Fear and Consumption...

The video (w/Spanish subtitles):

Marilyn Manson: The two by-products of that whole tragedy (Columbine) were, violence in entertainment, and gun control. And how perfect that...that was the two things that we were going to talk about with the upcoming election. And also, then we forgot about Monica Lewinsky and we forgot about, uh, the President was shooting bombs overseas, yet I'm a bad guy because I, well I sing some rock-and-roll songs, and who's a bigger influence, the President or Marilyn Manson? I'd like to think me, but I'm going to go with the President.

Michael Moore: Do you know that on the day of the Columbine massacre, the US dropped more bombs on Kosovo than any other day?

Marilyn Manson: I do know that, and I think that's really ironic, that nobody said 'well maybe the President had an influence on this violent behavior' Because that's not the way the media wants to take it and spin it, and turn it into fear, because then you're watching television, you're watching the news, you're being pumped full of fear, there's floods, there's AIDS, there's murder, cut to commercial, buy the Acura, buy the Colgate, if you have bad breath they're not going to talk to you, if you have pimples, the girl's not going to fuck you, and it's just this campaign of fear, and consumption, and that's what I think it's all based on, the whole idea of 'keep everyone afraid, and they'll consume.'

And, now...

Very familiar with Alex Jones. Went to his web sites from time to time. Bought his DVD "Endgame" I'm sad to say. He was ranting against Rick Perry back then (rants are what Alex calls "moderated debates"). Perry did attend a Bilderberg meeting before he went all religious on us, and I frankly don't know which is worse. The only pol he seems to have some affection for is Ron Paul.

With very nebulous evidence, he so-called "connects the dots" and rants about a world government takeover - mind you, he's been ranting about that for 15 years, and "white" apparently is the new brown/black.

Like Rush Limbaugh, like Howard Stern, like most shock jocks, Alex follows the Marilyn Manson formula - fear and consumption - you only have to look at any of his web sites. He's either selling books, DVDs, e-diets or survival kits. EVERYTHING is a conspiracy theory, no entity or governing body based on the Constitution is to be trusted because the neat and wonderful thing about conspiracy theories is: you really, really don't have to be an expert at what you're saying (just an associates level of education will do) and you don't have to PROVE anything. We no longer have a standard for decency, veracity: truth. We've reaped the whirlwind of "creating our own realities," "magical thinking," and a slick presentation that anyone with software and a web cam can produce to "prove" from the moon launch was faked to 9/11 was an inside job. We're at a point where we can no longer respect any authority: clergy, congress, each other, parents, the president nor the very mechanisms like reference and veracity that make us a civilized society. I'm afraid with this delusional bent, we won't be civilized for too much longer.

Sometimes, it depends on how loud you rant, rave and as Piers Morgan stated: "sound terrifying." He should remember the Bard: "Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury: signifying nothing!"

Fear. Consumption. Moolah. Home boy doesn't look like he's missed any meals. Just saying...

The Interrupters...

Watch The Interrupters (Graphic Language) on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

These Little Ones...

What Threat Are Children?

It's Time To Call It What It Is...

My previous posting on "Cognitive Dissonance" was rather wonkish to say the least; clever if I do say so myself, but this is raw hatred bred deeply in our classmates, coworkers, church members, bowling partners, fantasy league members and in general cousins in the human species bones. It's beyond class warfare or a war on women's rights. It's deeper; darker: uglier and more dangerous.

Never mind that human life originated in Africa; that the oldest known footprints of Homo Erectus happens to have been found in Kenya. It makes us all African, this expressed malady over class, place and pigmentation a form of melanin-envy and self-loathing.

Never mind that hate is not an election-winning strategy and that Karl Rove waisted a lot of billionaire's money trying to throw the election from "We the People" to the oligarchs.

We worship money. The free market is god (small g), and like the law of gravity and the ten commandments cannot be altered in anyway that might be beneficial to the rest of us. We apotheosized it in prosperity gospel ministry, which is expressed in the Bible, but wrongly applied by certain operatives, thereby leaving the faith community impotent to critique greed and avarice when they see it: since many of the wrong applicants practice it.

