Occupy Their Minds

Welcome to the world of walls and streets,
where violence police come to silence drum beats
with all the support of politicians in charge
of a corrupt fat cow they milk, by and large.
And their central advice: “Buy MORE and enlarge,
whatever you have, never mind the surcharge!
Because bigger is better and more is never enough.
You should believe what we say, but please, don’t call our bluff.
We hate to disappoint and we’d hate to use force,
but rest assured we will keep this sinking ship on course.
We have no other ideas but to propagate this way
and if you don’t like it, it’s fine, but don’t voice your dismay
or if you do, then at least keep it out of downtown.
If you want we can show you how to Keep Your Voice DOWN.”

Welcome to the world where those in power
will do anything to postpone their final hour,
even betray the interests they’ve sworn to uphold.
They’re not interested in much that can’t be bought and sold.
Being bought and paid for is a time honored tradition,
anyone who says otherwise may get a taste of extradition.
Even peaceful people collecting thoughts in public parks
will be drug out of their tents and beaten in the dark
by the very people they trust to protect
their rights, their lives, but what do they expect
when those rights can be amended by the right blank check,
it’s just a matter of time before everything’s a wreck
and our government in NO WAY reflects our intellect!

Welcome to the world where disparity is inevitable
and kids can grow up thinking pizza’s a kind of vegetable.
You can’t hide from all the shames, like how Wikipedia
is clearly more trustworthy than our “independent” media.
Not much is more important than the sacred status quo
for all of those who made it and are rolling out the dough.
“You deserve all you can get,” they say, “especially if ya got it rough.
And if you get way less than most, well then that’s….just….tough.”
But the time has finally come when we are starting to question
why so many can make millions during a global recession.
While millions of homes were boarded up and shuttered
the upper crust enjoyed bonuses, paid with YOUR bread and butter!

Now that you know the truth, now you know this must change.
More than the USUAL reshuffle and rearrange.
We cannot have a government less interested in our votes
than it is in personal gain, control and stock quotes.
Occupy their minds. Make em jump at each new start.
Feel free to raise your voice, and keep a riot in your heart.
Walk the fine line between rebellion and release.
Remember they want complacency, but they’ll often call it peace.
Remember that the cops are but little black pawns.
The real enemy must be fought with our brains, not brawns.
Take care of each other, you have more than fists and feet,
and they’re scared enough already of our strange drum beat.
We just have to keep it steady, stand armed with common tools
and we’ll remind them that it IS the majority that rules!

My 2 Cents for the 99%

(video's at the bottom)

11-15-11

Money makes the world go round….is a thought I abhor
True as it may be on a dozen different shores
From Jean Paul Gaultier to all the dollar stores
for a lot of us it seems money's got us on all fours
We bark when it says speak and let it tug our popped collars
lug thru every week while being drug thru debt galore
fillin out our lives like a fuckin order form
And this I'm sad to say's becoming more n more the norm
we can barely tell the difference between perfume…and chloroform
as we put our passions deep to sleep to be cool instead of warm
Is there any reason to think that there will ever be reform
as our imaginations shrink along with the depth of our own core
it’s like the soul’s the missing link as we are further than before
from the center, towards the brink of an endless civil war
One country fails, One country succeeds, and the prosperous ignore
the luscious garden’s full of weeds but there’s nothing to deplore
“as long as there’s a clean place for my feet and the poor don’t look…
too poor, then there’s not much else I need up on the 42nd floor”
Not that you should be ashamed of being successful…or a whore
it just doesn’t seem humane to suck the life out of every pore
of every person in every country for the profits that you HOARD

So you wanna know what I think of money
and the rich vs the poor
yeah you Got NO I-DEA What the fuck I got in store!

