I live in the spirit
        of the Masters before me.
Harlem's finest
        a social and artistic Renaissance
Prophets, poets and preachers
        capturing moments for change

I read the words
        I, Too, Dreams, Caged Bird
Where I once had tears
        now all I have is rage
I write death songs
        and hate has sunken in

America still isn't America for me.
America still lives in denial
America still silences
America still kills

I want to be free
I want to be free

To look upon my brothers
To look upon my sisters
Black, white or other
Rich, poor or other
Gay, straight or other
I'm indifferent, I only sing for love

So what should I do, this
is Not My America
America does not love me
My heart is heavy
but nothing will change.

People cheat for many different reasons
But almost none of them involve you

Being enough is not a factor
Listing the things that could be done
Differently is a waste of precious time
Because it truly wasn't you, it was them

Some do it for power, some do it for control
Some do it in loneliness, some do it in emptiness

Whatever the reason, remember it isn't you.
It is a mental compulsion, a temptation
That some otherwise extraordinary people
Fail to overcome, inhibit or control.

This isn't a justification, nor is this an excuse
I just want you to know these things
Are not because of you.

Speed is relative.
I have begun to lose myself.
Everyday seems slower, the faster I go.
I punch the gas pedal and feel nothing.
I'm not after a rush, but the null is so strong.

Lately, I have felt more alone than ever.
A circle of love, holds me in high regard.
And yet, they seem so far out on the fringe.
This real me, in this real world is hollow.
Beneath in dark shadows, deep in the core,
Is a detached, dissociated self, I pity him.

Nights have become restless.
I lay awake, tossing and turning,
Ever out of reach of a rejuvenating slumber.
Sleep is dreamless, which is hell.
Even nightmares offer some insight,
A certain clarity of clairvoyance.

Perhaps, as I strongly feel, change is coming.

Another ode to the storm
Heavier now in July's departure

Raindrops bombard the pavement
Swelling into deep puddles
Quenching the thirst of the blacktop
Dying in the summer heat

Its become mesmerizing, the rains descent
The harder it hits, the freer I become
I will myself to become lost in it
To let nature's chorus touch me

Storms bring out my desire to be cleansed
Claps of thunder parade into far reaches
Rattling the sediment of unkind thoughts
Buried from the drought of time

The goddess of calamity's healing lyric
Rhythmic vibes of transparency
Washing away muddied hearts
Embracing whatever is to come.

One day I'll return,
From the mountains and the hills
From the sadness and the pain

One day you'll see me
Past the running rivers and aching valleys
Past the tiring insanity and quiet rage

One day, yes, one day
I'll see through this geographic nightmare
I'll see through this never ending dream

One day I'll be
The setting sun to which all backs are turned
The rising moon who dances in the night

One day the facade will fade
Masks of change will begin to crumble
Masks of change will begin to forge

One day, soon, ahh I feel it
Magic words will find these lips
Magic words will fill these pages

One day, one day, waiting on that one day
Because I feel this time thats fading
Because I feel this time is changing

There will be a time when you need me,
But I'll already be gone.

Flesh may be a measure of mortality,
However these words cut deep.

They carve themselves into infinity,
Scribing the rise, ****** and fall.

Each piece is a violent declaration,
Against the tides of hate.

While I could not wade in the water,
The storm of truth rains down.

Falling victim to fate and telling times,
All exits are crafted by these hands.

Forever and a time ago, I too, was lost.
All of my losing, has brought me here again.
Between a catalyst of change and horror.
I'm on the cusp, I feel it coming, soon.

Again, I fall within all worlds, all their pain.
This edge, this faltering belief of hope.
It tears into me relentlessly, pleased.
I await the words to free me, shackle breaking.

Though, time in its infinity, is running out.

My faith in humanity
Is a spectrum of 'what the ****'
to 'I guess thats a silver lining'

As wicked thoughts populate
And feed Ignorance's beast
I find myself more Alien than before

The true arogance, was believing
That a such frailty of thought was
Subject to times much longer ago

Every step forward, multiplies the path
I take an inch and indifference goes a mile
A cycle of discouragement for truth

But here we are, not immovable or pristine
Nor immune to corruption or hatred
Only difference is I'm still fighting just the same

I wish to own a magic quill
With magic ink and vibrating trill

Colorful calligraphy to map my mind
A revolving world to leave my sign

Short stories, thoughts and imagination
Floating allures of determination

Compose a sea of words to illustrate
Then pass the pen to facilitate

Artisitic culture and tangled rhymes
A healthy recipe to ease the times

Outside of Comfort is change
It is an experience of adversity
Simultaenously profound and conflicting
To lay away the building blocks of self
Into a new construct, with the hope
That it, in its togetherness, is a testament
Celebrating the distance required
For the recreation of being.