We're supposedly divided between "makers and takers" and the self-labled makers seem to have no problem taking another tax cut. Their recipe for job creation has so far equaled Marie Antoinette's famously attributed comment (actually by Maria Theresa 100 years before in Spain): "let them eat cake." There is no room at the oligarch's Inns, mansions or dinner tables.

We're headed for the so-called (and poorly named by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke) fiscal cliff with the same recalcitrant players in the House of Representative that really represent the 1% aforementioned that wasted their investment on "Turd Blossom's" political acumen and math skills.

Joel Osteen believed Mitt Romney to be a Christian despite decades of demonization from evangelical groups that suddenly out of political expediency decided they were not.

THIS IS A MENTAL DISORDER: on the day Jared Lee Loughner was sentenced to 7 consecutive life sentences plus 140 years (geez), we'd be mindful that this information age may be overloading weaker minds. Thus, birth certificates in short or long form; Harvard transcripts and passports demanded by bloviating reality-show hosts that could spend $50 on a good toupee versus 5 million on an empty stunt are irrelevant when you've already a made-up mind that what facts don't agree with your skewed worldview will be judged false.

I'm not saying the shootings in Arizona were racially motivated, but the so-called "End of Days" comes once again 21 December 2012 -- which is correctly the winter solstice. I for one, am not going to be in public places nor am I going to Times Square in NYC to ring in 2013.

And don't worry: once this one dawns, sunsets and 22 December happens: they'll find another thing to fear and dread. Which only makes me fear and dread their reactions to an ever-changing demographic.

Cognitive Dissonance...

Cognitive Dissonance

From Hey to Rant!...

This is the most partisan posting I've done on this blog. However, this is far too important, for the country possibly being led by an extreme fringe that put on a show Wednesday trying to go "relentlessly to center" to paraphrase Nixon. It started with a lackluster solicitation email I received Thursday morning titled: "Hey."

Dear Mr. President,

I was at work Wednesday night, but I have heard the coverage regarding the debates. They said Governor Romney won. It was like getting punched in the gut.

No mention of the 47%. Or the fact that he was 47^th in job creation while governor. Someone with your rhetorical skills should have made poetry with those two items; mincemeat out of Mr. Romney.

Wednesday was you and First Lady Michelle's anniversary. Do me a favor: FIRE the lawyers that deliberated and put the first debate on what should have been YOUR and the First Lady's private day.

Also sir: Mr. Romney obviously suffers from Pseudologia Fantasticia, AKA pathological lying. His running mate is a "chip-off-the-old-block" with admiring Ayn Rand in one video-taped breath, then repudiating her as if he never knew the author of "Atlas Shrugged" was a militant atheist (her words: I know some atheists, and they're quite pleasant).

What's at stake: we're in the "Twilight Zone" with a dominionist-dominated Republican Party hijacking privately-practiced religion for one public end: power. Former GOP operative Mike Lofgren says it's become "an apocalyptic cult." You won only on facts, not style, and the crowd that's adamant about voting for Willard ain't thinking about the "facts": they once labeled his faith as a cult until left with no other alternative. In the words of a political operative to Run Suskind, they "create their own realities."

It's a shame we're discussing the "controversy" about evolution, question whether the earth is over four billion years old or six thousand years old. Meanwhile, "back at the ranch" of global competition, countries we helped build up with the Marshall Plan post WWII have no such delusional machinations. They march forward in STEM careers, creating more scientists and engineers than our own universities as we put our heads in ostrich sands; our minds in reverse back to God-knows-where, but I bet where we land won't have a middle class or America as fabled "shining city on a hill." I'm a year younger than you, and I can recall getting more on evolution and sex education during the late seventies than my twenty and thirty year old sons. Science is no threat to religious faith, and any reality created, virtual or imagined, cannot govern.

