This thing that sometimes I mourn/ Is so old, yet to be born/ Not like the identity/ It is its own entity/

I would like to think that I know what it is/ but I’d be lying & I’m true to this/ so I hold my tongue/ and touch my heart/ like Jackson Pollacking art/
it sprays and lays and grows in layers/ my eyes heavy, Darth like Vader/ but before he went to the evil side/ some say dark/ but I’m a black guy…/

and I try/ to not confuse/ the subtleties that words construe/ or often miss and (then) bruise/ bricks are thrown tear gas is used/ and as the fires blaze the sky/ I pray that God will take back light/ I pray that girls take back the night/ i pray this world gives up its fight/ and decides to give love a chance/ to forgive and to advance/ to really live and really dance//

ad-libs…

This thing that I seek I saw in the eyes/ of a 6 yr old girl and a homeless guy/
it kind of skipped & kind of swayed/ like flowers, like a chain gang/
I must say I didn’t know what to do/ like deer in headlights tend to do/
I muttered a verse and brushed my shoes/ —off— and then I think I coughed/
I didn’t have words for the thing I saw/ like momma birds when chainsawed trees fall/
I had always imagined one way it’d be/ but then again in actuality,/
expectations contradict reality/ like Jesus, up on the cross/ Diallo’s killers gettin’ off/
like the holocaust we said “never again”/ but then Rwanda and Sudan happen/
it’s hard these days to have faith that rappin’/ can change the block let alone the globe/ but i gotta stop self-doubt, although/ cynicism’s tempting- it’s fear in a cloak/
a smirk, a sar-ca-stic aside/ I work, this art, until I cry/
and then the tears purify/ and then they rise to meet the heights/
that martin spoke of on that final night/ the mountaintop is there/
ain’t nuthin stoppin’ us but the air//

don’t give up/ don’t give in/ forget this/ say it again/
don’t give up/ don’t give in until the ocean takes them in/
sand grains wait/ ghost crabs glisten/
it’s all here/ now just listen…
don’t give up/ don’t give in/ forget this/ say it again/
it’s all here/ now just listen…
now just— //