True Villainy

Smartest Man On The Cinder

2011-12-20T23:05:00.000-08:00

You can find me in the Arctic, reading Egyptian artifacts/A telephonic symphony singing - bringing me all the facts/Don't even try to see me - believe me - I see through all of that/The smartest man in the cinder...Cinderella rocking a Starter cap/I rose from the ashes, made Alexander the Great moves/Learned to cheat at Chess - I algebraic equate you/To fake dudes...and win the game in like eight moves/Award winning, spit kicking - no fame for it/But the world's my canvas - step back, you see my name on it/See the world how I see it, you can see flames on it/It's why I work with Manhattan to see some change on it/Whether metaphysics or mathematics, my brain's on it/From sunrise to sunset, I'll son you/Simultaneously reading Sun Tzu/Memorizing text while I'm whooping that ass in Kung-Fu/I can run the globe with a pen, paper, and drum loops/I'm not a joke, I'm a villain slash chameleon/So laugh it up mafucka - I kill comedians/

"A Secret Between Friends" (Fibonacci Sequence Story)

2011-05-13T19:59:00.000-07:00

"Don't.

"Please?"

"Why not?"

"Bad idea, man."

"I don't know…seems, possible."

Eleven stories just didn't seem high to me.

My favorite movie moment is Indiana Jones, stepping off into the nothingness.

"Is this how you want to celebrate your twenty-fifth birthday? Standing on a hotel rooftop with your closest friend, cradling a full-on Bronson?"

The stars were particularly inviting. Their twinkling, iridescent path paved an inviting direction for me to walk. A celestial runway poked into the indigo canopy of dusk. Missing, however, was the push I needed.

It came like a wind. If I recall the moment clearly, it was wind. A strong wind. It barreled over the building and took my legs from underneath me. Friends with gym memberships should be valued at times like these. As if to challenge my resolve, she held me at the building’s edge.

"So, I'll ask you again: what the fuck made you think this was a good idea? As a matter-of fact, while I've got your complete and undivided attention, why the fuck did I think this was a good idea? Oh, yeah, I didn't think it was a good idea. I am doing my best to understand what's going on with you right now, but you are not helping, and I'm considering leaving you here to sort it out yourself because this is freaking crazy. You know what? I'm out."

She pulled me up with an ease a witness could describe as herculean. Although I hung over the edge of certain death for about three minutes, it felt like forever. The hum of the city nightlife shook the air, the vibrations clearly reverberated in my bones. Thousands of orange light bulbs reflected off tinted windows and conglomerated as just two gleaming stars in her eyes. Halfway up onto the rough cement ledge, she looked at me, and smoothly pulled me up to my feet. When our eyes were level, I could see the well of tears clearly. She would keep them trapped on the precarious precipice of her eyelashes perpetually. The look on her face froze, like so much coffee stained porcelain poised to shake me from my task. Without saying a word, I asked her to stay. My best friend smiles, “Testing my ability? Not this dangerous.”

The rate of gravity is nine point eight meters per second per second. The average human terminal velocity in free-fall is one-hundred and twenty miler per hour. Diving in free-fall ramps the speed up, and the record is some unimaginable number that need not be stated. I realized early on that the room for error on this was minimal if not infinitesimal. Suicide was never in the plans, but it seemingly grew on me as inspiration for this dramatic act. This is where I'd make my stand.

I returned to my place at the building's edge. Closed my eyes, tasted the humid, late Fall air on my lips. Thought about what not waking up would feel like, chuckled, realized I wouldn't feel a thing. Her shaking hands, gentle on the small of my back. Keeping me tethered, but eager to propel me.

"I'm ready. And it's okay, really. I'll be fine. To be honest, I've never felt as comfortable as when I'm in places like these. On rollercoasters, in fast cars, airplanes…This feels right to me."

My life had been led up to this moment. An ironic thought to have had at the time. I stepped off.

I fell about maybe forty feet before I began to slow my descent.

I rose slowly to meet her gaze.

"How are you doing that?"

"...I can fly."

"You knew?"

"No."

"…Asshole!"

Effects of Light (Departure)

2011-04-30T14:32:00.000-07:00

Flash (~~~>)

The Earth is crumbling. Coming undone, like so much stitching, unravelling. Just bigger. I have no idea to why I am here, at the end of things. No clue how I'm able to be here while everyone else is gone. I cannot help it. It'll all be over soon. The oceans are boiling, the ground is thin and brittle as ice in Spring. There will never be another Spring. Gray's last words to me were, "Do what you gotta. I gotta do what I been doing, running. See ya…" He ran until his feet stopped touching the ground, the proximity of the sun vibrating his every cell into pure speed. He was smiling, and dissipating into a beautiful blurring nothing. Before the end of it all, he flew. He'll never know now, but that's what he always did, he was never just fast - in reality he projected a charge that decreased his friction with the smallest of molecules. I miss True. She did what she does, opened her mouth to the sky and sang, repelled an incoming solar flare. She screams my name, because of all the vowels, they force her to open her mouth wider. I am watching God write creation in reverse.

Flash (<~~~)

The Earth crumbles. It's really sand. I love the sandbox the day after it rains. Clumps of rough dirt that make funny grinding noises in my ears because somehow it gets in my mouth. Rays of sun peeking out from behind clouds and painting Gray in pastel blues while resting in his pastel baby purse, bjorn, sling, thingy…A car pulls into the playground parking lot, as soon as the passenger door opens, a screech shatters the calm of the day. A small brown girl pokes her body out of the door and walks angrily to the sandbox. "Hi. Want some sand?" I say, as altruistic as I can imagine. "No!!!!!!!" She says, as loud as possible. Mom picks me up, and says softly in my ear, "I hope you never turn out like that one." I looked back to the sandbox, shrinking in the distance, and thought I heard someone say, "Come back, I need someone to play with." The sun shone proud in the pale indigo of the sky. Gray shuffled uncomfortably in his carrier, as if to free himself from his bondage and run before he'd learned to walk.

Information

Earthshine is the phenomenon of sunlight reflecting off of the Earth and shining on the Moon. That's what we are being called now, The Earthshine. We are a reflection of the connection the sun has with the planet. UV rays are broken into three types: UVA, UVB, AND UVC. UVA is a long wavelength transmitted from the sun, it gives us our brown skin and tightly curled hair. It is the natural form of energy. UVB and UVC are shorter, more kinetic wavelengths. The ones that burn us if out in the sun too long. We don't burn, we metabolize the shorter wavelengths, turning the heat into something else entirely. I call them 'expressions'. We express the sun's light in our different ways, but we still don't know why. I express via higher brain functionality, Gray expresses a frictionless molecular existence, and True expresses a psychokinetic relationship to sonic frequency modulation. We shine in the daylight, and glow a bit at night.

Waves and Particles

The others we've been traveling with have each exhibited some form of 'expression'. None as far advanced as True, Gray, and I, but noticeable physiological differences. The change in flora and fauna led us to believe we'd crossed into Canada a few days ago. We've picked up some nomads along the way from L.A. Two cousins, a gym teacher, three Washington police officers, two guys (Scott and Steve), and a slew of other folks met on the long road to where we are now. I haven't spoken to Gray in a day or so, he scouts so far ahead of us recently I wonder if he'll up and run off the face of the planet someday. True has kept excellent company however. She says things to me that I don't understand, although I know what she is going to say before she's done thinking it. Why is it no matter how smart we are or aspire to be, we never understand the opposite sex? When she sleeps at night, I look in her direction just to see her glow bronze against the purple of the night sky. She is Aurora Borealis to me. We kiss when no one is paying attention. It makes a sound, a faint humming. A steady bass line, in tune with the resonance of the Earth, Moon, Sun, and stars. We vibrate. We can feel it when our teeth touch by accident. We are so scared out in the wilderness, without our parents or societal markers. When we're near each other we forget the situation we're dealing with, and become entangled in one another. On a really sunny day, we made love for the first time. She was loud, and I was quiet. I could feel her every living process. Then we didn't speak for a while after. It's like this feeling comes and goes in waves. When she's walking ahead of me, I stand downwind, anxious for her particles to ride the wind and find me ready.

Echoes

2011-04-07T07:42:00.000-07:00

Bust how we stand in the foreground of the american stageplay, when we
were casted as the background's understudy. Again in the foreground,
the bastard child of four fathers, now scorned by our fore-fathers for
disrespecting our single mothers in public. The revolution done
changed, Black man changed shades, Black girl turned blonde, I thought
I heard echoes of victory - turned around and the sorrow in this
song... Can you hear it?

~~~>Listen, my people speaking, spilling blood in these streets/
It takes a toll on my soul, everyday I feel like leaving/
I hear my people crying, and them tears keep streaming/
Everytime I try I try to leave...they start to scream like/

From forefathers, to martyrs, folk don't seem to regard us/
But they seen waters walked on, seen brothers auctioned/
Topics that talk on, people see and walk on/
Get tripped up, on what i spit up - now they sidewalks is chalked on/
I'm locked on - focused on the heat that make the beat dope/
I blow the winds of change just to ventilate the weed smoke/
You speak frail, what I spit you can feel, son I speak braille/
I spit fire, that's why you kill dragons when they inhale/

Two niggas foght under orange lamps,
Such a sorry sight forced me to cast away hope.
Being one observer, long I watch and thought,
"How redundant the term 'project growth'".
You see I, I speak the word less spoken by,
And all my people show me is disinterest...Can you hear it?

~~~>Listen, my people speaking, spilling blood in these streets/
It takes a toll on my soul, everyday I feel like leaving/
I hear my people crying, and them tears keep streaming/
Everytime I try I try to leave...they start to scream like/

Good Evening my people. I say 'evening' because I see the sun setting
on our culture, our very way of living. I see the decades and
centuries cascade past skyscrapers; the struggle, the
progress...chasing the fleeting sunlight. I say 'good evening', 'cause
I'm afraid we just missed twilight.

How To Make A Slave"

2011-04-07T07:39:00.000-07:00

They shake us, break us, make us... hate us.

Separate us, negate us, give us...take us.

Reshape us, tie us up to change us, mold us ,controlled us...bought us, sold us.

Or so Lynch told us...

and now we're just files in folders, denying our culture, relying on quotas, and

lying on sofas, and dying much slower, complying with vultures. A
taste of death is what you get, when dining with vultures. Now these
bloods and crips cry on my shoulders. I control my fears, hold my
tears so I can see the source, and of course it's this work force.
They force work on this work horse. From nine to five it's their
house, let one of us in the play 'house', then it's "our house".
Descention in our ranks, we walk our own planks, but master produced
them, seduced them, subterfuge us to reuse us, used the dead to feed
the living, we're not born we're grown into this. Then by those who
love us shown to this: Be slaves to this U.S.

~~~>Step up, step up. Step up to this auction block,
Take a look around, you still on the block.
Slavery never changed, slavery never stopped,
We used to throw stones, now we shoot glocks,
The chains they use to bind us are the chains that we rock...

Listen, to the strained voice of an estranged youth: we can't afford
to hang loose, we're already strange fruit. With no knowledge of self,
and thus, strained roots. Tims or name brand ankle shackles, same
boots. Them cats on the block who yell "Ma!!", they got blame too, but
master destroyed the male image and frame too. It's still no excuse to
slave trade our own, name game our own, gang bang our own, then
"Bang-Bang!!" our own. Front hard like this land is home, when post
forty and a mule we ain't got land to own, except the piece of earth
the we standing on. Truth is, someone in Knot's Landing owns the house
you're planning to build your family on. These silent weapons eat away
at your shelter like Homer Simpson in a candy home. I'm here to make
your situations gladly known, cats is making slaves right out your
family's homes.

~~~>Step up, step up. Step up to this auction block,
Take a look around, you still on the block.
Slavery never changed, slavery never stopped,
We used to throw stones, now we shoot glocks,
The chains they use to bind us are the chains that we rock...

Mulberry Bridges

2011-03-21T23:11:00.000-07:00

Colonel of Pharaoh's Army - but I rap in the field/

Crouched in a Japanese field/

Clutching this Japanese steel/

"One hit, one kill", with a Japanese feel/

Flow "Itto-Ryu" 'cuz offense is a must/

Watch my blades turn to flame during dusk and turn men into dust/

I duel with the sun, just to produce similar heat/

So on similar beats, my foes meet an instant defeat/

See, I stunned stunners, betrayed raids, and slay gunners/

Stepped on the edges of weapons, they call me the Blade Runner/

I move straight through these tigers made of paper/

Something like a phantom canine...a Ghost Dog for you traitors/

An apparition on the battlefield - all you see are vapors/

My Blade of the Immortal rap tames the mortal cat/

Brings flames through the portal back/

Peeped Musashi style game, saw his aim - then I brought it back/

You got money on your mind, so you never thought of that/

In cases of intimate engagement, my blades kiss and embrace death/

Spit sharp - slice the sky, heaven, and God in the same breath/

So please - bring the guns out, we'll see who's best/

'Cuz for bullets yes, but no such thing as a sword-proof vest/

Feudal Villainy..

"The Effects of Light" (Arrival)

2011-03-12T09:38:00.000-08:00

Shade

We’d been walking for two weeks already, only resting at night. We were asked to clear the large cities as soon as possible. No one asked any questions, it seemed pretty serious. I didn’t know California had a desert. I didn’t know it was so big.
My little brother Grey walks so fast. I know it’s because he’s got shorter legs and takes smaller strides, but he says the sun makes him faster. One day, as the sun set behind a mountain, Grey sought to race its shadow in the waning light of the sun. He ran so fast…but the inevitable is resolute. When the shade caught up with Grey, his stride slowed, and shortened, then lengthened, then stopped.
The next morning, Grey ran ahead of the entire group, all day, without stopping. There was no shade to speak of.

Reflection

We couldn’t tell if we were going south or north, or any direction in particular. The announcements to evacuate L.A. were really sudden, and really organized. The P.A. system at my high school told us absolutely nothing. All students: please leave the building in an orderly fashion. There is a state of emergency being issued by the President of the United States for the state of California. Please go home.
As we were packing our bookbags, I met a pair of worried eyes. True. True Holiday. If you’re going to fall for someone, they should at least have an awesome name. I’ve had a crush on her since middle school, I think she knows my name.
The desert is starting to give way to woods or something, small plants poke through the grains of sand like snakes. One bites me, and I realize the desert isn’t giving way at all, there are a lot of snakes here. As the medic of the group comes to my aid, his panicked tone and sweaty palms inform me of the seriousness of the bite. His apprentice has the most beautiful bronze skin. She meets my eye, and says that everything will be fine. Then she says my name. True. In the distance, I see a shimmer, it looks like Mom.

Gleam

Surrounded by giant Sequoias, casting long vestiges of their profile against the uneven and escalating terrain, the group can safely ascertain that we’ve been traveling north since leaving L.A. The last month blew right by us, and now we know what Lewis and Clark have dealt with. After looking back at my own journal entries, I am noticing a pattern in my language. It’s an odd feeling. I feel it often. Yesterday, a tree fell in the woods. A really big tree. Grey moved two people twenty feet away before it fell. He’s getting faster. I..I pushed True into the path of the falling tree, tripped Grey, and pushed a flat slate of boulder toward the tree. All within seconds of one another. True hit the ground hard, behind the flat rock, which propped up the tree. True’s left leg tripped Grey, who was trying in vain to save a third person from the tree’s fall, also behind the flat rock. It was amazingly fast, but somehow I knew it would happen that way. True was pretty pissed at me.

