I live in the dictionary
I'm 12 months into a lifelong lease and
I've made myself comfortable between the
Pages of black ink and illustrations
The top right corner now conforms perfectly between my index and thumb
Like my grandfather's ass cheeks in his favorite chair
I made poetry my pillow
So I can wipe my feet on poverty in my sleep
Two Tuesdays ago
I evicted my roommate
He couldn't stop leaving his dirty fingerprints on my mantle of beliefs
He wrapped "constitution" around his right hand and
Scribbled "abnormal" on the fogged shower mirror
As I washed off the obligations my mother had
Beaten into my subconscious
He refused to spray weedkiller on the discrimination tree
Sprouting on the book's spine
Said it felt too much like cutting down his backbone
So I wrapped both hands around his roots
Trying to uproot his creed that
Redefinition and restriction aren't the same things
When both are rooted in re-instituting
These ropes around my dreams
By then I knew he had to leave
I filled the refrigerator with my organic concoctions
Of compound words that he couldn't digest
Because he was raised on the carnal dishes of
Prefixes and suffixes
Substituting the common in our arranged marriage
With the same ingredients I grew in my backyard
He gagged on his inner inconsistencies
Retaliation gave me a Christmas wedding gift of
One-way tickets to Massachusetts with
Blessings that there, I could get what I need
I said, Mr. Webster please
I prefer not to go to the state where my ancestors were sold in past lives
Just to come full circle in this life
Cause in this life, my wife's gonna stay with me
And 3's not company
It's a breach of my lease contract
The dictionary is my home
These baby locks are really just complex metaphors
Matted together after fornicating on the first page of the F's
When I'm hungry, I peel back outer sheets and eat in between the lines
Like Malcolm X on the floor of his prison cell
My connection to this papyrus parallels Egyptian folklore
So if anything
Your illegal residence in this residential domicile
Defiles the definition of matrimony more than me playing a groom
And my woman playing the bride
Now is the end of your time
So eviction put your stuff outside
Meaning a little unclear?
Well by all means
Go look it up
11/20/08
10/27/08
The Pied Piper
Can you hear it?
Can you hear the sweet melody?
It wafts through the air like a midspring breeze
Yet its strong enough to blow hymns through guitar strings
He's coming
Making his way to our pueblos, our towns, our barrios, our street corners
Effortlessly gliding up and down musical scales
Cultural divides
Racial lines
To unite us with one song of change
The pied piper of a new world history
He's coming
And us rats have been waiting
Waiting on the one who would dawn a new day
Cause we are tired of scavenging
Coveting the leftover food scraps thrown out by the nose turners and eye cutters
He gives us something as elusive as the sweet smell of freedom
Singing Flobotic creeds of manifest destiny
This land is my land, This land is your land
And we
Want it back
To taste the fruit of our labor
Instead of harvesting it for someone else
We rats are readying to flee this downtrodden village infested with poverty
To follow the piper to the land of milk and middle class tax cuts
Honey and affordable healthcare
A paradise not lost, just needing to be rebuilt
He's coming
Do you hear it?
Do you hear the joyous chords of revival?
Accompanied by a nation of backup singers
Sopranos, altos, basses, tenors
All willing this musician closer
To keep Baracking
To push on harder
Cause us rats need saving
We're down to our last piece of cheese
We've spent the last eight years on our knees
Just fertilizing bushes that only birth feces
It's been past time to leave
To venture into the green, into the black
Back to the glory of yesteryears
And the hope of this man to take us there
Floats like the notes that flow from his voicebox
It sounds a little like Sam Cook
Mixed with Marvin Gaye
Produced by Will.I.Am
That pied piper is a bad man
I can hear it
Can you?
Yes we can
Can you hear the sweet melody?
It wafts through the air like a midspring breeze
Yet its strong enough to blow hymns through guitar strings
He's coming
Making his way to our pueblos, our towns, our barrios, our street corners
Effortlessly gliding up and down musical scales
Cultural divides
Racial lines
To unite us with one song of change
The pied piper of a new world history
He's coming
And us rats have been waiting
Waiting on the one who would dawn a new day
Cause we are tired of scavenging
Coveting the leftover food scraps thrown out by the nose turners and eye cutters
He gives us something as elusive as the sweet smell of freedom
Singing Flobotic creeds of manifest destiny
This land is my land, This land is your land
And we
Want it back
To taste the fruit of our labor
Instead of harvesting it for someone else
We rats are readying to flee this downtrodden village infested with poverty
To follow the piper to the land of milk and middle class tax cuts
Honey and affordable healthcare
A paradise not lost, just needing to be rebuilt
He's coming
Do you hear it?