Let me end with Kevin Costner and Sean Connery in The Untouchables: "Don't bring a knife to a gun fight," and by the way: you're FROM Chicago!

Related link: William Rivers Pitt - A Nationally-Televised Presidential Fail

Morning Joe...

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Mindful Of Matters...

This would have been my mother's 87^th birthday. I am thinking of her, mindful of matters near and far, great and small.

The current conflagration in the Near East at the US Embassies in Egypt and Libya that have spread to even more countries, my curiousity led me to this entry on PBS.org:

Muslims believe that God had previously revealed Himself to the earlier prophets of the Jews and Christians, such as Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Muslims therefore accept the teachings of both the Jewish Torah and the Christian Gospels. They believe that Islam is the perfection of the religion revealed first to Abraham (who is considered the first Muslim) and later to other prophets. Muslims believe that Jews and Christians have strayed from God's true faith but hold them in higher esteem than pagans and unbelievers. They call Jews and Christians the "People of the Book" and allow them to practice their own religions. Muslims believe that Muhammad is the "seal of the prophecy," by which they mean that he is the last in the series of prophets God sent to mankind.

Poughkeepsie Journal: “Any way you dissect it, from a moral or religious standpoint, those protesters broke our commandments,” said Umar Ahmad, a longtime member of the Mid-Hudson Islamic Association located in the Town of Wappinger. “What happened in Libya is unforgivable.”

I am not a Muslim. I do have Muslim members of my family, as well as agnostic, Jehovah's Witness, nondenominational, etc. We respect one another. Proselytizing one another has never occurred in any conversations I've had with them. What counts most is the relationship; the familial bond.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow...one of the most famous soliloquies written by Shakespeare, spoken from the mouth of Macbeth, a fictional ruler grieving the loss of his wife, musing aloud the futility's of life, the emphasis on unimportant things with respect to the brevity of existence.

We have selective amnesia regarding John Donne's admonition and cautionary warning.

We are all involved in mankind by virtue of being a part of it. The oceans no longer separate us; our worldviews aren't dictated by our limited experiences where we immediately are.

I reject the notion any culture's sacred text - Buddhist, Christian, Hebrew, Hindu, Mormon, Muslim et al - is somehow in some bigoted comparison, worthy of desecration. I reject the notion of demonizing Agnostics or Atheists. I reject - as does the US Constitution - the idea of religious tests as a qualifier for elected office (though news pundits seem to count how many times the president uses the word "God" - and he does quite often - as if this is relevant). I reject the notion that an amateurish video of moribund, racist stereotypes falls under "free speech" and "our American values," unless those values now typify the classroom bully; the boot of empire stamped on the neck of the world. Freedom of speech does not give one the right to yell fire in a building not ablaze!

I am as diminished by the loss of diplomats abroad as I am military service members deployed, as I am the senseless loss of life in inner cities across the United States.

I quote President Reagan, post the failed rescue attempt 1979 in Iran, Desert 1:

"This is the time for us as a nation and a people to stand united and to pray."

Simple, elegant, sober, reflective and quite presidential.

It is in times of triumph and tragedy our leaders are called upon to quell our fears; raise our hopes. Personal vendettas and assaults are the mark of petty minds, I am particularly diminished by candidates that would take death so lightly as to score political points.

Isaiah 11:6 ends: ...and a little child shall lead them. I end with this photo from Facebook, the future meek that will "inherit the earth." I wish mom could see it. I think it would make her smile, and speaks more volumes than the cleverest self-serving sound bite:

Facebook

Happy birthday, mom.

Janus Speaks Utopia with Forked Tongue

© 2 September 2012, the Griot Poet

"We want our country back!"
The question is: back to when; to what?

Gil Scott-Heron rests in peace

Yet, his piece "B-Movie" might as well be prophesy,

Predicting a looking forward two-faced like the Roman Deity Janus: facing forward while looking back at least to last week (or, our own anus),

To a majority utopia existent only in your Amygdala fear-driven reptilian minds...

