Puce fresnel washed its light on his over sized African patterned dashiki,
while paisley notes poured from his reeded dreams.
Like the Hamelin piper I was mesmerized by hypnotic tones,
every sweet and spicy slur, every bend of every breath,
I followed him down history’s path and heard the world come boldly through.

“You got to keep the magic”, was his advice .
“Don’t give away too much of the theme.”

Through fake fog he swirled his love,
his passion, his calling.
“Summertime”, played on an oboe
is like hot liquid southern summer ***.
It crawls up your spine and explodes in your brain,
and you understand the songs meaning without one word sung.
Hundreds of years of vassalage reenacted in every blue colored measure.

This man did not think of himself as a descendant of slavery though.
He was, like all of his brothers of color,
a descendant of great Princes and Kings,
stealthy Hunters and fearless Warriors,
grand Land Owners and Wise Men,
Great Leaders of Peace and Brotherhood,
and he lived out his life as they did,
changing the world one note at a time.
He played the music of all people,
“World Music” it later came to be known.

Listen….he is in the rhythm still.
Wherever there is an ethnicity holding on to their heritage in song.
Wherever there is an indigenous rhythm, a harmony, a feeling……
Yusef is there, and he will be there forever.


*Yesef Lateef
Born October 9, 1920 in Chattanooga, TN
Died December 23, 2013 Shutesburry, MA

Musician, author, spokesman, educator

Instruments: tenor saxophone, flute, oboe, bassoon, bamboo flute, shehnai, shofar, arghul, koto


Recalling a magical night at Stratton Mt.,Vermont, in the winter of 1975 when I opened for Yusef Lateef.

This is the story of the Central Park 5

Background.
5 young black boys who were picked up in Central Park 1989, after a white female jogger was ***** and left for dead. They were among over 30 youths in the park that night, they were also the youngest.

Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam and Raymond Santana - All under the age of 16
And Korey Wise who was 16 at the time and who only went to the police station to keep his friend Yusef company.
Other than Corey and Yusef, they boys had never even seen each other before the night of their arrests.

The boys were coaxed into signing a Miranda card that waives their right to representation,
They were bullied and coerced during interrogation, into signing false statements, without their parents or any guardian present,
Corey, who remained in the station for Yusef, was later pulled in by detectives who needed someone to make the story fit. Suffering with both hearing and learning difficulties he was the perfect patsy for the police to force into a false confession.
The boys were all found guilty despite the lack of any DNA or physical evidence placing them at the scene, All but Corey were detained as juveniles for 5-10 years, whilst Corey was tried as an adult and sentenced to 15 years in an adult prison.
he spent the majority of his sentence in isolation to escape the beatings and abuse for a crime he didn’t commit.

Injustice -
When every bone in your body is screaming out your innocence,
yet the world has you on mute.
The hope that tortures you everyday, waiting for someone to hear you, believe you and
set you free.
How long before that hope fades, how long before the last glimmers of light extinguish , how long before you sink into the dark places that you can never fully come back from.

“Their story - My words”
Written with love and respect.

It’s the narrative that leads the pack,
Change that - and watch them stutter,
A verdict is more addictive than crack,
Whilst the truth melts away like butter.
The lies and scheming  - leading us screaming,
To a sentence we didn’t  deserve,
An innocent teen can ever be seen,
If justice has lost its nerve.

Politics reign over the rules of the game,
The scales have lost their balance,
Democracy has taken flight,
With  innocence in its talons,
It’s never about only us  in chains,
Not of prejudice and pride,
Our fathers and mothers,
Sisters and brothers,
Are imprisoned on the outside,

What have they created,
Other than hatred,
The voice of what’s right sounds so wrong
Our downfall is imminent,
They lock up the innocent,
The resistance to change is too strong.

There’s no adverts for convicted,
Our fate was predicted,
No Vacancies found for the lost,
They created us guilty,
It’s their hands that are filthy,
But they’ll never know the true cost.