Do you hear the joyous chords of revival?
Accompanied by a nation of backup singers
Sopranos, altos, basses, tenors
All willing this musician closer
To keep Baracking
To push on harder
Cause us rats need saving
We're down to our last piece of cheese
We've spent the last eight years on our knees
Just fertilizing bushes that only birth feces
It's been past time to leave
To venture into the green, into the black
Back to the glory of yesteryears
And the hope of this man to take us there
Floats like the notes that flow from his voicebox
It sounds a little like Sam Cook
Mixed with Marvin Gaye
Produced by Will.I.Am
That pied piper is a bad man
I can hear it
Can you?
Yes we can
10/15/08
Vids and Pics
9/25/08
She Eats
She's been making herself sick
Escaping to the solitude of bathroom stalls and
Hiding the evidence in bedroom trash cans
She regrets it every time but
She can't stop
See, eating disorders start at an early age
Watching what her mother ate and fed her brothers and sisters
Too young to differentiate bad from good
And now her immune system can't digest all those toxins
What comes up
Is all those words she spoke against her life
Against her boyfriend-turned-husband-turned-baby daddy-turned-ex-husband-turned-trifling ass bastard who left
When he'd had enough of her words
She eats the late-night conversations with her best friend
"That nigga ain't no good"
Just to throw them up again
Against her embryo-turned-fetus-turned-baby girl she tried desperately for nine months
To turn male who's seemingly turning male right before her eyes
She eats the coos whispered to her 8-week-old swollen belly
"I will call you William"
Just to throw them up again
Because her mother fed her three square meals of "You won't be nobody"
Two decades later she's still dry heaving on nouns and verbs
She couldn't completely swallow the first time
Cause she knew it didn't taste right
She's been making herself sick and she
Makes herself sick because
She can't stop what she's already put into her body
Into the universe
She eats what she sows and the rotten fruits from negative trees
Have condemned her soul to spiritual bulimia
An urban Sisyphus content to pull her finger out her throat
Just to push it back down again
She can't hold it in because
The regurgitated grammar settles in her arteries like ready-made heart attacks
To snatch away her existence
They never said eating crow causes death
So she makes herself sick
Escaping to the solitude of bathroom stalls and
Hiding the evidence in bedroom trash cans
She regrets it every time but
She can't stop
*the vid doesn't have the whole poem, just the first 3/4. . .sorry
Escaping to the solitude of bathroom stalls and
Hiding the evidence in bedroom trash cans
She regrets it every time but
She can't stop
See, eating disorders start at an early age
Watching what her mother ate and fed her brothers and sisters
Too young to differentiate bad from good
And now her immune system can't digest all those toxins
What comes up
Is all those words she spoke against her life
Against her boyfriend-turned-husband-turned-baby daddy-turned-ex-husband-turned-trifling ass bastard who left
When he'd had enough of her words
She eats the late-night conversations with her best friend
"That nigga ain't no good"
Just to throw them up again
Against her embryo-turned-fetus-turned-baby girl she tried desperately for nine months
To turn male who's seemingly turning male right before her eyes
She eats the coos whispered to her 8-week-old swollen belly
"I will call you William"
Just to throw them up again
Because her mother fed her three square meals of "You won't be nobody"
Two decades later she's still dry heaving on nouns and verbs
She couldn't completely swallow the first time
Cause she knew it didn't taste right
She's been making herself sick and she
Makes herself sick because
She can't stop what she's already put into her body
Into the universe
She eats what she sows and the rotten fruits from negative trees
Have condemned her soul to spiritual bulimia
An urban Sisyphus content to pull her finger out her throat
Just to push it back down again
She can't hold it in because
The regurgitated grammar settles in her arteries like ready-made heart attacks
To snatch away her existence
They never said eating crow causes death
So she makes herself sick
Escaping to the solitude of bathroom stalls and
Hiding the evidence in bedroom trash cans
She regrets it every time but
She can't stop
*the vid doesn't have the whole poem, just the first 3/4. . .sorry
9/17/08
The Mask
My mother told me I was beautiful with it on
A porcelain sculpture half green with promise half blue with expectation
A look of strength and weariness etched into its surface overflowing with defiantly straight and long black hair
And I swore to never take it off
With it, I was the closest to perfection I could be
Not quite there because only true artists can bring their imaginations alive
And I was my mother's first child
Her first artistic try
In her womb, she made sure to eat the fruits of disappointment
So obligation would flow through her bloodstream
To me
This made my mask unbreakable
She didn't have to tell me that I came from a long line of mask-wearers
I saw it with my own eyes
At holiday gatherings, aunts, uncles and cousins spoke the language of prisoners
