i hail from heat, heat
in the heart and in the home, in the head and in the heel of the
sword that swings for both justice and action.
i inherit this love, this life and these virtues like heirlooms.
i inherit this boldness from you
i inherit the air of a highborn lady, while not without the humility of a low born daughter from you
i inherit gentle hands of craft into fists of rage and fire that melt away sorrows from you
i rise and fall, for from you
i breathe.
unspoken it was passed down, and yet it stirs and whispers to me in my bones of
ancient thought and force,
passed down from kin to kin, from one blood to another of
temperance and will
that flow like tradition—
a book written on age-old sandstone pressed eons below the earth,
text mapped in bloodlines over a body, not alone. never fading.
you bid me to rise from dust and ashes into the woman of your forging,
and so with a kiss between my brow for
farewell and fortune
i may live with your light tucked into my heart,
because my inheritance lives within me.

My mother told me when she was living
that i had "black blood", was
related to Heidi Selassie, the emperor of Ethiopia at that time,
and heir to his throne.
As I've said a musical therapist here said that
because I had A positive blood I had all bloodlines.
My mother also said the Sturies were
Scottish, Lithuanian, regular German,
and I got a phone call- maybe I've already mentioned this- back in the eighties
when I was rooming with a black family that I was
part South American.
My mother also told me that I was
heit to the throne of Lithuania at that time
and that the Sturies are high German
which mean we're sorta preppy compared to everybody else
and that we're related to the likes of
Plato, Christ, ******, Von Steuben, and Metternick.
Interesting.
At least it didn't lead to me disintegrating.
I also read on the internet that the Sturies have a little Cherokee in them.
That's about all I know right now.
For more about my bloodlines
except that we're related to Hugh Hefner (it said on the internet)
that a friend of mine told me the Sturies are
distantly related to Daniel Boone.
So turn on your heatline
Neil Diamond
and reach out to me
when my father, bless his heart
comes back from
beyond the sea.

*Charles Sturies

We rushed on glorious wings
that fed bombs into Baghdad soil
with feverous lust for a hollow dream.
Now nine long years later,
seventeen bodies lie on earth where oil
engenders a lust that’s even greater.

Seventeen skeletons innocent;
Seventeen bloodlines’ descent.
Karzai’s blank solace and Kandahar’s dead
seventeen lay heavier on the heart than lead.

Three tours were far too many,
the fourth far more than he could take.
A sergeant who’d have given any-
thing for his wife and kids’ sake.
Seeing a good friend’s severe injury –
the last blow Sanity could handle.
Morality goes out – light from a candle
swaddled in smoke’s endless perjury.

Seventeen seconds of forethought
may perhaps have faltered his shot;
Seventeen centuries of ponder
and still the heart may have not grown fonder.
Seventeen lovers left alone,
or loves that’ll never come to pass,
seventeen graves of heavy bones
mark where a madman’s mind broke at last.

Seventeen skeletons innocent;
Seventeen bloodlines’ descent.
Karzai’s blank solace and Kandahar’s dead
seventeen lay heavier on the heart than lead.

I am the first born millennial grown in the digital garden from transplantation.

The data stream flows along with my bloodlines,

Divided, interspersed, like a lava lamp of my own identification.

A bloodline that once worked the fields, and now works the fields of existence,

A bloodline that made its pilgrimage to new land in order to satiate the body,

has now grown to satiate inquiries within the self.

I reflect upon those occasions where I have been told:

“why do you care about the state of affairs for them, you are not of them, you do not act like them

so

you can’t be one of them”

and I clench my tongue, forgive them father, they know not of what they speak”

“Perdonalos padre, no saben nada de que dicen”

The climate of academia is both inviting and yet marking, I feel connected to both intertwined

bloodlines, and markedly separate in a way neither will ever know

“mijo, él esta ******, no dice nada que él no entiende”

But I understand, my name, my appearance, my lineage, they all mark a separation of that cultural

heritage, a combination, a divider,

that lava lamp burns hot from the up down theatrics of where identity will lie

I am the new millennial

Expect us.

So young and trite is the day

Born from this new light

Creatures of the dark and mist curl and wither

Only to return by midlight

The rose afar rises and stretches

Bloodshed velvet bleeds its regal glow

Smooth tips and enticing fragrance

Dark greens, stiff and sharp as spines

Beads of water glisten and shimmer

A blood’s true jewel

Thy shadows came in thy’s slithery way

Enveloping Devil’s Beauty

Charcoal webs and silver-black imprints

Spiral and intertwine, death and blood a dangerous omen

Thy Beauty’s velvet lips decay

A cancer slow moving and fast changing

Taking over thy body in one gulp

Last, final tips of red appear before swallow

Accenting and tracing its last magnificent life

Midlight turns to midnight

Bloodlines disappear

As the wind wails through the dead

A song, chilling, unnerving to us all

Blackened bird upon my brow;
Corvus Christi on my crown:

Could there be, oh could there be
Balm, sweet Balm in Galilee
Wild Roses grown in Gilead
White Daffodils on Sharon's sea . . .