Refraction

Now we are moving into Washington. The Space Needle is threading in and out of the horizon. We haven’t decided whether we should avoid cities or not, we still don’t know what’s happened. We came across a radio a few days back, I’ve been following a radiowave pattern I can hear without telling the others.
True spoke to me yesterday. I knew what she was going to say before she spoke, I could read her body language. I said, “You’re welcome.” I said it before she had taken a breath in to say ‘thank you’. Then I said, “I don’t know how, I just see and hear, and feel patterns. It’s getting more intense by the day.” Then she stopped trying to talk and just stared at me. Then she kissed me quickly, and whispered, “You did not see that coming. Did you?” Then her eyes grew inches in diameter, her blood started rushing, I could see her pulse quicken, saw what her mouth started to say, and spun to meet four people with guns.
As these strangers were delivering an intimidating diatribe, I could hear True muttering prayers, just barely audible. She was standing four feet away from me, but I could hear her clearly. I thought the fear was making my hearing clearer, but then I recognized the sonic wave patterns in her speech, they were amplifying. I nodded to Grey, and he became a blur. Dashing behind True, grabbing her around the waist and squeezing, True screamed. I yelled, “Down!” The group followed my lead. The sound was deafening, and the wind caused by True’s sonic assault blew all four assailants at least forty yards away and knocked down two trees. All this sun must be good for us.

Freedom/Diversity

2011-02-20T12:31:00.001-08:00

You could be gay, you could be straight/

Let me get this straight - in this day/

People still saying, what you can and can't do/

And I can't speak for you, but I know what's true/

Like I remember back, when you couldn't do jack - if you were black/

Or in 1945 we was locking up the Jap/anese - Americans

Forced into silence, stupid is so stylish/

We did it to the Chinese, did it to the Irish/

Tell 'em what they can't do - then we keep 'em quiet/

Passe' ignorance is passed down - hey, nowadays - we got it to a science/

Showing Muslims hate? Since Osama/

Now there's no such thing as race? Since Obama/

Now it's your issue, it's your problem/

Your reality - your drama/

But my question for you: how high you gonna jump when they ask you to move?/

What are you gonna do when there's something you can't do?/

Cuz someone's looking at you like your lifestyle's not cool/

Metal Wish

2011-01-02T23:36:00.000-08:00

A soul of titanium/

My flow like vibranium/

Explode like uranium/

Blow the roof off a stadium/

Beneath the drum, hear the hum? That's right - I stabilize palladium/

Skin like a Gundam - laced with thundranium/

My eyes fiber optic - no need for straining 'em/

My mind is refined, rare find unobtainium/

Body like a suit of armor, couldn't put a blade in him/

Shining bright, with the sunlight? lens flare blazing 'em/

Apollo made of alloys, you don't want to play with him/

Wrapped in dragon scales, man Durza can't shade with him/

John Henry with the steel - I don't slave with 'em/

New rappers is aluminum, they break when my slang hit 'em/

Made of sterner stuff - I don't cross train with 'em/

Repertoire of Megatron with energon - change with him/

Beneath the surface are delicate inner-workings/

Hints of hope, hurt, and wisps of smoke/

No skeleton, muscles, or tendons - just bits of rope/

Holding it together, and if that shit broke?/

It all falls down, I lose my inner-ghost/

Forfeit my life , that's all she wrote/

A has-been, spitting stories that'll tell them how/

More than anything - I wish I was metal now/

Looking (1st Draft)

2010-11-15T11:38:00.000-08:00

Looked out the window for the sun
Looked out the window for my son
Found Sun Gods in the space between Mommy’s palms
Was given God’s Son in the breaths between Sunday psalms
They were very superstitious…
Writing on the wall, writing on the moon
Trouble on the water, trouble in the field, fire in the house
Fire out the mouth…of preachers, teaching the fire next time
Telling it on the mountain
Looked in the library for Baldwin
Looked in the library for Batman
Looked at my people and thought,
“Which do you think fights crime better?”
Reading the books?
Or getting the book thrown at you
Because you was in the wrong place and chose to book it
Rather than be detained in Central Booking
Or taken to county where you aren’t allowed to read a book.

8-bit Nightmare

2010-10-20T22:02:00.000-07:00

Ram3 is Ganon with the Triforce of Power/
Came from the south, flames out the mouth - Bowser/
Break your styles down in an hour/
Came back to the game SNK-style Krauser/

The enemy is time, I put punches between clock ticks/
Thirst the grab the 1st emerald - Robotnik/
Flow something like Dr. Wily know robotics/
And I ain't on the block a lot/
My mind's been evolving, revolving like Ocelot/

The rap game is FoxDie - I'm moving like Liquid/
Moving like a liquid/
My Soundwaves found slaves' underground graves/
And with a joint like this? I point like this/
And I moved the Pacific/

A mix between Mega Man and Malcolm/
Cuz I could switch the flow up and change the whole outcome/
And this is just a verse, imagine my album?/

Dai Lee (for my Earth benders)

2010-08-05T17:50:00.001-07:00

With my feet planted firm, yo I stand stiff/
Imprint this sanskrit/
Flick of my wrist, like this, makes sands shift/
You bandstand fans can't stand it/

My horse stance makes your whores glance and your land split/
Brought fire, water, air, and still couldn't dance with/
The Bronx Blind Bandit/
In touch with the Earth, Avatar, Captain Planet/

Indigenous people with internet bandwidth/
Living off the minerals/
Walk through Omashu or Ba Sing Se like a 4-star general/
The writing's on the wall - I wrote it in the ground, so it's legible/

From space, and I can see the tears on your face/
Which means you don't wanna die/
Cuz I redirect lightning like i'm Water Tribe/
Rock shock your block with a bop that change water tides/

Come back for more, I make sure you're immortalized/
Cuz all you got is ad-libs and pot shots/
But I could bust a stance that make your bullets look like pop rocks/

Killer In Cold Clothes

2010-08-05T16:26:00.000-07:00

>(For anyone who has ever wanted to know what the story of the scar on the center my forehead)

Tuesday. Again. Waking up for school in the winter sucks. Especially on a Tuesday. Too close to Sunday to forget how fun the weekend was, just far enough into the week to forget how to have fun. That, and it’s still black as night at six-thirty in the morning in the Bronx, like God forgot to hit the switch on the sun here. I’m slipping on my clothes, which are cold as hell, which doesn’t really make sense, but if in hell they made your clothes out of ice that’s what this feels like. By the time I put on my Raiders hoody, which my mom got because they were sold out of Dallas ones, I swear I’m already frostbit. The streetlights reflecting off the snow are forcing orange through my window, so I can see my breath and everything. It looks like a ghost I gave life to by just breathing.

I make my way downstairs to head out for school, tip-toeing past mom’s room like a Navy SEAL behind enemy lines, each time my foot touches the floor it makes the sound of small firecrackers with short fuses popping off on a hot day. I sneak like this for like ten whole minutes, past her room, and pick up my backpack from the living room. I realize my house in the morning is like a train at four in the morning. ‘Cause you can remember it full of people and when it’s empty you feel like the world is upside-down. Anyway, I turn toward the kitchen and my there’s my mom, making juevos con tostones, filling the apartment with my infancy in PR. With half her Puerto Rican accent intact she says, “You know, it was cute to watch you sneak around when you was little. Not so much anymore.” She doesn’t know, but when mommy speaks, even when she’s mad, it feels so nice, ‘cause she gives me her attention. I said back to her, “You worry too much ma’. I’m twelve now, I can handle going to school by myself.”

“If that’s the case flaco, then how come your teachers say you miss school like twice a week? Don’t even try to answer, just take your butt to school, please!”

I leave the plate on the table, full, and steaming in the cold apartment. Mommy says some curses in Spanish at me, but I’m already out the front door, so it sounds like her mouth was duct taped, and she’s cursing her kidnappers out for dear life.

It makes me wish Papi was still here, he always knew how to calm her down. Mommy says he was a mad smooth Dominican chulo, and that he always wore pants so tight you could see his junk. That’s probably how he ended up with that Melinda lady. When I go with Papi some weekends she’s there with him, in their nice house, and she’s cool, and he’s happy. I have fun there, but when I think of how hard it is for mommy and me. I ask all the time, “Why did he leave?” She just gets mad and screams at me that I’m just like him, and I’m gonna leave her too. Makes me so mad to think about it, and I always think about it when mommy’s mad, which is all the time. Can’t be late, or they’ll mark me absent.

On my way to school I gotta watch my back, especially since it’s so dark out. I dip into the Domincan bakery on the corner of my block since it’s always lit up with bright pink and green neon lights that say Rainbow Diner spelled “Raimbow Dinner”. Knowing that when my mom comes in here for a coffee later, the pretty Domincan girl behind the counter with the beauty mark on her upper thigh that looks like Florida (my boy Alfredo told me) and them fake gold hoop earrings will tell her I came in and bought a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich with my allowance. It’s like a message in a bottle that always get’s where you want it to go. Bochincheras are good for that. I killed the sandwich quickly and ran to the bus stop like I was getting an Olympic gold medal. Anyway, I go back to sleep on the bus ride to school, I don’t really have a choice, the bus driver has the heat set on ‘desert’, which the setting after ‘Cuba’ and before ‘Africa’. Getting to school early gives me the same feeling as when I’m in my living room in the morning, except for one difference: excitement. No one is here, and the playground gates are wide open.

After running and skipping with joy to the playground, carefully bounding over the broken glass of last night’s drunken morons and dropping my bag in the snow, my day comes to a screeching halt: there’s a boy on the tire swing. There’s this little black boy sitting in the swing, he’s so weak that he can’t even move it, but he’s laughing so loud. It’s like a little black smudge on the all-white painting of my day. The sun is starting to come up now, and the blue light is tearing shadows into the calm of my early morning. Between the sun and the boy on the swing, I can’t tell which is pissing me off more. Don’t know where it came from, but an idea was climbing up my spine using the spaces between the bones. Next thing I know, I threw my hood on and let the dark colors of my hoody into my actions. By the time I got to the swing, I was sure between the sun and the boy, I could at least cause the boy some pain. Anything to get my swing back.

He was wearing a thin denim jacket with a white, furry collar, navy blue uniform pants, a sky blue button-down uniform shirt, and some Payless loafers. His clothes were the exact same color as the morning. That made me angry. Changing my voice to sound older I said, “You want me to push you on the swing?” He was shocked, as if he didn’t know I was there. He responded in a small voice, “No thank you. I’m okay.” He had to be a third grader, how did he get to school before me, or any of the other fifth graders? The fact that this kid got here before me just pissed me off, so I started to push him on the swing. Faster, and faster, and higher, and higher, then spinning one way, then spinning the other; hoping he’d fall off. The boy started to yell for me to stop, so I pushed harder and harder. It started to drizzle a bit, then it rained a little. The playground was lit with an even, grey light, like the world matched my hoody, matched my mind, matched my heart. I stopped pushing when the boy started crying. I was just trying to scare him, but he wouldn’t let go.

I went to pick up my bag when I noticed that the boy was too small to get out of the moving swing, he looked like a baby bird trying to take first flight out of the nest, so scared. Then he jumped out of the swing at its highest point, it was a good jump too. He landed like a cat, perfectly on his feet. Then the speed of his jump forced his upper forward while his feet stayed planted in place, half a second later he was falling face first onto the stone stairs that led to the swings. There was a crunching sound when his face hit, like stepping into fresh powdered snow and compressing the first footprint. I froze. He jumped up like he was asleep and realized he was two hours late for class, took three steps and dropped down. I ran over to him and asked what his name was, he said something like, “France” or “French”, and I was gonna go get help. Then I noticed that all the students from school were there now, the playground fully lit in a bright grey light, the school bell ringing. Right then, I could hear my mom in my head saying, “Flaquito, go to school now!” So I started walking toward the sound of the bell. I looked back and saw a pool of blood surround his body like a black hole opening under him, devils and demons waiting to dress the boy in cold clothes. I never saw the boy again, but I remember watching his breath leaving his mouth and wondering if his ghost was following me to school.

Written By: Frantz Jerome
(All rights reserved to the author.)

Digital Tradition

2010-08-05T16:21:00.000-07:00

For all the negative things said about the increasingly inorganic landscape of New York City, it begs to be said that there is much natural beauty here as well. Parks, miles-long streaks of green leaves and forest wildlife. Streams…Browning, babbling capillaries running perpetual laps from the Hudson to the gulf of the South Bronx. The sun, playing tricks along the tips of skyscrapers, and lie across the ground with imperfect perfection. My family…saw none of it. We were too busy playing video games. Eyes glued to computer monitors, television sets, flat panels, and flat screens. My family’s tradition was playing video games.
For all the skeptics out there thinking to themselves, “How can a hobby, barely forty years-old, be a family tradition?” The answer: Who the hell asked you? Video games became tradition when I realized that from the day I was born, video games were there. My mother, stepfather, older brother, and younger brothers are my immediate family. Our tradition is based in the ever-evolving technologies of the video game console.
At some point in 1967, Ralph Baer writes the first video game for television sets. My mother was seven years of age at the time. She was being raised on a farm in rural Mississippi. My mother’s strong sense of justice and inability to do anything but work would be key ingredients in the gaming gumbo of my family. Ralph Baer was an employee at Loral, a television electronics company. As fate would have it, my stepfather was an employee at Loral in the eighties, but I digress. In 1975, Atari releases the godfather of modern gaming: Pong. My stepfather gets a degree in information technology, sends his resume to Loral. The rest is my family history.
In 1985 Nintendo released it’s first North American console, the NES. I was two years of age, and totally unaware how this would affect my life. My younger brother, Ronald would be born four years later, on the cusp of the release of Sega’s Genesis console. It’s always been Sonic versus Mario in our household. This is the set-up. The beauty of this integration, this melding of man and technology, the summation of our social recombination comes on the heels of the most complicated political occurrence of the 21st century.
In 2001, Sony Entertainment released Metal Gear: Solid. A video game whose overarching theme is that of the gene, meme, scene and sense. I was sold on the graphics alone. The game’s themes were broken into three amazing sensory-blurring adventures. Metal Gear Solid dealt with genetics and the moral implications of genetic engineering, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty deals with how identity can be affected by the philosophies of one's society (a 'meme') and the effects of censorship on society, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater dealt with how the time and place one lives in (a 'scene') affects their identity and how politics change along with the times, and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots dealt with the 'sense' that people die, things move on and times change and that life shouldn't be lived fighting. We played each of these games for days, as in the hours we’d played could be measured in twenty-four hour increments. The technology premiered in this fictional world blew my brother and I away. My step-father would sit and watch us play. One day, he leans over to us, smelling explicitly of Drakkar Noir, and say, “You know, this game is only ten years behind what we’re working on now at L------- M-----." Here comes the summation.
September 11th, 2001. Some crazy stuff went down. The political climate was torn asunder. My brother and I were dismissed from school early. As latchkey kids, we made our way home, sat in the living room and did what any kid home from school would do: played video games. My mother would come home shortly after, angered at having to leave work early. Her sunset pink nurse’s uniform was soaked under the arms, around the neck, and across her back. She’d run into the house like she was being chased by the Taliban high command. She slammed and locked the door, froze at the sight of us placated by the video game during this extreme tumult. Right when our eyes met our mother’s rigid frame, a lion sat on the front steps and roared. At least, that’s what it felt like, but for the vibrations that shattered every glass table we owned. In reality, planes were flying overhead. My mother screamed, hit the deck like a Marine ducking mortar fire. My brother and I: perfectly still. Utterly calm. Zen-like. My mother jumps towards us, hugging the breath out of my still-changing adolescent body, sobbing hysterically. My brother, eleven years of age at the time, turned his head what little he could in mom’s grasp and confidently said, “It’s ok mom, those are just F-22 Raptors making a net formation across the city. The shaking is from the after burners, they’re going mach 1, breaking the sound barrier. That’s why the tables broke, calm down. That means we’re safe.” I was in shock. My little brother, memorized and comprehended the entire day’s events, lost his innocence virtually, then actually. Somewhere between his newfound fear of girls and understanding of nuclear proliferation, I’d noticed that video games taught my brother more than school ever could. Since then, my mom has mastered every form of Tetris.

