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Rap was my first love
Rap will always hold my fire

Hip Hop will always have my heart
Hip Hop will always be the one I come home too

We started together
Even when she is on some *******
Mumbling around town with technicolor hair
Crunch berry grills
looking like a cartoon villain
I get it

Rock was cool
sometimes we all need to scream
need to be sad and different
sometimes we don’t need words
just a guitar
just a bass
just a drum

It’s a funny thing to say:

The Blues made me laugh
laugh hard too
That’s why she said she left me
she said she was done.

I got so lost in Jazz
When I thought I left I realized
I’m still here

When I thought I had seen all that there is to see
When I thought I rounded the final corner
It turned out to be a street named Lombard  
The light shone on me in notes of blue
With the blessing of The Sun and Ra

I realized
off beat is the beat

Jazz
She’s like Hip Hop
I may go away
but I’ll never leave.


© Christopher F. Brown 2018
There once was this universe that only existed in the memory of it's Creator
Named after the Creator's cousin
Early on by the inhabitants of the universe

To its Creator
It only existed 5 or 10 minutes

To its its inhabitants
Time and space
Lasted long enough for them to directly communicate with that which created them

All manor of experience
All types of existence
Was present there

Science discovered Magic as Magic welcomed Science home

When this universe came to an end
Its Creator created a thing that universe had never seen
The creator's creation disturbed the peace and shattered the balance
The Creator's creation was a selfish and ego filled thing.

The creator created a being whose purpose was
be everything
the creator had never seen
Be everything
the creator never had

A being whose only purpose was
do nothing else and only this:

Love the creator like it had never been loved

Doing this warped and then shattered the universe.



© Christopher F. Brown 2017
Elioinai Nov 2017
My warm friend
You bring me quiet joy
I missed you, it’s nice to know you missed me too
What if
Brothas and Sistas in Oakland and Richmond
Got together

They poison Richmond's air
Just like
They poison Oakland's water

Every Body from Oakland has a cousin in Texas
Or Louisiana
Or Haiti
Or Atlanta

Just like

Every Body from Richmond has a cousin in Mississippi
Or Alabama
Or Jamaica
Or Tennessee

Why dont
Brothas and Sistas in Oakland and Richmond
Get together

What would that look like politically
What would that look like Economically
What would that look like spiritually

For as long as the decades i can remember
Its been a problem

For as many years have passed now
I've been saying to as many as will listen that i pass

Its been a set up.


© Christopher F. Brown 2017
When I first met you
you could barely stand
yourself

your words
not mine

It wouldn’t have been fair
asking you to stand with me

Unfair to me
not you


I see you question yourself now


“Can they see?”
“Do they know?”

You know you only hide
masks
shells
I laugh because you’ve even tried fur

Some see
Some know

And you pray
To see them before they see you

And you pray
To know them before they know you

I’ll say a French sigh instead of writing it
Anyway

You play a game called self
Id like to ask you some questions
but you already knew that didn’t you


© Christopher F. Brown 2017
If I ever become famous
I want to tell you

The Oakland that raised me
has changed

Its spirit is still the same
but
its body
its composition
-or at least the parts I knew-
are irrevocably different
from what I knew

The house that my grandmother lived in

for over 30 years

was fashioned to four bedroom
800k
two-story cottage
never mind the generations worth we had their already

Something similar happened to the homes my aunts lived in
Something similar happened to the homes my friend’s aunts lived in

The once cozy and comfy street corners in the
Black Neighborhood
began to be filled with **** attics asking for food and money
pulling fat bloated dogs behind them.