The shores, the shores of Sharon's sea:
wingtips lapping cedar beams
leave no trail of murrey'd deeds;
tapping shoulders with your blades
rustling in the hollow reeds,
among the Seals of Solomon
Two Lovers, lost in Lebanon,
rose, to where the Stars of David bloom --

She in gules and He in vert . . .

Sable Bird upon our brows;
Corvus Christi on our crowns.

Pretty,
your blood is pretty
and my oh my!
your veins look perfect tonight.
throbbing blue is making my head spin,
your pulse dizzys me.
let me taste,
just a little
and if i lose control...
well you must taste so sweet

Bloodlines.

Blood runs deep but some times family can reach to far I still carry inadequacy like simba being crushed by Scar,
It hurts to know that although you mean well you keep invading my space and judging my Life making me feel out of space around those that helped give me life.

It's like although we share DNA and features in the face you can't see passed that to my hearts black space,
It's like now I'm simply an eccentric freak to stare and laugh at,
You can't see the tears falling down each night you crafted and the spirit you've cracked

So thank you for all of that, the judgement, the pain and inner separation,
Thank you for self doubting my own destination,
But thank you most for stabbing me in the side,
I guess family isn't always right

I walked into that room and saw you’re body lying there,
I barely recognized you; lacking life, muscle and hair.
I looked into your open eyes like I never did before,
and spoke looking at your face instead of averting gaze to floor.
If they asked me to identify or claim, I can’t say that I could,
I never truly knew you or felt the connection that I should.
You were given the curse of cancer,
but gifted the knowledge and time,
but did you ever even think that the answer
could be to reach out your hand to mine?
I had so much I never said,
maybe you had the same.
I’ll remain running the sentences in my head,
but never question if I should feel blame.
For a child to not know a parent is easy as night and day,
as much as I should’ve known you, you should’ve known me the same way.
Now my sister and I are the only ones here,
the only ones with your name and blood,
and it shouldn’t even be a question or fear
if we were ever truly loved.

Myth says when one cupped hand whispers of a name
is when you feel the wind breathe out the same
from where you stand—brushing chimes—together as one.

I am writing this in a white broken lawn chair
watching the leaves die each way and still I think of you.
Cousin and I shared your secrets. I wondered, if that wind

wrestled you the same as my branches from wherever
you may float. Did they pick up and take off little by little—
showing bones beetling from dirt off your chest?

Did you death rattle over once more when hearing
of your daughters ache in the surrender of knowing
where she truly comes from, at all?

There are little wars inside my head. One particular scene
playing again after the ink has spread across like widescreen
wild fires and begin over your own spanish revival inside a boat.

Different men after men, different bags with different hair,
different waves and different birds. Different guns and
different embers. Different scars, even different ends.

And all of your many lost, different, children.

i like that my bloodlines
run like your bloodlines
like the salty sea spray
you exhale when you
dream at night

The color of passion, the color of pain



The color of delusion, the color of flames



I slip my swollen soles into your hallow hysteria



Cracked, fragile feet from the frost bite



  of a West Virginia snow



Size six, ruby red stilettos



and I push



and I pull



and I scream



and I sigh



and I try and I try and I try



In my six, ruby red stilettos



Freezing poetic lullabies



Until I can find a place to call my own



  

Sparks of scarlet bloodlines



Dripping down my spine



Wrestling through rivers



between the spaces in my mind


My heart is much too loud for a place like this



My lips are much too quiet for a place like this



I dance with him in



The color of courage

The color of fame

The color of charisma

The color of strength



The color of my lipstick when its fading through my lies



Much too broken



Much too bold



Bursting into a violet plum



until I am in pieces—



until I decide to throw myself back together again



In my size six, ruby red stilettos



and it wasn't my intention to force them to fit



and I push



and I pull



and I scream



and I sigh



and I sell dignity of my poverty



to get them to come off of me



but once I started dancing



I fell in love with the sound



of my heels clicking



the surface of the floor



and I made myself a home



in my size six, ruby red stilettos.

You are the combination of two bloodlines. Within each other is another combination of two, made from a combination of two, and continuing through... by combinations of two.

Deep through these ancestral roots come attributes that I have acquitted from you; my mother, who came from her mother, who came from her mother, who came from her mother... and so on.
When I was in my mother's belly, I felt the hands of the women of our time, cradling our every move, holding her and I as I slowly grew out of my cocoon. And as my wings began to spread; I realized I have inherited my array of colors, from these women that I have never met.
When my great-great-grandmother passed on from life, her blood continued from her daughter to my grandmother, to my mother, and to I. Here in my veins lie centuries of scars from the women who have created the foundation where I lie. In my bones; I carry a history book of secrets and wisdom from the women of our time

You are the combination of two bloodlines. Within each other is another combination of two, made from a combination of two, and continuing through... by combinations of two.