Whenever I look at the system I think there must be a glitch
most the world lives in a prison that was built by the rich
and the poor live with this mission as they stretch every stitch
to get on that golden bridge instead of livin in this ditch
but da whole world’s like a game that is fulla bait and switch
and I don’t know the system’s name but it really is a bitch
fulla pretty rocks that glisten and pleasures that make you itch
fulla ears that never listen and eyes that look bewitched
or bewildered by the isms that make everybody twitch
Capitalism….commercialism….consumerism, which
are the trains on which
everybody’s lives are hitched
You might think it idealism
you might even call it kitsch
but I do not see the wisdom
in so many superrich
Faces buried in the bosoms
that ‘re inflated by a switch
… throwin out buffets
while people starve for a sandwich
half a world away
or in your city’s every niche
people sittin in soup kitchens
eatin up the CARTILAGE!

So ya wanna know what I thinka money
…and the poor vs the rich
yeah I’d drop another fuckin HOUSE on that GREEN
WICKED WITCH!

~~ da video version!~~

The System is a B-I-T-

Hot off the press! This is somethin I started playin with in my head on the way home from seein that IN TIME movie. Really cool flick. But I didn't sit down and try to write anything til a couple hours ago. But I did it! Just somethin fun, but I like it, so I'll share.

I've been wanting to write a new rap. Been kinda lookin for a topic or just a good line I wanna rhyme and jump off of. But I haven't found one/thoughta one. Sometimes I literally get thirsty for a new rhyme. There's nothin quite like the feel of a homemade flow fresh on your lips. That day it all kinda came together, finally. The other main ingredient/source of inspiration was Lupe Fiasco, a pretty amazing musician/rapper/lyricist who's been raisin the bar for me in terms of content and quality. I just discovered him a few months ago and he just impresses the hell outta me, makes me miss writin raps.

So yeah, that's what this is. A rap, or at least mostly. It's about 3 parts rap, one part performance poem. So it's not straight up made for a beat or anything; just a mic and some ears. But yeah, it is meant to be read FAST. There's little punctuation cuz there's not really any stoppin, just a couple pauses in there and one or two breaths :). It is "metered," or at least it is how I read it, lol. Good luck with that, I have no idea what it would sound like if you read it out loud. I guess I should try that on one of my friends some time just to see. How much you would butcher it ;).

The other reason for this is cuz I've been wanting to share some poetry with you guys! It's been ages and it's not because I'm not writing. I'm writing quite a bit, but it's ALL performance stuff. And I'll never post that stuff in written form! :) Sorry. There's just no way I'm going to spoil those pieces for you, even if you have to wait years to hear em. So I intentionally made this one more for the page, but....I also don't think it's done. Think I'll probably add to it, a beginning and a whole nother verse on the end. But another day, this is good enough for now. Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Whenever I look at the system I think there must be a glitch
most the world lives in a prison that was built by the rich
and the poor live with this mission as they stretch every stitch
to get up on that bridge instead of livin in this ditch
but da whole world’s like a game that is full of bait and switch
and I don’t know the system’s name but it really is a bitch
fulla pretty rocks that glisten and pleasures that make ya itch
fulla ears that never listen and eyes that look bewitched
or bewildered by the isms that make everybody twitch
capitalism….consumerism….commercialism, which
are the trains on which
everybody’s lives are hitched
you might think it idealism
you might even call it kitsch
but I do not see the wisdom
in so many superrich
faces buried in the bosoms
that ‘re inflated by a switch
…throwin out buffets
while people starve for a sandwich
half a world away
or in your city’s every niche
people sittin in soup kitchens
eatin up the CARTILAGE!

so ya wanna know what I thinka money
…and the poor vs the rich
yeah I would drop another HOUSE on that GREEN
WICKED WITCH!