What Not: short story of a 'true' memory

2010-08-05T16:09:00.000-07:00

I was rocking a white Kangol with a slight tilt, a white t-shirt one size too small, brown cargo pants, and a pair of white Nikes I saved my summer youth employment money to buy. It was July…or August, in the year of our lord 1999. Or I was wearing khaki cargo shorts, and black Nike uptowns, with a black tank top, or whatever she liked. I always did whatever she liked. Those were the terms of our relationship, terms that would eventually force me away. She liked when I wore dark pants and bright shirts, so I did just that. Alyx, my girlfriend, was never busy, but I could never get to her on that archaic Star Tac cell phone of hers. It would be five more years until I even had a beeper; her mom was well to do. Whether it was July or August escapes me, but it was hot! Newly tarred New York City streets were bleeding translucent waves of heat, but I was keeping my cool. She had this thing about ‘cool’ guys, and maybe I took it too literally, but I was determined to keep my disproportionately attractive girlfriend. I wasn’t pleased about having to make an appointment to see Alyx, (afraid she would start charging, she was so hot), but I was eager to see her. Or nervous, whichever.

In about ten hours from this memory, I’ll be in my room, taking off my clothes. With each article shed, removing a layer of her expectations thrust upon me by predetermined pubescent pressures. I would know who I was, and who she was forever after. Standing at the precipice of my becoming a man, I would look back on this day with regret. Ten years later (at twenty-seven) I would turn over to see my wife asleep, her fertile mind mothering some loving danger, and laugh at how hung up I was on Alyx.
Right now, I’m a seventeen-year-old black kid standing on a stoop in the East Village. Looking a gangly collaboration of brown and white, some rice and beans The Bronx spit out into Manhattan. The blanket of smarmy heat is so oppressive the ginkgo trees are sweating – but I looked like I just stepped out of the refrigerator. It helps to be the lone person of color amongst the homogenized hipster trash strolling carelessly along Avenue A and Ninth Street, my cocoa skin acting as cooling agent. So damned cool.

She's late for our appointment, five minutes of so, actually an hour, but I never mind when she’s late. I can remember her as being so attractive, like ‘too hot for a guy like me’ attractive. The perfect equation: equal parts track and field athlete, valedictorian, and my sexual equivalent to boot. She’d just moved to New York from its wicked step-sister New Jersey. We’d just reached the point in our courtship where we were meeting each others parents. You’d think that should’ve been before the sex, but clearly we thought otherwise. It’d been about a year since we met eyes and locked private parts in some Jersey playground at night, and this was our anniversary date…or it was a random Thursday with no particular meaning. Either way, I was getting to know her as a person, and I was falling inexorably in lo--. Hold that thought.

She finally comes downstairs. As she does a breeze slowly crawls up the block and grazes her frame in the vestibule, right when as she crosses it. Her long, boxed braids gently jumped from behind her ears and landed on the soft of her neck and shoulders. The hem of her tan, linen dress skipped up her knees and revealed the carved, mocha-hued musculature of her thigh. Wind, the gentle pervert. She looks at her watch, beauty and beast in synchronicity. Gracefully parting her lips to say inconsiderate things perfectly.

“Sorry about that.” She says, guiltily.
“About what?” I reply, knowingly.
She whispers in my ear, “You’re so sweet.”
Or was it, “You’re too sweet.” In a flat, cool, even tone to my face.

She made reservations at a cozy Latin bistro on Avenue B a few blocks away, that, or we just walked in a found a table. It was designed so that patrons could walk in, go through to a back yard, and eat outside. She ordered an appetizer, the most expensive entrée on the menu, and a modest desert. I had the chicken with mango salsa. Or just a water. Whichever. The summer sun was setting, the pink and zephyr sky painting her brown skin in ethereal pastels. She was glowing. All of which, coupled with my combustible hormones, fueled my most daring and foolhardy adventures in romance. I started to say,

“Alyx, I think I love y—“

Before I could finish, as if she’d had something just as amazing to say to me, comes:

“I’ve been thinking about the idea of free and universal love.” Dreamily delivered deathblow.
“Uh, what’s that?” I replied, genuinely baffled.
“You know, like, being with whoever you want sexually. But always coming back to us.”
“Hmm.” Was all I could muster.

I didn’t say another word to her. Like, ever. Until I bumped into her very pregnant belly at an airport in Arizona ten years later, en route to see my fiancé perform her one-woman show in LA. Alyx would go on to say that she remembered the amicable and lengthy break-up conversation, or was it the really awkward and short one. You know, the one that happened? Whichever.

Dream Warriors

2010-07-30T22:04:00.000-07:00

Who else but Ram3 rocking a 3-piece/
Could spit it with the kick that'll wake you from 3 sleeps?/
Blood's thicker than water - I wade in it, knee deep/
Architect - change the landscape of these mean streets/

It's a paradox when my pen flows/
The ink hides the loops, now you caught in my Penrose/
The next Last Dragon, man - look how the pen glows/
The truth was on the page, from the moment my pen rose/
The ink hides the loops - a paradox when my pen flows/

Watch and learn, my crew - schooling the nation/
"A job this complex requires imagination"/
That's why I treat the mind like mi casa/
And run schemes like Mr. Eames from Gun Hill to Mombasa/

Super slick - I be dodging the snake's venom/
My verse is like a maze, I know that you're not getting/
But I keeps it really real - I know if the top's spinning/

Game Over (for Frankie)

2010-07-19T21:42:00.001-07:00

When I move you move, is it Luda or inertia?/
Sick with the words, slick moves - Prince of Persia/
Word the - past meets the future like a Dinobot/
Ram3 hit the track, Atlas Shrugged - now he Bioshocked/

This is like Wayne's World, you are not worthy/
Eat rappers, take their skills like Mega Man and Kirby/
The best of both worlds - split personalities merging/
You sick? I'm Dr. Mario - they prepping me for surgery/

I rock the pen like Broken Sword wields a half knife/
Escaped from Black Mesa Projects, something like Half-Life/
I'm Gordon Freeman possessed by the Raging Demon/
Slice and dicing out with Raiden (mgs), shock like Raiden (mk) - leave 'em screaming/

I'm 1st player, you 2nd on the guest list/
Blah Blah, you move bricks - man, whatever I play Tetris/
Yea..and my specials never finish/
You on the ground, first round - Super Hyper Combo Finish/

--Digital Villainy

8-Bit Morning

2010-07-05T10:06:00.000-07:00

It's an 8-bit day, I can be your Mega Man/
We could push through whatever hurts, measure it in Megahurtz/
She wanna Rock and Roll, Rush to the megabytes/
Looking like a fly Ninja Gaiden in some leather tights/
Stalked her like a Sphinx in the grass/
Said, "I can free you from your dungeon, be your Link to the Past"/
Or I can walk past, that could be the end of it/
She shot me through the heart, on some Duck Hunt Nintendo shit/
Caught me using cheat codes, now she Bruce Lee with kendo sticks/
Tried to build with her, like a Tetris-trained architect/
But she slept on me like a Tempur-pedic narcolept/
Thought I worked quick like, "Get ready, on your mark, get set"/ Go
Figure, she had me looking Up, Down, Left, Right - point A to B - right back to Start, Select/
She had me feeling like Low G-Man, floating/
But now it's Game Over, no continues, last token/

i celebrities final

2010-05-10T21:35:00.000-07:00

In this installment, we explore the global phenomenon of modern police brutality, and note its origins in the media.

We as a 'wired' society know that this authoritarian brutality exists on almost every continent of our precious planet. What we don't know as a society are the factors that contribute to these events. One such issue is media representation and underrepresentation. Typically, Americans receive their national and international information via televised news. So do many other 'developed' nations. What stories are being told? From whose perspective? At what cost?

One of the most crucial, televised conflicts in modern human history is that between Israel and Palestine. Israel being a Jewish state, and Palestine an Arab state. Here are the media's negative views of both nations (Arab and Israeli respectively):

Now, the most negative Israeli media I could find was a collection of UN documents. Pretty clandestine material, not publicized to any great degree. On the other hand, we have decades worth of negative Arab imagery, at present actively vilified. Which lends itself to behavior like this as U.S. soldiers 'police' Arab nations:

The same dynamic plays out for anyone vilified well enough:

The news outlets have access to information not privy to the public, but outlets answer to the federal government. Where does the power lie to change these views? What keeps change from surfacing?

"Each news outlet, whether its FOX News or MSNBC has resorted to preaching to its own choir as opposed to objectively presenting the news. Meanwhile, ethnic media sites have also penetrated the marketplace, offering yet another alternative to the mainstream news. While this has resulted in a more diverse media landscape, especially for minority communities who have for years felt underrepresented and largely ignored by the mainstream media, it comes at a cost.

That cost: Collectively we are not coming to the table with an established set of facts. Based upon the outlets we frequent, we are getting divergent information, and there is a growing uncertainty on whether there is an objective truth anymore. The other cost: We are quickly devolving into various tribes as opposed to one electorate.

You could argue those tribes have always existed. And you would be right. But my point is that the current state of American journalism is furthering that gap as oppose to shrinking it."

"There's no doubt that polarization matters,” said David Wilson, a political psychologist. “The problem with the news media is it all depends on your perspective.”-- Devona Walker @theloop21.com

Which brings this expose to a close on one truth: Citizens are being led to separate conclusions by the media. Which brings us to one question, the same question: why? The answer: to force consent.

In none of the police brutality videos does anyone say "no" to them, even though they know what is happening is illegal. Somehow, the people find a way to submit. How can all these different people around the world be influenced to consent to being beaten? How can all of these different people around the world don a uniform be influenced to beat, maim, torture, and kill? Programming:

Remain Villains--

Reflect on my Eternal

2010-05-02T20:10:00.000-07:00

These feelings, emotions - hard to describe it/
And me, I'm a scribe and/
This thing is primal, tribal, insightful/
Cuz you as cute as Fieval, delightful, likeable/
A-Alike for life, it's fun to be just like you/
I love your dark skin and hair - and how your smile lights you/
From every different angle/
Our souls are tangled, never to be pulled apart, estranged, mangled/
Your voice in my ear is like the clanging of bangles/
To the touch: soft-hot, like hell birthed an angel/
But heaven works within you, how could I contain you?/
The distance between us - gets pretty painful/
But the sun shines behind you like a pretty rainfall/
There ain't enough words to say all/
Pictures to display all/
Poems to explain all/
Near you, I stay awed/
Audiences say, "Awww..."
My love eternal, who I would slay for/
You're a flower...a river...a rainbow/

Here Comes Everybody (4th book)

2010-04-19T07:33:00.000-07:00

I do not like this book at this preliminary juncture. Perhaps I am being too stand-offish. I should say first that I commend Clay Shirky for documenting the effect current technology has on the generation gap and the new society birthed from said effect. However, there is so much societal history that is not accounted for in Shirky's book. The class stratification in the Americas and the consequent differences in access to information, these are the important caveats that work against the urgency of Shirky's argument that the changes in society stem from the changes in communication. Not including history in "changes in society" defeats itself as history tends to repeat itself, regardless of technological advances. Hopefully reading on will change my feelings about the book. We will see.

-- Literary Villainy..

Everyday Hero..

2010-04-18T20:38:00.000-07:00

More than anything, a hero needs to overcome some impossible odds to meet their greatness. The everyday hero I chose can be visited on about any day at 512 w. 143rd st. in Harlem. He is the co-founder of The Brotherhood component of The Brotherhood-SisterSol nonprofit organization. His name is Khary, my brothers and I call him 'K'.

Khary Lazarre White is a Harlem entrepreneur and philanthropist. However, his biggest and arguably most important title is as CEO of Brotherhood-SisterSol, an organization he started 15 years ago while still at Brown University.

The non-profit program, which provides a holistic wrap-around service (social, educational, employment etc) for at-risk youth in Harlem, has an impressive success rate - 95 percent of its students are college graduates or working full time. To date, nearly 500 students have gone through the program. It's this statistic, helping to empower an astonishing number of young men and women of color to overcome impossible odds, that makes Khary a hero. Elevated to everyday status by continuing his work in the neighborhood he lives in, a buoyant solution moving with purpose in an ocean of problems.

-- Of course a hero is the precursor to my villainy..

One Pen To Rule Them All

2010-03-31T20:05:00.000-07:00

Cut you with what I got, off the top like a barber/
Black History like Malcolm, you George Washington Carver/
Cause for alarm like I traded arms with DARPA/
Multiple arms: Doc Ock v. Peter Parker/
You knew from the start that you ain't want no parts of/
These mystical arts, lyrical darts to the heart son/
The origin of tough, like Chuck Norris' father/
Big bang, small package; snub-nosed revolver/
Orangutang thunderstorm, Gorilla Monsoon/
Wrote this with a pen I found up in Mount Doom/
Hot as friction with the writtens - 'you'll find that it's quite cool'/
I'm dismissing your admissions to lyrically fly schools/
While my curriculum is killing 'em, homicide haikus/
Your pedagogy is sloppy, you best to copy my cues/
Ram3 - hit by a bus, he might bruise/
A gangstas gangsta - like the girl in a gang that fights dudes/

Avatar and Humanity

2010-03-26T22:10:00.000-07:00

One can view the film Avatar by James Cameron as commentary on environmental issues. Such a view only scratches the surface. The environmental issues in real-life are staggering in not only their stupidity, but also in their evolution. The environmental issue is based upon the economic issue which is based upon the fundamentally flawed source of all these symptomatic concerns: the ideal of human progression. It's the empirical history of human society that permeates Avatar, the kind of society that allows Christopher Columbus to 'discover' and destroy the Taino and Arawak nations and be celebrated. The society we live in now is built upon the ideologies of men and women bent on subjugating 'the other'. This is the core of the film for me. In regards to its effect on environmentalism, minimal, since Pandora is nowhere near real. However, it may shine some light on some of the mining situations around the world, but even those have class and race issue at their core.

