It Breathes. . .

Life spans the earth in infinitesimal matter raging across the wind’s back dipping through the earth’s core swallowed by the carioles that pushes and pulls the tides. Day’s end is marked by dusk and night’s end is marked by dawn. The roster crows for he knows not the light of day or the light of dusk.

What lives. . .

Do we live? Do we exist? We conceptualize so many other things, could it be possible that we conceptualize our own lives? If I thought that a sharp knife through someone’s heart would hurt, then if it happened to me, would I not say ouch as a reaction? What do you think?

What gives. . .

Not me, the capitalist pig I am. I take, and create, and most importantly generate. I generate other human beings, other dollars, other cents. I accumulate like an old dusty attic, never truly inheriting the worth of all that I’ve seen and heard. But making a deposit on history and withdrawing from what I’m to be paid, not what I have saved.

What is. . .

We are not. We are ideas, figments of our own castration that we all have suffered, as we’ve been severed from the innocence we’re only entitled to as children. No gender biases here, just species. Sleeping, eating, fucking, procreating, lactating, sleeping, eating, fucking, procreating, lactating. Do I speak in circles? It sure as hell feels like I’m traveling a straight path. History repeats itself, but I won’t!! Instead, I’ll do something blindly similar and repeat after history!

The Beggar (A second piece)

Well, in order for this next blog to make sense, you'll have to go back to December 5th, 2006 to see a piece called "The Beggar." It is a small story that I have started writing. I eventually got back to it and wrote another little small piece. If you can, go back and read the first piece and then fast forward to below:

My first reaction was to deny her assessment of my poor faith. I wanted to tell her that she was wrong and not because she was wrong, but because how in the world could she know what my heart was telling me about this India? I was flabbergasted and what’s more, incapable of fibbing. My heart began to speak its pain:

Of course I have no faith; look at this place! There are poor people everywhere! The children are not protected and given a fair shot at education. The buildings, they are eroding and not because of age, but because of dirt. There is dirt everywhere! Tiny little particles that spend all day being kicked up on top of each other, hoping for the opportunity to be kicked up so high that they can float to your nose and clog your sinus system.

I have had it with this dirty place. And when I drive along, I can tell. You all have had it too. But you don’t show it in a way that let’s me know you’re ready to fight for better. You all look as if you’ve given up. And it tears me apart. I have no faith because even though I look at you and see Indian, and you look at me and see American, we are all one and the same. There is little difference from who we are other than where we’re born. And what pains you, pains me because I have to witness it. That’s why I have no faith.”

“We are not the same. You have no faith,” she replied again. “You see what you think you see because it is what makes sense to you. We struggle like you struggle like everyone in the world struggles. Our home is our home and we live by the rules governed by our land. Our land has dirt. We must learn how to live with the dirt. You can’t clean that which is. You can only push it aside or pretend it does not exist. But it is dirt. I may one day come back to this Earth to be that dirt. And to me, that doesn’t sadden me. That is. Faith is. You have no faith that what guides you is bigger than you or your decisions. We live by our Faith and let our faith guide us, because we know that what is meant to be will be.

“That look that you see upon our faces is not one of giving up. It’s one of acceptance that each day we live is another blessing from God. And each day we see the dirt and feel the dirt is another day that God has blessed us with life. If the dirt irritates your skin, wash it off. That’s it! Nothing profound. You want the dog out of your way, then shoe it away. But don’t be mad at the dog for existing. You are angry. I believe you are angry because you have no faith. I come to you begging for change. And instead of being happy to have the ability to give, you are angry to have been bothered by a beggar. Why is that so? I must live like you must live. We must live together. Yet you speak of you and me being one and the same, but you deny me my existence by frowning upon it as if I should not exist. Why is that so?”

“I didn’t say you shouldn’t exist. . .”

“And your mouth didn’t have to, your eyes said it. It is the look of contempt. You want to help, you want to encourage. But you cannot give out what you do not believe. We need people to show us the faith, not 5 piece rupees for food. Each human that gives to another human is showing the faith and in the end, that’s all we can ask for."

Circuitous Nature of Life

It is indeed the circuitous nature of life; the palindrome of our existence, to repeat, then to repeat again the faults of restless men, too busy to correct the wrong. To knowingly settle for the sublime when bigger and better lie encrusted behind a mixture of sweat, hard work and mental persistence. Faults so old, they sit inside our skin like DNA. Bridges neglected by lazy builders too caught up in trying to cross the bridge before they can finish erecting it.

I've seen it all. Well, maybe not all, but enough to inform me of specters of truth. You see, the reality is we don't create reality; reality creates us. And we think so lazily that we cannot see how that plays out. We wear dormant attitudes like bubble geese coats in winter and like flip flops in summer.