Every Piece of Art has a Feeling

Every piece of art has a feeling. Every abstract shape or impressionist painting, every single song, each story: there is a feeling imbedded in its essence. It is something that vibrates off of the whole of a statue or from the center of a sonata. But it is at a wavelength barely detectable to the human mind, yet sensed it can be. It is just as real as any chord, but of a frequency most in the room cannot or will barely notice. Past the people and movements, past the instruments and notes of color, deep within the sound, the feeling can be felt. How much or how little is as much up to you as it is the artist. Awareness of this invisible thread running through our existence is not taught to the masses. It is rarely even discussed. It survives on our world because artists, often unwittingly, keep carrying it in, keep making it manifest. The way some species of trees and flowers survive because of dogs. Artists continually open little windows of opportunity and those who are able to feel the feeling gather and take in. It may not be more than a candle in an enormous dark room to some, but to others it might swell the inside of the mind so much it pushes out tears. A river running over into fields. Not because of sadness per se, but rather because it was real. Alive. Intense. Present. True. Pure within their being, expanding like a glow. When you look over as someone has a visceral reaction from an inanimate object, from a unique combination of sights or sound, know that it is an ability. They are receiving something you are not, fluent in a language that is unspeakable yet understood, caught in the middle of a transfer of vivid sensation that is beyond what you can “know.” Some can control it, some can not, and some are deaf and numb to its existence. It is up to you though. It might not have been before you read this—if you’ve never had an experience like the one above—but now that you know where it exists, it is up to you—whether you ever let the feeling in. Whether you take the sandstone of awareness and rub away the calluses of this self. Peel back the caked layers of falseness and fear and faked strength. It is there, the potential and possibility to feel like you’ve never felt before, to communicate with a dance floor, to dovetail a brushstroke, to be the microphone of all that is. The cup that runneth over need not ever leave your hand. To resonate with the world around you couldn’t be the worst of fates. Those who do might cry easily, but they laugh the most for sure. And who could look at laughter and not see it’s full of life? Just know that when art speaks, it conveys a world within a world: one that is full of wonderful details, and one that is full of gold. Most never get past the obvious or open up unto the whole, but for some it as if the art were alive—and they are communing with its soul.

The Power of a Picture

10-26-10

The power of picture
is empowered by a mixture
of glowering fixtures.
The souring tincture
and the sweetest licks ensure
a towering fissure
in the form of contrast.
The storm born in a frame of composition
and born to last.
As if it were torn right out of the past
so it could be sworn in at last
to a court of frozen bomb blasts.
Locked in a glossy cast
so it could be passed but rarely passed by
without it catching the apple of your eye
and making it feel harassed until walls break down
until you cry.

This is only possible if you care.
If you dare to bear witness
to your fair share of the pain AND the pleasure
depicted everywhere.
From your 3rd round of blue kamikazes
to seeing FDR lead the world in a wheelchair.
From the burning fields of Nagasaki
straight into Tienanmen Square.

A picture is like a tank.
Once it is here it is here.
But if you never truly see it,
if you never stand up and stop it and look down the long long barrel
of its might, then it might as well roll by you like you’re not even there!

What's the Point of Having a Blog if ya don't BLOG!

Today I did something awesome.

The sad part is that this is something I could've been doing on any given day for the past several years now. But I haven't. Maybe not even once. I used to....but then something happened, and I forgot.

I forgot about so many of the awesome things I used to do! And this is just one more small tragedy to surface (like a dead body) in the wake of 3 years of turmoil. Crazy.

(the picture is of my homeroom 5/3. Not sure why they don't let me type captions on here)

What I did on purpose today though was a direct reaction of something that I did unintentionally in a class (5/2) two weeks ago. Something that left an impression on them. AND ON ME!

What I did was tell a story. It wasn't just any story though, it was one of the most personal stories of my life. A story full of death wishes and suicide attempts and self-destruction and pure suffering that seemed endless at the time. All of which culminated into a force so strong that I finally ran away from home one day.

This is the story that I told them. It is the story of my first breakthrough, my first life-changing revelation, my first BIG break that came by way of my own two hands and an empty house I broke into. More superficially, it is the story of how I became, overnight, a good boy, a good student, and a (hopefully) decent son. At the time this story begins to take place.....I am ten years old.