-- Villainy..

In.Fluence vrs. 3

2010-03-25T15:54:00.000-07:00

Flow never the same twice - I alternate live/
Schitzophrenic spitter - I alternate lives/
American Terrorist, when I terrorize/
Sounds like Uptown Saturday Night 1-9-7-9/
That's me, globe traveler grew up latchkey/
Real recognized real, and you looking mechanized/
Like Cycloptic fiber optics in Megatron's eyes/
Gangster Nerd, I cast the die with equivalent sides/
Which means I always win, which means I never die/
Ferris Bueller of rap - I don't slack, I scheme through it/
If getting free was a movie - this was the theme music/
Soundtrack to 'Why not sell Ki's"/
How not to be a Square Enix and roll with LC's/
Watching my Little Brother spit and record an LP/
What's real? What's The Matrix - you tell me/
I just write Psyence Fiction, U-N-K-L-E/

Life on Screen 100-end

2010-03-25T14:57:00.000-07:00

This half of the reading was more challenging as Turkle begins to assess the psycho-social aspects of the generational effects of technology on youth (a mouthful).

There are moments in the book where Turkle has interviewed youth around their interactions with technology. It's the interviews that cue us, as the reader, in to what happens next in the blurring between the actual and the virtual: an organic, inborn understanding of the virtual. I think Turkle coined it by noting:

"The idea of talking to technology begins to seem more natural when the computer presents itself less like a traditional machine and more like a demi-person...The reconfiguration of machines as psychological objects and people as living machines..."

It's this deeply psychological inquiry, born in the minds of younger and younger generations, that move our youth toward less of a blurring and more of an symbiotic blending of the actual and the virtual.

Life on Screen 1-100

2010-03-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

Sherry Turkle is in many ways writing an expose on the virtual self, from self analysis. I am very in touch with the issue of being seduced by the virtual world. I have a series of user names, and I am a retired hacker (means I got caught). In regards to the writing, Turkle touches upon the crux of the second self, namely, lure.

As an avid video game player, I can speak first hand to using space exploration in Starfox (for super nintendo) as a means of escaping the project buildings I lived in at the time. That was the first time, then it was focusing my frustrations in school on Soul Edge. I hadn't realized how big an issue the second self was for myself until I noticed my little brother had faithfully inherited the lure, his frustrations voiced through the wanton violence of Grand Theft Auto, his inadequacies in school overcompensated for by his desire to enforce nuclear proliferation and anti-terrorism in Metal Gear Solid.

This is the seduction awaiting each more 'wired' generation, Turkle notes how she is compelled to write using a computer, as if the archaic pen(cil) and paper no longer existed, like they never existed. It's Turkle's ties to the analog past that allow her to express her opinions of how the digital world is changing our society, copy and pasting the 'future' onto the past, and becoming the 'always'. What I take from the early half of this reading is that as time progresses, the fact that we weren't always digital in nature will become forgotten, then become myth. Therein lies the true villainy...

My avatar for the week

2010-03-23T17:13:00.001-07:00

My avatar is Faith from the video game Mirror's Edge. She is a courier in her virtual world, a freerunner in our world. Her most deadly weapon is her vision, which then fuels her creativity, and ability to create paths while she traverses obstacles. I'd like to think that my most deadly weapon is also my vision, which fuels my desire for change.

Faith in action:

Counting Stars

2010-03-23T09:05:00.000-07:00

On knees bent, I'm praying these kids don't walk the road we went/
Not because it was tough, that's the wrong reason/
But the path of the freedom fighter's called treason/
I'm fighting for change so that my son sees it/
And my daughter to understand that if she quits/
The revolution would die in that sequence/
In the meantime I produce like Seacrest/
Writing these poems to get a buzz like bees' nests/
With the people on my mind like Jesus/
Or Cassius Clay in the Congo; free us/
From preconceived notions and hatred/
Lenses, to help see through the fakeness/
Like Morpheus, been up and out of this matrix/
Came back - just to see who I could take with/
Counting stars and making new constellations/
Since zeroes and ones are still new calculations/

iCelebrities Midterm

2010-03-15T07:23:00.000-07:00

On any given day, at any given time, what you just saw is likely to happen to any young person of color in New York City. Let's illustrate:

Statistics and video are a form of passive participation. Not to say these don't give a sense of how some folks feel, but there are ways to measure feelings. Rap/MC-ing is one of those things, an art form born of marginalization, criminalization, and strife.

Look What It's Done
Now what am I supposed to do?/
When just seeing cops makes me emotional?/
I'm talking about the anger building/
When the cops post up outside your building/
Like they're waiting for action, something appealing/
One in the chamber, and no feelings/
No connections to the blocks they beat/
Don't ask why we don't respect cops we see/
Never mind the deaths, cover-ups, and dealings
Focus on the entrepreneurs and the beatings/
Cuz we can't chill up in a nice sedan/
When the police just locked up the Icee man/
It's, almost all good in the hood/
Til the cops get shook, and try to get you for good/
Slam you up against the car and push your face up on the hood/
Try to run away - they put two through your hood/
Then, two through your wrists, two through your kicks/
And put the passion of our youth on a crucifix/
Now, how am I supposed to be?
When the victims all look like you and me?/
What happened to serve and protect?/
Somebody's gotta pay, it's not over yet/

Art like this is inspired by acts like these:

and these:

this was last November, involving some of our schoolmates:

in Michigan:

in Seattle:

in the South: from 10sec. in jump to 3:40

more from the South:

in the UK:

Los Angeles:

this is alarmingly normal:

A Record Number of Stops

An August 14, 2009 press release from the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) is titled “Record Number of Innocent New Yorkers Stopped, Interrogated by NYPD During First Half of Year.” Based on figures from the NYPD, the NYCLU reports that in the first six months of 2009 alone, cops in New York City stopped more than 273,000 people who—according to the police themselves—were not violating any laws. This represents the highest number of innocent people stopped and questioned by the NYPD in six months since the department began keeping stop-and-frisk data.

From January to June of this year, the NYPD as a whole (including the various precincts as well as bureaus such as housing, transit, and narcotics) stopped and frisked 311,646 people, the overwhelming majority of them Black and Latino. Of that total, more than 9 in 10—or 273,556 people—were not arrested or given a summons. In other words, by the NYPD’s own admission, in just the first six months of this year they had stopped and searched close to 275,000 people who were not even alleged to have committed any crime. It should be pointed out that the actual number of innocent New Yorkers subjected to these stop and frisks is no doubt even higher, since the figure does not account for people who were wrongfully accused of a crime by the police.

The stop-and-frisk figures are undeniable evidence of racial profiling by the NYPD. Of the total of 311,646 people stopped between January through June 2009, 163,118 (52.3 percent) are Black and 81,210 (32.1 percent) are Latino, while only 29,782 (9 percent) are white. Compare this with the overall New York City population figures according to nationality: 24 percent Black, 28 percent Latino, and 35 percent white (the rest are Native American, Asian American, and others).

Breaking down the data a bit further, of the 163,118 Black New Yorkers who were stopped and frisked, 148,731 (91.2 percent) were neither arrested nor given a summons. Similarly, of the 81,210 Latinos stopped, 68,689 (84.6 percent) were neither arrested nor given a summons.

The figures for the first half of 2009 come on top of the statistics for last year, when the NYPD stopped and frisked a record total of 531,159 times—again, overwhelmingly targeting Black and Latino people.

Michael Moore takes a stab at it:

back to NYC:

While this may seem irregular or out of place to some of you reading this, it is fairly commonplace in urban areas, or any place with a concentration of people of color and a disproportionately white police force. I can speak firsthand to this, and to the extreme urgency this issue demands, but media speaks so much louder.

~Let the villainy ensue..

A little on Kids With Cameras site

2010-03-09T07:32:00.000-08:00

Kids with Cameras is what my friends call 'doing the work'. I am astounded by how docile wealthy nations are, and by how brave some members of said nations can be. What KWC is developing isn't small, westernized regions. They are creating the source for progression in regressive societal regions. There is no right or wrong in the places KWC does work, only what is needed to improve the quality of life the world over, this is also the work of every corporeal woman, whether she knows it or not.

The sustainable housing concept they are working on in Calcutta is what is need in many nations, I would hope the UN gets a good look at this work and recognize how easily this can be done to support Haiti and Chile after their quakes, Thailand and China after their tsunami and quake respectively, the US homeless and unemployed population and Native Americans on reservations, or a slew of other places/causes that can utilize this model to improve the quality of life of billions. This site is barebones on the outside, but all heart on the in.

Am I a viral thinker? (week six response)

2010-03-09T06:10:00.000-08:00

I have truly gone to extraordinary lengths in life to rarely follow the ideas of others. I can actually say that I don't participate in viral thoughts, at least on a conscious level. However, I have been 'ground zero' for a few things, and started a few viral trends; nothing too contagious, but I've given folks something else to be distracted by while working on the internet. I've made it a habit to 'tag' people in my notes (most of which are poetry) in Facebook. Also I subscribe to HAWP (Hey Ash, Whatcha' Playing?) which is a video game-themed web comedy series by a brother and sister, and I have brought them hundreds of followers by suggesting them to friends and their friends (http://www.heyash.com/). I'd never given it a second though as to whether it was a success, but I noticed that after a year, HAWP was asked to do a live taping at E3 (the biggest video-game convention to date), and was able to press a DVD of their work for distribution. Maybe I'd measure the 'success' by noting the success of others building their work from the ground up.

About the wisdom of crowds...

2010-02-19T15:03:00.000-08:00

Oddly enough, I have been so predisposed to the concept of individualism in a sea of conformity as positive, it had never occurred to me that there could be a beneficial aspect of appealing to groups on any scale. The analogy of the 'waggle dance' and ox-weighing experiment actually changed my mind in regards to relying on group dynamic for analysis; then I remembered how some families have those black boxes that monitor what they watch on television 24/7 and are sent readouts of what these families purchase as a result of the commercials they see on television. I'd like to think that there's some benevolent and people-powered positivity in the wisdom of crowds, but in our hyper-mass marketed country, I can't help but feel that an individual with well-rounded skill sets stands a better chance of figuring something out. after further review I may feel different.

In.Fluence vrs.2

2010-02-16T12:52:00.000-08:00

I got that - Knowledge of Self Scientific/
The worth of my wealth? Prolific/
Sitting of the shelf? Forget it/
See...we know what Nas Is Like, I know what I was like/
Impatient, rebellious - counting down the hours like/
One Day It'll All Make Sense; something my elders and I have in Common/
This a tape deck grenade, you can call it a 'SoundBombing'/
My bad, too soon? They like, "You a jerk!"/
I'm like, "Nah, I'm an Architect - I'm a Kool Herc"/
While these mooks do dirt, I build new work/
Inside a Razorblade Suitcase with brand new locks/
Sitting in D-Block, waiting for some brand new Lox/
Arrested in Fort Minor - for trying to steal Instrumentals from a Box/
Whole thing was a Fiasco/
Should've known the block was bottled heat like Tobasco/
But that's how that go/

In.Fluence vrs.1

2010-02-09T21:31:00.000-08:00

Way before me, way before pistols, way before Cristal, way before crystal/
There was just Kris...Parker/
Not Peter, a Criminal Minded leader/
Whose lyrical rhyming meter was fluid in measured liters/
Absorbed by these Roots, at the Tipping Point/
Before Things Fall Apart, with the Blackest of Thoughts, I spit the joint/
Make 'em dance, a pimp with the providence, champion of chance/
Raw with the Dice - Dave Chappelle, Leonard Washington/
They say he M.Illitant, but he just dilligent/
The say sky's the limit, so I'm hanging with the ceiling fan/
Biohazardous, stay spitting sicker than/
Your lyric slinging coughing guy/
Marching with the Pharoahe - spit the glyphs off sarcophagi/
Simon Says see The Light - The Truth, y'all be walking by/
I been spitting that Panthro - waving red and blue nunchucks/
Way ahead of you numb nuts, educating the young ones/
Rebounding redundants/

Net Neutraility

2010-02-08T08:13:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWt0XUocViE

The internet under fire..

Week In Review

2010-02-03T06:40:00.001-08:00

They think we're savages, like, "Do they even bleed?"/
When's the last time you'd though you'd seen/
People treated like they were not allowed to dream?/
Was it the scene, where Martin Luther King got shot/
Was it not that far back, but somewhere that you've been?/
Like kids acting grown at the age of nineteen/
With their eyes wide shut and their minds wiped clean/

Because, they think we're blind, like, "Do they even see?"/
Past the here and now, how short-sighted can we be?/
We spit, sunflower seeds in the street/
Many minds can't fly cuz they high on trees/
I try to make smart moves like wise guys on skis/
A chess prodigy with his eyes on a queen/
Or Prince Akeem with his eye on Queens/

Knowledge must be power..
'Cuz they think we dumb, "Do they even perceive?"/
The alliance between our oppression and compliance/
The way we mix the sex with the violence/
Or maybe that too is just a dream/
Where in the end we don't have to justify what it means/
Just put the parts together like A-D-D/
Watch the minutes roll over like A-T-T/
Cuz 'get rich or die trying' you will not see me/
Maybe 'get free first' like Ayiti/

The Tipping Point (also an amazing album by The Roots!)

2010-02-01T10:10:00.000-08:00

I am amazed to read this 'biography of an idea', simply because about a year ago I was mouthing off to everyone that I had this new epiphany around understanding trends (only to find that this book was written; and reaffirm that there is nothing 'new'). No matter how far I read, I was forced to return to the introduction over and over for the lens with which to ascertain all the ideas Gladwell brings into the light throughout the book. His 'yawning as a trend' example was a brilliant understanding of the way ideas move as contagions, and should be studied in the same manner as epidemics. Perhaps, even with the same seriousness if we're to prevent more violent and earth-shattering ideas from becoming commonplace.

Myself, I'd like to say I try really hard as a reader to never judge the author as someone writing to convert minds to their way of thinking, but as someone sharing their deepest secret: how they see the world. If not for that distinct difference in critique, I would easily surmise that Gladwell is an egocentric know-it-all with plans for world domination. However, upon reading the introduction a second time(which I'll outright suggest we all do for this book), I almost know that Gladwell's work is already on the desk of some out of control corporate despot CEO as their marketing version of 'the anarchist's cookbook'. Gladwell's examples of the idea spreading as a virus might be the most sound since 1+1=2. I wonder if he means to say, "People are not stupid, just malleable as all get out. Look what I've made you into."

This book is indeed at the core of True Villainy, and one person's villain is always someone else's hero.

Fall '09 Writing final "My City Unseen" (13 pages, A-)

2010-01-05T08:29:00.000-08:00

For those lost when we were found-

“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”
– William Blake

My city is every contradiction. A beautiful monster that sits in a small nook called the biggest city in the world. The scene is set, and these streets have limbs. Dressed in designer drugs, drenched in human conflict. Accessorized with burnt building cufflinks and broken innocence bracelets. Welcome to the graceful struggle between the corner, perpendicular, and parallel. Filled to the brim with possibility, with potent people laced with latent potential. Shiny - happy folks rubbed raw often, rolling with the punches and still punching out on time to be back to work late the next day. Welcome to my city, get uncomfortable with the contradiction.
From the outside, my city is a fishbowl with tinted windows. You should be able to see in, but until you get wet, you have no idea what you’re getting into. As an outsider, Federico Garcia Lorca saw my city with his eyes. They met halfway down a dark alley, and Lorca never turned away from what must’ve been frightening in the midst of so much dark, the sun.