Descendants of migrants from Europe to Plymouth Rock and Ellis Island

Dependent on newer ones from Africa or Central America as servants until the PIE: performance, image and exposure, has to eventually be upturned in 2042 when you are no longer a numerical majority.

The White House, so named in 1901 because it was easier than “Executive Mansion”

Became a symbol of what you’d refer to as American Exceptionalism

And like fascism, cloaked it in a flag, and carrying a cross.

So, while you’re still culturally “the boss”

You're willing to put out obfuscations and outright lies,

Whacked-out conspiracy theories on falsified birth certificates, death panels, “he’s going to take away our guns,” “secret-Muslim-in-the-church-house-Resurrection-Sunday,” etcetera’s,
Voter ID cum Diebold voter purge cum 21st century poll taxes...

**********
In a February appearance on The Daily Show, Bruce Bartlett (former Reagan Economic Policy Advisor), said "Frankly one of our political parties is insane, and we all know which one it is.'

"They have descended from the realm of reasonableness that was the mark of conservatism…"

"They dream of anarchy, of ending government.''

Bartlett argues a new radical right in the Republican Party will oppose anything - even good conservative policy - if Democrats agree to it.

**********
Tell me: since when did obliterating the 8th commandment constitute a "family value?"

Or, running from your own policies because your opposite tries to reach consensus constitute reason and governance? Sounds like tyranny…

You rail against gays and lesbians, yet have them prominently in your Grand Old Party, for one (no, two): George W’s reelection campaign manager and Dick (Darth Vader) Cheney’s daughter and her companion.

Hell, Rush Limp-bah had Elton John perform at his fourth “traditional marriage” from-the-previous-train-wrecks wedding ceremony with notably his beau from the UK in tow.

(And Rush: we THANK YOU for practicing good birth control/safe sex and not procreating!)

Let’s not forget: Newt-the-scoot’s blood sister,
You blithely dog whistle at the tin edges of racial insurrection, yet think yourself a big tent because you have Condi Rice and Allen West? Keep ‘EM!

And when disturbed minds take your wit as holy writ resulting in a congresswoman’s recovery from a murderous attempt, or your pundit’s caustic rhetoric causes an abortion doctor’s assassination in a house of worship, you’re quick to quip: NOT ME!

If you have an argument, voter ID cum Diebold voter purge cum 21st century poll taxes is completely unnecessary.

The electorate in a representative democracy votes rationally, not like text-in adherents to American Idol.

No wonder you ride the train of “limited government,” by which you mean:
- Education
- Police protection
- EMS and Fire Departments

Or, the very bedrock of representative government
Because your avarice Mammon billionaire gods can afford that,
(And wonders why the rest of us can’t)

Kissing butt on Scrooge McDuck is the height of idolatry (and hypocrisy)
And idiocy to the “trickle-down” fantasy
You listen to lobbyists outnumbering you five-to-one senator or congress member

And you can’t remember
Any promise you made beyond the grace of their campaign donations
To “protect and defend The Constitution from all enemies both foreign and domestic”
And have the “Audacity of Dopes”
To not see
That enemy
Is in your own

Reflection!

Trolling the NYT Editorial Pages...

Working on a piece that kind of starts like this:

"We want our country back!"
Gil-Scott Heron rests in peace,
Yet, his piece "B-Movie" might as well be prophesy,
Predicting your look forward is two-faced like the Roman Deity Janus: facing forward while looking back to last week,
To a utopia existent only in your Agmydala driven reptilian minds...

So, you're willing to put out obfuscations and outright lies,
Whacked conspiracy theories on falsified birth certificates, death panels, etceteras,
Voter ID cum Diebold voter purge cum 21st century poll taxes...

Tell me: since when did obliterating the 8th commandment constitute a "family value?"

Get back to you on that. Here are the articles that made me think and the last one laugh out loud!