You never know when lightening may strike until your hair rises. Problem is, we put so much grease in our hair that it never raises. Strike! And there we are; lying in a pool of stagnation, bleeding complacency and coughing up nerve; blasted into oblivion, only to further exist as particles floating in the wind and dangling off of empty matter.

What’s worse is we speak. We speak without action. We speak without movement. If we didn’t have to get from one place to another, I doubt some of us would move at all. But we sure can talk about it. As the theory of change facilitates our metamorphosis into subcutaneous beings, we forget that our outer layer of skin is the first mode of contact with the world. But, boy, can we sure talk!

Our movements have become pitiful. We walk in circles and we talk in circles; sometimes clockwise and sometimes counter-clockwise. We don’t know if we’re coming or going, but it doesn’t really matter because we’re always sure to find someone “there.” And to us, that’s all right; that’s enough. To know that no matter the final destination, someone will be waiting “there” for us. I take no solace in that. I take no solace in traveling the road so known that at each turn rests tourist signs and Starbucks couches.

I take no solace in going to places where locals hang on relics of Americana like living exhibits making martyrs out of their ancestry because somehow someway, you know they fought for cultural preservation a little bit harder than those of today. Yes indeed, it is the circuitous nature of life to divulge secrets of our histories to the commander and chief whilst giving him the pestle and mortar necessary to pulverize the remaining shreds of connectedness. We marvel at the ability. We marvel at the sight like car crashes before our very eyes. But no matter how amazing the sight, there is only destruction resulting. So much so that we can forget about going back to the drawing board where the blueprint has turned to dust.

In its stead? We find evolution. But not evolution of body. Evolution of mind. We find father time aged and with wrinkles. We find mother nature, weathered and tired of the storms. We find God lying down, tired of standing upright, or for what’s right as it were. We find empty bottles of libations and caterpillar casings with dying, uninspired butterflies with skeletons for wings. We find, depravity in the form of a healthy 25 year old begging someone, anyone. . .to tell him which direction he needs to go, because he wasn’t taught and thus lacks the training to find his direction out for himself. We find copper pennies, worthless money no one wants. We find hamburgers and French fries drenched in ketchup. A pack of cigarettes next to a broken lighter. A case of bottled water next to a river with human feces and impoverished, bathing children floating in it. We find flecks of dead skin and empty bottles of sunscreen lotion. Tornados leaning up against trees panting for fresh air, too tired and sick to spin. Lady Liberty being taken away in handcuffs because she came over illegally and the government couldn’t find the paperwork on her. For all they know, her hollow cavity could be harboring weapons of mass destruction. We find clay jars and metal pots. We find a rose in quarantine on a metal table surrounded by horticulturalist performing surgery on it to reattach its beauty. We find George Bush with a shotgun in his hands shooting at apparitional demons floating about his head calling him “father.” We find angst masked as happiness. Diet masked as salad dressing. Pain masked as commonplace. 10 pills in a pillbox and a bottle of Evian water masked as one square meal. We see a teddy bear on the shelf with thread holding his button nose on by a strand of itself.

We’re not kids anymore. It’s time we stop leading these children around in our circle, and take them to a different path. We must not continue recreating how we did it for generations to come. We have not done it correctly and so we must dispose of those ways.

It is the circuitous nature of life we must overcome.

Brooklyn (unfinished)

Under the Brooklyn moonlight, I try to get my mind right for the dusting of visuals about to overcome me.

I throw on my baggiest jeans, air max 95s, grab my clippers to sharpen my edges now it’s time for me to hit the streets

It’s difficult to describe a day in Brooklyn, it’s just something you'll have to come to any neighborhood and allow yourself to see

No place I know is so beautifully violent with all my peoples hanging on street corners, playing cee-lo, rockin' sport jerseys

And we set in our ways, we work hard through the night, exciting fights, low lights and then morning arises and we’re okay

But that’s when we sleep watching the sun seep and burn away like incents or a candle in the middle of the day.

