Midwest Spit

So I found myself in Kansas City for a few days this week-on business. But when I am blessed with the ability to travel to a new city I always try to check out the poetry scene. So I fell into this little spot in the 18th and Vine District. It used to be a jazz area, with likes of Byrd and Basie on the scene, so the energy was good. Spot was called the Blue Room-I entered about 9:30pm.

Now I don't know when the set began, but I just checked in with host- when he said the last poet was up and asked could I spit. His exact words were "No problem brother-what's your name?"

Word? Now I been to a many poetry set, and I ain't never received that type of instant love. So, after about fifteen minutes in the spot I closed up the open mic-word. I dropped a classic, Why You Wanna...and I think I repped DC fairly well. Funny, I ain't been on the mic in the District in years-but regardless got love in KC.

Just so cool to travel, and vibe with folks on the artistic tip. Good times. So now I am on a plane on my way back to the East Coast, frustrated with some delays of the day but my headphones are blaring that new Nas, Life is Good, and the memory of the other night leaking out my fingertips-must admit I am cool. Just feeling okay about my space in the universe you know. Honestly, with that energy in my spirit, gotta let it flow...

Like above and beyond
The level I am on
Spiritual plane fly over
Negative things
I reign...king of my situation
Peasant to pleasantries
Not dominated by past mistakes
I have made
My way paved by bearers of
My name
A reflection of he who has seen
Many things
I dress in various shades of gray
Suited for all that may come
Numb to my own indecision
Learn to listen more than
Speak
To some the changes in my person
A reason to question
Me...
Burdened by less than most
Yet still in possession of pain
Thus,
I refrain from allowing the ignorance
Of acts committed yesterday
To limit my progression
Potential
Infinite-outside space and time
The Wisdom
I seek, simply trying to become
Better than he who stares back in the mirror
So I outline my hopes and dreams
In poetic verses over imaginary beats
And proclaim to be MC
Manifesting creativity as I magnify my culture
Mending community to mobilize the collective
A soldier, with more faith than fortune
Methodically committed to the movement of chains from mental
Of all within striking distance
it is essential that I remain
Stay
Majestically cultivated...mellow cool
I be
Momentarily canonized in rhyme and meter
Message caretaker for the sake of memory classification
Place my words amongst your dreams
Move crowds with the melodic cadence of consonants and vowels
See above and beyond all else
I master ceremonies when present
Microphone captivator
Massaging the consciousness of the people
MC...

Copyright 2012

I'll Fly Away...

We sent my grandmother home today, Mary Louise Banks.  She was 90 years old.  She was my favorite person.  She just, well, she put so much into me.  So much life, and I tried to be a good grandson I really did.  But, I always think of more I could of done; things I could have said; time I could have spent.  I actually know there is no place for that right now...that guilt accompanies death like personal servant-attending to all its needs.  I need not buy into guilt right now, but part of me wants to dwell in this sad place...the pain, the tears somehow bring me closer to her.  I know this all sounds like nonsense but emotions have no basis in fact or reality.  They are not bound to rules or parameters...emotions are free and whether you choose to submit to them or not, they are ever-present.  On days such as this one, their power is overwhelming.

I cannot be sad but I cannot be happy either.  My grandma is gone; outside this existence and entering into a new day.  A day undefined by time, hours or minutes, and lasting infinitely.

Extended

I was in a training class today-actually an executive leadership class and the coach asked everyone how they were feeling at the end of it.  People went about the normal list of terms-"motivated", "present", "engaged"...yada, yada, yada.  I mean I am usually on that train as well, but today, well just in general lately I have felt particularly extended.  Almost like Mr. Fantastic.  Not familiar with the Fantastic Four?  Well, Mr. Fantastic the self-appointed leader of the four, was basically an elastic man-whose limbs could stretch hundreds of feet.  In every one of their adventures it would somehow be necessary for him to stretch to the maximum of his body limit to stop a train, or save a helpless citizen.  Afterwards however, he would be stretched out (literally) and weak.  Extended.

I just think I have so much happening that the thing I really need to take care of-my dissertation proposal, is the last piece of work that I have touched.  I sit here now and write a blog when I could be taking a few minutes to do something toward it.  But I always say tomorrow.  Tomorrow, tomorrow, I will do no more tomorrow but it make me feel okay about today...Oh, tomorrow, tomorrow...yeah, you get it right.  I am succumbing to what many have called self-sabotage.  I must fight my way out of my way...or I am destined to not quite get this right.