Not only was my existence possible because of the mothers of life, but contributing to my being as well, is the fathers that came from the lifetimes before I.
I may not be male like you, but still, I carry the braveness on my shoulders that you have passed down to me from you. My strength blossomed before I laid my eyes on this earth for the first time, and in that time came my pride in where my heart resides.
I  was taught that I was a princess, one whose kingdom was the strongest; and even when I fall, I am never down for the longest. The hands of the men of my bloodline reach down, to pull me up when I have tumbled to the ground.
This is the sound of my heartbeat, this is the sound of life.
I came from the men and women from lifetimes of bloodlines."

Ties that bind are not easily broken.
What did you inherit in your bloodline?
For the fruit is a product of the vine.
We are the consequences of words spoken.
Our Ancestors sin is not forgotten,
planting seeds that grew into bitter wine.
They may have passed but we still pay the fines.
Their silence left us nothing but tokens.

The curses may last four generations,
but the blessings endure for a thousand.
We want to leave a good inheritance.
Elders to fight we need your confessions.
To dig and allow the cycle to end,
in order to give the next ones a chance.

Lips like bloodlines,
Carmilla kisses her mirror
and calls herself dangerous

Naming myself for dead things,
for ruinous things;
fire,
the ash that drank Pompei,
the ivy that made your walls cave,

Was Lady Macbeth sweeping her hair in braids
to nest her crown?
Or Nefertiti painted gold to reclaim God?

I’m asking for the lavender girls
See, we do these things to be holy
to be myths in our skin

Tying feathers to our shoulders
and glitter to our tongues,
thinking
I can be gold if I want to
I can be thorn-tipped ugly

In pink fur, black lace, we kiss the toes
of Courtney Love and Venus in one breath

Cut back
to my blood-laced lips on the mirror
as though saying Narcissus is my idol
my skin placed above heaven
and I wish to love myself so much
I’d choke for it

There are two sides to all. Two sides
To the world, and where it may sit
On the wheel. Black or red?

A split of inheritance. Right sided
Dreams, left sided mornings. Mournings
For those fragments of imagination

Left gagged and bounded. Tamed by
Penny-pinching and waist-trimming
And all other concepts that work like

A chisel. Chip away at me, they happen
Like thorns and barbs until I don’t look
In mirrors. And I dare not breathe past sighs.

A split of inheritance. The joy of invention,
A brain for science. New discoveries smash
Like champagne bottles to bless understanding.

It splits. It splits in two. The descendants build
On the used brownfields. Grey matter on grey matter
As if building over condemned land.

The roses of love and star-travel are but one side.
A veneer, more accurately. For in their gift
We would pick apart their heads, our heads,

Forgetting the years of thicket and thorn that
Had grown underneath. In forgetting, they talk
Of surprise at our true nature, though the thorns came

Long before the flowers, and were ever-present throughout.

Each measure of wonder; of love and poem and comedy
Are cruelly tempered. They are tamed by lust.
Lust for power, for vengeance. In-group. Out-group.

Heads or tails? I lie instead on my side.
A fallow state, a false parade. Technicolor masts
To sail lazily on my false knowledge. I speak of compassion

And philosophy. I hope they validate me
In the same way certificates do, for those men in suits.
Their success apparent and substantial, its frame

Weighs heavy on me. Barbs and dead weight,
My breath perishes uselessly I feel. A dandelion head
Caught in a chain link fence or a jungle of concrete,
Full of promise, pregnant with fertility
In a sea of barren saltwater and cigarette ash.
There’s nothing left but to write. There are

Two sides, two sides to all. Two sides to my words,
The hope of a finished poem. The harrowing read-through
By the morning. A mourning for myself

And my inactivity. The breadth of life in other’s words,
Tales of movements, experience; novelties in my
Small-town mind. I dream of Peru.

Two sides to myself. Two sides as there is to all.
One side is a virtuoso. Tuxedo-clad and hair slicked back,
Detaching from its greased trap only through

My movements with the keys. A movement free
Of thought. A meditation of music, a collective
Unconscious of chords. It is a side.

The same side that tells of tales past. Man lived
Before money. If man dies, money is contracted to go too.
It is bound. It is rite. It is truth.

The other side, though. The other side
Begs and borrows. It casts anger at my dreams
And how they lighten my wallet so. It hacks

Away with my lungs. Cigarette tar laced in bronchioles,
The result of a dream unrealised. I fidget in this other side.
It makes me shift in my seat, forever impounding,

Forever confounding. Forever uncomfortable.

There are two sides, two sides to all.
One is the scope of man, the ideal self.
The other is the result. A bulb-lit scoreboard

Above our heads. Money signs and bloodlines
Are a measure of man. Our measure. Two teams;
One competing for gold, the other asking

Of what competition is at all. And so one side
Sees us as animals, our rules foolish and lame
Aside those of Nature (with a capital ‘N’)

And the other tells us it is all there is. At least
All that there is worth knowing. For what good
Is it, to dream of the stars? Or Peru, even?

If you do not have the successes to get there?

Two sides, there is forever two sides.
One is a love for myself and for all.
The other is brain-chatter. It tells me little

But it says a lot.