And ceremoniously passed down the familial iron mask like sweet potato pies at the dinner table
I took my piece gladly
At home, I'd bump
"M to the A to the S to the K
Put the mask upon the face just to make the next day"
Not realizin' that Wyclef had Lauryn singing her own identity death sentence
I took on as a mantra
Until I learned that words are more powerful than parental hand me downs
With a shout of "I am beautiful"
My mask began to crack and peel like hard-boiled egg shells
Who I really was wasn't for whispers
I walked around intrigued by the little piece of chin and mouth
Peeking out like Phantom of the Opera
A bulk of the porcelain had stayed
But the energy of my self-esteem
Made the forehead and cheek pieces fall, too, cause
Who I was wasn't for hiding
The final piece
A duplicate of flimsy cereal box 3D glasses
Disintegrated when I set aside my fear and agreed to live in reality
And it felt good to free my face
Let my cheeks feel air because after 22 years
That porcelain suffocated so much that even my pores breathed sighs of relief
Opened my eyes wide enough that I could see my reflection in my pupils
I liked me
mocha brown skin golden with ancestry eyes bright with enlightenment
A smile that beamed confidence, love and strength topped with kinky, nappy hair
And nothing
Not even the look of disgust and disappointment on my mother's face could dampen my elated spirit
She was ashamed
For the first time, my mom told me I was ugly
Because the twinkle in my eyes had rainbow-colored tints and she
Couldn't handle it
"Without your mask, I don't know you"
The irony is Mom,
Without my mask, I don't know you either
A porcelain sculpture half green with promise half blue with expectation
A look of strength and weariness etched into its surface overflowing with defiantly straight and long black hair
And I swore to never take it off
With it, I was the closest to perfection I could be
Not quite there because only true artists can bring their imaginations alive
And I was my mother's first child
Her first artistic try
In her womb, she made sure to eat the fruits of disappointment
So obligation would flow through her bloodstream
To me
This made my mask unbreakable
She didn't have to tell me that I came from a long line of mask-wearers
I saw it with my own eyes
At holiday gatherings, aunts, uncles and cousins spoke the language of prisoners
And ceremoniously passed down the familial iron mask like sweet potato pies at the dinner table
I took my piece gladly
At home, I'd bump
"M to the A to the S to the K
Put the mask upon the face just to make the next day"
Not realizin' that Wyclef had Lauryn singing her own identity death sentence
I took on as a mantra
Until I learned that words are more powerful than parental hand me downs
With a shout of "I am beautiful"
My mask began to crack and peel like hard-boiled egg shells
Who I really was wasn't for whispers
I walked around intrigued by the little piece of chin and mouth
Peeking out like Phantom of the Opera
A bulk of the porcelain had stayed
But the energy of my self-esteem
Made the forehead and cheek pieces fall, too, cause
Who I was wasn't for hiding
The final piece
A duplicate of flimsy cereal box 3D glasses
Disintegrated when I set aside my fear and agreed to live in reality
And it felt good to free my face
Let my cheeks feel air because after 22 years
That porcelain suffocated so much that even my pores breathed sighs of relief
Opened my eyes wide enough that I could see my reflection in my pupils
I liked me
mocha brown skin golden with ancestry eyes bright with enlightenment
A smile that beamed confidence, love and strength topped with kinky, nappy hair
And nothing
Not even the look of disgust and disappointment on my mother's face could dampen my elated spirit
She was ashamed
For the first time, my mom told me I was ugly
Because the twinkle in my eyes had rainbow-colored tints and she
Couldn't handle it
"Without your mask, I don't know you"
The irony is Mom,
Without my mask, I don't know you either
9/5/08
A Math Problem
$2.57 can buy a loaf of bread, six packs of Ramen Noodles and a Gatorade
$4.18 can buy a snickers and enough gas to get from school to home for three days
I placed out of college math just to be placed into life algebra
Variable A is how long I can go without a decent meal (always changing)
Variable B is the price of unleaded gasoline (always changing)
& C - C is 4, society's standard of college graduation
I'm not sure when life got reduced to a quadratic equation
But I majored in communication
Pulling A's and B's but can't convince an employer to hire me
At night, I empty my pockets to count up my copper and silver-plated hopes ready to roll
Hoping to make dollars in an economy that don't make sense
It's hard to run & jump & play in this recess that shuns ascension
Can't grow without seed
And the cloud over my head blocks the sun from shining my way
Though it doesn't always rain
Yesterday
I traded my pride for two cans of luncheon loaf & 30 minutes in a donation line
Gave new meaning to land of the free - home of the brave
My dignity only allows me to crawl on my hands and knees searching for glimmers of redemption when no one else is home
Desperation makes for great knee pads
