these are my thoughts
from the future
shared today
in the flesh
as fresh fodder from
my writer’s mind
unblemished
by blurred lines
of reflection

uncensured
by time and fate

filter the tidal wave
my friend
with a patient hand

for it leaves
a trail of treasures
as it recedes
into the great beyond

ayo

~ P

The wooden stairs creaked
Then and now,
Crackling years later
In the scorched fury of flames
Fanned by fate.

Sometimes it's too late
To do more than we did
And tragic remorse
Fuels our resolve
To do better...

When next
Our aging and infirm beckon
from across the sea...

Heed the call
In haste
Lest the fires of fate
Fill that void of neglect...

Scorching the wooden stairs
That once creaked
As your happy hopeful feet
Hustled with furious refrain
To meet your aging and infirm...

Scorching the wooden home
Of cherished childhood treasures...

Scorching the happy hopeful face
That always smiled
Like sunshine...

To ashes.

~ P

where once we felt and looked the same
sharing a house on memory lane.
there in the glass we stared with pride
at flawless skin and clueless eyes.

we conquered hills and soaring trees
with nimble limbs and stable knees.
we hopped and skipped and ran the streets;
no bills to pay, no ends to meet.

though father time pulled us apart,
you kept the light inside my heart.
to guide me through the twilight years
in this old house that we both share.

these nagging knees now often speak.
this weathered roof now often weeps.
but this old house will always be
a treasured home for you and me.

Ayo!

~ P

Was a man named
Baby Juke
With roots in Rhymington
The village where chiren
Hollered at the moon
And wrote letters to messiah

Askin why
Dem rivers always ran dry
Thru Rhymington...

Askin why  
Tears be flowin
But still dem rivers be runnin dry
Thru Rhymington...

Baby Juke played a mean flute
Blowin cool water over
hearts achin
And spirits brakin
Thirsting for salvation...

When you're born
On Juke's side o' town

When the only life you know
Is brown, black
And blue

When daddy's dead
And broken
By thirty-two

And there's nothing Mammy can do
But cry
And try to carry on
In Rhymington

And there's nothing you can do
But cry
And play your flute
And try to blow your blues
Out of Rhymington

You become
Baby Juke

You become somebody
Every black boy and girl
Wanna be

You blaze a trail
Out of poverty

Out of Rhymington
To stardom
And notoriety

Only to find
Dem rivers run dry there too
For the likes of you

And brown, black
And blue
Is all you'll ever be

Even if you are a musical genius

Even if you are legendary

Like Baby Juke....

AYO

~ P

as the sun stood
still at noon
in solar silence
seething through
a hot copper sky

as mozart played
requiem dies irae
in d-minor

as a raging hail of fire
descended

we all looked up
frozen

in fearful recognition  
of the
end

ayo

~ P

these eyes are your window to the truth.
they empower you with vision
and help you filter details
like color, facts and lies
to better process
and navigate
the chaos
in your
world.

~ P

Louder beats silence
When the law fails
In a broken system
And the arc of history
Never bends
for some
As if justice
Wasn’t meant to be
Served equally
In a democracy
With more skeletons
Than a military cemetery
In Richmond

And though slavery ended in 1865
Racism is still alive
155 years later
And hate has a place in DC
Where white privileged chickens
Came home to roost in 2016

All lives matter’s the scripted chatter
To evade and obfuscate
The rage and graves
Of future George Floyds
Of every hue
Marching on avenues
Far and Near you
So you build fences of denial
Around your guilt
To preserve
your milk and money
Drained from the masses
Trapped In lower classes
Screaming
“We can’t breathe”

Get your knees
Off our  
***** effin necks
America

South Africa burned
Then learned

You got next.

AYO

~ P

did you see
the lady from sierra leone
dancing on the sand...

ebony hands clapping
here;
ebony feet tapping
there;
bronzed and bare
daring your pious eyes
to stare...

crimson crown
blissfully wrapped
in grace and rapture
with matching lips,
a furtive kiss
away
from your skipping heart.

did you hear
the malipenga in her voice
spilling tribal promises
into your cup
of longing....

did you feel
her exotic muse,
timeless and pure,
daring you
to sin...

and curse those blessed hymns
that blinded you
from the secular...

and kept you holier than thou...

until now

ayo

~ P

The dream.
The sky.
The Do or Die.
The zeal and muscle
And steel in your eyes.