The last time I was home I was 18 yrs old
& here I am again & there’s already
dirt in my bed. I like the tall tree in the backyard
the most: it is the only one free of snakes. Snakes
crawl around the others like crowns of teeth.

When grandfather was alive
he  took me to that tree & picked me
an apple & told me about family, i.e., mothers tied
to mothers tied to mothers; now I am
the only daughter. Grandfather told me
about my birth: my mother cried until her face turned
transparent like the thinned out wine that my
father drinks at dinners, the wine my mother tries
to ignore: she’s terrified of her ancestors, all

drunk like barrels of young boys. I had three
brothers & they are all dead now: an ocean,
a car, a burst of lightning.

I don't think about them anymore.

Instead,
in bed,
at home again, I listen to my sheets as they rub
against my legs like a child's chalk to sidewalk.

These days most of my dreams
are about my grandfathers: one was arrested &
the other an alcoholic but they knew how to love
the way ghosts do, all hushed & subtle & colored quietly.

One day I will learn how to sing
the way the women at the local church do.
I know nothing about Christ, but I still
stand outside the open stained glass window
with my eyes closed & pretend that I can feel
the pews pressing against my body like a boy’s hands.

Drawn from the seed
whether that be hurt anger or greed
on life it feeds
punishing misdeeds
it's not a pestilence
but it strangely represents
not dead presidents
but precedents
and the presence of man
comprehends and demands
that we make a plan
to understand
this simple constant

he picked apart the movements
of girls' hips
like he forgot what his momma looked like
like he never knew how to believe a female tongue
he never thinks too hard
about the sentences she can make
only what she'd look like if he
forced himself inside of her

he ate his words like
a picky child who only ate cigarettes
and ******
he bathed in the brute fury
of how they never payed much attention to him
until they were screaming stop
and he was going anyways
he hated them for being beautiful
he hated beautiful things in general

but he liked the feeling of cornering his prey
in a dark stairwell
he liked playing the devil
and walking to meet sin with a backwards heart
a heedless skull
a set of fingernails that always chipped
as he picked away at them with his teeth

he liked to think he could have anything his way
if he made it so
he liked to know that if he made himself
the faceless shadow in a dark corridor
he could become the boogyman
he could wrap around bodies like silicon
and swallow them like tremors cracking the earth

every girl he'd ever hated for her body
would have nightmares about him
and he liked them better as dead bodies
because it's the only time they'll shut up and **** him
he boasts tire tracks running along main bloodlines
a broken brain like a land mine
a chance of luck that he could **** some time
following the scent of something feminine
the idea that his presence alone
could shake her down to her knees

he wants to take every thing
that has never been given to him
he takes joy in the distorted
the sick satisfaction
of tasting the caviar that no one ever served him
the princess, trapped, in a black dress
pinned down in the dust
behind the restaurant dumpster after dusk
what an interesting view from above
he thought as he perforated the flesh
and though he never cared for the victim's clothing choice
he liked her best in red

he was not a mommy's boy
and it showed
he took care to take in a way
that he knew left limbs hollow
in it's wake
slit wounds in a human
that were harsh
in places where white legs flashed beacons
a wraithlike shape that closes in
on women wreathed in dark streets
and poetry that hasn't been written yet

she had a sonnet to spout and a poison
of malignant parasites she couldn't shake out
that latched onto her veins
as she arranges them over her arms
and lower around her knees
and he never showed much promise
and he's angry that he has never been able to please
the world
so he waits for her
and he takes from her

and now he traipses out
with the blood
and leaves her to lie there kissing an ink spill
from her pen to the tar
have a billion conversations with the pavement
until the wounds dry up
she'll stumble into the arms of gravity
and leave her dead body behind
live with the infestation of his invasion
fused into her spine

making her squirm and shiver
years after she wormed herself out of your grip
she will always feel sick
of all the ways you almost got away with it
even when you've also died and gone
she knows
you've never been a mama's boy
and you'll never be a ladies' man
you'll only ever be the amens she made
after praying you would die
at point blank range