And when the moon awakens, so do our minds and like scavengers, we hit the streets to find our living prey

It’s not always food sometimes it’s just a fix that we need to sustain us as we spiral through time and exist our lives away

We’re ignoble and emblematic of a state of mind that is tough and trendy like Scarface or any other sweet and turbulent snafu

So we chastise our own selves because we can’t believe that our lives are long, yet list of accomplishments short like some deranged haiku

And our children? They’re spearheading the way with a patience unknown as they search for their comeuppance

Unpalatable static, enigmatic and we try and understand the “Stubborn” in them with their suggestive attire, we should take a hint

Can't tell a young cat that 87 degrees is a reason to not rock a hoodie in the dead middle of summer

Can’t tell him it’s too warm to wear Timbs on his feet, especially when he knows that mid-lows come in springtime colors

We would spend a “hunned” dollars a weekend for disposable cars if we could just to say that for a small spell, "yes,we own ‘em"

Ain't tryna clown my people, that's just our mentality in the hood and we know it so with each generation we begin to clone ‘em

I reach into my pocket to see what I possess, four dollars cash just enough to get exactly what I need

Walk to the bodega window, “yes sir, let me get a turkey/cheese hero, some Doritos, a Pepsi, a sour apple blow pop and 1 loosie

Avenues and Streets

I break hearts. To my dying day I’ll live the life of Riley like my Southern folks say. In a way. I know it ain’t straight, but it’s the best that I can offer when I’m living at this rate. My dreams? They crisscross like Avenues and streets, city blocks in New York, demons and angels on the beat. Concrete. Supports the bottom of my feet in a deteriorating world I age to find my Self complete. Or completion. I need a good reason to battle the cynicism that drains my optimism. In a world. That knows no other bounds, but sniffs the Way for shortcuts like we’re all Basset hounds. And these sounds? They permeate my meaning, until the last kick and a snare, I’m on the dance floor leaning. And daydreaming. About these avenues and streets, a maze of silhouette buildings and asphalt-driven heat. I eat. Just to stay alive, but for what, I’m feeling lonely mostly and working is a rut. But in my gut. I know onward I must move, like traffic and rolling wheels down these streets and avenues. I rap the blues. I wrap the sin within, can’t call on myself anymore so I’m always reaching out to friends. I make amends. With the God who is my savior, straighten up my posture and correct my ridiculous behavior. Now back to labor. Or laborious activities that dampen my true spirit and dim the nascent inequities. Of classism. Am I among the strata, not walking the walk, but contributing to the chit followed by the chatter? The mad hatter. He was full of ideas, but what good is their foreboding if they’re locked behind a coding? Self-loathing. My pockets filled with hands, my own, the governments and now even my own medical plan. All grasping for money, so in my back pocket I carry receipts, keep myself a-movin’ down these avenues and streets. You sow in order to reap. My feelings of disdain, will only stand to grow if I continue to feed them once a-gain. My pain. I’m looking for it to subside, so that I can arise and live out the passion that’s inside.

I’ll stop here; this could go on forever. . .

Bliss. . .

What’s bliss? Bliss describes that centrifugal force that pulls you deeper and closer towards that realm of happiness; that bastion of indulgence that brings complete joy to our being from the simplest of tastes to the strongest of emotional forbearance. I know it well and I’ve known it well. It’s a great place to be, especially after you’ve been going the opposite direction for a while. But it’s especially sweet when it’s not your “dream destination,” but a place you can visit whenever you need an escape.

Is it possible to maintain bliss? I don’t think so. There are so many agents of deception and emotional gate-keeping that to task yourself with that goal in mind is setting yourself up for defeat. Bliss is not meant to completely supplant or be used to hibernate from true life which asks us to experience the full range of emotional habitation. However, it can be that secret cupboard or that comfortable chair that beckons the sunken-shouldered, tired and weary day-traveler from the hubris and syncopated entrepreneurial endeavoring we must navigate like slaloms daily.

Yes, bliss’ capacity knows no equal opposite, just as hell is no equal opposite of heaven. Once you are there, thought consumption is of only beauty and beautiful things. God. Family. Relationships. . .good ones. Offspring. Friendship. . .true friendship, not acquaintances. Funny movies. Favorite tastes. Melodious sounds. They all come together to form a string quartet of goodness and all that is good. You need only know how to call upon it; like prayer.

I pose to you, this feeling called bliss, so that you understand it is available to you; it will avail itself if you know how to take your mind there. Bliss requires no plane ticket or expenses. It requires no hammock or white sand beaches. It doesn’t even require your physical being. It requires your mind and your soul. Go there. Take a visit every once and a while and get yourself replenished. Come back and be prepared to face a new set of challenges; whatever they may be. Sensations can be taught. You need not have to prick around until you find they exist. You need only be open to receive, faithful and trusting of your mind’s ability to take your soul places that can replenish you. I know it well and I’ve known it well. You should too.

Writing snippet - What I am

All these years everyone thought I was just being a really good friend. Many can’t understand why I know so many people and am liked by many. That’s because I am more than a friend. I am a cavity. I’ve become a vessel for problems. People tell me their problems; I tell a few jokes and make them feel better. I walk away more knowledgeable about what ails humanity most. You walk away feeling comforted that you have someone you can confide in, who understands you and who can make you feel good about anything. That’s my lot in life. I’ve spent the bulk of my years listening to the pains of people and I want to express to you, right here, right now, that you’re never ever alone.

