MAGGIE AND FLOYD

Maggie and her husband, Floyd, lived in our home in an apartment that originally was the attic. The two of them came into my life when I was in the third grade. But for their coming, especially that of Maggie, I probably would not be here right now able to post this message.

You see, my biological parents--both exceptional human beings--were nonetheless utterly miserably married for 35 years. My mother had wanted a divorce early on, but my father threatened her legally, averring that he would make sure she would never see her three children again if she sought a divorce. Mom acquiesced, spending the rest of her life deeply depressed, watching TV by herself in the living room from 7 pm to 1 am, then reading detective stories until 3 am. My father became rich because he became a workaholic, and because he was extremely smart. They had separate bedrooms.

Maggie became my surrogate mother. She fed me breakfast: poached eggs and grits. She washed my clothes. She gave me a spanking when I needed to be spanked. And she gave me a HUGE hug when I needed love. Maggie, you should know, was black and illiterate, neither of which mattered to me because she loved me and showed it until the day she died when I was in my mid-twenties. Floyd and I debated who was better: Mays or Mantle. Maggie and Floyd are why I abhor racism.

God Bless Maggie and Floyd forever.

Maggie was my mother, my emotional mother.
She came into my life when I was in third grade.
She and her husband, Floyd, lived in the apartment
on the third floor of our house. My biological
mother was too depressed to be my emotional mother.
She spent every afternoon taking a nap from 1 to
4:30 and watched TV by herself in the living room
from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m., then went upstairs to her own
bedroom and read detective paperbacks until about
3 a.m. So Maggie always fixed breakfast--two poached
eggs, grits, and two toasted and buttered slices of
wholewheat bread--for me every morning as I grew up.
Maggie also washed my ***** clothes, spanked me
when I need a spanking, and hugged me when I
needed a huge. I have never forgotten the time when
Maggie (I have no memory of my biological mother
ever being in my bedroom when I was in it) brought
me lunch when I was sick in bed with a cold, along with
an ice-cold bottle of Squirt. I remember loving the taste
of Squirt, which, for some unknown reason, I had never
tasted it before, nor was I ever going to taste it again.
Many, many times I would go up to the apartment around
dinner time when Floyd had gotten home from working
at the Santa Fe shops, knock on their door, and invariably
Maggie would say "Come in," even as she was cooking
dinner for Floyd and herself, because she knew it was
Tod. I sat with Floyd at their small kitchen table and
talked to him about, among other things, who we each
thought was the better center fielder, Willie Mays or
Mickey Mantle. I felt at home with Maggie and Floyd.
The two took my two sisters and me on occasion to
the drive-in to see a movie in their old car. What fun!
Maggie, a Black who had grown up in racist southern
Texas, was illiterate, but I was not conscious of it when
I was so young, and when I got older and knew Maggie
couldn't read or write, it didn't matter to me at all.
Maggie could love! That was the important thing.
I always felt loved when I was with Maggie. And Floyd,
even though he thought Mays was better than Mantle,
remained my friend for along time after Maggie had
passed away.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

With fascist fist, white CHAUVINist (whose christian name is Drek)
hailed pearly Knights in Kevlar tights who spurn the ebon fleck,
and joined the Kops enforcing stops which keep black pawns in check.

Floyd feared the Kops (most drenched in drops that racial rules distill),
so long confined, entrapped, entwined in whitewashed webs until
he drew the straw that lured the law: a twenty dollar bill

for cigs he bought (no ’twasn’t ***) while at the corner store
and when he left, they called it theft at which he turned and swore,
strode to his car (which wasn’t far), to meet the nevermore.

The Kops arrived and chaos thrived as justice was deployed:
patellas pressed, ’gainst neck and chest (which Chauvin so enjoyed) -
as Floyd lay cuffed, like candles snuffed his light of life waxed void.