Liberties Undying Flame
I’m going to write in the shadow and stream of Abe Lincoln we can’t be our hero but we can strive to be like them. First and foremost honesty they say it is refreshing. Well I was kept from writing all day went thirty miles to go out to eat. Finally at eleven I was too tired to write well actually I didn’t have anything to write. So I took a fifteen minute nap then set in the chair until five forty five first finally coming up with this then writing it in my head now to put it down. It has to do as the title says with streams those that stream into your life from others. When trying to find a story that could be the jumping off place I got out the book pedaling to Hawaii. Sub title a human powered Odyssey. Stevie Smith a Paris bureaucrat decides there has to be more to life so he chucks everything and begins his quest to use only human power to circle the globe by pedaling no sails or motors just human exertion. Richard Branson writes this on the front of the book.”If you believe, as I do that we all have something extraordinary within us, this wonderful book will inspire you to begin your dream and follow it through”
In life’s constant free every flowing tide these mentors come in timeless rhythm they surmount all obstacles carry back with them to the sea the waste the debris you unwisely collected not knowing this collection the enemy has brought to seal your life against God given streams that are the very substance of life changing dreams. They were found in neighborhoods and streets the common paths but these were fixed by divine design he was adding mental and physical attributes that fit perfect into the mosaic he had envisioned when he thought of you. One neighbor scruffy mean hostile your first thoughts what a sad waste but then you saw the beautiful daughters and the upstanding sons. Then your question Willard why have you tried so hard to perpetrate this effective lie your lesson don’t look on the outward but be perceptive take the time in this harden shell you can find beautiful secrets to tell he was just a dark color in the whole it blends to form the richest hues for in you mercy will ensue the lost and forgotten who have long trodden a chilled and lonely path among stone and thorn will once again know the clear air and paths bathed in warm sunshine. There are rarest finds if you’re willing to walk the extra mile your own life you will enrich so many others so carefree have come to find waste and spoil
Then the farmer who held on to the past long had the tractor replaced the team of horses but remember the harmony living flesh man and horses when he spoke talked to them they willing obeyed leaned into the harness how there magnificence gave a thrill to your heart then the silver plow knifed the earth black soil rolled over the side of the plow how did common earth transform into a black wave even more compelling than the grassy sod that moments before ruled with a quiet flare. The leather creaked against the strain I could swear it was singing. In this moment retold jack and that team are again in fields wide made with straightest furrows the golden seed to be laid in this temporal grave tomorrow rich harvest the families table spread labors highest honor paid.
The mothers the fathers along these thoroughfares coursed humans greatest gift they with ordinary means rearmed a nation with bloodlines and lifelines to continue a way bought for from blood spilled on sea and land to keep us free. The truth if you could remove lies deadly snare from people’s minds the religion they practice is the contrivance of slavery to make the few rule the weaker with this blight abolished they could see we are the same as them we only desire good for family and the larger world.
This is the strong hold of any nation Brother G.T. Haywood a black pastor in Indianapolis went to his church locked the door for twenty one days he sought God for black and white people his city and nation the benefactors of his love and devotion at the end of this prayer and fast he emerged and penned this immortal song. I see a stream of crimson it flows from Calvary its waves is washing over me. The city fathers credited this man’s influence for saving the city when Detroit was in ashes he had long gone to his reward but his life and spirit lived on. Mr. President you could learn a lot from this man your aid using the foulest language isn’t funny you have a sacred trust live up to it.

These rhymes ... Reflect ...
APOCALYPTIC Times ... !!!

Times where minds ...
are ............... Dismissing .................................................. Signs ...... !!!!!

That times ahead .....
Will see ... BLOODSHED ...
and ... Loss of Life ... !!!!! ...

Times where ... Crimes ...
Refine ... Bloodlines ... !!!!!!

Like ... " Old Designs " ...
Primed to ... " ***-id-e " ...

Apocalyptic ... times ...
Reside inside ...
Deep Seas with ... " Tides " ...
Now On ... The rISE ...
Just like ... The Minds ...
of ... WICKED ... Types ... !!!!!!
whose Pride ... DENIES ...
to help the ... " Plight " ...
of those who ... STRIVE ...
Just to ... " Survive " ...
and Live a ... " Good Life " ...

The Type ... who like ...
to see us ... Fight ...
Like ... " Dogs in Bogs " ...
Fed On ... WAR Songs ...
and Words of ... HATE ... !?!

A Time and Place ...
where ... Technological Tools ...
are used to ... School ...
our youth to ... Abuse ...
Like ... VIOLENT Fools ... !!!!!

VIOLENCE ... Will Rule ... !!!

Like DEVILS ... Who ...
Infuse with ... Views ...
That ... Lead to ... FEUDS ... !!!

Which would ... You Choose ... ?!?

APOCALYPTIC ... News ... ?
or a place where ... " Love " ...

REIGNED ... Up Above ... !!!!!!

Just like ... SUNSHINE ...
in the ... " Summertime " ...

Well ....
Rhymes Like ... " These " ...
Paint ... Different ... scenes ...

Scenes ... OBSCENE ... !!!!!
and ....... Far From .................................................................­..... Clean ... !!!!

Where ....
Peoples' Dreams ...
are ... "FILLED WITH" ... SCREAMS ... !!!

Am I .... SCARING You ... ?!?

If so ... Not Cool ... !!!

Why would you choose ... ?
to take ... The View ...
That ... What I Say ...
Makes You ... AFRAID ... ?!?!?

Apocalyptic Trips ...
May Well .... ECLIPSE ... !!!

The Place in which ...

Your Thinking ..... " Lives " ......

OUTSIDE ... "TheBox" ...
is where ... Mine Is ... !!!!!!

NOT IN .... " Laptops " ....
or .... VIOLENT ... Stings ... !!!

I Deal with ... NOW ...
and what ... Surrounds ...
Before i'm ... CLOWNED ...
and end up ... "Drowned" ... !!!!!

