Monday, November 29, 2004

The Fall




I was an accident waiting to happen. Who knew…It was only 1960.
Nobody on tv looked like me, and if it was on tv…it must be the truth. Right?
So, I felt like I could never be happy…unless, I could change…my skin.
Nobody in the pictures on the walls and fans in grand mom’s church looked like me.
Damn, I don’t even belong in Heaven. Maybe that’s why I caught so much Hell.
Who could I grow up to be like…Jim Brown, James Brown? I couldn’t run fast or sing.
I was stuck like Chuck… Mary Ordinary…. Joe Banana (one of the bunch).
Just another too black, too poor, too ignorant, too ugly kid from the projects…
Why does it hurt so much? If only I could change…

In 1968 I found a magic carpet. It took me up, up and away. Peace at last.
I was different. I was saved. I changed. I saw the light, felt the warmth.
Mother’s Love. Truth set me free. Uptown it only cost $3.00 a bag, $10.00 in Jersey.
Skag, stuff, duji…heroin gave me wings. In one giant leap I became a man.
I left all the other 13 year-olds light years behind.
I stuck out my arm and said, “me too.” I became a warrior, a revolutionary, a poet, a junkie…Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I’m free at last…

I showed them. No one could expect anything of me now. A junkie is free.
The only responsibility is to self, and a teen-age junkie can really get lost in the sauce.
Lost in the haze of puberty. Lost in the fog of manhood. Lost in the darkness of self-hate.
Time is measured in bags and nods and scores and dead friends and family-turned-marks.
And state time and county time and sickness and scores and sickness and sickness.
Days turned into weeks turned into months turned into years.

Heroin became my wife, cocaine my mistress. Lies my profession. Crime my career.
I felt nothing. No hate, love, guilt, pity, no shame, remorse, pain, confusion, nothing.
Any feeling that tried to creep into my consciousness went into the cooker. I shot them up too…I lived and died in the same sentence. Monosyllabic ramblings,
” who got it?”
“you got a set?’
“they got good dope uptown, 145th. PC boys”

At 33 I was already an old man. A veteran of the dope wars, a survivor, a dinosaur.
Sick and tried of being sick and tired. A lion with no teeth is at the mercy of the young lions. A washed-up, punch-drunk fighter. Accused, abused, lied to and lied on.

I can’t do it anymore. I am running out of time. Where did these babies come from?
I can’t do any more time. That last bid broke me. What’s left? AIDS, Hep-C? Life in the penitentiary? My hustle is gone, can’t kill nothing, nothing won’t die. A living lie.
Tired of living, afraid of dying. I can’t stop, but I gotta keep trying. God help me, cause man won’t. Mom’s hurt, dad’s pissed. They actually wanted me to do something with my life! Damn, I didn’t know that freedom wasn’t free. How could a slick joker like me get caught out there like this? But I can’t blame it on the dope cause I choose it, or did it choose me? Was it waiting for me all the time? Looking to free a self-imprisoned child of the night. Free him with the false promise of better days and bigger highs.

It’s called slavery. You see the chains remain (why do they call it The Game when you can never win?). Maybe if my spirit had not been broken before I was born, maybe if they had not killed Martin and Medgar and Emmett and Malcolm and Little Bobby. Maybe I could have overcome four hundred years…maybe.

I found out where real freedom came from. All this time I’ve been fighting to stay alive.
I surrender
I surrender
surrender,
surrender to live.