Writing snippet - Black people

I’m no pastor. And I’m not trying to preach. I just believe that there are others like me out there who just don’t know it. There’s something very prophetic about being a black man in America. And I believe if we were all to tap into exactly what that is, something strange would begin to resonate between us all and we would come to understand the power that we actually do hold. Finally break out of this crab-in-a-barrel mentality. We will become who we were destined to become, before history took that strange twist of fate and took us out of our comfort zone of being left alone to become great. Left alone in Africa to become what the land was willing to give to us.

Am I trying to re-popularize secularization? No. Intimidation? No. I want something greater for my people. I’m trying to bring us back to the point of intellectualization. Back to the time when we figured out how to build pyramids with our minds, desires to innovate and manpower. I’d like to get rid of the laziness and the forced destitution. I’m tired of seeing healthy homeless people. I’m tired of seeing dumb children. I’m tired of seeing decrepit seniors. I’m tired of seeing babies shake their booties to a song before they know how to speak. I’m talking intellectualization and prioritization. No more nations of followers. We should all be leaders and take turns leading; there’s nothing wrong with that.

Writing snippet - Meaning of Life

One of the most pervasive questions of all time is what is the meaning of life? A very profound question for sure, but not the only question. I propose to you a different question. A question that forces us to think about that which we are not doing at the time in question. You see, the question of what is the meaning of life is only asked and/or answered by the living. I ask you the following question. What is the meaning of death?

Maybe if we knew the answer to this question, or began to craft the answer to this question for ourselves, there wouldn’t be so many people attempting to meet death before their time. What if the meaning of death was to find out why you are alive? To spend all your days looking for the reason you were put on this earth to breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. What if to breathe could get you 80 years of life, but upon the verge of lifelessness, you found out that your death was meaningless? Meaningless because you did nothing more than exist while you were here; while you were alive.

I often ask myself, what does it mean to die? Over my few years on this earth, I’ve come across bits and pieces of literature that could help explain the phenomenon that is death. Oh, the things we see while we are alive. Yet we will be dead for more years than we are alive. If being alive was more important than death, then why are we dead longer than we’re alive? Contrived, I know, but to me, this question is worth answering.

Writing snippet - Death

I was afraid of death once; once long ago when I was but a mere child expecting life to last forever. Sure there were things that scared me. And I believe it is quite natural for those things that scare you, to also cause a fear of death. I could never come to grips with the thought of what it meant to never breathe again. The thought was so horrifying that I made a pact to myself that I would never die. It’s silly the ideas we conjure up in our heads when we are young.

As a teenager, I came to the conclusion that avoiding death is impossible. Not because of what science had taught me or what I’d seen on the television screen. Not by books or family funerals I was considered too young to attend. My conclusion that death was unavoidable was no doubt influenced by the idea of loving. You see, ultimately that was the idea that helped me to get over my fear of dying. When I came to the conclusion that there are things in this world that I love so much, I would die for them, I ceased being afraid to die; the notion of dying became nothing more than a step. A step towards what, you may ask? Towards the next stage of my life. Towards immortality. Towards a greater being that exists in human form. Towards a light. Towards growth. Towards the next best thing.

And all we ever really ask for is the next step. So why fear that which is the final step? Earthly anyway.

And yes, sometimes I sit around and think about proposal themes, you never know when you should be ready!

Well, I was just sittin’ here the other hour, thinkin’ boutchu. Hmmmm, I can't believe how good you make me feel; like cool buttermilk over tired skin. Like rain finding some like-minded friends in a puddle. Like impressing your mom 30 years after your miracle birth and seeing that you still know how to put a smile on her face. Like a kiss from the woman you love after the world has spent the entire day beating you up. You know? Just real good.

And it kinda made me sit back and think. . .what would I do with the rest of my life without you? Well, I came up with a couple things, but none worth mentioning and definitely none worth living for. I guess I'm just saying that I love living for you. . .with you.

So, I was kinda wonderin, you know, if you don't have any real big plans for, you know, the rest of your life, would you mind spending that time with me. Because I don’t really have much else to do that’s that important. And plus I like the way you make me feel and I wouldn't mind spending the rest of my life feeling that way. I'll do anything to keep it. . .I'll do anything to maintain it. . .I have nothing else to say, but marry me. Pleaseeeeee?