So what are we supposed to do,
We’re free for sure - but free for who,
We can’t escape the stares or guilty whispers,
No matter where we’re always seen,
As guilty kids from that tragic scene,
We’re a haunted story played out in tainted pictures.

we can never be like you
We’ll always be last in the queue
We’ll never get to leave this social prison,
Victims of forced circumstance,
A twisted chance  of happenstance .
They took our chance away so none would listen,

What’s done is done - they’d made up their mind,
Irrelevant of what they’d find,
Once started they never turn back,
So our story is thus -
That when they see us,
It’s the narrative that leads the pack,
—————————-
Corey went up for parole several times, but part of the process is the verbal acceptance of your guilt for 5e sentenced being served. Corey wouldn’t confess to the crime he didn’t commit. After several rejected hearings Corey stopped going.
In 2002 Corey and the 4 boys were exonerated after the confession of a fellow inmate ‘Matias Reyes’ stated that he acted alone. DNA backed this up.
Corey was released and the 5 eventually won $41million in damages,
To this day the 5 men acknowledge that money can never give them what they lost.
Justice took them from themselves, now they must spend the rest of their lives being who they are.

"Caught In A Hustle"

[Verse 1]
They say the odds against me, are crooked and impossible
Like I was born with a hole in my heart is an obstacle
I was left to die by the doctors, in the Children's Hospital
But I never lose hope, success is psychological
The world is volatile and the street is my education
Shaping the nation, like the blueprint of a mason
While Shawshank record deals get you ***** on occasion
So I'm focused on my economic situation
I'm like the little kids on TV that dig through the trash
I hustle regardless of the way you talk **** and laugh
A lot of ****** drop science but they dont know the math
Because their mind is narrower than the righteous path
It's funny how on the block ****** will **** you for cash
But never raise the gun and cry out "Freedom at last"
The cold war is over but the world is still gettin colder
Atlas walking through the projects with the hood on my shoulders
I would like to raise my children to grow to be soldiers
But then the general, would decide when their life would be over
So I work hard until my personality split
Like the black panthers, into the bloods and the crips
They said I would never be ****, but now I sit and reminice
Like Yeshua ben Yusef flippin through Genesis
Ignorance is venemous, and it murders the soul
Spreading like a virus running rampant, but out of control

[Hook]
So if I should ever fall and get caught in a hustle
Let them know that I died while I fought in a struggle
From the hoodrats to the rich kids lost in a bubble
Spray painting on the streets and at the subway tunnels
Write it down and remember that we never gave in
The mind of a child is where the revolution begins
So if the solution has never been to look in yourself
How is it that you expect to find it anywhere else

[Verse 2]
Immortal Technique in the streets, back on the hustle
cause three strikes will get you life for stuffin cracks in a duffle
Upstate behind steel gates intact in the scuffle
Razor blades stuck on the side of pencils, hacked to your muscle
But the emptiness is what bleeds you to death when it cuts you
And its the lawyers, not the inmates scheming to *******
Trying to fight the system from inside, eventually corrupts you
But thats what you get when you put a corporation above you
And it's the people that love you that seem to hurt you the most
Sometimes when they die you find yourself cursing their ghost
But you make success, nobody delivers your fate
Sometimes you give and you take
Since prehistoric vertibrates, crawled out of the lakes
And thats the truth about life
Or to do it to ghetto and your car, rims, and your ice
Because even though we survived through the struggle that made us
We still look at ourselves through the eyes of people that hate us
But I'm going to make it regardless of the ******* up charges
And semi-automatic barrages, that empty the cartridge
Post-traumatically scar kids that try to be brave
Because ****** backstab each other just to try to get paid
Turn cannibal like nights during the crusades
Afraid of responsibility; addicted to greed
Beating their girls purposefully losing a seed
As if we were bound to the destiny we used to recieve

[Hook]