A knee to neck? Yeah, what the heck, when forced to come to grips
with someone prone that fate has flown within a wind, who quips
“Please, I can’t breathe”… those words still seethe that labored past his lips.

With windpipe crushed, through time unrushed (eight minutes last so long),
Floyd’s face seemed bent with eyes intent, and Chauvin’s smile was strong;
with bated breath of pending death, a chill chased through the throng.

Well Drek knelt proud before the crowd (no need of secrecy)
for, being copped, Floyd’s breathing stopped, while knuckled neath the knee.
Yes, poor old Floyd had been destroyed – “Mamaaa...” his final plea.

Epitaph

A single soul... but on the whole, Floyd’s death’s a metaphor
of crush and shove, by those above, until we breathe no more,
with twisted faces, lacking graces, pressed upon the floor.

As with attacks against the blacks and others, be they poor
we’re never told the manifold of deaths within this war  -
we’ll bumble blind until we find just what we’re mourning for.

The ruling class perverts, alas, the press, like wanton *****,
to dupe, misguide and wholly hide that septic social sore
engulfing us in putrid pus that’s oozing from its core.

Without a clue as what to do, we’re thralled as heretofore,
but nonetheless with due finesse, there’s plenty to restore:
the common good and brotherhood, world peace for evermore.

We must embrace the human race, its oneness not ignore -
so for our part let’s make a start with each hand on an oar,
as mainsails swing to finally bring the freedom ship to shore.

YES ...
I Am The Dark Knight of A DIFFERENT Type ... !!!
      
Who Still Fights Crime ...
NO Nines' ..... Just RHYMES ... !!!      
      
Rhymes Designed Like .... Spidey' Webs ...      
To Mess With Heads Who Bring DISTRESS ...      
When They Should Be At HOME Sleeping In Beds ... !!!    
      
NO Friend of Feds Whose Work Defends ...      
THOSE Gangster Sects Who Deal In DEATH ... !!!      
      
A HERO Whose Flows Dish Out Dem' Blows ....      
That Have BAD MAN ... UP ON Dem' Toes ... !!!!!    
      
I Work At Night But When I RISE ...    
It's Time For Guys To Recognise ...        
Their Crime Designs Become BENIGN ...      
When THIS Dark Knight Shines Like STARLIGHT ... !!!      
      
Because My Vibe Is Down With RIGHT ... !!!      
And Down With WRONG When Wrong Belongs ...      

Inside The STRONG ...
Who DON'T PROLONG The Use of Wrong ... !!!    
      
Hammerin' Jaws But I AIN'T Thor .... !!!      
My Style of War Is Lyrically PURE ... !!!!      
PURE Like My Cause Ta' Capture SAW ... !!!!!    
      
Did You Catch That Rhyme Cos' That Was RAW ... !?!      
I Now IMPLORE Crime Lords To .......  " Pause " .........    
      
Before I Draw Their Cards of War ...    
And **** Fa' Headz Like Beavis's Friend ... !!!      
      
See When Nights Are DARK ...  

I Hear The HARK .... !!!!!      
of Those Inclined To Fight With STARK ... !      
      
TONY ... Of Course ... !!!!!!      
So I'm Down With Thor When AVENGING Fa' SURE ... !!!
  
But JUSTICE Is The League I'm IN ...  
Green Lantern Dim NOT When Tings' Grim ...  
NO Calling For The Thing ...
When WE BE ... CLOBBERIN' ... !!!!!!!      
      
Cos' We STAND TOGETHER Bredrin' FOREVER .... !!!      
But Me I'm CLEVER So DON'T Get Tied Most Ties I SEVER ...    
Cos' A Lot of Crime Fighters Be Down For ... WHATEVER ... ?!?      
      
So Me I Box CLEVER ...        
As If My Name Was Floyd Mayweather ... !!!!!      
      
Pugilistic Endeavours That Create Pressure ... !!!!!      
And Inflict PAIN ... That DEFEATS The INSANE ... !!!!!!      
      