Or ...
Worse yet ... DEAD ...
Like ... Youthful Heads ...
As ... " Current Trends " ...
would now ... " Suggest " ...

In Fact .... CONFIRM .... !!!!!!

Does it make you ...
........ " Squirm ........ ? "
to Read ... Such words ... !?! ...

Well .......

Here's a ... " Verse " ...
to ... CALM ... Your Nerves ... !!!

They're ONLY ... " Words " ... !!!!!!

That show ... CONCERN ...
About the world ...
and how ... it turns ...

If we ... " Observe " ...
We may just ... " Learn " ...
How to ... STEM This ... SURGE ... !!!
of Pain and ... Hurt ... !!!!!!

and make a ... RETURN ...
to Life being ... PRESERVED ... !!!!!

Let The DEVILS ... Burn .......................................................

and Make ... PEACE WORK ... !!!!!

Like ... UNITY ...
cos' things like ... " These " ...
Will Help ... " Relieve " .................................

Our Streets of ... BEASTS ... !!!
And .... " POVERTY " ....

And .... News Stories ...
of ... KILLING Sprees ... !!!?!!!

Our Youth ... are DYING ...

Don't You ... SEE ... ?!!!? ...

These words are ... TRYING ...
to FEED ... Our Seeds ...
with ... Something MORE ...
Than ....... " MTV " ........ !!!!!!!!!!

BUT ....
Here's The ... SCORE ... !!!

Too Many ... " Elders " ... TOO ... !?!
are PROMOTING .... Wars ......
WITHOUT .... A Cause .... !!!?!!!

and NEED TO ... " Reduce " ...
Their ... ANGRY ... Moods ... !!!

" Don't try to front ! "

" You know it's true ! "

Why take the view
that I'm ... TOO BLUNT ... ?!?

The time has ... COME ...
to .... " Listen Up " ......
and Fill .... " Eardrums " ...
Like Kweli' ... Does ... !!!

with words that ... " Soothe " .........................
and HELP ... " Improve " ...
The Minds who ... " Choose " ...

APOCALYPTIC ... Moves ... !!!!!

Like ...
Dropping .... BOMBS ...
That Breed ... " Phantoms " ...
and .... " Tsunamis " .... !!! ....

Do you ....
Get The .... " Scene " .... ???

NO TREES ....
NO LEAVES ....

NO ...
Ice Caps left ....

Just .... WAR and DEATH ... !!!!!

I Guess .... ?
to ... " Most of You " ...

This seems ............................................................. " Far Fetched " ......

But ...
THINK IT .... Through ......

What's coming .... " Next " .... ?!?

FLOODING ... Here ...
and Flooding ... THERE ... !!!!

and then .... HEATWAVES .... !!!
that send ... SHOCKWAVES ... !!!

As Fires ... BLAZE ...
For .... DAYS and DAYS .... !!!!!

APOCALYPTIC .... Yes ... !!!

So ....
What do you say ... ?

Does THIS Poem ...
and it's ... Wordplay ...
Make ...  You Think ...

I NEED A ... " Shrink " ... ?!?

Maybe ... I DO ... ???

But here's the ... " Koo' " ...

Apocalyptic things ....
ARE ...... Happening ...... !!!!!

CLOSER ... to home ...
and that's ... NO JOKE ... !!!!!

Most folk ... are BROKE ... !!!
Or ... SNORTING ... Coc' ... !!!

With ....
NOWHERE ... to go ...
to find some ... " Hope " ... !!!

" OH I'M A PESSIMIST ! "

" If You Insist ! "

I'm simply ...

writing things ...
Through ... " Poetic Scripts " ...

That ... Reflect how ...

I Feel ...
Right NOW ...

Some Music ... " FILLED " ........
My Mind with .... THIS ....

Thoughts of ... GLOOM ...
and MUCH ... "Darkness" ... !!!!!

A ... " Discreet Flava " ...
DARKER THAN ... " Vader " ... !!!

Try to .... DENY ...
and you ... " May Find " ...

That ....
What You ... FIGHT ...
Inside ... " Your Mind " ...

is the ....

TRUTH About .........
What's ..... Coming .....

" Apocalyptic Times "

Like dried leaves fluttering
                With trembling stems
From an earthly passage, She took
The high road when Winter called
                Her back to the elements,
                       Back to the spiritual vent that yawns with souls.

In her gentleness remained memory – legacy;
                A smirk – that fun, secretive thought
                                Whispering across bloodlines.
I could never know her as well as you --
That tight, heavy knot at the back of your throat.
That dull thud of a monotone ache perched in your gut.
That knowledge that she was two in the same:
                Throwing the bread and serving it, too –
                Spreading around discipline with comfort to follow.
She was The Maker; The One –
                Now faded to brooches, to photographs, to stories.

I felt the muscles in your arm tense (As mine
did, too)
I felt the surge of tears beckon the realities of grief
                Like the smoke curling ‘round the swinging censor
I know why you ignored the Holy Man; sermonizing
                Her Life as if she were familiar.
                His discourse as bitter, acrid tastes upon breathing morning.
                His fabricated familiarity – the pinching, twitching nerve between your neck and shoulder.