Unyielding.

Resolute.

You've seen the future before
And, like air,
It feeds your fire...

Leaping from rem of slumber
Into odd chambers
Of the few
Who thrive in dark solitude;
Like thunder;
Like lightning bolts of disruption...

Convention shuddered.
Oaks of resistance
Snapped like toothpicks
After generations stuck
In teeth of the morbidly obtuse...

Yet they prevailed.

Where did your dream go?

What happened to 'do or die'?

What happened to that zeal and muscle
And steel in your eyes?

Your purse had no strings.

Your fingers had no rings.

Your palace in the sky had no King...


Only a dreamer.

AYO

~ P

You wanna be what you see,
So be the light;
That light you first saw
At the Dawn of life
After months brewing
In the Dusk of Nature's womb.

You wanna be what you see,
So be the Love;
That Love You first saw
In Mother's eyes
When 'Cry and Scream'
Was the only line
In the only song you knew.

A line
Simple but loud (like truth).

A song
Sacred and sound (like youth).

Understood
Universally
Without exception
By every Mother
In this Big Bang
Called Life.

Perfected
Universally
Without exception
By every newborn
In this Big Bang
Called Life.

Then
You grew up up
And away
From The Light.

And that black and white
Of Baby-You
Became gray.

Even Black and Blue

On some dark days

As you grew up
And away
From The Light.

And blurred the line
Between truth and lie;

And blurred the line
Between wrong and right

And The Light
You first saw
At the Dawn of Life
Grew dimmer;

Lie by Lie.

Don't be a Liar
Baby...

Be what you see...

Don't die a Liar
Baby...

Be what you first saw
At the Dawn of Life,
After months brewing
In the Dusk of Nature's womb.

Be The Light.

Be The Light.

AYO

~ P

Spoken Word Version>>> https://soundcloud.com/pablo1960-1/be-the-light-ii-aspirational-beat-poetry-by-pablo?si=0cb9b17852c7­4b9ea136f9e3f14d35cf&utmsource=clipboard&utmmedium=text&utmcampaign=socialsharing

between my truth and your discomfort
lies the veiled compromise
i make
every time we meet
even from a distance
in open spaces
on shared streets

sometimes i wonder
if you see
this mask i wear
over tension or fear
every time we meet

if you sense
centuries of rage
seething in my smile
and laughter
every time we meet

if you know
we live in two worlds
you in yours
me in yours and mine
divided by this mask i wear
every time we meet

if you care
if you ever did
if you ever will

ayo.

~ P

I pour bailey’s
in my tea
with a thin slice of lemon;
I stir
with a knife;
the spoons are all *****;
I’m just a boy,
a lazy crazy boy.
I do lazy crazy things
like *** on the toilet seat
and spit in the sink.
I’m all impulse;
I think
not
before I do.

love me as I am
or leave me
be

~ P

memoir of a life
bookended by a teen in labor
and a place for mom;
a father whose paternal anxiety
made her bleed
like she was the child
of another,
and a carousel of ex-lovers,
the fast, magnetic type
in tims, saggin jeans
and pockets filled
with every dream
but rent,
and a ring.

a life spent
throwing things and thongs
at lying mirrors
until clinique said, “bye bye;
those lines and wrinkles
I can no longer hide.”

she never looked
within,
beyond the flawed skin

she never owned
her sins

she never found
her truth

she blamed him,
the father whose paternal anxiety
made her bleed.

~ P

what have we done
to trigger nuclear options,
tasers and guns
for misdemeanors
or worse -
errors rooted in prejudice,
privilege and power?

are we less worthy
of presumed innocence?

are we dispensable
like gloves and masks
and evidence?

do our service
and uniforms
and humanity
even matter?

our mothers cry too
when we die.

our children cry too
when we die.

yet your eyes
stay dry

when we die

why?