“Dawn arrives and no one receives it in his mouth
because morning and hope are impossible there:…”

Locked within the recesses of Lorca’s tortured mind, somewhere between his Granada and my city, is the sense that life in New York is trying, from sun up to sun down. In his poem “Dawn”, Lorca moves about the city as a lyrical observer, wringing sensational truthfulness from the souls of passers-by. His mind’s eye scanning the visible city spectrum to find that stigmatic moment from which his art will pull inspiration, duende.

“Those that go out early know in their bones…they know they will be mired in numbers and laws…”

Even as an outsider, Lorca shows tremendous intuitive knowing, placing his ear to the skyscraper and listening to the stories of it’s builders. It was clear to my reading of his work that Lorca spent a great deal of time observing the poor of New York City.

“the three of them buried:
Lorenzo in one of Flora’s breasts;
Emilio in the dead gin forgotten in the glass;
Enrique, in the ant, sea, and empty eyes of birds.”

My city is famous for its’ perpetual motion and subsequent insomnia. Like a Ritalin deprived pre-teen in front of a two thousand-channel television, my city sits and feeds off each channel, then moves on to the next. Each channel is a poor family. In “Dawn”, the daily hopelessness of downtrodden folks is expressed and recognized; reading it gave me the sense I was looking in a dull mirror at a reflection I recalled but couldn’t touch. When Lorca says, “…and no one receives it in his mouth…” he alludes to the inability of people without hope to wake up into the new day, or arrive at some great change. My city has long been the paradigm for strife, perceived as impenetrable by nouveau pioneers like Lorca and other lovers of these streets.
It’s a matter or importance that the world knows my city is comes from a famous family. NYC’s Kennedy-esque geographic lineage reaches out to all of the non-existent corners of the globe; Egypt, Rome, Constantinople, Paris, and London. While Lorca watched New York’s gears of industry turn as an outsider, William Blake laid the groundwork for noting the nature of a city as contradictory. Horror and joy are often seen walking hand in hand in Blake’s invisible interpretation of London. Coupled with his interest in gothic architecture and his experience unraveling and interpreting the Bible, it’s of no surprise that he tackles the most spiritual of connections in his London, the most unholy of places for its time. Connected by time, flesh, blood, and effort are sons to their fathers. Often in his work, Blake evokes images of the father and the Father, usually in a recipe for some beautiful horror.

“Speak, father, speak to your little boy,
Or else I shall be lost…
The night was dark, no father was there;
The mire was deep, & the child did weep,
And away the vapour flew.”

Blake tells the story of a boy let down, or even let go, by his father. This excerpt from the poem, “The Little Boy Lost” paints a haunting, actually ghostly image of a boy losing his father to death. While the circumstances that have led to the death remain unknown to the reader and unwritten by the author, it is known by the closing line that like a spirit on the wind the father is gone from the boy. There’s this looming ambivalence at the beauty of the sons’ innocence, speaking to his father in the ether; then like a knife dropped from on high, the sudden plunge and pang of hurt in realizing that innocent moment is born of the horror of pleading with the apparition of a loved one.
Many of the citizens in my city know the bitter-tasting pain of growing up without their fathers. The picture of incompletion it’s been my displeasure to paint to shocking detail. Boys in my city are told not to cry, so with eyes that behave more like gelatinous orbs with mouths we yell our anger and frustrations in a show bravado that is perceived as rebellion. Although my father is not dead, he has always been a spirit on the wind to me. I know in my heart of hearts why this ‘Little Boy Lost’ is indeed lost, and have always looked to ‘find’ other boys lost, and feed them hope from small spoons shaped in the fashion of their future fatherhood. My city breeds broken sons.
The story of manhood does only so much without an understanding of its counterpart, the feminine mystique. While many on the poems on display will be interpreted through the contradiction of my city’s nature, no city has been as schizophrenic as Baudelaire’s Paris. “Everywhere in his … poems is a backdrop of Parisian vice…the most wretched strata of this unchaste city…at the same time, he has stopped and chatted at every street-corner in town …” Evidence of this two-sided social experiment/analysis in poetry bleeds through in the poems, “The Thoroughbred” and “The Eyes of the Poor”. The written-out concept of life flourishing in the shadow of the awful, questioning: what really happens within a city during modernization and assumed ‘progress’?

“She is quite ugly. Nevertheless she’s delicious!
The claws of Time and Love have marked her…
She is truly ugly…but she is also drink, restorative, witchcraft!”

Like star-crossed lovers are the two faces of Baudelaire’s Paris, meeting moments before cessation. Parisians, by extension exhibit the same quality. This woman, revealed by Baudelaire to be a dichotomous deviation defying the laws of human/equine distinction, is wrapped in the “…indestructible elegance of her frame.” In much of the poem, the mortal beauty of the woman is met by the immortality of nature and consequent elements. Here Baudelaire personifies his city’s duality. In this woman’s eyes lie the mystique of the arcades, the bangles about her wrists clanging with the boisterousness of Parisian night life; all of which survives in her actions and persists in spite of her never-dying opposition, ‘Time’ and ‘Love’. Baudelaire treats us to a trip through time with his Paris, using the ‘woman’ persona as a metaphor for his city, and the city’s landmarks to mark its passage through time. Roads? Where Baudelaire’s Paris was going, he didn’t need roads.
I love where I’m from, I hate where I’m from, that’s exactly why I can’t escape where I’m from. My city has too many secrets to be a man, even in poetic device. My city is a throbbing bright light that has seen the peak of her half-life, and is on the wane, peeking in on her own shelf life. Barreling through time lit like a Roman candle, my city somehow takes just enough Botox to stay beautiful enough for tourists to never notice the ugly lingering all about them like ghosts of past lovers. Baudelaire’s unused title for the collection that would become Paris Spleen was Lycanthropic Poems, and our cities are separated by a century but unified in the idea of being beastly cities. Depending on moon phases, sensation chasers are pursued by gorgeous, gargantuan werewolves called New Yorkers. Fashion on the forefront with fangs on the pulse, just below the skin, pumping venomous, viscous sin. You can’t look away from her voluminous skyscrapers. My city loves you, my city loves to eat you.

“I was moved by this family of eyes, but I also felt a little ashamed of our glasses and our carafes, which were larger than our thirst. I turned my gaze toward your's… and then you said to me: "I can't stand those people over there, with their eyes wide open like carriage gates! Can't you tell the head-waiter to send them away?"

Baudelaire’s city eats people too. Le Spleen de Paris alludes not to an organ within the human body, but lends itself to a secondary definition of the word in French, ‘bad temper’. The poor of Paris knew how bad the temper was, as the decadent ways of the wealthy were often on display at every turn. “The Eyes of the Poor” turn in reality the eyes of the rich toward a critical look at their own cruel practices and feigned innocence/ignorance. The story Baudelaire illustrates sheds light on the occurrence of new cafes being built in close proximity to the poor, who can’t afford to visit these eateries, let alone eat or drink there. The gaslight’s lamps, and unfinished walls are intricately detailed. As are the stories written on the colored irises of the poor family walking by. The moral ends up revolving more around how two people in love can maintain a working relationship even though they think differently about they communicate on issues (and how differently they feel about those issues). The contradiction monster rears its head in the window again. Not only is this a love poem and not a social justice piece, but also the manner in which this is revealed takes the reader through the entire empathic journey of a socialite with a conscience, and his ignorant lover.
My city and I have engaged in phantom fisticuffs over class division often, even in classrooms! ‘Get off my block! And take Starbucks with you. Take your cafes, bistros, and boutiques out of my shopping centers - your demographic doesn’t deserve to live here... Get off my block! Jogging at midnight, with your toy dog, and exposed ipod, in a
neighborhood you wouldn’t be caught dead in two years ago. Take your overpriced, low-income displacing condos with you…No, leave the condos - but you...get OFF my block!’ For all her childish wonderment, blinding and euphoric, my city still upholds fatal illusions about how the poor can live so far from the wealthy, but never far enough to not be gentrified. My city weeps for her poor.
For all the dark and secretive traits that envelop my city, there are lights! Bulbs that dance on the edges of marquees, rays that stand in place of towers, there are lights!
James Weldon Johnson asks in his poem, “My City” what it is he will miss about his city when he passes away.

“What to me then will be the keenest loss,
When this bright world blurs on my fading sight?”

Adding to the sensationalism of city life, Johnson lists a group of natural phenomena in which he could miss (in the event of his demise) but immediately dismisses, in light of the titillating temper of the town named twice. Johnson displays pride in the human accomplishment inherent in New York City. As an African-American poet, prominent in the Harlem Renaissance, this pride comes through in Johnson’s work despite discrimination and other institutionalized, racist actions against him, in his city. It’s this pride in ones’ city that binds New York to its’ transcontinental lineage as a renaissance city. Johnson goes the length in reveling in the marriage of the organic and inorganic city elements, the green and grey cacophony. There is celebration evident in Johnson’s poem, the type that forces a smile on your face against seemingly insurmountable odds. My favorite kind of smile.

“Will it be that no more I shall see the trees…
Or hear the singing birds…
No, I am sure it will be none of these.
But, ah! Manhattan's sights and sounds, her smells…”

Being a young man of color myself, I recognize the love/hate relationship with this city/country. It wanders in and out of the Harlem Renaissance verses, stanzas, and prose like a jaded vagabond. My city has had me dodging bullets, and watching my back. While being underrepresented, and overexposed. Shown me indignation, disrespect...they have been building a new stadium, so they have been raising my rent. City newspapers speak about congressional decisions to deepen my debt. My city squeezes the very last drop of hope from its’ folk like tequila with lime; but as long as Black mothers baptize their babies’ faces with Vaseline on cold days, they must always shine. The lights are always on (us) in my city. Scrutiny is the stage on which we live, ergo, we perform is our livelihood, hence music played loud in lively ‘hoods. My city makes me smile, makes you smile too.
Many city-dwellers identify with their city. Many transplants from smaller towns use their city to cover their own identity. Lastly, there are those who use their city as an escape. The latter is the case with Marina Tsvetaeva. Born in Moscow, the largest city in Russia. Unbeknownst to many, Tsvetaeva spent a great deal of her youth living with a stepfamily, with her father, and two half-siblings (from another mother (who were favored over her by her own mother!), and her mother. Much of Marina’s (we’re on first name basis, her and I) poetry dealt with her conflicts with her own identity. Marina would write of her loves, sexual liberation, and the private emotion on paper. These issues in her time led to adventure and then exile from her Moscow. In the time before famine struck Moscow, Marina would write of her identity with the fluidity social scientists would call advanced.

“My city’s vastness is submerged in night.
Away from sleeping buildings, I take flight.
The people that I see think: daughter, wife,-
But I remembered one thing only: night.”

Marina Tsvetaeva married her identity to her city’s and birthed this poem. By submerging her city’s vastness in night, she leaves behind all convention and moves into the ether with her and her city’s identity. Existing in the same luminal sense as Wenders’ angels, she observes other Muscovites and their perceptions of her. Marina then submerges herself into night, joining her Moscow, away from the perceptions of others, and remembering nothing but being in the night with it.
My city and I are loving, fighting...It's all we’ve ever done. Against odds etched in slabs, but here we stand. Where my ancestors worked themselves to death, and received no land. Bought with by baubles from natives who perceived no scam. Here, we stand; thriving in a desert where opportunities are the sands, and originality the oasis. In fear of brass, since bullets seek to keep this thesis in stasis, but here we stand. Because my uncles were killed at sit - ins, and we want to see my enemies...in the eye. We stand here, 'cuz face down's how my kin used to die. More than our identities are identical between my city and I, our destinies are intertwined. My city knows me like a brother. But standing here is not enough, we must move forward. Our survival was written in stone, but our success has no blueprint, we must move forward. Subsidized loans provide shelter, but not a people's movement, we must move forward. Between sand dunes' harsh crests, civilizations are cradled - we must move forward. Pieces of lead took my leaders, we will lead in their stead - my passions enabled, we must move forward. Forward, past blaming others for our misfortune. We must move forward - no longer gazing into the evening, but pressing toward the morning...But here...we stand. My city is one with me.
Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, San Diego, Denver, Newark, New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore share many things, but nothing more relevant to ‘a city on the make’ then that they are ‘Panther cities’. These are cities that housed the Black Panther Party in the 1960’s and 70’s. Nelson Algren resided in Chicago, and penned a book-long poem about his city, in all its’ gritty glory. In regards to race and its noted effect on his Chicago, Algren keeps it concise.

“The city divided by the river is further divided by racial and linguistic differences…For the beat of the city’s enormous heart…is unheard out in this spiritual Sahara.”

Algren knows the back alleys and storefronts like a book he read as a child and reread as a college student. He seemed to love whatever city he lived in, and wrote on it, like doting on a lover’s flaws. He’d gone to Latin America, New Jersey, written on the connection between Ashland Avenue and Warsaw, Poland; he was a literary journalist of the highest degree. This last characteristic seemed to garner the attention of the FBI, and cause him to be sought out to write the article on the trial of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, which would become the film “Hurricane”, starring Denzel Washington (which dealt mostly with racism and discrimination in the court system over decades).
In my city we stand in the foreground of the American stage play, when we
were casted as the extra’s understudy. Again in the foreground,
the bastard child of four fathers, now scorned by our forefathers for
disrespecting our single mothers in public. The revolution done
changed, Black man changed shades, Black girl turned blonde, I thought
I heard echoes of victory - turned around and the sorrow in this
song... Can you hear it?

Listen, my people speak, spill blood in these streets/
It takes a toll on my soul, everyday I feel like leaving/
I hear my people crying, and them tears keep streaming/
Every time I try I try to leave...they start to scream like/

From forefathers, to martyrs, folk don't seem to regard us/
But they seen waters walked on, seen brothers auctioned/
Topics that talk on, people see and walk on/
Get tripped up, on what I spit up - now they sidewalks is chalked on/
I'm locked on - focused on the heat that makes the beat dope/
I blow the winds of change just to ventilate the weed smoke/
You speak frail, what I spit you can feel, son I speak Braille/
I spit fire, that's why you kill dragons when they inhale/

Two niggas fought under orange lamps,
Such a sorry sight forced me to cast away hope.
Being one observer, long I watch and thought,
"How redundant the term 'project growth”.
You see I, I speak the word less spoken by,
And all my people show me is indifference...
Can you hear it?

Listen, my people speak, spilling blood in these streets/
It takes a toll on my soul, everyday I feel like leaving/
I hear my people crying, and them tears keep streaming/
Every time I try I try to leave...they start to scream like/

Good Evening my people. I say 'evening' because I see the sun setting
on our culture, our very way of living. I see the decades and
centuries cascade past skyscrapers; the struggle, the
progress...chasing the fleeting sunlight. I say 'good evening', 'cause
I'm afraid we just missed twilight in my city.
Can you hear it?

