Black Thought World Anthem

I sit at my desk and allow my thoughts to coalesce,

As I reckon with my inability to force some sort of change

I fight to limit my regret, though I know I shouldn't fret,

But I can't help but feel like I'm what's black alive remains

And so this pain in my arms and shoulders are a lot more serious

Than "I told ya so"s, ergonomic chairs and carpal tunnel strains

They’re from my "he's-not-heavy" brother and my "battling-to-be-petite" sister,

This perplexing and superlative level of acceptance, I can no longer feign

It’s from the black part of me that fights for a reason to unite

With my brethren hanging on corners being blinded by street lights

But we keep being misogynistic to our daughters and numbing the sensitivity of our sons

No wonder our relationships are all base and built so contrite

I’m searching for the genuine in my gentlemen and sentimentality in my lady friends

Those who have been educated enough to discern wrong from right

We’re tossing our “world” oysters back into the sea and over-sleeping the phone ring

It’s like, being black is a never-ending role call and we got stage fright

The part of us that once made us the strongest thinkers in the world,

Is what I'm looking for like U2, but yet I still haven't found
If Halloween lasts a day and black history acknowledgement a month,

Then why am I scared of ”what we’s gon do” 365 days; all year round?

And I ask why can’t we just trust in ourselves and maintain who we are

But, we can no better retain our value than the dollar against the British Pound

We have the leaders that it would take to lead us all to a higher plane

But we can’t convince the young to take advice, from an elder, that is sound

I can't help but feel that our train has fallen off the track

That was once destined to lead us From Slavery to Freedom-lands
So I feel like Johnny-on-the-spot, amidst a sea of Hope-less people

Who’ve been taught that life's about little else than just banking Franklins

We no longer feel comfortable to reside, in this Divided Economics of America

In this skin, in this blackness swelled with languorous pus we're in
I'm not talking complexion, though I am, I mostly mean spiritous ignorance,

That has created a hole by wearing my patience to a thickness paper thin

I'm battling 50 cent pieces and Games putting on shows

And Fat Joe Shmoes for a piece of my black child's so called soul
But in the end, I'm losing the battle, against the self-sustaining pallor

I’m glad we ain’t got money to gamble, lest each hand we fold

How can I get folks to stop calling black women out they names

When they’re still auditioning for a chance to become video ho’s?

It’s this type of circuitous behavior, coming right round the bend

That leads to these same putrid stories being once again told

I can’t get my people interested in college, let alone an electorate college

The driving force behind zapping hypocrisy into the democratic process

You’d think a black presidential nominee would get us hyped, but it’s hard

With all these politicians having to jump through hoops, to see past the nonsense

And I’m sensed – I’m sick and tired of hearing about how the poor get poorer

When there are more and more success stories of people making it from rags to riches

But the media steady promoting role models that are drug dealers cum rap artists

Trying to un-vilify a black man with a bastard child, a gun and a bulletproof vest

I keep on 3 string necklaces and I rope them together to represent

This new world course we're on From Slavery to Cultural Suicide
It's crazy what a society without the proper means of community

And self-developed worth will do, unawares, to a black man's silly pride

I did what I was told, including learn how to make my own decisions;

I went and got my education so I could get over that economic divide

And now my thoughts roam free, but I’m jailed up in this corporate office

Dressed like an ape at the zoo, with 4 corners and nowhere for my face to hide

And lately, I’ve been trying to listen to today’s music to self-identify

But the artists only leave me with more questions like, “why?”

I know about the world we live in, but even the Love songs are about mistakes

If it ain’t about a woman gold diggin’ it’s about a black man in need of an alibi

Sometimes I just wanna cry, or perhaps just holler like Marvin Gaye say, but I can’t

I have little time left to live and make a difference before it is time to die

But I must first make sense of this world I must live in so I don’t feel out of place

Like a fish in one of Dali’s paintings, floating hedonistically through the sky

And the Ghettos ain't heavenly; they’re more like heavily weighing us down

Like quicksand that has the grips of death pulling us all in to hell

And I gotta be careful when I walk out my door for fear of being robbed

Or what’s worse, smelling stinky piss in the apartment building stairwell

Preservation isn’t only for museums and archeologists and highly-ran societies;

It is something that we all must learn; lest we run out of water in that well

And our culture, once ripe and replete with wealth, will similarly become desertic