Checkpoint: Facts Take a Beating in Acceptance Speeches, by Michael Cooper


New York Times Opinion Pages
Editorial: Mr. Romney Reinvents History
Op-ed columnist: The Medicare Killers, by Paul Krugman
Op-ed columnist: Party of Strivers, by David Brooks
Op-ed columnist: The Real Romney, by David Brooks (this is the one I fell out over)

"Don't Drink No Water"...

The quote from this scene and the book bothered me enough to look it up officially:

Drinking plenty of cold, clear water is essential for your health and, in fact, for your very survival. You can live much longer without food than you can without water. Water is an important part of all body functions and processes, including digestion and elimination. When you’re on a diet, water also acts as a weight-loss aid because it can help you eat less.

See: Everyday Health link.

Ray Charles in an interview said: "he just didn't like water." Maybe it stems from this. It would explain our propensity for weight gain, high blood pressure, diabetes and other related health ailments. It would explain our gravitation towards fatback, salt pork and junk foods, especially in the south. Dieticians advise increasing our water intake, as we may not be as hungry more than we are thirsty.

It would explain a lot mostly blamed on biology/genetics (either not to be confused with the pseudo-science of Eugenics), when it just could have simply been the way society was structured, and how our bodies silently endured it for a very long time.

The Dred Scott decision: According to Chief Justice Taney “the authors of the Constitution had viewed all blacks as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

See also Langston Hughes on Poets.org: Black Like Me

Myth vs. Reality...

Scoreboard

© 23 July 2012, the Griot Poet

Tyrants overthrown: 0
Co-workers, students, spouses, store clerks’ * et al: near ∞

And we cower
Kowtowed by lobbyists’ power
NRA clout and dollars
Make our representatives “want to holler”
They “throw up both their hands” GLADLY – with open bank bags
Raking in dollars
Dialing for dollars
As far as their main occupation,
Legislation: Oh! “Our main objective is to make Barack Obama a one-term president.”
Holding up the vote for raising the debt ceiling
Has the world economy reeling from the stench
Of Tea Parties
And downgrading precedents
In harbors
Harboring
Reflections back to times that never existed
Reagan raised taxes eleven times
Yet, they apotheosize him as a deficit hawk
And freedom – for the one-percent he served…

Gabby Giffords had to quit
A “blue dog” democrat
From Arizona
Because a disturbed Jared Lee Loughner
Thought she’d help initiate 2nd amendment Ragnarok

Major Nidal Hasan lost it in the heat of a Texas summer
On Fort Hood
The largest military base in the US
Should not be a place for “that kind of” combat stress
For military members
And innocent dependents
Victims of his ideology birthed by
Rants from a cleric
He’d met over the Internet…

Now, we have Colorado
Colored by blood in a theater
Once more: a disturbed member of humanity
Orders 6,000 rounds of ammo
Two semiautomatic handguns
One shotgun
An AR-15
And Kevlar armament
Saying to anybody paying attention
(Before he went from brunette to orange)
James Holmes was preparing
For war
As his own anarchist “Joker”
Though, [I] not being an expert at poker
Nor a neuroscientist or psychologist
Can see someone associating orange
With Batman’s nemesis
Is NOT playing with a full deck!

No less than
Mayor Mike Bloomberg
And former presidential candidate John McCain
Call for sane gun control
Beyond the political roll refrain
Of protecting the 2nd amendment rights
For law-abiding citizens

Seung-Hui Cho WAS a law-abiding citizen
Before causing a wreck at Virginia Tech!

How many more
Than twelve plus fifty plus
Would have died
If the NRA
Had their dream no longer deferred
Of arming ALL citizens
When a wallet
Birthed nineteen shots landing
Out of forty-one
From NY cops
For Amadou Diallo?

Or Sean Bell
Was sent to the gates
Of Heaven (not Hell)
When his only sin
Was attending his own
Bachelor party?

Were the Founding Fathers
Thinking of semiautomatic
Weapons
When they penned
The 2nd amendment
Or, were they
Thinking of the Minute Men
Defending their homes
From Red Coat British muskets?
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana
My corollary:
“Those who do not learn from (or learn) history, are doomed to be sheep!”