Bane AIN'T Got Game ... !!!    
To Mess With The STRAIN ...
That My Brain RETAINS ... !!!      

PERSONAL PAIN ....
Loss That Remains  ........ !!!!!!  
  
Kind of Like ... CAIN ...
NOT ABEL To Refrain ..... !!!!      
From Doing What's WRONG ...
Cos' It Feels So STRONG ... !!!!!      
      
The Will To FIGHT The Will To DIE ... !!!      
For What I Believe In My Heart To Be RIGHT ...  !!!    
      
Meantime On The Side ...
I Got Girls Who Look FLY ...      
Trying To Get Time ...
To Roll With The DARK KNIGHT ... !!!      
      
But Me Like I Say ...
Am A DIFFERENT TYPE ... !!!      
Who FOOPS' Like Sup's ...
When Dem' Bodies Dem' TIGHT ... !!!!!!!!!    
      
YES ... Lois Lane KNOWS ... !!!  
    
Cos' Once I Hit Metropolis    
She Knew Sup's Had To ... GO ... !!!!!!!!    
      
A KRYPTONITE Type Flow ... !!!    
That Proves My Prose ...
Makes The Ladies Wanna Roll ....    
      
But Like I Said BEFORE ... !!!!!!!    
I'm A DIFFERENT Type of Knight ... !!!!!!    
      
Whose ESSENCE Is To FIGHT ... !!!      
FIGHT The Crimes of CRIMINAL Minds ...      
      
Whose LUST For STRIFE Leaves Them Resigned ...  
To MISS THE SIGNS And SEE The LIGHT ... !!!!!      
      
The LIGHT That SHINES On Knights Like ... I ...
Who STAND For MORE Than Being LORDS OF WAR ...      
      
We STAND For A CAUSE That Says To Y'all ...      
WE CAN Do MORE Than Be FORLORN ...      
Because of CRIMES That Take INNOCENT Lives ... !!!!!!    
      
YES I'm THAT Guy Who Has NO TIME .......      
For NONSENSE FIGHTS Or Joining Tribes ....      
Because My Life Has A ... SINGULAR Vibe ...      
      
Because .... I Am ....      
      
"The Dark Knight ....      
of A Different Type !" ....