I left out most of the ugly details. You don't always need those to convey the FEELING you are trying to get across, especially when you're talking to privileged kids who've BARELY known pain, much less the kind of pain that would push a toys-r'-us kid to pray for death on a daily basis.

Instead I told them the condensed version, but still with Feeling. And I focused on the point of the story, the transformation that took place on that day and thereafter. And while I told that story, for 10....15 mintues, I had 20 kids in absolute silence looking at me at the same time. In the back of my mind, as I looked around the room towards the end of it, I was like "Wow." This is the power of my story. This the power of a story being TOLLED.

I had fucking forgotten that! I cannot remember the last time I told a significant piece of my story in a classroom setting! Maybe back in America, maybe my first year at this school...I'm not sure.

Isn't that crazy!? I got stories that can move kids! I got stories that can move people. Not just anywhere! IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION! Towards an easier way, a clearer path, a better life even! One with more Sense and LESS Suffering! Or AT LEAST reaffirm what they already know! And put it into words that they may have not heard before. So they can see themselves and their own lives with a touch more clarity. Just a touch more! But that kind of touch...that kind of clarity can save people from themselves.

This is what I'd lost, one of many things I forfeited in order to go through the throes of a 3 year relationship that was failed from the get go. Most of which I spent trying to redeem my self-esteem and ego after being cheated on for the first time in my life. Boohooooo.

If had any idea what all I threw out of my plane to try and keep it "up in the air," like it was a fucking life and death situation, if I had any idea what I inadvertently sacrificed, I would've cried for entirely different reasons. I woulda torn the wings off with my bare hands in anguish and revolt!

Cuz, really, what I did without even knowing it was throw my SELF out of the plane. I wasn't flying solo, I was flying hollow. For miles and years and miles, over nothing but icy looking waters. A ghost of my self was flying that plane, while my shadow made sure she was comfortable and orgasmic in first class. What a joke.

It's cool though. I get it now. No hard feelings. I was as much a victim as I was a propagator. I was as much a passenger on Air Futility as I was a prop on an engine. Smoking as it may have been. Smoking HOT as it may have been. I know what I did and I know why I did it, and thankfully most of my reasons were pretty good, pretty sound. She knows what she did too, and...even if she doesn't know the exquisiteness of the pain she helped me paint...oh well. Maybe she'll get there, maybe she won't. Maybe it wasn't for her, maybe it was for me to go through, somewhat alone....as I often felt I was when I was "with her."

Anyway, getting back to today....

Today I instigated what I accidentally evoked in 5/2 a week or two ago.

You see, we have this stupid period built into the schedule called "Guidance Period," and what guidance period is for exactly no one really knows. The only thing we do know about Guidance Period is that when the school has SOME ducks in a row, they tend to bring in guest speakers and our kids go and listen to them talk about whatever during that period.

Well, today, just like last week, there was nothing planned by the school. And...as I was sitting there getting ready to go see my homeroom for this waste of time...guess what I remembered? Yeah, that remarkable "incident" that happened in the class next door. Where I bared my heart and an ounce of my diamond soul. And I thought....why not have a Story Telling Time? So that's what I did.

I went in there and wrote it up on the board and explained what happened in 5/2 the other day and what I was thinking might be able to happen today. The only contingent is that in order for me to Tell one of my stories, I have to be asked a question that calls one forth, or so I told them. Which is kinda true for my life in general too!

So I said, "It's up to you guys! Once you ask me a question that points to a story in my life, you can decide if you wanna listen or not! I don't even care if a couple of you would rather play with your phones or whatever, but if you do listen then that's cool and I'll tell that story the best I can....you just gotta think of a good enough question that will hit upon one of MY life stories."

BOOM! A kid's hand went up! This kid named Joey, such an awesome kid, so much g0d-damned heart it almost scares me! His hand shoots up and he asks, "Have you ever been dumped?"

God I love that kid. It's like we rehearsed this!