I used to wonder (I used to wonder) about people who don't believe in themselves
But then I saw the way that they portrayed us to everyone else
That cursed us, then only see the worst in ourselves
blind to the fact the whole time we were hurting ourselves

I used to wonder (I used to wonder) about people who don't believe in themselves
But then I saw the way that they portrayed us to everyone else
That cursed us, then only see the worst in ourselves
blind to the fact the whole time we were hurting ourselves

I used to wonder [echo]

chain smoking on the balcony with a Buddhist monk
not sure how i got here or where he is from
he talks about honesty and compassion and faith
and the girl that he married, that incredible earthquake
he looks at me and asks where i want to go
i tell him to tomorrow, and after that who knows
with a sigh and a smile he ashes and says
you keep living for tomorrow and eventually you're dead

Envoy to Palestine
BY YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA
I’ve come to this one grassy hill
in Ramallah, off Tokyo Street,
to place a few red anemones . . .

The African Burial Ground
BY YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA
They came as Congo, Guinea, & Angola,
   feet tuned to rhythms of a thumb piano.
      They came to work fields of barley & flax, . . .

The Red Shoes
BY SHEILA BLACK
Someone buried red slippers under the floorboards
and the mice nested in them. The floors splintered no matter

To Juan Doe #234
BY EDUARDO C. CORRAL
I only recognized your hair: short,
neatly combed. Our mother
. . .
Istanbul 1983
BY SHEILA BLACK
In the frozen square, the student asks me if I will
sell him the books from my backpack. He hides them
under his winter coat. Steam rises from the whole . . .

Bowie said it best, we passed upon the stairs
I'm that breed of Cat try to keep it evenly Stevens, meaning my mindset
Is pampered and bared
Handled with care
Centered like Yusef
She said have we met, unprepared
This masterpiece shared a glare reserved I heard the rhythm simplistic only words she spared
Gentle as a baby's breath, educated
That was quite clear
I left her with an open question
You believe in infatuation, if I loved you to death?
Would the future appear
To be decorated
I could lean on you, like over-compensation
She brought me to completion with simple conversation
Plus she radiant
As men, find the fear of love is real
This type of light
Won't let it in, let it disappear
But Bowie said it best, we passed upon the stairs
Inspiration in the female form
Fell for it, she spoke like chorus as she flipped my script in that moment
I admit it, speechless
That's rare

Roy Nyers
Donald Byrd
Stanley Turrentine,
Wayne Shorter
McCoy Tyner,
Frank Sinatra,
Billie Holliday,
Gene Ammons,
Some I want to listen to
Like
Clark Terry,
Art Farmer,
and Yusef Lateef.

from the Harris-Walz front
where liberal minded socially progressive
electorate doth agonizingly grunt
targeted in crosshairs scoped out
eager and ready to be mortally wounded
courtesy notorious big headed
(and bigoted) infamous
for bearing arms
as if going on a hunt
as attested to him and recorded for all of posterity on March 14, 2019 at 3:05 EDT by Analysis colunist Philip Bump, (a national columnist for The Washington Post; before that he led political coverage for The Atlantic Wire. One of the paper’s most read writers, he focusses on the data behind polls and political rhetoric), he recorded one of the most famous and insightful lines Donald Trump offered on the campaign trail in 2016 came during a stop in Iowa, shortly before that state’s caucuses.
“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?” Trump said, mimicking firing a gun with his fingers. “It’s, like, incredible.”

"Blast it!!" I am gunning for the glib gal
versus MAGA sugar daddy
gesticulating his arms akimbo,
whose lowball unflattering unprintable
pet phrases for Kamala
indicative of a short, and nasty brute,
whose vile (hints) might be excusable
if he suffered epileptic seizures grand mal
drops names of ruthless dictators as his pal,
who sport trademark coiffed hirsute
allocating, designating, ginning, jumpstarting,
and mandating excessive monetary resources
for his poofed hair courtesy project 2025
and then when confronted becomes immediately mute
and does a spot on rendition of Marcel Marceau
engaging in ******* with a *******.