Still, regardless of what I have to do-I feel drained.  Like no matter how much work I put in, there is only more work as the prize.  It is like being inside a box and working diligently to break out of that box, and you bust through and find-you are still in another box.  So you begin to work on busting out of that and you finally make it and...another box.  No light just tunnel.  It can be discouraging...and at times can move you into the space of nothingness.  What is nothingness?  Well, it is when you do nothing, say nothing, feel nothing and have nothing to look forward to. Got to, for me to be successful, make something out of nothing.

Standing in the Gap

So I am a big brother.  Not literally, but a Big in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program.  I have been in the program for, well, about 5 years.  My little is a good kid, but just hit 13 and well I think change is in our midst.  Not change for the worse, but just teenage change and my role has to change as well.  I don't ever mean to say I would try to be anyone's father-I have a son-but I need to be more involved.  He is a young African American male, growing up in one of the toughest neighborhoods in DC, toughest in the country for that matter...and he is very much a boy.  A good boy.  The kind that the streets love to devour, detour, disintegrate...destroy.  I cannot say I will not let that happen-what will happen will happen.  But I must do my part to not allow it to happen.

Life is full of responsibilities-some you take on willing and others that just stand in front of you asking to be acquired.  I am not one to run from responsibility.  I feel that not only do I have a responsibility to every little boy, especially little African American boys, but most specifically to my little brother.  I have known him since he was 8 years old.  I remember meeting him at the Big Brothers/Sisters Office.  He was with his mom and grandma.  They had to check me out and ask some questions-then I met him.  Skinny little kid with a big head-he would be so mad if he read that.  Big ol' eyes just taking me in.  He will never know I was actually scared to meet him too.  I had been trying to get into the program for a while, but at first I could not get in contact with the right office, then they lost my fingerprints, then I got busy and just did not respond to calls...and finally, he and I sit across from one another.

I couldn't really say exactly why it was so important for me to be in the program.  I guess it is that I have a great dad, and I knew both my grandfathers and spent an enormous amount of time with them.  I am who I am because of the men in my life.  I just felt I needed to be appreciative of the love that was given to me and not take that blessing for granted...and just try to give back a bit, if I could.  Maybe I could help at least one little guy.  Maybe.

The time has just passed by, and we have spent some great times together.  I love this kid, sincerely, and I want the best for him.  Young people are the only hope our future has, and they are beautiful...every one of them.  It is just that some of the challenges they face are unfair, unjust and simply unequal.  But that is the situation they have been placed in.  The cards they have been dealt.  People like me, and maybe you if your are reading this, are their only hope at times.  That is just how it has been laid out.  The cards that we have been dealt.

I am not trying to save the world, not all of it at once LOL.  But I do want to make a difference.  I have to do the right thing.  It is necessary for my own survival.  It is just how I am wired.  I am not saying all this to paint some perfect picture of myself-not at all.  Every man has their vices, issues, demons to be exorcised.   But in my heart, I truly live to help people.  Young people are so amazing to me.  Their energy, ingenuity and naivety all rolled up into one is something that can fade over time-which is in part good but more so bad.  Their eyes full of so much passion and confidence...as if nothing could ever shift them from their dreams and vision of the world.  We must support that belief in the impossible...enforce imagination and sponsor dreams, as much as we can.  If we do not, then...well, they become lifeless souls who exist for material gain and individual pleasure-and do not understand that each person has been placed here with a purpose...beyond him or herself.  A purpose for humanity, that they must fulfill.

Regardless, I need to just be a better friend to my little right now.  He is going through some things, growing pains, that can cause a young man to lose his focus.  It is a precious time, and without significant "positive" role models than others will be found, and they may not have his best interest at heart.  I, for the moment, am still cool to him.  I have to capitalize on that-while it lasts.  I will pray that God watches over him, and affords me the time to invest a bit more into him as well.  Together, I pray we can help influence his life.  We all must stand in the gap for folks at some point, because if you truly analyze your own journey you will know that many others stood in the gap for you.  Give back...and receive life.

Not of blood relation but we still
kin-folk
Been told stories of my granddaddy's peoples
that was separated and sold
so we don't know if we really distant
cousins
doesn't matter be my
brother
regardless
and I will come when he call
lift him if he fall
stand beside in trouble
and applaud in triumph
for his victory is my own
and we have grown in our short
time together
yet a relationship not measured
by hours and seconds
but the investment in one another
the intangibles gained
frame the picture round our existence
and bear witness,
I will be here when the losses outweigh the wins
the good deeds overshadowed
by sins
and the world casts doubt on your very name
I promise to be the same
solid
situated differently than all others
simply put
Your brother...