Colbert Report

2009-10-15T15:24:00.001-07:00

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/247475/september-14-2009/conservatives-are-back

Daily Show

2009-10-15T15:23:00.003-07:00

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-september-14-2009/apothecary-now

YouTube

2009-10-15T15:23:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxHKSHvMRWE

CNN- print

2009-10-15T15:22:00.002-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/10/obama.heckled.speech/index.html

Boston Herald

2009-10-15T15:22:00.001-07:00

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view/20091009rep_joe_wilson_rakes_in_27_million_in_donations_after_you_lie_shout/srvc=home&position=recent

BBC

2009-10-15T15:20:00.000-07:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8260000/8260229.stm

Indigenous Boomerangs

2009-10-14T16:55:00.001-07:00

If what went around came back around/
There'd only be Blacks in town/
So called 'minorities' not Black and Brown/
Slavery'd come back around/
Wonder on who's back the whip would come crashing down?/

Tribes take back the land, from them it was taken/
Complacent Euro-Americans get a taste of displacement/
Now who's living in Public Housing, kept on Reservations?/
Getting slept on for citizenship and incarcerated/
Getting raped by the dominators, histories obliterated/

If (if) what went around came back around/
Would (would) New Orleans (Orleans) be on solid ground?

If the housewives up in the OC was to drown/
Would it take 3 days to get water? 3 weeks to be found?/

This-this-this-is so far from hatred/
This is so far from racist/
Reality Reciprocated

Joker Face

2009-09-26T18:05:00.000-07:00

He could do whatever he likes, that's because he's insane/
And he would have a hell of life, if he could just kill Bruce Wayne/

He's got his green hair slicked up/
Cooked grenades and Harley Quinn in the pick up/
Looking in the mirror, stuffing a flag in an open bottle of liquor/
The tv saying he a sicko, but he don't care, now it's time to pick the clique up/
Hopped down the steps, jumped in the whip/
Reloaded his "Bang!" gun with one or two clips/
Opened a bag of M&M's, only eating the green ones/
Speeding through red lights, and stopping at the green ones/
A true maniac, if you've never seen one/
Parked in front of Arkham, he about to free some/
His face, as pale as a ghost, asks the chick at the front desk,"Wanna hear a joke?"/
like..

His plan is pretty clever tonight, he just freed a few of his friends/
Waiting for the Batman to show, so they can start beginning the end/

He doesn't drink al-al-al-al-al-alcohol/
But he inhales chloroform and ethanol/
Breathing in nitrous, until he about to fall/
Now he's grinning ear-to-ear, and he at the mall/
Throwing gas canisters down the hall/
Watching people laugh 'til they die, he had a ball/
Having the time of his life, not realizing, it's that time of the night/
Not until he hears the glass and crashing of lights/
Not until he was getting his pistol/
Took a look out the window and peeped the signal/
like..

Mr. Freeze all tied up, now Catwoman's fighting/
Two-Face letting off shots, and Killer Croc's biting/
26 second's later, it's over in a cinch/
He laughing so hard, the punch came, he ain't flinch/
His jaw all jacked up, so he can't snitch/
Couldn't explain the punchline that everybody missed/
Now he's so cool, calculated calm/
Handcuffed, up in the truck, no cause for alarm/
No tricks up his sleeves, no gadgets on his arms/
No guns, no acid, no buzzers on his palms/
Went to Arkham with no fight, no jokes, no qualms/
Cuz they don't know he left like six bombs in the mall/
He grinning like..

Comedy

2009-09-03T22:15:00.000-07:00

This is a joke.
Life is a joke.
Comedians are prophets, teetering on the precipice over a great abyss,
An endless void of all knowing..knowing nothing.

Life is a joke with limitless potential and possibility, but with only one punchline.
Punctuated by lines that never left Pryor's mind,
Were stifled in Carlin's heart,
Can be found in the breast-pocket of Bernie's church suit,
Fell out of Kinnison's trenchcoat,
And into Chappelle's hands.

Like a breath on the wind, soft whispers from court jesters lend life lessons.
They know life lived is also life lessened.

Faith is not lost on lovers of comedy, one imparted:
"Why do folks live in Tornado Alley?
Because God will protect them?
Who do you think sent the tornado?"

Sick and twisted, and in-synch with what's sane,
Comedians light fires under complacent kindling, a calculated 'killing'.
Poignant and poisonous philosophers with a secret;
Some solace in this truth: it's all a joke.

And comedians are prophets, sitting on the rim of Gabriel's trumpet,
Glaring at the warning
Stirring in the angel's throat.

Laughing, they get it.
Unforgettable..

Symmetry

2009-09-03T21:44:00.000-07:00

Caught between a rock and a hard place/
My fluid thoughts moving across this hard face/
I lost pace, trying to keep up the crimes/
And lost the race, didn't note the change in the times/

But as long as I've got my trench, gloves, and hat/
I strike fear in the city I love and that's that/
I put a bat to the back of these hoods, thugs and dregs/
Put crooked cops to sleep, drug dealers to bed/

First night on patrol, I remember he said:/
"I killed her, I need help, arrest me now!"/
My reply: "Men get help, dogs get put down."/
Put the knife to his head, my face splashed with red/

That night is known (for those who don't know that)
As the birth of Rorshach and the passing of Kovacs/
I detect with each step, my mind a cold ax/
My tactics help collect the cold facts/

The end is nigh - I can hear it coming/
Prostitutes lead the parade of politicians' procession/
The end is near - I can hear the drumming/
So I'm putting on my face: my city's ugly reflection/

A Poisoned Needle (when relationships fall through)

2009-07-21T22:33:00.001-07:00

I should've left, turned around and walked/
But, I was convinced, everytime she talked/
That I was wrong, even when I was right/
I did what I could to avoid a fight/
'Cuz she was like, "What you do with your life?"
"All that poetry you spitting ain't buying you Nikes"/
"You ain't battling nobody, can't even say that you're nice"/

Had to stop her right there, before stuff got hectic/
She starts that sucking her teeth, rolling her neck shit/

(I'm like) why you gotta snuff this little light of mine?/
Always talking smack to your fam, ain't you tired of lying?/
Before you say another word, I'll keep it short and sweet/
We're breaking up: like an audit, here's my reciepts:/

You was mean, and it hurt me to try and be nice/
I know what you did with that dude that night, you left his kicks in the closet: all white Nikes/
Seven years wasted with you in my life/
You know, I'm real glad that we're having this fight/
'Cuz you was always wrong, even when you was right/
And I hope everytime we talk/
That you can see when I left, turned around and walked/

Look What It's Done

2009-07-21T22:32:00.001-07:00

Now what am I supposed to do?/
When just seeing cops makes me emotional?/
I'm talking about the anger building/
When the cops post up outside your building/
Like they're waiting for action, something appealing/
One in the chamber, and no feelings/
No connections to the blocks they beat/
Don't ask why we don't respect cops we see/
Never mind the deaths, cover-ups, and dealings
Focus on the entrepreneurs and the beatings/
Cuz we can't chill up in a nice sedan/
When the police just locked up the Icee man/
It's, almost all good in the hood/
Til the cops get shook, and try to get you for good/
Slam you up against the car and push your face up on the hood/
Try to run away - they put two through your hood/
Then, two through your wrists, two through your kicks/
And put the passion of our youth on a crucifix/
Now, how am I supposed to be?
When the victims all look like you and me?/
What happened to serve and protect?/
Somebody's gotta pay, it's not over yet/

Marvelous vrs.2

2009-07-21T22:31:00.000-07:00

I'm There and Back Again like Kurt Wagner, Bilbo/
Train in the Danger Room to get my skills up/
So lets have it, I move like Bets Braddock/
A rap addict, asthmatic with gills though/
I get it in like Frank Castle in kill zones/
If "snikt!" is the last thing you heard/
It's curtains for you, see "I'm a man of my word.."
Superb, super-hyper-combo/
Stop and gasp, I'm charging up the optic blast/
First Class, Xavier's school for the gifted/
So while you getting lite, these archangels get lifted/
And spread wings, don't sling rocks, we web sling/
Ghost Ride your whip like Blaze and Ketch/
Behind the back like Willie Mays amazing catch/
Yo, the blades in my fist will stain your chest/
But you living to tell the story will stain your rep/
Its Marvelous

Marvelous vrs.1

2009-07-21T22:30:00.002-07:00

Who's trying to match wits with Doom Doc?
Correction, that's Doc Doom/
I'm Banner with the Gamma, and the strength to rock rooms/
I knock goons out with a right red hand/
Slice nice through your camp/
And then bounce like, "Bamf!"/
Tune into Cable and time-slide/
Ram3's a myth, I don't exist in your timeline/
Keep your five mics, my gauntlet is infinite/
Now who's a Beast and the real McCoy?/
Next generation's Last Dragon, I'm Jet Leroy/
So go ahead and test me boy/
My Sword of Omens will break through your Tiger Shulmann's/
My foes face Weapon-X components/
Healing factor, blades in the fist a bonus/
I've got a bright green ring, and some pissed opponents/

Virtuosity (letting the nerd out a bit)

2009-07-21T22:30:00.001-07:00

Ram rocks excalibur to split your shell/
Unplugs from the Matrix, stays on the low like a Splinter Cell/
Thirst for revenge like Roxanne Shante/
Purge my soul with fire, bathe in devil's tears like Dante/
Lyrical arrows let go like Legolas, leave you legless/
Ram3 plus 5 is 8-bit, I joust bareback on Pegasus/
Anti.Myth, cuz the truth hurts/
Rock loud colors, and bounce on these squares like Q-bert/
I got the intercontinental belt for flowing out of state/
Why slice with liquid swords when I can slap you with a Solid Snake/
While you grinding, I send blinding light to shine on your life/
Came at the turn of the tide, like Gandalf the White/
Purgatory escapist who spits at night with a day flow/
Angels practice Combat Evolved: look, there's my Halo/
First you bite, then suck, your whole flow's Dracula/
Anti-tank round, if you wanna measure my Soul Caliber/

Merge (first cool rhyme I remember writing)

2009-07-21T22:29:00.000-07:00

Merge (first cool rhyme I remember writing)
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Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at 9:00pm | Edit Note | Delete
Cypher Matrix, converge on our foes/
When we merging the flows/
Feel the surge in your toes/
Through the hairs in your nose/
Til you dazed and confused/
With biotechnology the rhyme styles fuse/
Rock a scully like a head dress/
...Were you listening? Or watching the woman in the red dress?/
Bust it, the king of dreams sees through the black and green/
Rap form destroyed the platform and froze the mezzanine/
From, the Nebuchadnezzar you've never seen a better team/
Watch the Revolutions once we've Reloaded the second scheme/
We jump buildings, you can't hop trains without causing a scene/
We see these fiends, and write rhymes in kerosene/
So when you light it, the flame jumps off the page like a 3-D scene/
Your brain is the duracell for your tv screen/
Legally seize your predicate/
Even in the construct, your glass jaw's delicate/
Hack the mainframe, this ain't a game, ain't no medikit/
All these mad rappers, only one Madd Rhetoric/
Spit shit in slo-mo to slow your flow like a tourniquet/
Machines stopped in they tracks? That means that Phonetix spit/
Grabbed the track from both sides with both hands and let it rip/
Carve contours in your raps to get a better grip/
Switched sides with FilpSides just to see a second split/
Spit rhymes in ill tones that split domes in Thunderdome/
Ignite my palms at night, so the mic could glow/
We four deep, and never rock the mic alone/
Rap relating to size, rock your mega, then your microphone/
There's no beef, so leave us the hell alone/
We come through, drop lyrics, then exit through your telephone.../
Dead your dome, forget your rhyme/
Electrifying flows you couldn't dodge in bullet-time/
We pullin' rhymes/

A little mercy (Commissioned by Poetic People Power) www.poeticpeoplepower.com

2009-07-21T22:27:00.000-07:00

Please Mr. Waterman, don't turn my water off today
Can the government, Mr. President?
Somebody have a little mercy on me

By mercy I mean information, 'cuz y'all could've told me
That access to water had to do with zoning
Or that if my tap sat still in a cup, I could see the barcoding

You sold me up a creek...
That bled into a river...
Without a paddle...
Seconds before Katrina
Y'all had no problems giving us water then, Thank You FEMA

Please Mr. Waterman, turn my water back on today
If not, Mr. Waterman, keep my water off, and charge me every possible fee
So I can flash you a look that kills, and never attempt to pay those bills,
Cuz like speech...water was made free
Before rich men with parchments forced folks to sit on their porches with parched lips
There were 2 Hydrogen, 1 Oxygen
But $10,000 water bills in Michigan has got single moms drinking lots of gin.

Tell you what, Mr. Waterman, keep the water; you'll find we are not the one,
The next time we ask for water, it won't be with "please"
It'll be with World War 3's
On our side, the sun, so listen for the drum.

Cuz we will have stopped singing the blues.