© 2004 swing first productions

Friday, November 26, 2004

The Avenue


Its nine p.m. Friday night, the avenue is hot…. Stuyvesant Ave. Trenton, NJ. There are millions of avenues like this across the United States, but this one is mine. Across the street, broken glass glitters like so many diamonds. They remind me of the many broken dreams and promises made around here.
The avenue itself is a trip. It’s about two miles long and runs the gamut of economic scenarios. It goes from the lowest of the low ghetto to upper class suburbia. I live right in the center, what the police call the “hot spot”. A five-block stretch where all the action is: Prostitution, drug dealing, drug using, fighting, stabbing, shooting, burglary, rape, robbery, gambling and murder. All of it seems to happen in this five or six block area. This is where I live. I’m not one of those who are “trapped” here and feel that they can’t get out, and I’m not one of those who want to “make it” and get out. I’m here because I choose to be here. This is my home, these are my people, and this is where I belong. Not to say that I need to be penned into some lawless jungle somewhere, but that amongst the hopelessness and despair, the broken promises and shattered dreams. There is hope, pride, faith and love. There is community. In that sense, I belong. I am the street, the sights, sounds and smells that float through the air, the heat, the passion, the anger, the past, present and the future. I am Stuyvesant Avenue. It is me. We are one. Thank God …..
I’m up on my balcony watching all the action. It’s about one hundred degrees in my little studio and I’m outside (like everyone else) above the street trying to cop a breeze. Sipping some iced tea and listening to Trane’s, “A Love Supreme”.
Next door Minnie Rose is sitting on the porch drinking beer with her neighbors. Minnie is 36 with two kids and no husband. Her oldest child, Pearl, is 20 and has a two-year old. (On this street there are children everywhere. Lots of lovin’ going on somewhere.) Minnie’s second child, Davey Boy, is in prison for selling dope. When he was home he ran things. A 17 year-old, manchild. Now the family is just getting by and Pearl is pregnant with her third child. On the porch next to Minnie are Mr. & Mrs. White. They are the elders on this block since they have been here longer then anyone else. All of their children have grown up and moved away. I talk to Mr. Bill White often and he tells me how Stuyvesant used to be back in his day. Old folks are something else; always talking about the “good ole days”—like black folk was in heaven or something. I respect my elders but I also know the truth. I told Mr. Bill White that black people came running north from the overly racist, southern white man, and ran smack into the smile-in-your-face-stab-you-in-the-back northern white man. From the frying pan to the fire. I remember he just gave me a smile and nodded his head.
Across the street I watched Junior Simms flag a car down. When the car stopped Junior said something, pointed down the street and hopped in the car. They drove half-way down the block and stopped at the curb. Junior got out and dashed up the stairs into the house. Six years ago, Junior Simms was the state champion in the hurdles. He had gotten a scholarship to Clemson to run track but Junior couldn’t out run Stuyvesant Avenue and now he just ran sales for the crack dealers so he could smoke all the time. Tonight they were slingin’ out of Mary’s house. As I watched Junior doing his thing I could picture what was going on in there: The dealers would be in the kitchen cutting, bagging, and selling, and Mary and her two sisters would be in the basement smoking and running up and down the stairs all night while their kids would be upstairs in the back bedroom hollering. Yeah, I know about Mary’s house, a few years ago I was right up in there with the rest of them. But that was then and this is now. I’m not trying to sound better than, nor do I think I am. I’m just saying that I don’t do what I used to… Today, I’m just an observer, on the outside looking in.
On the other corner is a police mini-station. It’s supposed to keep the block quiet, but it’s only opened in the daytime and nighttime is when all the action happens. Right now it’s closed and I see my youngest brother and his crew shooting a ‘c-lo’ dice game on the steps. Across the street from them is the Deliverance Temple, a store-front church led by the charismatic Reverend Benjamin J. Moon. Rev. Benny and his followers are having a revival outside. He has a small mike-amplifier/speaker hook-up and he is preaching the Gospel. He is yelling so loud I can’t really make out what he’s saying, but his flock is following him intently. They shake tambourines and clap their hands at every phrase. I am watching all of this and suddenly struck by the paradox! The dice game and the revival are just separated by some twenty feet, both ignoring each other. Damn! Sin and salvation, good and evil just a few feet apart. All you have to do is make a choice. I wished it was that easy (maybe it is).
Things have changed since I was a kid….A plague has come upon the land. No less tragic then the Biblical plague of Pharaoh and no one has escaped untouched. Crack cocaine and the violence that follows fast money have made us all unwilling dance partners in a crazy syncopation of frustration and terror.
When I was growing up, there was my dad, a strong-willed, hard-working black man who played sports after work and always made time to take me for a ride on the weekends. No, he didn’t live with us, but he was always there for me. I don’t see that much anymore. Things have changed…
I grew up in the Lincoln Homes Housing Project (Swing First we used to call it) on Old Rose St. My mother was young and managed to raise two boys with just a High School diploma and no welfare. Seems like she was always working, but still managed to cook, tell us stories, help with homework and kick butt when we got out of hand. Yeah, things have changed…
Growing up black anywhere in the US has never been easy, and Trenton is no exception. Back in the day, “Northside” was no picnic. Plenty of trouble to go around and I managed to find it. But I made it out with a new attitude. I had help: Malcolm X, MLK, Muhammad Ali, Willie Mays, Jim Brown, Angela Davis, the Blank Panthers, George Jackson, the Last Poets, the Nation of Islam and of course, my parents. I read a lot of books and danced to James Brown’s, “Say It Loud: I’m Black And I’m Proud.” I felt it, too!
Today, it’s different…The Last Poets have been replaced by the Poor Righteous Teachers. The strong black voice of discontent has been murdered or betrayed. The cooperative work ethic has been replaced by a new-jack-gagsterism. Unity is now about me and mine! The young black male is on the endangered species list and it doesn’t look good for the home team…
A little black boy walks down Oakland St. His NY Yankees baseball cap is turned around backwards on his head, his t-shirt has a picture of Nelson Mandela on it, his cut-off jeans hang low on his skinny hips and dirty Air Jordan’s are on his feet. I smile…another urban warrior. As he turns down Hoffman Ave. towards Roger Gardens (another housing project), I wonder if crack-heads haunt his hallway. I wonder if anyone takes him for a ride on the weekends or if he knows anyone who can explain why a pen is a more potent weapon than a nine-millimeter. He disappears down the block and I wonder where he’ll end up. Damn! Things have sure changed…
I am snapped out of my thoughts by a voice, a female voice…nice.
“Hey Shakur, ha you doin’? I look down to see Nikki and one of her girlfriends. They are dressed Friday night fly, gold hoops, short skirts and long legs.I can smell their perfume wafting up from the street.
“Yo Nikki, was’ up?” She’s smiling at me smiling at her.
“Nothing, we going down to the ‘Light to have a drink. Wanna come?” Damn, She looks good! We got some history and I’m thinking about the fun times we had. Her girlfriend gives her gum a pop like she’s bored, and I’m wondering why I’m holding this woman up on a Friday night? But I just can’t let her go, not yet. Why? I decide to play it smooth.
“Nah, you better go ahead, ‘cause if I come with you…It’s gonna be on and poppin’!” She laughed. Man, I remember that laugh. Soft, sexy, cool. I could always make her laugh.
“You still crazy!” she says with a sexy turn of her head. “Maybe I’ll get with you later.” They turn and walk down the street. I can smell their smell and hear their music-laughter all the way to the next block. I think about Nikki and our history. Yeah, we had some good times before it went bad. In the end, we both did the hurt thing to each other, but somehow time has managed to keep us from being enemies. Maybe I’ll give her a call. You know, try it again.
That’s Stuyvesant Ave. for you, take a pain and flip it into a joy. It’ll bring you a memory so deep that your knees will shake!
Let me take my ass back in here and start writing…