Dearest Anika,

Wow, thought I had lost this. This is a poem I wrote for my sister on her birthday in 2000. As incredible as it is to me that I felt so strongly about her then, I know that those feelings barely hold a torch to how I feel about her now.

Dearest Anika,

Yesterday we were kids and you couldn’t stand to have me around,
Today we are adults; time and age can make things so profound.
I’ve done nothing but love you from day one until now,
Spiritually, a part of you has grown in me, and it is easy to know just how.

You are my sister, and with that many things can be inferred,
But I’ve seen friends who have sisters and live a dream deferred.
You have provided a parental solace to a young man, who thought he only had one,
Looking back, even as a child, it’s difficult to discern when your actual duties begun.

You never asked for the role, but you took it as if it was always meant to be yours,
How does it feel to know that you helped rear a man who is now twenty-four?
Four years ago, I wrote a poem about you being the age that I now preside,
The maturity I spoke of then pales in comparison to what you now hold inside.

Long story short, my Sister, I owe you the biggest of thanks:

For being there when Mom couldn’t;
For telling me that those things I did, I shouldn’t;
For creating a safe environment for me amongst the guns and violence;
For scolding me for Mom when at times I became defiant;
For paving a path for me of DO’s and DON’Ts;
For showing me the clear differentiation between I WILLs and I WON’Ts.
For showing me that I should accept nothing less than what I have comin’;
For being a lot of things that I someday hope to find in a woman;
For guiding me forward sometimes with an invisible hand;
For being ever the consummate lady while showing me what it is to be a man.

You are and will always be revered for who you are to me,
My Sister…my dear sweet Sister, a page in a book that everyone ought to see!!

I love you always and forever,

A flashback to 9/11

Well, it took me being sick on a Sunday to finally go through my many different folders and synchronize my writing pieces, but I am happy to finally have that done. I had folders on two separate personal laptops, two separate work laptops a blackberry and a PDA. Now they are finally all joined and hopefully, I will never have to go through this exercise again.

Funny thing though, I came across something I began writing back in December of 2001. That is a very inauspicious time indeed, because that was around the time when New York was in turmoil; I was in turmoil. I worked in the World Financial Center which was right next to the World Trade Centers. After the collapse, less than a week later, American Express had my group back up and running in Jersey City, NJ. We were finance, and whatever is a business suppose to do without its finance teams back in working order?

I'll quit here because this could get lengthy, but the point I want to bring you to is my state of mind at the time. I wasn't feeling very positive about life and living. I wasn't suicidal or anything. But I had begun to put less of a value on human life and existence when it could all be taken away so easily. To this day, 5 and a half years later, I still believe that life is worthless unless you impact something or someone.

Well, I just wanted to share with you this piece. Like I said, it began in December 2001, but probably wasn't finished until sometime in 2002. I hope that perhaps, in this piece, you can capture the mind of a 25 year old kid, scared shitless about life's relevance amidst the backdrop of 9/11, which he saw every day for 3 months up until this point in time:

As I step off the Hudson Bergen Light rail, and the skyline comes into view, something is noticeably missing.

Yes, there were two large buildings that once stood there, but they were not as large as the buildings inside of those buildings. Each individual lost, each came down like powerful edifices permanently banishing all that is physically recognizable and leaving behind remnants of a torn mind.

Leaving only euphemisms behind. A world unkind. Substance abuse. But not drugs or alcohol. We’ve abused the substance that is to live. The substance that wakes us up in the morning to hunt for our direction, for the completion of our souls, for the understanding of our dilemmas, which is to exist.

To fathom beliefs beyond the natural realm of social thought and construct. . .and construct. . .and construct buildings 100 stories tall and fill them full of buildings each individualistic in nature and yet symbolically similar to each other.

Yes, there were two large buildings that once stood there, but they are not as large as the buildings inside the buildings. But only to live is to reject the soul. . .to manifest existence, is recognizing that not all parts of ourselves is earthly bound. . .or bound to the earth, as it were. Creatures of habit in constant battle with creatures of change. How profound the notion that neither shall ever win.

There has to be a change. There must be a change. Change must change. We must adapt to the world, not the other way around. To try and force the world to adapt to us is breaking down the elements of who we are into only an earthly body, distant of our metaphysical bodies, our antibodies, ourselves.

Overall, we are so much more than those buildings that came down that day, but as human beings, we pale in comparison to glass, metal and processed plastic. If we do not learn to accept our lives as more than what our eyes can see, many more buildings will fall and before long, we truly will cease to exist.

Every time I cross a picture of the New York skyline. . .the old New York skyline, I can't help but stop and stare in awe at how tall those buildings used to be.

They are no longer there; a piece of me is no longer there; a piece of my security is no longer there.

I hope.