The body that I am incarnated in was born in the middle of the very rainy summer of 1939.
My vehicle for life.
All seeing-all smelling --all tasting--all touching--all speaking--all hearing --all sensing --perambulating -singing-dancing-cooking--drinking --painting--******* etc etc vehicle.
Born a few months before the Second World War,with all its nonsensical religiously patriotic and democratically oligarchic and liberally fascistic evil nonsense, started.
Makes me a Rider of the Storm eh?.
Eat yer heart out Jim Morrison!.
Slid out of my mothers womb in the upper room of a brand new house.
Situated on a new street somewhere on a new development on the edge of a 3000 years old walled city in 'gods' own country'--that's what they called it.
Yorkshire!.
First smell I remember,clearly,was rain soaked Lilac and Earth mixed together.
Their scent coming hrough the open bedroom window.
AAAAH rain soaked Lilac.
Second smell was Tobacco from downstairs where my father was anxiously chain smoking.
Then came my first taste.
He,my father,dipped the tip of his little finger into his glass of celebratory Whiskey and poked it into my mouth as I lay there,wrapped in swaddling clothes.
Irresponsibility!!.
Second taste was her warm rich creamy breast milk.
And so my days and nights started.
They told me the name that I was to answer to--as if it was the whole of me.
They told me my beliefs and attitudes and desires and limitations and skills etc etc.
They told me that what I have come to know was my conditioned identity was the real me---but it isn't!..
The lied to me --in innocent ignorance.
My sister taught me to read and write by the time I was 3 years old.
I grew up knowing,deep down, that I was something else.
Not the 'Something Else' that Ornette Coleman played,on his magnificent disc,either.
War raged elsewhere throughout my childhood--mainly across the seas far away.
I watched flight after flight of four engine bombers roar overhead every day ,on their way to drop bombs on children I would never meet.
There was a busy air base 2 miles away from the house I was born in.
Once an injured bomber,coming back from a raid,crashed in flames on two houses at the top of the street I lived in.
I found war to be a hellish and frightening experience.
And along the way I discovered that I couldnt explain to 'myself' who I was, exactly,either.
That my parenters gift of identity was misleading.
I asked 'myself' who or rather what was I?.
By the time I was 3 years I was a ******* from 'Osteomylitis'--or so they told me.
I couldn't walk with massive  left hip joint pain I suffered.
I spent the years from 3 to 6 in a traction bed in a couple of hospitals.
Gobbling down Cod liver oil and Malt for the vitamins--and it worked!!!.
At 6 I learned to walk--YES!!!.
All that pain was left behind.
Thank you Gautama.
My life was suffering but as you supposedly said.
Suffering can be overcome.
And I overcame it.
And I ran and jumped across streams and climbed trees and walked for miles and miles and danced the dance of life.
I foraged for blackberries and wild mushrooms and crabapples and horseradish roots and rosehips and other fruits of nature.
I fell in love with the song of the Yellowbeak--Blackbird to you.
Became enraptured by the smell of wild Roses in the hedgerows.
And I sang and sang and sang and danced and danced and danced.
And all the while I just knew that I wasn't the body that I was incarnated in.
Even though my parenters kept on insisting that I was that body.
And I knew that I wasn't who they had told me I was either.
I knew that I wasn't the conditioned identity of the body that they insisted I was..
At 9 years I passed an exam and won a free scholarship place at a fee paying 'public' school.
My education started in earnest.
Lain and French andAlgebra and Geometry and  expectations of University.
I fell in love for my very first time at around 12 years old.
Raymond was his name.
He taught me how bisexual I was.
I swallowed litres of his body fluids.
Oh how I loved him.
Then after 2 ecstatic years he rejected me because I was a different class to him.
AAAAARGH!.
Then around 14 years the monthly seizures started.
A regular dark descent into unconsciousness.
I experienced the small death of Julius Ceasar and Leonardo Da Vinci.
Back to waking consciousness after an hours out of the body trip into the Astral realms.
Waking with total total amnesia.
With no mind or conditioned identity but both came back within one hour of waking and took over again.
Along with a helluva headache.
But I woke as me--who or whatever that was.
I wasn't who they said I was.
I was me!.
Whatever that was.
Where did I come from?
My purpose in life became to find out what I was and what the source of my existence was.
Teenage life as a rock n roller started beckoned and I embraced party life.
I won cups of silver for dancing very energetically to Bill Haley and Chuck Berry.
I discovered the other half of my bisexuality.
I found girls.
Oh girls how I love you.
and love you and love you.
I started to play trombone at 18 years.
Then trumpet and drums then into my life walked MISS SAXOPHONE and I melted!!!!.
Alto alto wobbly lines of sound poured out from the bell of my alto sax.
I was 23 and toying with buddhism and social alcoholism and playing saxophone jazz(probably badly).
26 and I got married for the first time.
I was playing Free Jazz rather amateurishly by now.
In 1967 I moved to London--became a longhaired hippy--started my own band called BrainBloodVolume--took many doses(literally 1000s) of pure LSD and Mescaline and Psyllocybin and DMT--embraced diet reform--became ordained as a buddhist monk in 1966--played with Jimi Hendrix and John Lennon and the pink Floyd--went to live in the Balearic Islands--Mallorca,Ibiza,Formentera--started to do oil paintings--had a Master Class in Concert Flute playing from Roland Kirk in the dressing room at Ronnie Scotts Jazz Club in London.Became addicted to Macrobiotic Food and Spring Water and puffing Waccy Baccy(always through a Water Pipe..