If you can't beat them, join them.
That system that beats you down
Pick a side, have a good ride
Finish it to the end.

Hasn't worked out too well.
What to do? What to do?

If you can't beat them, become them.
That power of the opressor
Use it, abuse it, live large
Crack that whip.

Hasn't worked out to well.
What to do? What to do?

If you can't beat them, change them.
Sweet knowledge and empathy
Change a heart, make a friend
Seek out humanity.

Hasn't worked out to well.
What to do? What to do?

Lets try something new
An altered verse
Rhythm

Drink the chilling darkness
From the lifeless lips of death
Mourning skies paint roads with sorrow
Brushtrokes on a weathered canvas
Self mutilated through indecision

Moments frozen in eternities
Moments void of sound
Moments cannibalizing
Moments...

When traversing the wilderness
That fork in the way
Be it devils and demons
Be it cherubs and seraphs
Stagnation is death

Behold the smooth transition of brushstrokes and bristles to the field of marigolds.
The sweet friction brought by divine hands, is the depth you were searching for.

And as the storm rolls in, high on the technicolor clouds, you take a moment to catch your breathe.
Next thing you know the rainbow wildfire blooms from the painted raindrops, setting the flowers ablaze.

It is a world created of mind made matter, and if you cannot see the parallels, then you lack the imagination!

Any fiction can carve its way into reality, that is the truth of all worlds.

That is the key, forge your ambitions and blow the doors wide open.

Reality begins to break, I shatter
Reality begins to break, I remain

Reality remains, I shatter
Reality remains, I remain

All of this, all at once.
Every moment, every time.

There is no constant other than the unknowing.

On speaking of maddening, madness
Zero down on this pounding, pounding
Of onset betrayal in my heart.

Friendly faces turned crooked smiles,
As my mind contorts them in denial
Believing in an imminent threat.

Panic blooms a wildfire of doubt,
The voices inside scream and shout.
Now we wait for the arrival of death.

This mystery, this sickening
These shades of kin, just don't fit in
And surely I'm losing my mind.

There is no plot, no grand scheme
To steal away my blissful dream.
But paranoia knows better, it must.

There is a devil inside of me.
An aspect so far removed from self,
It is so inconcievable, so impossible, and so unlike anything I could imagine.

Such selves sit in a sea of silent symphony,
Until the mania power trips into madness.
Then the screaming starts, the sad souls of infinite self, wailing their woes into every action and inaction.

But this wrongness, it has no tongue, no words of daggers. Just the mind numbing imposition of its own existence.

While it is in no particular way, its own creative, there are those of empathetic tones who transcribe its violent song into death hymns.

I sit a passenger, on a dangerous train, headed faster to hell, and I'm the devil inside.

Today, I am walking the path of the infinite self.
It is a road that stretches forever inwards and outwards.
I unravel,
I cross the rubicon,
I contain multitudes,
The door in the sky opens.
A hand reaches down and pulls me through it.

I become a face in a sea of many:
A swimming ocean of everything I’ve been and yet to be.
A dream floating on the sleepy universe of impossibility.

I accept this smallness.
Then I reach inwards and offer a hand.
I become whatever self I require.

I miss the warm tethered entanglement
Of white hot invading veins
And boiling blood slithering
Innocent lust for rage
Driven by underdeveloped
Over stimulated blessings of adolescence.

Age hardens the stone of flesh
Once fluid magma erupting
From volcanoes of mole hills
Turned mountains by the quick tempered.
Spitfire tongue incinerating old walkways
Patience and time cool the ferocity
Burning rivers now gentle streams
Chisling rough roads, eroding paths.

Ancient doors reopened
Ready for the next adventure to take place.

Adrenaline and Pain,
They've brought me back to the dark waters,
Wading inside, the struggle to stay afloat.
The King, his legion, rise from their depths.
Ghouls scream, inciting a riot of mind.

The calming presence of self, helps me resist,
But this King brings corruption and death.
His fiendish aether crawls through my veins.
I suffocate under the torrential wickedness.

Once again, I rise, not my self.
Another medium for his crown of lies.