I've Been Lying

2009-07-21T22:26:00.000-07:00

I've been lying...to save myself/
From pain that I made myself/
I was so damned ashamed of myself/
I found it real easy, just to put the blame on myself/
As a child growing down, I went from shame to just plain hating myself/
I try to find myself when I spit/
Between the snare and the kick/
I nod my head to the track, and say "yes"/
Affirmation goes straight to my chest/
Cuz "yes", is what I wanted to hear/
Instead of "No, you won't see your father this year"/
Or "No, you look more like your father each year"/
Then, "No, you can't get new shoes this year,/
ask for your father for the money that he owes this year"/
This is the pain, that makes me rock flows in your ear/
But I know, my lies are being chased by my fears/
Now I'm crying, but a drop of blood chases the tear/
Wets the surface of a mirror that embraces the fear/
Of me..being the man that my pops was/
Having kids at the same age that my pops was/
On the beat right now trying to escape who my pops was/
A man since then..now I know who my pops was/
A boy since then, with his hands in his pop's gloves/
I've been lying/

Spit-Rite (aka lyrical supermarket)

2009-07-21T22:25:00.002-07:00

Mr. Myth, at Spit-Rite, I'm the Assistant Manager/
Carefully stocking metaphors in aluminum canisters/
We got: bottle of flows, soul, mic control/
Back-spinners on tile floors, stage presence? in aisle 4/
Plus..keeping it real's two for five/
Producers in the frozen section, DJ's doing it live/
Skillz stockpiled, and this is not for greed/
It's just that some of y'all need/
Some skills to pay the bills so we bringing y'all up to speed/
So we opened up this spot, to show you what we got/
(what's in the back?) - Turntablism, Why not to use plagiarism/
Watch hip-hop outplay the system/
(What else?) - B-Boying and Tagging, A History of this rapping/
Not getting caught up in trapping, and Spitting without the clapping/
Pens with unlimited inkwells/
Books that dont break, muses to help you think well/
Linguistic proficiency, breath control efficiency/

War

2009-07-21T22:25:00.001-07:00

Yo, if life's a bullet, lies are a son of a gun/
PlayStation's trying to make me an army of one/
These radio stations don't play what I want/
So forget Clear Channel, I'm a say what I want/
We go from medal of honor to honor metal automatics/
Billboards show Bush support,
while his war's supporting havoc/
We are the half-people of this half a nation/
Mickey Mouse killed your spouse through character assassination/
See, the ties between Army Corp., corporations, bullet riddled corpses all up in your face/
Lies at the core of how privates become Corporals/
How subliminal messages turned into something corporeal/
But why's the TV trying to tell me my morals?/
Tell me to die to be free, but pay to be immortal/
I'm out of hot metaphors, or sick allegories/
But what I got left,
is an everyday story:/
I come home from work, trying to make my ends/
Turn on the TV, start watching Friends/
That's deep, 'cuz GE and NBC are friends/
Minorities turned immigrant-haters, business turned military/
Policies litigated made religion utilitary, still it's scary/
Cuz no rains can quell these flames/
We're just pawns on the board during Patriot Games/
It's local, let's just narrow the point focal, make it vocal/
(something like this)
Six. hundred million for a stadium, less than one-third of that for education/
Police presence increased tensions, see why I seek vengeance?/
But I gotta go to work and respect these complete methods/
See? It ain't easy to speak, when the only thing between me and
being six feet deep is the beat/
This administration is scared of people who think/
But knowledge is power, the sword is the ink, so don't blink/

?'s

2009-07-21T22:24:00.000-07:00

Why the fuck am I about to write this song?/
Why do I fight just to right these wrongs?/
Why don't my parents support poems and my rhymes?/
Why do the good die young, but grandparents die one at a time?/
Why thinking 'bout my past got me wanting to cry?/
Why do you miss the ones you love, and can't hit the ones you hate?/
Why do I know I love my wife right after debates?/
Why the hood gotta duck from jakes?
Why does the mongoose have such bad blood with snakes?/
Why do gangs throw down like they fight for stakes?/
Why we gotta pay a fine just for sitting on crates?/
Why do I choose to procrastinate instead of do what it takes?/
Who said it was cool for dudes to do a bid upstate?/
Why did so many listen? -scratch that, that ?uestion is late/

In The Shadows of Proposed Victory (after thoughts on Bush/War In Iraq)

2009-07-21T22:23:00.000-07:00

I can almost swear I remember him saying "victory".
He said, "victory"- I saw no such thing.
I saw victims, victims of patriotism.
Saw social vivisections and violence,
Rivers of black gold that drown out Arabian violets.
Saw the bravery of blind obedience beat upon the brows of blue-collar soldiers.
If victory is the scent of corpses smoldered in desert suns,
And fathers turning martyrs, in turn, deserting sons.

He said, "victory".
He meant victory like World War II,
I saw "victory" like Vietnam, victory like Hiroshima, victory like Panama,
Like the war on drugs, like Black on Black crime, like unemployment.
Victory was the plan, or at least that was the title he chose.

I didn't see victory, unless of course it implies success,
Which implies a goal (wherein lies intent).
Cuz in that case that administration successfully reached its' goal
Where Jesus-looking babies were obliterated
So their Mohammad-looking fathers (agitated at their land's being lacerated)
Are martyring so hard we just miss the invisible hand,
Giving us new weapons to fight the old ones.
Intent at last.
He said victory.

My Soul's Movement vrs.3

2009-07-21T22:16:00.000-07:00

I would love to live off my spitting/
To get paid for my writtens/
I paid dues, seen the dark days fade in my vision/
Complained when the pain almost had me changing mission/
I made a decision to play my position/
To make waves in whatever ways came to fruition/
Enrolled in the school of hard knocks, without paying tuition/
In my spare time, kicked rare rhymes that contain the flame that you missing/
I keep it real, you audition for the shit that I'm living/
Loud and clear, it's my year - no space for remission/
No negotiation, ain't no terms and conditions/

My Soul's Movement vrs.2

2009-07-21T21:43:00.000-07:00

All I need is a second to pick up this mic/
I could scream and change the seasons if that's what you like/
You best believe I'm sick to death of being in life/
I know I'm right, so I focus on my purpose and reason/
And get the stress out - simply by speaking/
Embrace the bass by just breathing/
And make everything okay by just believing.../
That god's madness has a method - I'm seeing, with eyes wide for the first time seeing/
Truly conceiving in my mind what is needed for forward progression to stop the grieving/
To understand what it means to have a plan, not just dreaming about scheming/
Without bleeding my doubts all over the pages leaking/
My fate, I'm seizing - my destiny seeking speech is just peaking/
I stare into time and space, you're just peeking/
Breathe in..you know the vibe you can feel in your bones?/
It's the same vibration you hear in my soul, dig it?

My Soul's Movement vrs.1

2009-07-21T21:42:00.002-07:00

I love the rush I get gracing the stage/
Gripping the mic/
I get to recite, embracing this rage in me/
I wish to paid plenty/
But why would I?/
How could I look myself the eye after?/
Life's been slavery, but these words make me my master/
LifeMusic, which means when I'm done I can die after/
I let y'all know-I ain't no ready to die rapper/
A street author, there deep thoughts in my chapter/
There's a need for me to exceed, succeed-must be the blood that I bleed/
Cuz suckas know who I is, before they know who I be/
You'd have to be born blind then gain sight just to know how I see/
That's why I rhyme, to give you a peek at my dreams/
The fabric of my soul, see the strength at the seams?/
Believe me, your boy Ram been through the scenes/
And it's been my blessing/
To see through the digression/
In the belly of the beast and avoiding digestion/
My question: why is this my direction?/
Why do I, have to spit flames at rhyme sessions?/
Vocalize the orator my ancestors time-tested/
I know the answer lies in a simple, divine lesson/
Cuz I have to, if I didn't who else would try? listen/

NYC

2009-07-21T21:42:00.001-07:00

It's a fine line between Malcolm, Martin/
Boulevards, get your dreams pulled apart/
Watch the seams stretch, can't beg for pardons/
Inner-city life's like jail with no wardens/
I'm a pugilist, this wartime reporting/
From Valentine where the corner sips Ballentine/
Out of brown paper, resounds my sound caper/
To Prospect Park in the dark/
Up through LES, where they rock colors that be looking like NES/
Yes, the plumbers move bricks through the pipes/
And they pick fire flowers while the youngins get lite/
On the same streets Langston penned poems true to life/
But I'm back on the wagon, in the Bronx walk with dragons/
Take the four to the ferry get to Staten/
36 chambers on the scene, but back to BK - wait, can't forget Queens/
Gave birth to Nas and Run DMC, and Prince Akeem/
Joe Louis, best boxer ever seen/
BK's fave, B.I.G. - Mos Def, Kweli what it be?/
Back to the BX, KRS was the tree/
Back in '86 sowed the seed, I was three/
Damn man, I love NYC!!/

Run and Hide vrs.2

2009-07-21T21:41:00.000-07:00

Spike your Nikes, and lace your Asics/
I go for your jugular, so do your best to escape this/
I don't rap, I play ouiji with dead poets/
Letters become words, turned verbs, I'm dead focused/
My people on my back, myself on the back burner/
I'm back, dipped in black, on horseback like Nat Turner/
My rap journal/
Is set up to upset these thug vets and they punk sets/
So what's next? Success/
See the best I must be, the next Malcolm X in the flesh, son trust me/
By any means, get down for what I believe in/
Give Christ himself something else to believe in/
Y'all said you'd be in the game for a minute,
but the second I get the spitting, you suckas be leaving/
betta run/

Run and Hide vrs.1

2009-07-21T21:40:00.002-07:00

If you see the righetous writer, ride beside him/
If you feel like I feel you can sight Poseidon/
Look, the tides are turning, the fires burning/
In me, the fight's returning/
The padawan graduated, the knight's returning/
Bringing sight to the blind like Christ returning/
Ask the questions:
Am I, strong enough to lift this pen?/
Can I, preach this pride to listless men?/
No choice, just pick up the mic, spit for those with no voice/
Hone my craft, practice tactics/
Come back, with drastic acts that embarrass these bastards/
Who sell, wack tracks like crack back to the masses/
Watch me, open a page, release this rage/
My chest a furnace, my heartbeat beats the flame/
Pumps heat through the veins, ignites the pen, and then...I just let the ink burn the page/
you better run/

Story That's Never Been Told

2009-07-21T21:40:00.001-07:00

Walk in the door, you don't know the brother/
Gotta keep it cool, can't blow my cover/
Why? It's the way I make ABC's rhyme/
It's like a lock-pick, breaking down the ADT's in yo mind/
We can pick a topic, make it relate to your grind/
It's scandalous, the way the game got your brain locked up with cameras/
They watch and they stare/
When I spit though, it's like a flare/
Overloading their senses, in a sense, you can sense it/
Cuz when I jam, I jam sensors, slam censors, damn gender/
I'ma touch you regardless/
Walk up in your building just like them gates was unguarded/
Wait, shit, that was too sick/
Damn, my cover done blown up/
It's okay I'm in the elevator and the lobby done blown up/
Ram3, y'all don't know the name? Hmm, guess I ain't blown up/
Masterpieces make disasters easy, you can call me master like Sho'Nuff/
You wanna showdown? Then show up/

Strt Fghtr

2009-07-21T21:39:00.001-07:00

Run right through your squad, no pressing continue/
Punch x3 Shoryukens get in you/
You’re a, flash in the pan, I’m destined to last long/
You hustle? Gun crazy? You need to get capped-calm/
Loudmouth gangsters, step up and get smacked on/
Any contenders, come get that ass kicked/
I hold down tracks with a flow that does back flips/
Then hit up opponents..how quick was my Flash Kick?/
My jabs is long range, like my limbs was elastic/
Don’t complain when Yoga Flame melts your Timbs like plastic/
Verbal Ken Masters, lyrical blacksmith/
Shadowloo schemer, (tatsu-maki-senpu-kyaku) – hurricane kick FEMA/
Pirates of Dark Water, sail streets in Katrina/
It’s the fight in the blood that brings it all together/
Back up when you see the blue light and the palms together (hadoken!)/

The Cypher

2009-07-21T21:38:00.000-07:00

Ram is a ghost, sniper scopes can’t see him/
You can try to rock his genes, but you just can’t be him/
Jump off the stage, like I’m made of adamantium/
Smack bullets barehanded, catch missiles in headlocks/
Hold up suspension bridges with dread locks/
Keep the court systems in dead locks/
My presence sets precedents, something like Dred Scott/
I’m between Baldwin and Batman, eloquent crime fighter/
Aquarian Bandstand – elemental fire fighter/
Flows fuck up your Cat Scan/
Beware the rare writer with a reason to breathe/
With lungs full of napalm, and a match up his sleeve/
Catch up with me please/
V-Dizzle beats, light-years ahead of the league/
Blackest night, brightest day, one oath I’m a keep/
Compulsive liar when I speak, no truth on the beat/
So I’m a keep spitting shit you couldn’t fucking believe/
Straight preposterous, the wordplay stimulates chakras/
Makes women climax and got me looking obnoxious/
Slow flow? Wally West top speed when I clock in/
Globetrotter, straight Jonny Quest when I’m rocking/
Gangsta Nerd, why shoot you with guns when I’ve got pens?/
Ball point heat seekers with your temperature locked in/
The pen's like a scalpel, baby, the doc's in/
You? a Datsun. Me? a DeLorean/
Ahead of time when I rhyme, making your clock spin/
Only time you kick spit is when you dribble your hock spit/
You got the game on lock, I've been seen with the lock pic/
Yea..I'm the host with the most/
Like Betelguise-that's right, Ram is a ghost/

Redeemer

2009-07-21T21:30:00.000-07:00

"Even now in Heaven, there were angels carrying savage weapons."

I

The broken promise between brother and sister strung fatally between hope of son saving father and father's inevitable death.

I

Branded 'renegade' by the first to take the title.

Physically , a fever

Forever baptized in the swelter of air made stagnant by malignant spirits.

Chariot ablaze, straddling the fine line twixt here, now, and heaven.

Never the three shall meet.

Johnny's shotgun mouthing (an eye for an eye)

Danny's bike humming (a tooth for a tooth)

Innocent blood spilled, you can (run, run, run, but you sure can't hide)

Eyes

Filled with penance, a gaze that sears through closed lids

Ribcage, perpetual furnace, chest congested of chinking chains chinging melodies.

Chang-ing some eulogy for lost humanity.

The ghost screams when I burn,

The heat peels my flesh down to reveal two-hundred and six truths,

Clothed in fire, bound by spikes and leather.

I am Danny's breaking promise.

Fingertips bleached to the bone.

(Don't play dice against the dice-maker's apprentice.)

(He always knows more than he's willing to tell you.)

(And his hand's always hot.)

I am Johnny's vain prayers.

The result of Faustian deals made over dealt decks under the table,
under the earth,
Underworld.

"What is this great evil? Who's killed us?"

Teach Black Boys How To Cry

2009-07-21T21:27:00.000-07:00

Dodging bullets, watching my back, underrepresentation, overexposure. Indignation, disrespect...they building a new stadium, so they raising my rent. Reading newspapers about congressional decisions to deepen my debt. The Pastor stay demanding my repentance, since I was four, he knows I've got a short life expectance, plus I'm always three strikes from a life sentence. Diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes. My home had no backbone, flexible spine from playing limbo with the poverty line, see if I lose, I choke. Living in a police state, beat cops provoked equals a beat down invoked by ancestral habits carved in DNA. Paranoia, disillusion, misinformation - posing as my elementary education. Economic inflation, uncle tom role models, wanna-be gangstas...and real gangsters. Chains that hang low turned noose, turned leash, species turned beast, then turned loose...on an unsuspecting youth; watch as I, without a father figure, try to figure fathers who tell sons, "why bother nigga?" Live that life, and don't shed a single tear. Then see if you dont loot a footlocker in a blackout, or spaz out when someone looks at you the wrong way..be that mad - all day, and don't do shit about it. Just try it...and see if yo' ass don't start a riot.