* Inspired by political cartoon

They Called It Football...

R.I.P. Andy Griffith...

Ablution of Rodney King...

Photo Credit: Law Enforcement Today

© 19 June 2012, Juneteenth collaboration: Robert Gibbons, the Griot Poet (response)


Someone said
They cleaned the pool

After Dorothy Dandridge
They changed the rule

So he could get in office

They found Emmett Till
With his face down
Chained to the bottom
Of the river

Found four little girls
After the bombs drop
After the hymns stop

How many ancestors’ cross
The river in this
Ultimate “stop-and-frisk”

Beat-down-beat
In Watts
In New Lots Avenue
On H Street
In the meat packing district
Of Columbia
In Liberty City
In Philly

Beat me down
Bust up
Beat down beat

On the mean street
On the Peachtree
In Biloxi
In Nashville

Beat up
Bust up
Shut up

A riot in the ghetto
Fire in Soweto

Bleed
Baby bleed
Baby bleed

King
Was beaten
Read all about it
Read all about it

Brutality
Brutality
Solidarity
With the KINGs

Clean out the pool
Halls and schoolyard

It’s a bleed
It’s a bleed

It’s OJ
And pimp
It’s a Simpson

Its violation
Its probation
It’s a traffic fine
It’s a life line
It’s a bleed baby:
Bleed!

*****

Brother King
Had made peace
With the Riot Within [Him]

Writing a record
Of the legacy
He wanted to be remembered for

The memory of him he
Wanted us to keep
That he was the voice
Of reason
As LA riot fires
Rose to highest pyres:

“Please…please: can we just all get along?”

We still ask that question
When the only black man elected has his
Citizenship questioned
Chimpanzee emails, watermelon patches, Al Jolson Step-n-Fetch cartoons
A faux bullet-ridden
“Outhouse”-as-bigoted-presidential-library
With faux birth certificates stamped “fake”

From birth (errs) who won’t give the myth a rest
(And fail the test questioning IF Hawaii is truly our 50th state)

With the
Equally faux graffiti:
For a good time, call Michelle; Hilary; Pelosi.

NOI did a study
That the yellow corporate journalist puppets avoid:
This president disrespected at a record pace
That probably makes “W” say: whew!

Pontius Pilate washes before the crucifixion
And I am in conundrum
Of the faces that look like mine
That would vote for a candidate
Whose religion ascribed the “Curse of Ham” to an entire ethnicity?
For a faux neutral stance in preexistence imagined

I can imagine as the android candidate
Obfuscates reality at light speed
Like his etch-a-sketch,
Secret "money is free speech"
Citizen's United-Funded campaign management
Might be hitting an eternal “reset”
Thus what he says (not what he said-said-said): is now TRUE!

Re: BLUE SKIES, BIG SCIENCE, POETIC TECHNOLOGIES

© 7 June 2012, Thom the World Poet, © 9 June 2012, the Griot Poet (response)

I have a friend who is paid by IBM
Just to sit around and solve conundrums
He is a poet-as several other IBM ex-poets
Whose lateral emotional bases allowed flexibility?
Yet whose individuality clashed with corporate groupthink
(You cannot make soup out of ice cream-
Ideas often threaten power structures focused upon control)
Investment post September 11 is in military, police, surveillance mega-industry
All of which constitute inertial economic drags upon productive creative processes
As schools now focus more on learning to the test
Movies and music become retro /recycled clichés eating off past visions
Toffler was right/De Bono was right-to sell thought processing to Corporations
Every cliché is true. Dick Tracy wristwatches exist/as do jetpacks
They have yet to be commercially marketed. Space travel exists (privatized)
Patents for new inventions compound Jetsons/2001/Star Trek previews of the possible
Venture capital supported enterprises seek solutions/even when most investment is military
Eccentric individualism has been replaced by robotic anime-
Programmed drones kill civilians with no responsibility
Technology has no morality. Science is value free.
Economics only one factor when it comes to innovative technology
What philosophy Armageddon? Sarin, anthrax attacks? Deliberate assassinations…
STUXNET cyber-warfare, universal surveillance, secrecy and censorship-
All limit both individual freedom and initiative. New ideas required
But first we need to replace those robots and drones
With poets, artists, philosophers-free thinkers all!