~ p

he knows not
yet speaks loudly,
proudly flaunting
his knowsnotness to the world
as if it were some regal virtue
worthy of praise and reverence,
not verbal manure
so malodorous
it smothers us all
in mind-shrinking flatulence.

~ P

and she wrote the gospel
broke it down
from the book of mothers
to a son

lost in translation

drowning in a hollow
universe of words

his tongue tied
to vowels hanging
from dissonant trees

over the main stream

don’t be a verb
my son

you were born
to be a noun

ayo

~ P

friendships are like seeds planted
at the chestnut farm.
they need a little tenderness
to sprout roots and bear fruit.

when the soil is rich in honesty,
and the seeds showered daily
with unconditional love,
majestic trees of friendship evolve
with opulent branches
and succulent leaves.

the raging storms will come and go.
the fickle skies will rain and snow.
but through it all, it’s good to know
that seed you planted long ago
bloomed into a trusted friend.

ayo

~ P

I wake up
Most mornings
Soaking sweat,
Chest heaving,
Hope streaming out my eyes
Like light rays
From dark caves of mind.

They say the brain reboots
When we sleep
Then opens wider
As we learn
To navigate the storms
Of a new day
And blaze a trail
To those dreams
Of the night before.
That elusive rainbow
Of inner peace;
Those treasured pieces of gold
Buried on the other side
Of the daily grind.

I’ve been chasing that mine
For a long, long time.
And maybe I won’t find it today…

But I’ll keep digging.

AYO!

~ P

truth came out
from sam smith
to the base in charlottesville;

an identity evolution
of he, they and david dukes

as kap’s knee became legendary
like ali and jack
without the stats;

and nipsy’s hustle
caught the early shuttle
to immortality
with biggie and pac;

trump blew the whistle.

foul became fair.
fog, clear.
and hillary,
a career criminal
from benghazi.

thus, the crooked winner lost;
the crooked loser won
and electors placed pinocchio
on a private plane

to dc...

and impeachment.

truth came out.

~ P

This throwback dime
Was dropped on Hulu
by a dame with 80 or more
Revolutions around the Sun
Who happened to be black;
Many shades shy of spades,
Actually.

Race ambiguity
Was the theme of her storied life...

She played her rights card
White through Jim Crow
And segregation
Hiding in plain sight
On the lighter side of town
Where strange-fruit hung
On Sundays,
A stone's throw from
Her White Sulphur Baptist church.

But Laura Nelson's tongue
Called her out
Bleeding guilt and doubt
Through her Southern belle cover.

"You know I'm Black, right?"
She finally told the white vendor
Trying to peddle
A piece of Laura.

"Yeah and I'm Harriet Tubman."
Quipped Sally,
Cackling through missing teeth,
Beady eyes gleaming,
Eager to close the deal.

"I fixed it good with formalin.
Be worth a fortune
At the Clan Rally
In June..."

50 revolutions or so
Ago
A poorly-made woman
Found her soul.

And she's been loudly
Black
Ever since.

AYO

~ P

I ticked off my day
With a tepid mug of Morning Joe.
Then a neoliberal bowl of CNN
Left me bitter like aloe.
So I asked the Fox and his radical Friends
To put me on the right track…

But Hannity prevailed
and I gagged on a cocktail of Rushian Kool-Aid.

Ayo!

~P

I am deeply in love
with the world;
with the improbable variables
of the universe

they collided on a tacit
turn in time;
split the beatles,
sent a man to the moon
and gave us twizzlers

and me

I was too young to see
the light,
groovy and bright;

to join the fight
down yonder;

to blow a joint in saigon;

to march with john and luther
over the bridge;

to stop life-shattering
bullets of war
and hate;

yet those stars
of fate
align

and we are here
in the flesh
with beating hearts
to start
a new
decade.

~P

I’d like to shake your hand.
I’d love to hug you
But those gentle acts of kindness,
Once a natural thing
Are now forbidden sins
With a grim sentence of death.

The roads are empty.
So are the bars;
Scars of social distance
Borne near and far.