Holy Man -- Bone Man –
                We could proclaim the mysteries of Faith
                But She taught us the permanence of Love.
She knew more; what she taught was
                Tangible
                Alive
Her Lesson more forgiving than any Act of Contrition.
Her Body more sustaining than any wafer of Christ.

Two side of the same blade –
The Love she taught us taught us Grief as well.
When she followed the Holy Man out – the Bone Man -
                You, Her Son –
                You knew.
You flew out like a sin to forgiveness
And staked your devotion, character, and eternal Love
                Upon her dwelling.
                                One more tangible reckoning of her attendance here;
                                One more connection that grounded her presence on this plane.

We followed Her – We followed You
Blind to your seeded bond that will never grace any words on a page
Yet drawn to the Lesson she taught
                And the Lesson you maintain.
We followed you
                Like trails in water : molecules bound and devoting the leader we call Mother.

Mine is a generation of taboo.
We are tribal tattoos and cheap motel room honeymoons.
We are slander,
and slang,
and brittle teeth.
We are born-agains and suicides.
We are podium preachers and cracked-pavement prayers.
We are melted plastic and oxidized metal-
sometimes we gleam with the Liberty Green of corroded copper,
sometimes we crumble with rust and stain calloused hands.
We are the last stand of Art.
We are the manifestations of forbidden bloodlines
and insanity.
We are just as much our mothers
as we are our fathers,
and we are everything that they are not.

We are stigmata.
We are red paint on white canvas.
We are fast food coffee.

We were born to the sweet smell of formaldehyde
in rooms dressed in florescent white
that share plumbing with the morgues
beneath the linoleum floors.
We are the mix of ***** and innocence that lingers
in the kiss of a dimly lit basement.
We show and we tell but always only for the right price,
the wrong reasons,
or the promise of an exchange equaling to the feeling that
this is a mistake.
We are rosary beads counted between gnarled knuckles
and dragged across smooth palms that long
to sweep tear salt from flushed cheeks.

We are Heaven's lonely singles.

We are skin stretched out too thin over skeletons.
We are the complexities that machines can't calculate
much less imitate.
We are the futile cries that once tried to keep towers from falling
when the sky came crashing down.
We are the pardoned and the withered.
We are the hardened faces of those that have
worked too long
and been loved too little.
We have been told that the safest place for your soul
is in the hole of your chest,
but only if it's reinforced by
four inches of concrete and steel,
and strapped tight with a Kevlar vest,
because they said people,
at best,
are manslaughter.

But we have never been great listeners either;
when we were growing up
we pressed our hands to hot stoves
even though our mothers said not to,
because we couldn't just be told what it was to burn
we had to feel it for ourselves.
So every now and then we will crack open
our rib cages in the hopes that someone will come,
light a fire,
and decide to stay.

We hopelessly spray paint things like wings
On deserted brick buildings
So that, at the very lest, we can feed the
Hollow-eyed passerby the belief
That these streets still have guardians,
Even when we, ourselves,
Abandoned such ideologies in
backroad dumpsters
along with our deities’ infidelities.
  
We are the period at the end of the sentence.
(Or maybe we are the ellipses...)
We have redefined the American family
and proven that even Christianity knows how to hate.
We were raised by sixty-percent divorce rates,
yet we still believe that we are soul mates.
We are the jokers of the deck:
either smiling fools or wild cards.
We are cocked heads with smoke billowing from throats
coated with blisters and cough syrup.
We are back alley scavengers crawling on all fours.
We are the era of the Auto-Tuned voice,
proof that with a pretty enough face anyone can sing.
We are foggy mirrors with smiles drawn on them
by print-less fingertips.
We slip up the thighs of our lovers
and swirl down the drains of sinks with chipped paint.

We are the hearts in your hands-
Crush us into powder and brush us across your face like Indian war paint,
Give us up to the sky so that we can be revived by lightning,
Dance to the rhythm that we beat,
Squeeze us and watch as we seep through the cracks of your fist,
Conceal us in your pocket and only ever speak to us in a whisper,
Or,
with all your natural voice,
sing to us
songs about thunderstorms
to wet the dusty desert dirt around our rooted toes
in the hopes that we will blossom in the most vivid colors.

Just do something with us.

Don't sacrifice us to the tops of lost bookshelves
to collect dust
or rust in the rain with everything you once loved
but grew too old for.