Copyright 12

Pressure Bursts Pipes

So this life thing, well, is not a straight path to the next stage.  The road is filled with potholes and detours,  curves and round-abouts.  Life.  It is as if as soon as you think you have some things figured out, or it is all going, well, well...it happens.  Not any it in particular, just it.  It is not defined by any specific terms, other than "it" is unexpected and unnecessary and at times uncheap-or rather it is expensive.  This is the life game.  Unpredictable.

It happened to me today.  I was already in it, like this situation with my house.  So here is the breakdown: I am outside messing with my dog, come in the house and hear water dripping...really running as if the faucet is on.  So I go into the half bath and there it is.  Water is busting through one of the walls!  WTyou know the rest!  So I yell to my wife, who at this point I know is in the shower-not that I know know but the water-I know.  So I am like-BABE, GET OUT THE SHOWER!  She is like what?  You gonna wake the baby...long story short, pipe burst over the bathroom ceiling-which was the drain pipe for the upstairs bath and all kinds of goodness just bust through the wall.  Today the plumber basically "tore up" the bathroom to fix the pipe...and there are big sanitary dryers all over the house.  That is the setting for "it" to happen again.  

Not another pipe, but after I stay off work to deal with the gifts from years past that poured out of aforementioned pipe, I was rushing to work.  Now, the whole rushing to work when you are about 4 hours beyond your start time is an oxymoron.  Yeah, so me, the oxymoron himself is "rushing" to work like Brandon Jacobs through the Patriots front four...I don't even like the Giants but that was my Sportscenter moment.  In the rush, I hit a red light, stop, light turns green, go-damn.  Car in front of me, well...yeah.  So I hit it.  

I am dead wrong so I handle the fender bender-literally-like a man and take care of almost everything on the spot.  But my energy is off.  Not only has my house been jacked for days, which has the wife and little one off a bit, I been showering at our neighbors house, my money could always be better and tadow...banged out the whip.  So, with the job on my neck, home out of order and now this...my own pipes on the verge.  So I write.  I mean, there are plenty of folks in a lot worse situation than me...but I always have this to say about that-this is my situation.  Let me break this theory down.

Everytime you are going through something, anything, and you maybe reveal that to someone else he or she always says-well, you know it could be worse or there are other people worse off than you.  I usually reply with something like "yeah, that is right".  Most often because I feel obligated, at that moment, to act is if I give a flying fig about this other, imaginary person that I do not know, about their potential misfortune that when compared to mine is "worse."  So, I say all of that-in a run-on sentence at that-to simply say-why the hell do people say that?  I mean we all know that it could be worse, but I said that this time when the wall burst with water from five years ago spilling out on the floor-"could be worse" I said.  Today...it is. 

I am not saying I do not feel other folks issues, or that it always goes from bad to terrible-only once in a while.  But at the same time, your issue is your issue.  No matter what happens to Tom, Dick and Harry what matters is what happens to you.  How you feel is important-no bump that-how you feel is really all that matters at least sometimes.  So if it is all jacked up, and your day totally sucks-you should not have to try and imagine someone else's misery to feel better.  Just go ahead and get your "feel bad" on.  Let it go.  Cry.  Fuss someone out.  Go to the park and yell.  Write...an angry blog entry.  I don't know, but don't be made to feel bad about feeling bad.  You have to understand feeling bad to recognize when it is really starting to feel good.  If all that pressure is allowed to build up-and even at its pinnacle someone tells you to get over it or think about the guy who doesn't have whatever-they may get the business.  So, to corral those emotions allow yourself to feel, heal, and release.  It may not be that deep tomorrow, but today.  Yeah, be easy.

Mine

is not your issue 

and although 

you may have one 

close to the same

it ain't 

how I feel is real

to me 

so before you 

begin

refrain

from saying things

like it could be worse

or look on the bright side

I might

one day...

maybe even tomorrow 

reassess my 

situation 

but at present

my patience has left the 

building

and perhaps you 

should follow suit 

it's not that this is 

a pity party 

but if so 

what is it to you?

the table is set for

one

no need for opinions

motivational speeches

or sermonettes 

just let me have my moment

in time I may forget 

but that time is not right this 

second

I want to wallow in this a while

ignore my cell phone ringing

delete all text upon receipt

cut someone off while driving

give 'em the bird if they beep

I am just all in my feelings

and regardless if 

you have been down this path 

before

I don't want to hear your story

I will Helen Keller you

can't hear you and can't see you

nothing you can do

except, well...shut the hell up

and leave me to my misery

I will get back at you when I am 

up

until then...

down is where I 

be

copyright 2012