*****

We forget the lesson of "Ender's Game,"
As Mazer Rackham, of bugger-kill fame
And the faux military-industrial-complex declares fair game
A sentient race we make "other" with epithet
No science used to program
- A Google translator
- Or Star Trek "universal communicator"
To see what a hive-complex species thinks,
To know how an entire entity of beings
Lived in harmony,
Before Ender advertently: made them extinct!

Seeking only to live
Beyond its planetary borders

We were attacked in the story: what for?
Because: "they hated our freedoms"?

Orson Scott Card does not explore
The myriad possible reasons Earth was assaulted
In his treatise...as a species, we’ve got a history of pissing people off!

OBL of 9/11 fame made it quite plain: it was for the children
WE bombed in Iraq between false wars
And his twisted devotion
To eye-for-eye killings of more innocents
as if that would implore
Blood to flow that had once been poured,
Sinews and skin to assemble
Upon dry bones

"La vengeance se mange très-bien froide,"

Or,

"Revenge is very good eaten cold," (Novel: Matilde, 1841)
As I compose verse to the coming sun,

I bear witness:
IT [revenge] makes a poor spark,
Or kick start
To a resurrection!

Muse @ 4 AM

© 18 May 2012, the Griot Poet
for LaDonna Adrian Gaines (Donna Summer) December 31, 1948 – May 17, 2012

Donna Summer

I AM
In love with black woman
Because s√he
Was Original Eve given as bone-of-his-bone
Flesh-of-his-flesh
Created from the best
Part of himself,
Square root of a rib,
Rounded rear and breasts
Making her his
Side-by-side companion…

I AM
In love with black woman
Because s√he
Can make coffee beans, do rags and strawberries sexy
(Check out D. Brown’s series)

Often faux imitated,
$30,000 bombs lobbed at:
- Boob jobs;
- Butt jobs;
- Lipo suction;
- Lip injections of silicon;
- Hours spent under cancerous ultraviolet tanning beds…
- Corn rows renamed “the Bo Derek”!

Yet: her grace and beauty to her face unappreciated as s√he was anointed
With Ankh natural beauty
Alighted from Sirius,
Melanin rainbow prism by the warmth of African suns
In Eden

I AM
In love with black woman
Because s√he
Like Donna Summer
Can croon “I…love to love you baby,”
Or an operetta a cappella…and mean it!

And
Before any man with gonads
Calls her outside her name,
Or, raise his fist against her bringing upon him (self) shame…

Realize:

S√he
Is the square root of your “he”
Chocolate, caramel, high-yellow lovely
From ocean’s passages over Diaspora seas,
And like Josephine*
Deserves our respect
And reverence…as QUEENS!

* From: “For Josephine and Other Queens”

Donna: Italian origin, “lady” or “lady of the home,” a title of respect, equivalent to “Don” for men.

Don't Kiss My Baby!

© 5 May 2012, Collaboration between Thom the World Poet and the Griot Poet

Art and politics. The Art Of Politics
Campaigns as more important than election results
Miami & the siege of Chicago. Pigasus.
Stephen King has a band (of writer musicians)
Bridget Shea loves poetry and music
Machiavelli vs. Julian Assange
Hipster-ism as Romantic Self-deception
Outsider politics as defeatism
Monster Raving Looney Parties.
Rave culture's Temporary Autonomous Zones
Laws against Travelers /Gypsies
Curfews. Vagrancy. Criminalizing homelessness/poverty
NO DOGS OR IRISH! /Hedgerow schools
Horizontal vs. Trickle Down Economies
Direct vs. Representative "democracy"
OCCUPY+Wikileaks
Gaza. Palestine. Jews for Jesus.

