Welcome

Being unemployed gives you time to think. It is a rare opportunity to reflect on who you are, and who you plan to become. Financial difficulty is a life defining experience when faced with homelessness. I have a belief that everything happens for a reason. Having a chance to live outside of and observe a system we strive to be a part of, which will eventually destroy us gives life a new perspective. At times deep in thought I remind myself that the test of success is graded in your ability to face failure. As a young man aspiring to be a rapper I often wrote of my fear of failure, and my desire to succeed. It wasn't until age 30 on a windy October day that I embraced the idea; stagnation is like dying, all successes in life, love, and finance involve risk and accountability for your actions. The fear of failure is the same as the fear of success.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Why Revolutionary Poems Lack Solutions

One day there will be coffin black bandanas 
Drum roll crescendos 
Like heartbeats in unison with 
Click of trigger dropping hammer 
The sound of an answers execution 


Sparks will kiss the hard flesh 
Of burnt thank you's 
Before they tear open 
Everything you should have never said 
No wonder there are no solutions 


Answers became voices of children 
In metal jackets laying on each other 
As they play kissing games 
With lamentation on their tongues 


Freedom is the face 
Of everyone you've ever loved 
In images of clouds that ripple 
Like still water becoming stone mantle pieces 
You gaze at in memory 
Reflecting... 
The place you put down your revolution 


Ask them they will tell you 
We will tell you there are moments 
Moments you can feel the smell of burning flesh 
As bullets kiss your organs 
And you tell them "I love you" 


Oprah Winfrey is in Jerusalem 
Praying at the Well of Souls 
Her prayers are received like 
Chicago snow on the lips of Jesus 
After 40 days in the desert 
We will be tested 


In a place sparks become clouds of smoke 
Flesh does not burn and thank you's 
Are sewn shut by someone willing to say everything 
Poems are elementary arithmetic 
Filled with problems 
I need to recess from this revolution 


Freedom sounds like children 
Playing in native tongues 
Before language becomes a barrier 
And silence is trapped in skin tone boxes 
Think outside me 


Catch words in windsocks 
We speak blue barriers 
That fade black 
Infinitely trapped within ourselves 


We hang suspended like testicles 
Strange fruit picked backwards bruised 
Trying to put us back where we belong 
I feel the weight of bricks and boulders 
Tied to fragile bones cut free 
Before reaching the bottom of what I'm drowning in 


We are just breaking the surface of freedom 
Beautifully Los Angeles horizons 
Words set like suns on the golden tongues of lions 
Entertainment is an executioner 
It is easier to see everything when your eyes are closed 
This bandana becomes my first right of refusal 


I've been there 
In the moment bullets stood still 
I ran right through them 
As if from jovial attack dogs 
UNtitled... Nameless God if you ask us 


Revolutions are violent acts 
Most martyrs are pacifist 
These poems cannot have solutions 
The answers die before the real war begins 
Nos hablan de los muertos 


When its over the pistol closes the eyes 
Of frightened victims 
No one can stand 
Being near a dead body with open eyes 
I will consume you 
Why won't you look at me 


There are war drums fading into the darkness 
As I float from brick and boulder 
My last breath escaping 
To tell Oprah thank you

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