The once cozy comfy street corners in the
Black Neighborhood
that use to be outposts for Muslims selling newspapers and bean pies
turned to base settlements for those in need that had the cleverest sign

They tell me now that I’m from

“Old Oakland”

The smells from the Granny Goose and Mother’s cookie’s factories
still fills Stonehearst’s playground when I dream that of a time gone by


Old Oaklanders Remember

When you could hop on the bus and get a hotlink from Flints
We Remember taking the BART to the colosseum station and seeing
Our Mural
on hallowed ground.
Panthers, Politicians, and everyday People
Reflecting Us
By Us

That’s gone now

Across the street is the
New Mural
on capitalist ground
Patriotic Propaganda
Reflecting someone miles away
By someone that’s just getting paid

There is even a shuttle that takes you directly to the airport now
No more interacting with the locals

Old Oaklanders Remember

When Raiders moved to LA
We welcomed them back
Now they are moving to LV
Its an Oakland thing
you wouldn’t understand


The New Oakland wants to Fight The Old Oakland
Its want to take Laney away
(a small part it says)
and build
The New A’s Stadium

The Small Part it wants isn’t Big enough
to do the new thing they want to do
Us Old Oaklanders know how this goes
the small little part
for the new little thing
gets bigger and bigger until all

The Old is Gone


If I ever become famous
I want to tell you

The place that manufactured the mold of my making is under new management
Even the surrounding areas have transformed


Downtown Berkley once had a cornucopia of bookstores with blocks of one another
Crystal and smoke shops
mom and pop knickknack shops that sold real Ethiopian coffee
40 year old pen shops
30 year old record shops

All gone

They have restaurants now

The strip of Telegraph or University where you could once see
Rockers with 8 inch spiky green Mohawks
Getting high with
Burnt out hippies
and Keeping the peace and spreading the love with
North Oakland Generals

has all been replaced

Conservative A type international students studying
STEM or accounting and finance that all
“hate it here”
But want to make a lot of money
and will when they are done
and will make more when they build their empire back home

That is the Downtown Berkeley you see.

If I ever become famous
and someone goes looking about the places where my feet traveled
and the body of my youth laid
I want to tell you

You wont find it

“Old Oakland”

Only exists in the hearts of the Old Oaklanders
Living in parts far and wide

They have even stopped calling North Oakland
North Oakland

Now its

Temescal,
Some far reach of Emeryville
or even a direction of Berkeley

but its not
Its Oakland

And it will always be Oakland




© Christopher F. Brown 2017
“You wanna go to the crystal shop with me?
  Maybe some coffee?”

First things we said

Buying matching bullhorns
for later


I’ll show you how to wrap sage
leaves
You can show me how to build
a fire

Lucky
Blessed
Charmed
Happy

We didn’t have to wait
long


We’ll make a pact


We’ll promise to grow old
Side by side
We know we’re already
Dead

This was the first time
We understood


Oui



© Christopher F. Brown 2017
I’ve met my soulmate
A few times now

- Maybe more-

Only in this life time though


I met him once in his past life
He spoke Portuguese
I only thought in Kiswahili  

Once I met him when I realized
Past and future lives are really just extensions of the one you live
presently

Once

-a few really-
Which cause me more sorrow than anything
Not at all the confusion past and negative everyone elses said I should have

He was a she

Because of my soulmate
I learned that,

“Love at first sight”

Is just a literary device

Because of my soulmate
I learned that,

“Happily Every After”

Only exist in the land of make believe.


© Christopher F. Brown 2017
That feeling you get

when you wake up to rain in the middle of June.


You can get rid of the people that make feel this way but

You cant stop the rain
You could move but be serious


There will always come a day when

When you wake up to rain in the middle of June


Smile hard
be the sun


© Christopher F. Brown 2017
I get it now
They think I'm you

Black
Is only the color of your skin

Black
Is not the culture you love
The people you associate with
The people you share a bed with
The people you represent

Black
Is only your name
Is only where you come from
Is what you claim around family

Black is you
Long as you are the only one
Long as-if there could be such a thing-the best one
Long as you are in charge of the rest

I am Black because Americans don't understand
An African born outside of Africa is still an African

I am Black
I am African
I love the reflection I see because it sees me

Truth be told:
I still love you
Even if you hate everything that stares back at you


© Christopher F. Brown 2017
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