I thought for sure I was gonna have to weed through like half a dozen lame questions before they GOT the point. AT LEAST! But nope, right off the bat, Joey knows exactly what he wants to know! Guess why? Guess what happened to Joey not so long ago? Yeah. Poor kid. But....he seems to be keepin his chin up, which is more than most of us do at that age. Or have done since!

So today I told the story, for the first time in I can't imagine how many years, of how Leslie Shultz dumped me in 7th grade and how that set in motion a series of events that would reveal one of the most DEFINING aspects of my life! Let me tell you, it's a damn good story!

From one end of the arc to the other, I had those kids' ears in my hands! And, after so many laughs and perfect moments of attentive silence, by the end of it, they were all like "Whoaaaa." And I was like, "Yeahhh." And Joey, who came all the way up from the back row to sit next to me and hear this story, Joey reached over and gave ME a high-five!

Oranges

I keep looking at the oranges
sitting on my counter
The ones bought with the apples that are long gone
The ones bought with such good intentions
They are bigger than my fists. They are soft balls
full of juice and brightness
But I cannot bring myself
to their appetizing destruction
Not because I think they will be destroyed
But because of the ample time it would take me
to slide my fingers under their skin
and peel back and pull off
That time seems more precious to me
in my endeavor to crawl under
the world's thick, raw hide
(as I expose the meat underneath)
than it does for their purposeful consumption

Either my First or my most recent parable. I'm not sure.

(this is what I envisioned! This is the potential!)

They see him everyday. He conveniently walks into their convenience store. He is always happy. But it is more than happy. He is emitting joy, almost as though joy were a pollen and he were a giant flower.

After he leaves, the joy lingers in the store, the pollen drifts about, bouncing off of and alighting on whatever it will. The people who notice him notice him. Often they notice him and smile. Sometimes they notice him and feel as disparate from whatever he is as 7 is to 11. Nevertheless, he is not forgotten quickly. Every now and then words and smiles are exchanged after the appearance of his departure. He is funny. He is silly. He makes them laugh. If, one day, he never came back, they would miss him, give him a nickname (if they hadn't already) and talk about what he used to do. They might smile and laugh all over again. There is something different about him, but they don’t know what. They have never asked, some have never thought about it. They are only workers. They have a job to do, a job they do well and one that does not seem to allow them to stop and ask such questions of people they don’t “know.” Even if they really want to. Even if they really want to....reach out.

When he leaves, people see him on the street: the same people and different people every time. Some of them notice him, some of them don’t. Of the ones who are always there, more and more see him over time. Sometimes a couple of them watch him walking by, on his way, smiling that smile he smiles, and they feel or just flat out THINK, “He knows something I don’t know.” And they are right. But it doesn't have to be that way.

The Palm Reader

"She looked at my hands like records, records to be played upon the needle of her eye"

There once was a girl who walked into my hands

who found her place and started foreseeing plans

who read the lines that were deep and all around

as creases in my hands spoke to her like sound

She saw one line and thought it was a path

she read it so deep she started doing math

and then one lifetime was simply not enough

to explain all the gems so thick in this rough

From there she began looking for more signs

believing more and got entangled in vines

of all the lines that were written in my hand

by something greater than either could understand

At this point, simply not knowing what to do

when all roads seemed to lead to nothing new

Gripped in a spin, she was desperate for calm

so she stopped it all and stopped believing in palms

The Source (new poem)

The Source

I got a whole backyard full of fuckin inspiration

It’s all up in the ground like the dirt is a sensation

Dig it up by the pound, cart it off in exploration

and when I dump it out, it is a noise of information

But then I sort it out, put each word in a formation

Until there is no doubt as to the source of all cremation

Nothing’s quite as loud as a morsel of elation

But I have figured out that Morse code is an oration

Directed at and channeled through the whole population

of the whole entire world and not just through one nation

There’s a language deep at work upon our own fixations

with blindness and deafness and all false deprivations