How fragile is your mind?
Does it stand against the tides of time.
Which from your perspective or mine
Can last forever or a moment.
Either is fine,
Its power we find.
During the reclamation of mind.
This dividing mind.
This self that is no longer mine.

The Autumn baronies have fallen.
A culture of flames, brilliant and bold,
Against cold indifference of time.

What is a King, with a broken crown.
Vermilion leaves sail across pools of crimson.
Cobblestone stained, forsaken name.

Death divine, dancing kindred spirits,
Haunting the halls of Royal ruin.
Longer still, grows the silence.

The hand rose petals of ripe red.
A fast bloom of rotten revenge,
Stemmed only from gnarled thorns.
Sage runs strong into crimson.

Reaping, what is sewn or shown.
This paradoxical thought has flowered.
Was it first the pain or was it desire.
Trim the fray or overgrow in vain.

Suckle little roots, undying doom
Eternity's flora in the poet's stalk
Blood cursed words, ancient fret.
The seed of grudge is the heart's regret.

Down below, in the little mountain town
By the river the splits the east and west
I, heading out the door realize I'm far away
Sentiment hits at the liquor store
As hills once dead and brown
Have been reborn into lush greens
Realizing how much time has past
When I skipped through towns
Like a stone fighting to sink or swim
Things are different now, down below
In this little mountain town.

I'm dreaming
I wake up
I'm a phantom
I feel it all
I'm lucid
I breath existence

I'm dreaming
I see white
I'm flowing
I grow skywards
I'm humbled
I begin to wake

I'm dreaming
I see the sun
I'm trying
I can't hold on
I'm failing
I sleep no more

As the writer wore away page after page,
a swelling of maddening frustration grew.
The parchment soaked in the dark ink,
and pockets of hell seeped through each word.
There is desperate power in written verse;
They know this, yet the pen rages onward.
The writer pays this debt in full,
in flesh and blood, as one does.
Stories must be told, the price is high,
but silence cost ever more.

I need a little help
I took a little break
See I have to work, work, work!
Otherwise I'll be a lazy good for nothing!
Its ALL work and then SOME play.
But if its SOME work then surely its NOTHING at all.

Words, word, words!
I can think them just fine,
Some days I'll even speak them quietly, to myself.
But here lies the problem, I lose them in translation.

I am thinking, I am thinking
Such a good line, such a clever prose.
Open the pad and notebooks and not a word goes!
I am thinking, I am thinking
Such a good line, such a clever prose.
Open my mouth and its out the window!

I want my words back,
I want to write,
I want to write poetry
I want to just empty my mind
I want to leave out all the words
I want to be satisfied with these little things.

This was a start, I am sure it helped.
It had to.

If you find yourself unable
To comprehend the notion
That is Political Correctness
And believe that outrage is
The result of being offended
Rather than the consequences
Held behind the power of words
I might believe you to be an *******.

If you are unable to control a pathological
Need to spew hate and ignorance from your tongue
And find that comparable to human suffering
Or some divine right that has been stolen
I again believe that you are likely an *******.

As a person, who by his own privilege
Was fat with ignorance, having been spoon fed
Lies and deceit as a result of words which are used
And abused to oppress and suppress, Manipulating
The masses to paint people as this, that or the other
I am only further enraged at this sacrificial death of knowledge.

What thought can you not express in this politically correct world?
What words that are not racial, sexually or otherwise charged,
Can you not expel from your chest?
Without hiding behind the guise of mental oppression, what can
You truly wish to say that you have felt you cannot?

The truth of that matter is not what is permitted.
It is that there is less validation in your hate.
And you attribute this to someone simply being offended.

All day I dream of space
Far off worlds pull at my thoughts
Earth on the fringes of my mind.
Foreign air chokes my lungs.

Alien brainwaves, invading
Persuading, notions that I do not belong
This poisonous world, suffocating
The light seen in dreams
Calling out across dimensions

White noise screams, broken messages
Loud pulsing, scrapes along my skull
Bleeding out into over saturated comprehension
Known truths, wither into the dust
Of old age and barried lies.

The Infinite darkness, the chill
Space comforts me, quells the flames
Blinds these tired eyes from chains
Worn heavy, by the proud fool.
Trapped in a shell, far away from home.

Writing is my therapy.
I find it far easier to write
Away my demons into chains
Than to let their free verse reign.

I dare not sit in that chair
To face the things near or far
The cold and the heavy
The antiques of my persistent soul.

Though in time, when farther I succumb
Perhaps, I'll find that existential door,
One which takes me to the place, I need
To restore whats so lost within.