Fear and uncertainty
Fills the air.
Cases rise like bushfires in Brisbane
Filling ICU’s, beds and morgues
To overflowing.
.
For whom
Tolls the next bell of infection?
A silent killer roams;
Unseen. Unheard. Unhinged.
A nightmare on every street
Of humanity.

Your race or royal blood
Cannot protect you.
Your wealth and walls of segregation
Are useless as an idiot with a blond toupee.

Your life flashes before you.
What heinous deed have we done
To earn this vicious wrath of Nature?
This mutant of terror.
This sobering reminder
Of our fleeting mortality.
Of the need to curb
Our insatiable greed
And abuse of God’s sacred home and children.

~ P

Everybody's looking for something;
Chasing our rainbow
Through the rain.

Like birds
We fly from tree
To blooming tree.

A dove
An eagle
A bee

Hunting and preying
And wild
As Nature intended;
In The Beginning
And
Until The End.

We
The children,
The Chosen Ones
Who flew to The Moon
And f*ck'd  The Earth;

And The Bee

And The Blooming Tree...

They gave us clues
But we
Missed the signs...

We
The children,
The Chosen Ones
Who hunt and gather still...

As Nature intended
In The Beginning
And

Until The End.

AYO
~P

...when her prized Zulu mask fell
Off the wall
Where it glared four decades
In stoic silence
From the house-warming
To the day before
Summer went home
For her long-anticipated reunion
With the man who stole her heart
Near Prospect Park
Back in '91....

It was an augury
The frigid winds of grief
Would cease
In the morrow.

And Summer's sorrow
Would cede
To Fall's eternal joy.

AYO

~P

the essentials,
compelled by oath and compassion,
run into raging fires
every day, every hour
every time duty calls,
they run.
when towers fall,
they run.
when lightning strikes and thunder rolls
and tall trees crash through walls
of our homes,
they run.
when riptides rise and tornadoes roar
and earthquakes shake the earth to its core,
they run.
when hearts fail and lungs need air,
they run.
when bones break and blood clots,
they run.
when cars crash and trucks roll,
they run.
when panic attacks,
they run.
when maniacs relapse,
they run.

and when a pandemic
rips cities to shreds
from wuhan and cremona
to elmhurst and madrid,
filling hospital beds
with desperate, breathless strangers
chests heaving,
eyes pleading,
“save me please!”

they
run.

ayo.

~ P

finite flourishes with a few clicks
or infinite insight for 9.99;
words drafted hastily
into the information race,
sprinting to expiration
unliked,
barely seen
like hibernating polar bears
nearing extinction;

or pearls carefully crafted
as the moon rages
and dizzy blows
an inspired riff
of sublime similes into your muse.

you should swim someday
in the imaginarium
of quantum leaps
writhing to manic beats of impulsivity.

let the mythic waves
consume you
like runaway lovers
drowning in a sea of lust.

a snapping shrimp will tell you
why the ocean is 9 degrees warmer
this winter
if you listen without the filter of denial;

and give you the insight
to a lyric
that gets you paid.

~ P

My day's been idling
‘tween grim and gray
since Corona came by
and stole my Sunshine away
like a thief in the light,
sweeping my dreams
into a dungeon of despair.

hope flutters in the wind
on broken wing,
her salvage flight
upstaged by Ebola's evil twin.

what splendid deed
or need of man
have I not met
to earn this noose around my neck?

bare stems,
on trunks of fate
do quiver,
from fear of darkness
or lack of faith?
I cannot tell;
neither served me well
as you dear Sunshine.

soon these lungs two may fail
unable to inhale
or exhale without you.

my days thus spent,
idling from grim to gray,
since Corona came by
and stole my sweet Sunshine away,
shall come to end.

~ P

where were you
in april

before the blaze of summer
and white room

before the son
and hate collided

in memphis

and the check
for civil rights
was cashed

in blood...

where were you?