And hunger's an effective motivator and creativity stimulator
So when my supply of food pickiness runs low and my body demands subsistence
I start mixing carbs and starches with no regard for nutritional value
3 weeks ago
Optical illusions turned nine cans of whole kernel corn into four barrels of gasoline
That's senior-level chemistry
And the university says I'm 42 credits away from financial freedom
But all I see is
My stafford loan shackles waiting on the other side of the graduation stage
Subsidizing me with its interest rates
Sallie Mae says do the math
Replace the variables with numbers and I got
Angry cause I know a corporate company made millions this year
And was given more than $300 from the government
Professor said No Princess
The answer is 1
One chance to get it right
Or you fail
$4.18 can buy a snickers and enough gas to get from school to home for three days
I placed out of college math just to be placed into life algebra
Variable A is how long I can go without a decent meal (always changing)
Variable B is the price of unleaded gasoline (always changing)
& C - C is 4, society's standard of college graduation
I'm not sure when life got reduced to a quadratic equation
But I majored in communication
Pulling A's and B's but can't convince an employer to hire me
At night, I empty my pockets to count up my copper and silver-plated hopes ready to roll
Hoping to make dollars in an economy that don't make sense
It's hard to run & jump & play in this recess that shuns ascension
Can't grow without seed
And the cloud over my head blocks the sun from shining my way
Though it doesn't always rain
Yesterday
I traded my pride for two cans of luncheon loaf & 30 minutes in a donation line
Gave new meaning to land of the free - home of the brave
My dignity only allows me to crawl on my hands and knees searching for glimmers of redemption when no one else is home
Desperation makes for great knee pads
And hunger's an effective motivator and creativity stimulator
So when my supply of food pickiness runs low and my body demands subsistence
I start mixing carbs and starches with no regard for nutritional value
3 weeks ago
Optical illusions turned nine cans of whole kernel corn into four barrels of gasoline
That's senior-level chemistry
And the university says I'm 42 credits away from financial freedom
But all I see is
My stafford loan shackles waiting on the other side of the graduation stage
Subsidizing me with its interest rates
Sallie Mae says do the math
Replace the variables with numbers and I got
Angry cause I know a corporate company made millions this year
And was given more than $300 from the government
Professor said No Princess
The answer is 1
One chance to get it right
Or you fail
8/28/08
A rare blog post
It's been a while, so the site deserves a little update.
I've been going to Fort Worth's dedicated poetry spot, The Embargo, faithfully for the last six months. I read 90% of the time I'm there and I've even slammed a few times. The atmosphere is so welcoming and inviting that there's no problem with going up and performing.
At the beginning of this month, I traveled to Madison, WI for the National Poetry Slam Finals to support my girlfriend and Fort Worth Slams. I met so many talented and friendly poets there. The experience was great and helped to cultivate my work.
I performed in the two solo slams, advancing to the second round in both but failing to qualify for the second round. I chop that up to me not having a huge repertoire of diverse poems that I'm confident in just yet.
Now that I'm back, I've started several pieces, but haven't finished nearly as many as I would have liked. Hopefully I can do that soon and well.
My goal now is to make the Fort Worth Slam Team, and I will do it.
On campus, I'm also starting a poetry group so we can have weekly open mics there and hopefully bring in local and national spoken word poets for features.
Just so you know, the poems that were posted in August were after I got back from nationals.
I've been going to Fort Worth's dedicated poetry spot, The Embargo, faithfully for the last six months. I read 90% of the time I'm there and I've even slammed a few times. The atmosphere is so welcoming and inviting that there's no problem with going up and performing.
At the beginning of this month, I traveled to Madison, WI for the National Poetry Slam Finals to support my girlfriend and Fort Worth Slams. I met so many talented and friendly poets there. The experience was great and helped to cultivate my work.
I performed in the two solo slams, advancing to the second round in both but failing to qualify for the second round. I chop that up to me not having a huge repertoire of diverse poems that I'm confident in just yet.
Now that I'm back, I've started several pieces, but haven't finished nearly as many as I would have liked. Hopefully I can do that soon and well.
My goal now is to make the Fort Worth Slam Team, and I will do it.
On campus, I'm also starting a poetry group so we can have weekly open mics there and hopefully bring in local and national spoken word poets for features.
Just so you know, the poems that were posted in August were after I got back from nationals.
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