Beauty

“Tweed” smoothly uttered the words: “You know every Napoleon has his Waterloo. I'm like Napoleon. I'm at my Waterloo, and I'm on my knees.”

She replied the elegant equivalent of “Negro, please!” “That’s absurd, you don’t even know me.”

Disappointed that he was shorter than she, he made up for this by his erudition and confidence. She made him wait six months after proposing before she said “yes.” At 350 guests, the wedding was the largest Atlanta had seen – then or since.

And who didn’t wish to be the cheek she kissed when he’d be freeze-framed for magazines like Ebony, Life, Time and Jet?

“Behind every great man” is so cliché. But without Coretta, would there be a Martin we laud today? Without Eve, would we remember Adam, who cowardly abdicated his responsibly in Africa/Eden, saying, “it was this woman you gave me?”

It is fitting she is the first person of African descent, male or female, to lie in state in the Georgia capital, after Brown proudly flying the “stars and bars.”

Though we wept, the vehicle that once housed her spirit and soul reflected the beauty that once dwelled within.

And Martin now has his final Waterloo in Heaven’s blue: reunited forever with his queen.

Imperious Unum

© 15 January 2006, The Griot Poet

''The signing statement is saying 'I will only comply with this law when I want to, and if something arises in the war on terrorism where I think it's important to torture or engage in cruel, inhuman, and degrading conduct, I have the authority to do so and nothing in this law is going to stop me,' " he said. ''They don't want to come out and say it directly because it doesn't sound very nice, but it's unmistakable to anyone who has been following what's going on." David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues, “Bush could bypass new torture ban Waiver right is reserved,” by Charlie Savage, Boston Globe Staff | January 4, 2006

1. You shall have no other gods before me.
Skull and Bones does not fall in this category. It is a Germanic, fraternal order, not a secret society, but a society with secrets! Besides, I spell Mammon with a little “g.”

2. You shall not make unto you any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
The American eagle is and was the standard of old and new Rome. I’m the president: the KING of this home! It is not hypocritical for me to quote scripture, stating “wonder-working power” and curse out a staffer or middle finger a liberal in the next half hour!

3. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.
I’m the president! I don’t go against the grain to say my most eloquent cursing uses liberally YOUR name!

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Except on strafing runs with Depleted Uranium guns for the wealth and protection of my rich cronies and their spoiled sons.

5. Honor your father and your mother: that your days may be long upon the land, which the LORD your God gives you.
I do indeed. It was Pappy’s connections that skated me from Vietnam into the Houston, Texas champagne squadron, survived two-failed business ventures and bought me two elections! I talk to him and my higher father regularly to run the country and my sobriety.

6. You shall not kill.
3,000 Americans died on 9-11, souls that went to Nirvana and Heaven. And the attack was predicted, and then conveniently discarded by my cabal from the Project for a New American Century. We needed a “new Pearl Harbor” to shake you from your apathy, have sympathy for Bill Krystal’s empire and accept your loss of liberty in the political night’s growing tyranny. Also: A few hundred heroic brothers spent in Afghanistan, 2,000 plus in Iraq for Saddam and weapons of mass destruction (that didn’t exists) and, oh about 30,000… others.

7. You shall not commit adultery.
Those lies are not true. Condi is my advisor. Besides, the dress this time was not blue!

8. You shall not steal.
We will make tax cuts for the upper 1% permanent. It stimulates the economy. What’s this talk of “no quality jobs?” It’s a HUGE job market; just check Wal-Mart, Temp America, Sears and Target!

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
It was the State of the Union Address. It was 16 words about a Uranium purchase that did not exist. I call that “faulty intelligence.” Besides, those weren’t my neighbors it was Congress! Most of you couldn’t afford the road that passes my ranch. So, get off this Air America, Common Cause, and Counter Punch, Truth Out conspiracy theory stance. You expect the Patriot Act to be some kind of caper: the Constitution just is a Got-Damned piece of paper!

10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is your neighbor’s.
Again, you seem to be confused. Iraq is as far from the US as I am from you.
And though the land is salted and spoiled, the place is brimming with lovely oil! My bible has Eden in a mythical place. Saddam is Nebuchadnezzar’s descendant? Coincidence! Abraham’s city of Ur in Iraq? Ridiculous! Jesus black? Nonsense! Which is why we let the history museum be ransacked. Too much knowledge is a dangerous thing! That’s why we give you slogans and hopeless crisis’s like: the assault on Christmas, the assault on the sanctity of marriage, “we’ll smoke ‘em out,” “let’s roll!” Reality takes its toll on the controls we want to enforce. Be like ME! I’d never want anyone’s ass except those that are paying for my servitude abundantly. As for Condi: technically, she’s not my neighbor nor is she married!

Annus Horribilis

© 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!

For Josephine and Other Queens

Ean Wood: The Josephine Baker Story

© 18 December 2005, The Griot Poet

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!

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

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