Its been seventy seven years in this incarnation that I have been wandering the face of this big ball in space seeking the answer to the eternal questions of life.

What am I and where do I come from and what is my purpose?.

And here  is the answer--!!.

I am an individual isness formed solely from a small but equal independent and autonomous portion of the isness of the universe.

Each individual isness is an eternal, small but equal, independent, autonomous,nameless, formless,genderless,classless,casteless,non physical and unconditionally  loving portion of the isness of the universe.

The isness of the universe is the whole of the nature of reality and is the sole source of all existence and is eternal,nameless,formless, genderless,beingless and autonomous and unconditionally loving and is not a 'god' or a 'goddess' or any kind of being.

I live in the joyousness of shared unconditionally loving union with the isness of the universe.

Total shock, I say, what occurred
At our local aquarium in recent years.
Some call it the type of scandal
That violently shakes two hemispheres.

Henry and Roxy had been an item.
Much older than she, Henry was bound
To guard and protect his little lady.
A more loyal penguin was hard to be found.

How they loved to sing together!
He would belt out and she would intone.
The happy couple frolicked and preened--
Happy not to be alone.

Molting season came and Roxy
Experienced her catastrophic molt.
Henry stood by and guarded his sweetheart.
Of attentiveness he lacked not a jolt.

Roxy's feathers soon returned
And there she was in all her glory.
Then poor Henry started his molt.
That's when Floyd entered the story.

While Henry hid from penguin view,
Floyd caught Roxy's eyes.
His feathers were back in abundance.
What happened next? You can surmise.

When Henry's feathers finally returned,
Floyd had become Roxy's new mate.
They did what penguin couples do
While Henry sadly accepted his fate.

The new family soon multiplied,
And Henry eventually found a new friend.
What started out as an outrageous scandal
Wasn't so horrible in the end.

Scandals come and scandals go.
Some of them are hard to avoid.
Aren't you glad that you don't molt
Like our friends Henry and Roxy and Floyd?

- by Bob B

I'm sorry, but
There's no better combination than
Pink Floyd and the Cannabee

Not even you and me.


-- Eleanor

a shouting mouth
SHOUTING MOUTH

I can not hear what you are saying
I slip into lyrics
of Pink Floyd

PINK FLOYD

my hands feel like two balloons

I get this feeling once again

I cannot understand
this is not who I am

but I
have become

comfortably




numb

Nice to meet you
I think I've seen
You roaming the halls
Chewing your thumb
And muttering some Pink Floyd song

[Verse 1: Drake]
Versace, Versace, Medusa head on me like I'm 'Luminati
This is a gated community, please get the ******* the property
Rap must be changing cause I'm at the top and ain't no one on top of me
****** be wanting a verse for a verse, but man that's not a swap to me
Drowning in compliments, pool in the backyard that look like Metropolis
I think I'm sellin' a million first week, man I guess I'm a optimist
Born in Toronto but sometimes I feel like Atlanta adopted us
What the **** is you talkin' 'bout? Saw this **** comin' like I had binoculars
Boy, Versace, Versace, we stay at the mansion when we in Miami
The pillows' Versace, the sheets are Versace, I just won a Grammy
I've been so quiet, I got the world like "What the **** is he planning?"
Just make sure that you got a back up plan cause that **** might come in handy
Started a label, the album is comin' September, just wait on it
This year I'm eating your food and my table got so many plates on it
Hundred inch TV at my house, I sit back like "**** I look great on it"
I do not **** with your new ****, my *****, don't ask for my take on it
Speakin' in lingo, man this for my ***** that trap out the bando
This for my ****** that call up Fernando to move a piano
**** all your feelin's cause business is business, its strictly financial
I'm always the first one to get it, man that's how you lead by example
Versace, Versace, Versace, Versace, Versace, Versace
Word to New York cause the Dyckman and Heights girls are callin' me "Papi"
I'm all on the low, take a famous girl out where there's no paparazzi
I'm tryna give Halle Berry a baby and no one can stop me