And true, I write the walls which hold me,
But better a prisoner of my own making,
Then be held hostage by an unstable mind.
Control, power, hold on, until you can't.

If only I could scream
So loudly as to shatter
The privileged walls
In which you so calmly
With indifference gaze.
Watching people suffer,
Blacker than you, different
Than you, ****** oriented
Different than you, worshipping
A God different than you,

Then maybe you would know,
How much I suffer.

Inhaling gales forces
Thundering footsteps
Propel whirlwinds
Twisting things left behind

Stormy eyes clouded
False visions of sunny days
Born in violent winds
Forged by a tempest of hate

Lightning strikes down
Capturing rainy day regrets
Out running hurricanes
Chasing Cloud 9

Within the eye
Silence rages
While waves thrash
Against the shores of sanity

Bleeding into the rain
Crimson ink rolls down
Worn fingertips
Onto soaked pages

Broken in time, this
Moment has yet to end

When all the words
Left to say, bleed through
Years of stories, scattered
In the puddles ahead.

Yellow streaks rip open
The violent violet night
Just waiting for the boom.

Thunder crashing
I'll follow suit.

I was the first raindrop
On your once rosy cheek
Masking teary eyes in a downpour
Some part of you must have known
The agony to exist only between the clouds
Lightning striking at every touch
And every breathe drawing thunder
But still, you loved the rain
From the silence before a storm
And still moments of peace
Before my wrath wreaked havoc
Can you blame me?
To be here and gone with the wind
Just a sojourner, taking the world by storm
Living each moment one droplet at a time
As you dry your eyes
I fade into the clouds
Waiting to fall once more, to live.

Fear, pain and rage
Go into the words on this page

Of blood spilt
The lack of guilt

You hate this
You hate that

Grab a gun
Pull the trigger

People die
People cry

The world won't change
Life is a game

Pray you don't die
Tell yourself that lie

Sad isn't it
To be ruled by hate

To destroy and smother
Others

Blood on the street
But no ones cleaning

Hiding behind the scenes
On computer screens

Opinions flow
But they will never

Fill the holes
In hearts or the dead

America please
End this disease

The crass
This **** act

Love is love
Stop this violence

No more silence
Screaming sirens

Begging
For this pain to end.

Every word falls deaf
Soundless songs depress, suppress
Any ability to breathe music (of my own)
An empty vessel, ravaged,
Through a torturous fountain of
Words: letters, syllables violently clawing
(Towards the Sun, any inkling of light)
Spewing in such a horrible way
Just to once again find relevancy
To flow like waterfalls, nurturing
The saplings of the low valleys
To bloom, and flower into peace and
Be Reborn.

Another year passes.
An arbitrary collective delusion.
Another year of promises.
Words write themselves some days.
Others, require a show of force.
This spectrum grows day by day.
Business and pleasure.
Business brings consistency.
Pleasure brings creativity.
Drown in expectations or,
Suffer in idle waters.
I seek balance.
I see it on the horizon.

She was dying
I was sent away
She died
I returned

Knowledge of Self, merely an assumption?
Better, or so I thought,
Failing hard, falling harder.

I burned brightly, burning through bridges,
Boundaries, and borders.

The path I walked was ashen,
In the wake of cinder,
The relics of the past.

Change, hubris aside, was shallow,
Was not the core of Flesh,
Just the Husk of Solitude.

I fell to the Rage, that desperate rage.
So eager and volatile.
Hidden in the shadows, in plain sight,
For the time I'd both welcomed and feared.
That explosion of otherness,
A disillusioned self.

Trauma lingers in a double edged blade,
Wounding the wielder and the wounded.
Neither in blood, thankfully so,
But battered pride, twist the ego.

Two illuminated halos shrank
into the the cross stitching of
Goldenrod and Jade.

Smaller they became, until swallowed by
the all consuming darkness of his pupils.

This time it was serious.
He flashed one last glance
at his foreign reflection.
Then out went the lights,
as the weight of night over took him.

A year ago, I resolved to write,
Everyday, no matter what.
Noble in my intention, to let
These words Blossom
But impractical in my imprisonment

Papers and parchment became walls
Which grew hungry and full off anxiety
True to the nature of my failure
I felt every bit of imagination die
The magic engine chocked out, rusted
With failed expectations.

However, this creative vigor, this
Impossibly strong passion, sparked
Life once again, as it tends to do.

So I resolve once again, to write
But only as the wind blows

As the extraordinary rushes,
So will I, to the pages.