Lifestyles of the Used and Famous

2009-07-21T21:24:00.000-07:00

Fame is all good, as long as you stay fly, right?/
They cite you in highlights/
Shine on you with bright lights/
They hanging on your every word up in them soundbites/
It's like...your whole life is on screen/
Cuz it looks cool, but that life don't sound right/
So you jet-set, cuz escape's your best bet/
Sniff, smoke, drink, until you forget/
That you're a role model, paying the price for success/
In blood, tears, time, and sweat/
And no privacy will you get/
Cuz every move you make gets youtubed on the 'net/
From with whom you have a brew, to with whom you have sex/
And you can't complain, cuz look at your check/
All you can do is go out in a blaze/
And spend most of your days in a hoody and shades/

Little something

2009-07-21T21:19:00.000-07:00

I break the mold when I beat these breaks/
Flows beat the concrete, it's why the speakers shake/
I...meet my fate, make speeches great/
Cuz I, seen the legends speak to greats/
Now I, beat the odds, to beat the bets/
Then, beat the rookies to beat the vets/
Beat the best, King Kong-beat my chest/
Dominate - Ram3 stepping to the plate, swinging for the rafters/
Futuristic mics, bends light like Lens Crafters/
We hold the pen that writes the next chapter/
Behold the slave that fights back his captors/

Warcry

2009-07-21T21:18:00.000-07:00

I push thoughts through a pen, like there was no room in my head/
The pen explodes and bleeds words like a contusion instead/
No confusing who's dead/
It's your blood, not ours/
These tactics kill rappers in minutes, not hours/
Words I write cradle life like the fertile crescent/
I've seen many bleed, now these fiends learn they're lessons/
I pray for peace, because I know the lies they stressing/
Rhymes that blind the mind's eye with a soul's reflection/
A soldier since birth, a warrior since post-pubescence/
Now I scope perfection/
Honest truth, there's no protection/
My enemies close, death at ten paces is my flow selection/
Kill a man, kill a verse, it's all recollection/
If I'm to confess, I'd surely get my sins out/
But now, it's all or nothing-grenades with the pins out/
The blood's in the water, the sharks got they're fins out/
And now the Devil's crying, like Dante with the twins out/

Teardrop

2009-07-21T21:17:00.000-07:00

Its not what you thought, definitely not what you made it/
You think i'd take all this time, create a bond just to break it?/
The way you act toward me now, makes me think you was faking/
So I'm a say what I want, and now, I dont care how you take it/
Now I know what you think: that my decision was blatant/
You couldn't see the gears grinding, in my head I debated/
Between what I want, what I need...and the need was just greater/
I did what I had to, you made me feel like a traitor/
I remember some loving times, I'm sorry they faded/
But since we met up by chance, maybe this break up was fated/
Was feeling this for a while, you don't know how long I waited/
Teardrops fell into the fire, and burned my face I stayed patient/
I made a move when I thought, it was the right time to make it/
I knew it would hurt , but not to the point you were shaken/
Not to the point you was saying shit that was leaving me breakin'/
You pushed me away, now away's where I'm staying/ (hear my teardrops)

Afro-Latin

2009-07-21T21:13:00.000-07:00

What does Afro Latin mean?

A movement born of movements...that Dancehall 'dutty wine', from Palo's use of the spine, to tell Nigerian lullabies along the Northwest Passage. Fated to be translated in to Voodou dances that look like second cousins to Uprock...
What does Afro Latin mean?
It means...one meal..has fifty names, 'cuz Arroz con Gandules look a hell of a lot like Rice & Peas...sugar cane and cana..Azucar Bar on 55th st...Sugar Bar on 72nd. Pastelitos and Beef Patties. Bacalao y Papas Fritas is called Fish and Chips on 125th st, in Louisiana, and by Jamaicans in London...
What does Afro Latin mean?
It means...links on a chain, to beter explain, we Afro-Latinos survived rape and being slaves..by learning to dance Salsa on our captives graves. Watch, you can see us celebrating in the hoods of America, favelas of Brazil, shantytowns of Africa, barrios of Central America, beneath tin roof in Jamaica, from el calle to la playa..in PR and DR...kids still play futbol in Haiti...
Afro-Latin means...two people look in the mirror and see the other reflection as their own.

Please Leave

2009-07-21T21:12:00.000-07:00

Get the FUCK off my block!! And take Starbucks with you. Take your
cafes, and your bistros, and your boutiques out of my shopping centers
- your demographic doesn’t deserve to live here... Get the fuck OFF
my block!! Jogging at midnight, with your toy dog, and your ipod, in a
neighborhood you wouldn’t be caught dead in two years ago. Take your
overpriced, low-income displacing condos with you.. No, leave the
condos - but you.. Get the FUCK OFF my block!! Your whole life, you’ve
done nothing but take advantage of ME, get over..ON ME. My whole life,
all I could have pride in was my culture. You took my stores, you took
my block; you took my parks, you took my block; you locked up my
brothers, you locked up my block; you broke down my sisters, you broke
down my block..you stole my culture; a culture single mothers carried
on their backs after they gave birth to it- ON MY BLOCK!!! So, you
stole my block. And Now, I’m asking nicely...GET.. THE FUCK.. OFF.

Pirates of Dark Water

2009-07-21T21:10:00.000-07:00

I am a wordsmith.
With a pen filled with Black ink,
I navigate the Black Waters of
thought against the current of images of an old Black woman on her project rooftop,
Watching her town drown in Black Water, as Air Force One flies overhead en route,
to discussions about, drilling holes in Arabic sand for Black Water;
The profits from which pay off Blackwater for shooting holes in Arabic Man.
I fight back with a cylinder of plastic filled with Black Water,
For you see, I am a wordsmith.
But I've seen warrior children practice activism by throwing Black rocks at tanks,
Taking shots and bleeding Black Water on the streets where they say Jesus walked on top
of Black Water saying, "Peace, be still."
No justice, no peace still,
So instead of busting blue steel, we still dip Black felt tips into Black Water and write
" We shall overcome" on oak tags and throw-up bombs and dope tags
born in the belly of aerosol cans and pressurized Black Water.
Beneath the waves of the Atlantic where the green water turns blue then turns Black,
Lies the bones of Africans chained together by fate, and by chains –
Who threw themselves into the forgiving arms of Black Water, rather than die like dogs.
I, am a lowly wordsmith, but I offer dire warning:
90% of every Human body is made up of water,
70% of all those bodies are people of color,
And two-thirds of this planet is made of deep…dark…angry…Black, water.

Care Free

2009-07-21T21:03:00.000-07:00

The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Illegal slave ways collapsed,
But the slaves stayed,
Now with blue collars attached…
Like yoke on the necks of oxen,
Brown, White, Yellow, Arawak.
The plight of my kin’s rare,
In this land of treasured riches
My HMO doesn’t cover the cost of swimwear.
And could’ve used that in New Orleans,
But short of disaster, the cameras can’t focus
Near where the poor live.
And lens flare can’t make the projects pretty,
Them tenement conditions don’t even get the rich folks pity.
‘Cuz the function of the blue collar
Was a part of the blue print:
We proletariat work to construct the lariat
That swings from the looming gallows.
Our lives, expendable; we are still expenditures,
Told that we are pawns on a capitalist chessboard
When we are the players:
The janitors, security guards, and bricklayers.
Our deaths, early in expectation,
Are designed to pass down our debts,
Accumulated by giving our lives for these checks,
Like some reverse reparations
Where we pay back our captors.
The pay back in that we will not be paid back our back taxes.
Our administration profits from our death,
So why would they want us to have free health,
When they regretted freeing people?
’08, I have hope, ’04 didn’t have any…
Based on the issues, I wanted to vote McKinney,
But I didn’t want no drama,
Or to split the vote,
So I voted Obama.

There and Back Again

2009-07-21T20:56:00.000-07:00

The Devil,
With a white collar and fire in his mouth.
I was orphaned
In the care of angels with invisible wings.
All was right with my world. All
Gone.
That was Deutscheland, this is New York.
I breathe fire when I leave.
I leave a lot.
I know God now, we have much in common..We’re
Gone.
Gone.
My soul is the brightest light trapped
In blackest-bluish night
No one loves me here
They’ll miss me when I’m
Gone.
New York, tastes like broken stained glass and dying dreams
A friend died here. One breath in.
Gone.
Vancouver, release of the dying dream in my mouth strangles cool air.
Vapor trails left for evidence, no one here to see me
Gone.
My professor: “I’ll help you find peace.”
His promise was peace-meal, as I’d waged constant war within me.
Breathing fire when I leave,
Tasting brimstone when I’ve
Gone.
Mom’s house, or Dad’s house – she was both to me.
No one’s here to see me
Fire in my eyes running laps down my face
Into my mouth…sizzling, then from my eyes again. This was never
Home.
My professor taught me: mother is God in the eyes of children.
Demons whispered vignettes down narrow corridors
In her womb/church.
I was orphaned by angels into a life of war for peace
My friend died here.
I’m not ready. I’ll come back when I am. No one will know I’m
Gone (Bamf!)

Breaking

2009-07-21T20:55:00.000-07:00

Sedgewick and Cedar circa ‘79- the scene is set
And the streets have limbs, dressed in designer drugs
Plus drenched in humid conflict,
Accessorized with burnt building cufflinks and broken innocence bracelets.
These are the breaks.
Witness the culture of the phoenix
When gangs walked through blue flames and emerged as crews,
Scope the remix.
From a closed fist and a blade to doing back flips in a black vest with a
Spade.
This is the breakdown:
Writers were different fighters with leveled eyes and cans pressurized,
If you took the time to look in the city
Subway cars would scream, “All you see is crime in the city”
Cops on the corner work their beat while the footwork works the beat,
The coin drops and the baby freeze is
Def
Funky
Fresh…
Frosty.
Dope blew in like windmills and took mad warriors in its’ windchill.
A cold war for the soul
Turned soul on ice,
Smooth as black ice in the dark
Black Byrds on wax, doing it in the park.
Then wild-style-wars on Beat Street were caught,
The world captures with a lens
Steady rocks and some friends,
Quinones on canvas makes some ends,
Media starts stepping Kwik on these trends.

Inside

2009-07-21T20:52:00.000-07:00

Inside, beats the mind of a deep design/
Speaks the rhymes that breach the times/
Is what you see, but deep inside/
There's another me who sees inside/
Doesn't see the light and seems to cry/
Other's see the righteous in my eye,
But never the violence in my life/
Not the rape and torture of my youth/
How I force myself to tell the truth
When I wanna lie all the time/
'Bout who I am and where I've been/
Cuz I've been lying deep in sin/
Trying to force a smile, when I'm really crying deep within/
It's hard to walk a mile when you're dying, see within/
Hypermetabolic diagnosis/
Headaches got me popping pills in higher doses/
Shhh! keep this a secret, no one knows this/
I used to hate myself so much, it shows when/
I dont take my own advice/
It shows in/
The reckless way I hold a knife-
so close to the wrist, but I wont just slice.../

Here, I Stand

2009-07-21T10:06:00.000-07:00

Loving, fighting... It's all I've ever done. Against odds etched in slabs, but here I stand. Where my ancestors worked themselves to death, and received no land. Bought with by baubles from natives who perceived no scam. Here, I stand - thriving in a desert where opportunities are the sands, and originality the oasis. In fear of brass, since bullets seek to keep my thesis in stasis, but here I stand. Because my uncles were killed at sit - ins, and I want to see my enemies...in the eye. I stand here, 'cuz face down's how my kin used to die.

But standing here is not enough, I must move forward. My survival was written in stone, but my success has no blueprint, I must move forward. Subsidized loans provide shelter, but not a people's movement, I must move forward. Between sand dunes' harsh crests, civilization's are cradled - I must move forward. Pieces of lead took my leaders, I will lead in their stead - my passions enabled, I must move forward. Forward, past blaming others for my misfortune. I must move forward - no longer gazing into the evening, but pressing toward the morning...But here..I stand.

And We Are Not Moved...Inspired by talks with Despierto (Luke) and Black Rogue (Aisha)

2009-07-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

Good Evening, my people. It's customary to start these things with a quote, so here it is:

"We are not free." --Me, now.

-They will tell you to stay quiet about such things. Afraid of waking giants, whose loud steps awaken sleeping dragons. But listen to what I tell you - it matters not what they say, because we are not moved.

There was a time when people of color were not allowed, under law to marry. One-hundred years later another oppressed group is barred from marriage by our government - we are not moved.

After four-hundred years of anguish, pain, ever-lasting dissent, and labor, there has not been a Black President, representative, or unassassiniated voice - and we are not moved.

There are wars, genocides, and oppression validated by bottom line economy - and we are not moved!

More babies everyday, less fathers every hour, but more mothers every minute- and we are not moved?

The world trade gets knocked down, we are moved for two weeks; "Farenheight 9/11" drops, we are moved for two hours. Yet weeks, months, years after - still we are not moved.

With the same routine acceptance, and expectation with which we send our children to school, others send their "children" off to war, and our "adults" have slain them- and we are not moved.

The homeless die beside us, there last breaths a prayer for visibility- the bombs riddle lands far away , they whisper freedom and shout death. We are not moved.

Soldiers who wandered onto the battlefield, losing their way on the path to a degree, wither away on lands infertile, but for black flowers of liquid gold that prove the Earth is bleeding for our sins.

And We Are Not Moved.

A Perfect Murder

2009-07-21T09:07:00.000-07:00

-She bled to death, died before the words left my mouth...
Somehow, my tongue slit both her wrists and throat in such
unison, such synchronicity the sound of her skin opening
resembled a choir of dying seraphim. And I didn't even mean to hurt her.
I whispered in her ear, "I'm not happy here."
-Her heart stopped before she shed the tear.
My words plunged deeply into her chest,
as if her breastplate was a tissue paper collage
composed of what little self esteem she had left.
By the time I was done talking, the blade was so far in
you could only see the period that ended the sentence.
-I thought I had one foot out the door before her body hit
the floor, but I didn't. The sound of her head bouncing off
the ground sent chills through my soul like the screams of
suffering children. I brushed my hand over her curly locks and
could feel her dying beneath my fingertips. I killed her with
reluctant (if not unconscious) efficiency, she was murdered perfectly,
and my words left no fingerprints.

"For Mordred"

2009-07-21T09:06:00.000-07:00

-Forgive me father for I know not what I do.
Forgave my father for what he did not do.
Forgot my father and tied knots without "I do."
Forgo my father, do better forgo my son - remember what I did.
-Let us embrace - spear meets sword in battle.
Spill the blood that beats in my heart that you put there,
you theived in the night; my mother thought me a crook like
you, 'cuz when my body grew so did her hatred for a son that
looked like you. Left like you - worse for wear, 'cause when
she stares, it's like bullets, and I can't rock a vest like you.
Left you like, she left me - but what were you doing when
she needed you to be the man woman had never seen. I am a
man I've never known tending to wounds in my soul I never
learned to sew - thanks to seeds never sown.

The Winter Soldier

2008-09-24T15:44:00.000-07:00

I was born into the world of war.
Air-raid sirens woke me from slumber,
Anti-communist propaganda my lullaby.
There's a chill in the wind symbolizing the political climate,
Secret skirmishes subside on the periphery.
My freedoms are on the line,
And I love my country...
Uncle Sam wants me.
All 16 years and 90 pounds of me.

Germany is cold...but it keeps me awake,
I hope I never fall asleep.
Knowing recruiters fed me lies
With a starry spoon on a red and blue striped platter
Didn't matter.
'Cause I was a soldier,
Learning to hate men I never knew
In a place I've never been.
I didn't like it, and it
Didn't matter.

I bled words of dissent and compassion to my superiors,
They said I could be a better soldier.
That they made me.
Injected with elixirs,
Forced to perceive hegemony as panacea,
Hatred as righteousness,
Might as right.
A 90 pound weakling no longer,
Now a one-man-army Army of One.
America's poster-boy ManChild.
They make me a captain...

Against the Reds, Nazi's, Facists,
Never breaking a sweat, but
Unknowingly breaking a mirror.
I feel a breeze through my fatigues, a chill that never ends.

I dream of an honorable discharge.
Dreaming implies sleeping.
Realness of the dream implies yet deeper sleeping...
I've no memory of lying down.
I dig a trench in my stomach,
Fill it with rage.

I've been betrayed
I know now why I sleep.
They made me a Captain...
America