**********

REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM
"Creating our own realities" ala Karl Rove,
"Bush's brain": itself an oxymoron...
Wikipedia/Wikileaks - open-sourced and WAY too liberal: soo... create Conservapedia.com
And obfuscate reality found unseemly to support moribund from-the-gut philosophies

And:
- Attack global warming/climate change science (for the Koch-to-pus hydra dynasty)
- Attack science, technology, engineering and math
(even when it puts our nation dead LAST)
- Attack poetry and any knowledge
that would cause you to pause like Rodin's "Thinker" (can't have THAT)

Evolution = mental pollution to Neanderthals that haven't themselves
Evolved
- Attack...Einstein's Relativity? (as unproven? Check your GPS!)

Dr. Lawrence Krauss - "Physics of Star Trek" fame, stated:
"Bad Theology - it is a disservice to all people of faith to imply
that it is better for our children to remain ignorant of the world
than to risk the possibility that knowledge may undermine their faith."

We have yet to fight a Third World War,
But Albert's prophecy I end to implore reason
before our destruction as E Pluribus Unum is assured:

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought,
but World War IV
will be fought with sticks... and stones!”

Notes on Jazz

© 14 September 2003, Reginald L. Goodwin
(Inspired by a Kirk Whalum Jazz Concert and mom)


“Little colored boys in berets
“oop pop-a-da
“Horse a fantasy of days
“ool-ya-koo
“and dig all plays.”

“Flatted Fifths,” Langston Hughes, “Selected Poems.”

The night IS a woman…
Calling me into her bosom,

The rhythm beats into
My NAPHESH*,
Sinusoidal waves penetrate
My flesh
Resonating
In the marrow
Of my bones…

Heartbeat
Tones
Droning
My eardrums
Intoning
Ear-gasms
Creating
Spasms
In my spirit.

As I
Hear it,
I bop
My head
And tap
My feet
To an auditory
Treat,
Closing
My eyes to
Sight
Meditating
In the darkness
Of night

As…

The night
IS a woman…

Calling me
Into her bosom.

The prism of light
In the dark night
The entrance
That allowed
The planting of
My seed…
The exit
Episiotomy
From a woman’s
Anatomy
I emerged

To shout
My first
Notes in
UNKNOWN tongues
Before clearing
My throat
To form
Spoken words,
My lungs breath
BLOW
Trumpets
To Heaven,
My JUBAL
Hands stroke
Guitars, violins,
Keyboards,
Synthesizers,
Drums, bongos
And writing pens.

WHAT IS THIS?

It is a
Return to the
Original
Be-bop
Mop, skeetle-wop,
Do-wop
Of life,
Before life
And the affairs
Of this life
Drowned out
Time for
Self-communion
And union
With the
Universe,

When we
Be-bopped
And hip-hopped
In the
Kerr
Spinning
Black hole
Singularity
Throne
Of the
Birth of
Our souls..

Occasionally
Invaded by
Full-color
4-D
Ultrasound
Representations
Of reality,
When we needed
No language
To distinguish
Rhythmic heartbeats
Surrounding

OUR NAPHESH*,
Sinusoidal
Waves penetrating
OUR FLESH,
Resonating in the
Marrow of
OUR developing
Bones,
The tones
Of her
Heart
Distinguishing
OUR universe

--- her womb ---

From a tomb.

Because

JAZZ
….omniscience…

IS a woman

Calling us
Into her
Bosom

Calling us
Into direct
Communion
With her dark,
Infinite essence.

*NAPHESH - Etymology, Hebrew: soul: mind, will, imagination, emotions, intellect. Self-Awareness. "And man became a living soul (NAPHESH), Genesis 2:7

For Mildred D. Goodwin
A Birthday Poem
September 15, 1925 - May 7, 2009.

Chuck D Speaking TRUTH!...

This is an interview and essay by Chuck D of Public Enemy. Hip Hop is now "Hip POP," and lost its original meaning. The OGs of hip hop are into Spoken Word or [authentic] Christian Rap Music. The garbage we're supposed to digest...