[Verse 2: Meek Mill]
Versace, Versace
Its killers, real ****** that's all in my posse (shooters!)
I'm getting so rich that they making up rumors that I'm illuminati (rich!)
Just me and my ****** we killin' these *******, go body for body (murders!)
These suckers be hating, they praying to God that I don't cop a Bugatti
Hold up, drop the top on the rari
Pull in the club and I'm stopping the party
Hold up, got ******* on *******
They poppin' on molly's I'm prolly at Follies with PeeWee and Tip
Of course i went with Lou
I did everything that I said I would do
I really won't tell you that I'm better than you
But we're not on the same level as you
Cause the G55 got a hell of a view
Regular ****** make regular moves
With ya regular ***** and ya regular crew
And you ***** still smokin on regular too? Like word?!
What a shame, my *****
Louboutin blood like Game, my *****
Get left tryna aim, my *****
Like Saddam Hussein, my *****
I'm whippin' this brand new machine
100 bands in my jeans
Call yo ***** Barry Sanders
She done ran through the team
I got hoes out the D
They playing on the team
Do anything for me
I mix that xan with the lean
Hold up, let me get it back
Versace, Versace
I'm gettin' this money, I'm stackin' my broccoli (racks!)
I'm running my city
You might gotta pay me if you land on my property (tax!)
I bought the boardwalk and I parked on the ave
****, my life's like monopoly
You caught a new case and you got outta jail
Boy, you look like a cop to me
(Get out of jail free card?)

[Verse 3: Tyga]
Aughh! Versace, Versace, I brought that **** back, all these ****** they copy
Medusa head on me I'm at the hotel, Versace Palazzo
I rented the yacht for a week, but I bought the convertible Lambo
Six mill for the mansion
I see haters coming I need some more ammo
These ****** gay that's Elmo
So much green I turned camo
Some hoover ****** on flannels
Light light you up no candle
Grip on that handle Yosemite Sam ya, that ***** bang like a banjo
Told my arms dealer no need for a box, I don't read the instructions, I throw out the manual (WOO!)
Versace, Versace, my brother king Trell he in a Ferrari
I don't look the same, my camera the same, I made too much money (WOO!)
Paul Pierce is my neighbor, I told him he should of went to the Clippers
I got some crazy ideas for Versace, get them and tell'em my number
Versace, auggh Picasso, Basquiat I'm cocky
23, 15 mill I'm just getting started
Pop water my water
I walk around on my wallet
I don't **** with Saddam but, that's gold all in my toilet
Statues of Horus, and the annubis is polished
I don't got to, rap about, coke for you to enjoy it
I'm bout' to join the money team, just holla' to Floyd about it
Versace, Versace, I'm taking my money to the Cayman islands (WOO!) Versace Auggh!!

[Outro: Quavo]
Versace, Versace, Versace, Versace
Versace, Versace, Versace, Versace
Versace, Versace Versace, Versace Versace
Versace, Versace Versace, Versace Versace

I once had a Simple Plan
To bribe a lady for a Kiss
With a Nickleback in my hand
And an Eagle tattoo on my wrist.

I brought her to the Linkin Park
And gave her meatloaf and Bread
But it had Red Hot Chilli Peppers
So she ate the Pearl Jam instead.

My tongue was like a Rolling Stone
As I tell her my Nirvana of love
I made promises with my Pink Floyd finger
As she watched a Led Zepellin flew above.

Her Metallica heart didn’t waste time
And she rejected me within Thirty Seconds to Mars
I treated her like a Queen
But all I got were Iron Maiden scars.

It stung me like the Bee Gees
Or a Scorpion tail’s as fine
The Beatles are all crawling down my skin
When she broke this Heart of mine

Guns N Roses were the choices
That were left for me to Root
But a Cheap Trick with the latter
Ended my romantic Journey afoot.