"Arms akimbo" is an adjective or adverb that means having your hands on your hips with your elbows turned outward. For example, "She stood there akimbo". The word "akimbo" comes from the Middle English phrase in kenebowe, which means "at a sharp angle". The word was first recorded between 1375 and 1425, and may come from the Old Norse phrase i keng boginn, which means "bent into a crook".

After watching some
of the Democratic National Convention,
mainly the first and second nights,
I felt tears of joy rapture
welling up inside me
after listening to such
brilliant, fantastic, nuances
sounding out monologues
utilizing English language
to maximize stellar oratory,
which lengthy list of speakers follows suit:

On Monday, delegates heard from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, first lady Jill Biden and the president himself.

Tuesday's session featured addresses from former President Barack Obama, former first lady Michelle Obama, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and others.

Wednesday night heard from former President Bill Clinton, Gov. Josh Shapiro, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Walz.

Here's the full speakers list for Thursday:

Minyon Moore, chair of the 2024 Democratic National Convention Committee
Invocation by Everett Kelly, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, and Imam Muhammad Abdul-Aleem of Masjidullah Mosque of West Oak Lane, Pennsylvania
Presentation of Colors by the Illinois State Police Honor Guard
Pledge of Allegiance by Luna Maring, a 6th grader from Oakland, California
Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers
Sen. Alex Padilla of California
Marcia Fudge, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Rep. Ted W. Lieu of California
Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin
Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, House Democratic Whip
Rep. Joe Neguse of Colorado
Mayor Leonardo Williams of Durham, North Carolina
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois
Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts
Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado
Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan
Rep. Pat Ryan of New York
Rev. Al Sharpton
Members of the "Central Park Five": Dr. Yusef Salaam, member of the New York City Council, and activists Korey Wise, Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson
Amy Resner, former prosecutor and friend of Harris
Karrie Delaney, director of Federal Affairs at the ****, Abuse & ****** National Network
Lisa Madigan, former attorney general of Illinois
Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League
Nathan Hornes, former student at Corinthian Colleges
Tristan Snell, former New York State assistant attorney general
Gov. Maura Healey of Massachusetts
Courtney Baldwin, youth organizer and human trafficking survivor
Deb Haaland, secretary of the interior
John Russell, content creator
Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida
Rep. Colin Allred of Texas
Joint remarks on "A New American Chapter": Anya Cook, Craig Sicknick, Gail DeVore, Juanny Romero and Eric, Christian, and Carter Fitts
National anthem by The Chicks
Kerry Washington
Joint remarks by Meena Harris, Ella Emhoff and Helena Hudlin
D.L. Hughley
Sheriff Chris Swanson of Genesee County, Michigan
Rep. Lucy McBath of Georgia, joined by Abbey Clements of Newton, Connecticut; Kim Rubio of Uvalde, Texas; Melody McFadden of Charleston, South Carolina; and Edgar Vilchez of Chicago.
Gabrielle Giffords, former member of the House
Performance by P!NK
Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona
Leon Panetta, former secretary of defense
Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan
Eva Longoria, actress and film producer
Adam Kinzinger, former member of the House
Maya Harris
Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina
Vice President Kamala Harris.

Shoot! Thar haint no other candidate
within a bajillion miles
worth celebrating with unbridled fête
cuz the other contestant
(hands down) ranks as ingrate
man dragging fetters shrilly mutters,
the opposition mumbles,
no you don't get away with freedom
them words to ****, cuz
against peace mongers
this republic for liberty,
which country stands under
the grateful dead
someone must liberate
the ship of state
one must steadily operate
even courtesy motley skeleton crew
captained, governed, and trumpeted
by weird Wharton wimp
linkedin to leitmotif reprobate
with lips he doth undulate
poisoning the fresh air
and poll looting the audiological
and visual realm of vulnerable listeners
courtesy radio and television waves.