~ P

The world seems built for Tyrants
Egos scraping the sky
They chase glory, adulation, loyalty
They place cataracts in your eye
And fill circuits of mind
With plaque-inducing memes
You’ll only catch phrases
Banal recurring themes
Sublime viral encounters at Airstrip Nine
A streaming black market
Of lies revised as gospel truths
You’ll master the fine arts
Of double-think
And polemics
You’ll scorn friends and lovers
Who dare intervene
You’ll run from the Thought Police
Screaming obscenities
Like $uicide boy$ @ Woo Hah
Run from truth
Run from facts
Run with lies
Run with the Tribe
Run to Big Brother
Run
*****  F*hka
Run.

~ P

a plane will crash
in the future
and your wingless soul
could a casualty be;
a probability
more likely than heaven
without the thrill;
your pious potential spilled
onto the ocean blue
to sharks’ delight

black box screams
haunt dreams of widows
and orphans

incidental casualties of greed.

~ P
#max8blues
(4/14/2019)

marooned in writer’s den
with empty thoughts
and a pen.
raindrops pitter pattin’
morse cues from heaven.

nina simone blowin’
baltimore blues
through my soul.

soon similes start a flowin’
like tropical waves over
montego bay,
infusing my muse
with sunshine lyrics
on a rainy day.

cryptic blocks dissipate
as the water breaks,
and a new song
is born.

ayo!

~ P

THEY won’t make forbes’ list
or the cover of vogue.
THEY won’t sink buzzer-beaters
on sports center and fox news.
THEY won’t ink bank-breaking deals
with nike
for custom shoes
like mike.
THEY won’t sail the pacific
in the history supreme
like a mighty malaysian tycoon
with billions to splurge
on luxury yachts
and lamborghinis.
THEY won’t have brass stars
on hollywood’s walk of fame
or win academy awards
like halle and jack…

but in your hour of need

THEY will be there,
masked, gloved and ready
to deliver the best medical care
money can’t buy
and stem a tidal wave of tragedy

that we might thrive
again.

ayo!

~ P

i got burned
again.
seems like i chase the pain,
the no’s, closed doors
and open hands raised
five fingers long
like slap signs
from 2cool4u sisters
@ club 925.

seems like sandman’s
always sweeping me off
the page,
and the big stage @ columbia u
claimed by new negroes
named kendric and hussain
will remain a fleeting illusion.

but ima keep writing
cause bill said,
‘do what you love
wither you *** paid
or not.’

and these words few
are my gift to you
beloved.

ima keep on giving
til
the
music
stops.

ayo!

~ P

as i stumble through this life, may virtue be my guide to face the blitz of fear with honor, grit and pride / the fleeting flash of light. the fight to make the grade as dusk concedes to night beneath the twilight shade / the coral snakes through leaves with rings of colors bright. the gray wolf howls to heaven, spiked canines snarling white / i swiftly stretch my stride into a steady run and reach the other side; my brush with fear was done.

ayo.

~P

The sirens are wailing
Again.
Where did the music go?
And the strident shrieks of laughter
From the streets below?

It won’t be long
Before someone you know,
Someone close
Is the subject of attention
From valiant masked men
And women
On the floors of battle
At ground zero.

They’ll throw centuries of medical missiles
At the enemy,
An elusive viral villain
Of ill-repute;
All to no avail.

They’ll plead to the mayor,
To the governor,
To the president,
For more gloves and ventilators,
For every means necessary
To protect and prolong life.

Many will die on the call of duty.

And the sirens will wail again...

Long after
The music stopped.

~ P

would you smell a rose today
if consumed by stress and strive?
would you rather run away?
would you smell a rose today?
would you wait another day
for stress and strive to end your life?
would you smell a rose today
if consumed by stress and strife?

ayo!

~P

to sing the song of life
from hymn to lyte
and every dark verse
buried from sight
in the silence of your fears

to build a bridge
from broke to whole
over those troubled troughs
of doubt and insecurity

to make your choice
and soar

to find your voice
and roar

to be a victim
no more

to be victorious

~ P

you will not say NO to me
said the second of two
baby girls,
now grown in stature
and grit;
brows knit;
eyes bristling with
metoo defiance;

her mother shed
a fountain of tears
she was told,
that fateful day in calcutta;
back in ‘84

she wanted a boy...

~ P