The solemn sea swells
Consuming the sorrow
Black petals drift into
The vast ocean of souls
Bad news and crushing blows
Drowning out in the undertow

We shared stories as the hours passed by.
Each secret detail, leading to more intimate detail.
Hearing each others mistakes, failures, blunders..
It is an open invitation to share in the humility of the human condition.
We live within the tales of another, carefully refitting the pieces of each other.
So far from the picture we once held, but ever better, imperfect even.
The refined inadequacy is all the truth we ever needed.
For who would we be without them.

The rifts have opened once again,
Their darkness, thin and heavy.
Pouring malicious, defeating thoughts.
Self-doubt, hopelessness, it is agony.

It has been months, what seemed like eons,
Since such dark matters poisoned my mind.
Yet, a single word was all it took to open a wound.
"Trauma", the irony of a word as a trigger.
It ignites the sky of thought, in an absence of light.

The delirium begins, mania rises.
Shield and sword to the gravity of sadness.

Overgrown and forgotten
The old forest Grove has
Long since seen better days

The foliage twisted and rotten
Poisoned by times influence
And man's fallen beliefs

A pool of memories
Peels back the wounds
Centuries in the making

The reflection of a golden lute
In the hands of a music man
Orchestrated tunes of the bard

Lush passing of vibrant greens
Even in death his song echoed
Lyrics rippling in the waves

Gone and forgotten
But loved nonetheless.

Dear Colin

What an inspiration
A role model
See I know how you feel
I'm like you
Mixed race, perspectives of two

From a young age
And to this day I'm ashamed
I hated my blackness
I saw what the world offered them
So I didn't want part of it

And I saw my people
Crying out with no one to listen
So I used my voice
To scream their message loud

They'll call you a traitor
They say it's disrespect
But to be more mad of an anthem
than lives that are lost.
Lives these soldiers fight for
Lives these soldiers die for

You are my hero Kaep
You saved me.
The light in a dark world
Where hope evades the privilege
of a mulatto kid, with white parents

And hope burns in darkness
It shines it's light strong
10 years from now people
who so hated this movement
Will understand
This was the time
You led the rebellion
Against injustice for all.

“A nail in the coffin, such a significant mark.”
Said the dead man walking,
with a hole in his heart.

But the nail was his weapon,
his sword, his pen.
Sheathed within his own body,
his life, his friend.

So day after day, as stress grew,
as life came.
He welled up all the words,
which sang.

All of this, blood, sweat and tears.
Until the fool realized all his lost years.

He yearned to draw the blade once more,
and so did it pour,
all the words and shame
he had to his name.

So the ink flowed, his life blood,
his prose.
Always to write again, his blooming
red rose.

Golden Gates of freedom
The apple of my eye
So delicious and fruitful
But this dream has gone rotten
With worms festering
In chained up wounds
Looking to the horizon
Answers inch slowly away
Yet, ash and bones, remain
Monuments to the forgotten

I set upon the Grotto,
where the hanged men dangled, dear.
Those desecrated corpses,
no longer held their fear.

I fashioned up an axe,
To **** the living, certainly not the dead.
See I’m taking out the demons,
and nightmares inside my head.

Through dusk and dawn again,
I hack away with glee.
Happy little madness,
please end this ****** tree.

Not long after I laid myself upon the Earth,
I began to grow roots, suckling the green.

Before you knew it, they borrowed farther,
Far from me, crawling faster away.

To be so toxic, yet making myself at home.
I needed some good, to prune the bad.

As I gaze at the storm clouds rolling,
I wait for the rain, but not before the tears.

There is a bitterness, rotten deep within.
To be so disconnected, it is painful.

So I lay, disgusted with my own ruin,
Wishing the woods would cure me.

What a dumb little lie, who do I kid.
I will decompose with pestilence.

How dare I come here, how dare I weep.
But here I'll stay, a graveyard of grief.

Fleshing holding it together
The void grows, emptiness
Flames burn violent in the human engine
Running on fumes, full steam ahead.

Numb to the senses.
Fissures painted across broken body.
Powerful negative energies seep through
Fueling the harsh reality.
With every strike, hatred explodes
Begging now for a quick finish.

There is no picking up the pieces
Shattered glass self reveals
The mirrored ill intentions.
Saturated in darkness
Breathing the heavy poisons
Eyes awaken, sights restored.

Seeing clearly again,
Evolving, to perfected form.
The key in misery, mastered in solitude.