© 2002 swing first productions

Thursday, November 25, 2004

NIGHT TIME * a musical poem *




As I drive thru the city at night
the streets come alive and pull at my soul.
Darkness moves in and out of the headlights.
Then just as quick
fade to black…"watch out, fool!"
Shadows turn into bodies as I approach.
Bodies that dart and dance and dance and dart
in-between back and forth
to and fro
from here
to there
going nowhere.

Night time is the right time
for flight time
take off and fight time
time to get tight time
time to get right time

Night time kids all ages all sizes
With night time mothers
and sometime fathers.
They have become prowlers and scroungers.
Hungry
angry
lonely
tired…"why don’t that boy have a coat on!"
Playing double-dutch to 50-cent
basketball with a milk crate
tag in the projects
dice against the wall
dodge ball in the street.
Playing mom and dad and child all at the same time.

Night time is the right time
for flight time
take off and fight time
time to get tight time
time to get right time

Grown up teen girls in
yeast-infection tight jeans
trying to fuck their way into
a rap-video type love.
Hoping that if the babydaddy’s
don’t
the babies that are sure to follow
surely will
love them…."Girl, he got loot!"
Please, just love them.
Love them like they need to be loved.
Not that ol’
night time love.

Night time is the right time
for flight time
take off and fight time
time to get tight time
time to get right time

The corners are fat with tough
man-child fodder for the
prison-industrial complex.
Oversized jeans hang loose on hips
that sway to the beat of long-lost tribal roots
masquerading as music…."Yo… What you need man?"
According to the papers
they all got guns.
So
the cops have the right to
shoot first
right?
thugs
The
Human
Underdeveloped
Growth
System
keeps them being boys
even at 30.
Eating them alive.
America always eats its young,
especially at night.

Night time is the right time
for flight time
take off and fight time
time to get tight time
time to get right time

Bars and
churches and
chicken shacks and
rib joints and
pool halls and
laundry mats and
liquor stores…"For the brutha’s that ain’t here."
They shine like an
oasis in the black dessert
of the night.
The corner bodega has become the Micky D’s
of the ghetto.
Where you can get a beef patty
Chore-boy
a lighter and condoms
all in one stop
all night long.

Night time is the right time
for flight time
take off and fight time
time to get tight time
time to get right time

So, I drive like an outsider
like a tourist in vegas
like a country boy in the apple
like a church group in D.C.
flashbulb eyes
with memory photographs…"Ain’t that Clarence over there?"
looking
looking
like that dude in greek mythology
looking
looking
like that brutha selling the final call
looking
looking
like my mother for my daddy
looking
looking
for an honest man
in the night time.

Night time is the right time
for flight time
take off and fight time
time to get tight time
time to get right time


© swing first prods. 2004








due process


due process 2004
(the elected & the rejected)


we didn’t vote for him
so
how did he get elected
the outcome was a travesty
again
black folk was rejected

if you had a warrant
a ticket
or owed child support
you were banned from voting
(this was contained in a
national report)

it’s my patriotic duty
to participate in this
process??
I’m sorry, I don’t feel it
the rich folks have
all the excess…

so, how do we choose
a leader
who’ll govern with equality??
with fairness not just for
them
but even you and me

this shit was real
confusing
filled with controversy
and doubt
what the hell is an
electoral vote??
and how the fuck can i
figure it out??

they did it to us
once again
divide & conquer
was the tool
where’s that electoral
college??
I’m taking my ass
back to school

© swing first prods. 2004