This is melanin and love and you can't fake this.
Mixing shades of ancestry and bloodlines and pigments that stick to the core.
Somewhere someone peeked in a black woman's ear, straight through to her mind,
Saw a village dancing in her head!
Fires lit, drummers surrounding, same steps synchronized because they were born like this
Nothing but magic how
all the time these drums sounded off in her head
so of course her walk holds steady as a drum
Of course her hips swing with the beat as she steps with the villagers.
Her life becomes syncopated with rhythm
Dancing in all her movements
Never missing a beat

Time swirls above me
in the dead of coldest night,
when the witching hour brings you
in copper cloud's delight,

So I can feel you moving,
touch the quivers of my skin,
bursting through the cascades
of the naked storm within

Rushing you inside me
pushing deeper,
deeper in,
tasting salt in tongues
when the droplets cleave the wind

And the boundaries
cease between us:
dissolve where sweat begins.
Torrents sweep in waves
coursing through the joining Syn

Face to face we rise
from the pipes of Pan
within
breathing mist together
as the bird songs wreathe
a ring
of foliage and of flowers
around ancient stones
and altars,

Where all the others leave us
their carrion
in the garbage,
we take Raven with us
and soar
above the bloodlines,
the glisten of the kin

Raising new horizons,
we feel the morning spin,
hatching suns beneath us
in the shadow of our wings,
un-folding life together,
ten-folding on forever ...
and ever ...

Within.

I don't move,
I orbit.

I hopscotch the squares where love can be.
Where it has already been.
So,

I don't move [forward],
I orbit [to where I may belong]

I am homesick for everyone
I've ever met.

Most major decisions are based
on the statistic probability of a kiss,
because to be loved
is to be corporeal.

My heart doesn't guide me,
theirs do.

I follow my bloodlines
and shake the tree
for fruit.

This is how it goes:
With each breath I draw,
one for me
one for you.

naming my father's victories
past monoliths trapped
in glass case

and tracing my mother's tenderness
across the film negatives
we've no use for anymore.

yesterday was
a victory for my kindred,
while i still drag the augury of
yesteryears lovelessly
athwart the narrow corridors

yet this
man is still the wind

or a bamboo in duress
forced to
breakpoint.

the dinner clatter in the
kitchen mellows down to
wary dregs. my brother laughs
affording atonement
and everything at the verge
of palpable revelry,

i the unspoken yet
heard. my mother often wonders
from who did i inherit
such mood:
all dark
and trudging the infinite.

I'm a poet full time
I serve these sentences; they're my bloodlines
These killer rhymes got me behind iron bars
It's ironic because these bars save me from myself, rub' em together and get a spark
My self-expression serves as an anecdote to it's opposite act
Harm can't touch me when I don't react
I'm not playing, when I'm on fire like this you better take a picture, and frame
Because my ingenuity could snap, and fall short of fame
This prison jumpsuit is plane
And I'm about to jump out, in fact
I feel like I'm fallin', with no aim
But, I'm really flying, posing for headshots; I can’t be shot down because they’ll always underestimate their window of time as I escalate to higher panes
It's all perspective; everything ends up dyeing somehow
But why describe a story by its finish with the multi-personality mayhem
When you could define it by the ******, elevating like hemp, laughin, but they’ll know I’m not kidding at the end
'Sept I'm just sprouting up like its may
ahem listen up because this is just the beginning, elementary, first day
And I'm already spittin like I should be exspelled,
Kicked out, never schooled, hell
Just take over the game like I got a monopoly held hostage
Got Scotian Power, I'm overcharged and tired of these sellouts ******* the page
This ainte a hoes stage
By *** I mean any tool who never dag
Never worked and got their hands ***** for little pay
So step aside, or a circle, surround me like sharks
Try and tare me apart, and I'll just write about it
That’s art, you'll self destruct in your jealous rage
You're baked if you think you're stopping me, when you were born they said, "this pie sees"
*****, I'm a Pisces, this is my age
Too late to stop, already took out the cleaver and pulled up my sleeves
******' getting my peace
And don't be shocked by my curse words please
There's a reason my poetic heart monitor goes beep, beep, beep
Because to peak, I have to express these things
It's called my life line for a reason, I use it when I need the audience to know
That I'm going to deep
To the microscopic level
So you can see the demons that keep this ***** beating
And you'll know I flat lined
When I leave something unsaid
Because I don't shoot blanks until I've done my time
That is why I never make the last sentence rhyme
Because I won't stop writing until I die
So, as long my poem ends like this, you'll know I haven't yet served my life sentence.

my father carries his grandmother's wisdom with him
like a satchel upon his back,
like a palm print;
his own father’s teachings tug like strings
and read like a map worn but never wrong —
one that transcends.

my father knows how to live for himself
for the sake of others.
a hidden art form —
secretive to his son
who only knows how to live for others
for the sake of himself.

i could ask him how he does it,
but he tells me first that i will live and learn and hurt and grow,
and so i know, instead, that i will come to know.

my father carries me in his arms as though i am still one day old,
as though i am still taking my first few tiny gasps of air from this great big world
(the world he built for me),
as though my eyes have not yet become accustomed to the light.

my father’s arms never tire and i know why.
they are satchel and palm print,
strings and map.

i am one day old and sure that my father has lived a thousand lifetimes.
he speaks in bloodlines, holds heritage in his hands and then brings it to his head when it whispers.
like a child holding a shell to his ear, listening to the ocean.
my father knows where to find right answers.

i could ask him how he does it,
but he is already answering.

he has always been answering.

(a.m.)