Because we didn’t fight for what we know, burdening us all, ‘til we fail

Maybe it’s best if we keep living in a fairytale and sit and wait for a savior

Or perhaps that magic bean that can nourish all the insipid hungry

In the end, wealth will no longer matter for black folks anymore
For the rich and the poor all now read from the same damn story

And if you don’t believe me, just check out any sitcom or movie about us

Or look at the court shows, the news stations or shows like Povich’s Maury

I wish us all the success in the world, in abundance, but until we turn that corner

We’ll be trudging between Sodom and Gomorra ‘til we find that righteous glory

Oh bore me, with your stories of keeping it real, by going to school

Getting a degree, then getting a second degree to put it all to good use

And you found a mate and she’s everything to you under the sun

You trust each other and spread Love to everyone; not suffering abuse

And you strive forward despite the black marks on your past or your family

For the housed and the vagrant all live under the same hot tin roof

The reality is, I’d prefer normal any day of the year to what we have now

I feel like what we have now, ain’t real; just living life as one big spoof

And see the funny thing is with each conclusion come illusions

Of sustainability by a tribe of people caught-up in capitalism savored

The decisions we make come second to the decisions we don’t make

Our fears compound if we don’t take a hold of these contrasts layered

We need to stop ostracizing ourselves sending our worst foot forward

Like say for instance, hmmm, let’s see, perhaps, Flavs that are Flavored

If those become models of roles we put on television, it’ll be no surprise

If in the 2060s the Black Panthers come back to fight a future-past beleaguered

So I close my eyes and then open them again, take a deep breath

Wishing all that I know about us, was conjured up in a dream

When I pay reverence to myself, I can often be found shaking my head

I feel I shouldn’t despise my own race because that would be blaspheme

Sometimes my desk feels so lonely, even though I carry all of the weight

Of black men on my shoulders to each business meeting of teams

And perhaps I’m just too hard on us, but we can’t seem to stop

Committing these transgressions against each other that should be foreseen

So I, like you, must confront what we know about this world

Created and still in constant creation for my race of black men and women

There’s no way to be whole if we keep breaking ourselves apart

We must get the needle, the thread and the bandages and begin to mend

For we’re way past the point where we can look each other in the eye

And say this too shall pass; we’re only facing a generational trend

For if every new chapter is the Genesis, it must spring forth from an “end”

So for my part, I give to you the reader, my Black Thought World Anthem

Eloise

She said she knew French
But she looked Black to me
My Eloise Chavaise pinch
She was Creole, can't you see
And I didn't know twice
What I knew once before
She was a wretched and a bit nice
But I couldn't ask for more
To me she had given
Exactly what I wanted
My old ex I bid good riddance
My Eloise I had vaunted
To the top and only one
There were other's then there was her
She kept me atop my tiger
I was He-man, she was She-Ra
I was her Osiris, and she my Isis
We went together just like that
Though at times we would argue
She always had my back
A little hug and a little kiss and I
Had her on her back
But it was this relationship we had
That kept it interesting, in fact
We knew exactly what we had
Before it even had begun
A French and an American
So many battles to be won
But in the end, I’ll tell you what
And this is said with intended pun
My Eloise Chavaise pinch
We had a lot of French fun
French kisses
French fries
French wine
French lives
The Louvre on the weekends
Dinner on the river Rhine
It was quite an experience last summer
And I’ll never forget the time
And so ends this short story
About my Eloise told in rhyme

The Absence of Time

I once believed that time was real. Now I know that time is just a way for us to earmark the emotional strain we put on our minds and hearts that lets us know that we are alive or have lived through something. For all things exposed to living will one day be exposed to death. That is – something time cannot define for us, yet we pay homage to its passing as if it is the very thing that makes us get old. No. Time can be used to date moments in history for recollection, but should not be used to date a human soul. A human soul lives forever. It does not suffer the fate that is being born or being passed on. It always is. And it can never suffer the passing of time if fortified by the one thing that keeps us all in existence despite the awakening of the sun and the slumbering of the moon; that one thing is Love.

When this notion came to me, I had lived my current existence over 30 years. For some strange reason, I cannot help but feel that I knew this about myself 30 years ago; back when I was first brought here again. And though I knew these things, these notions of time were false in my head, I was constantly berated with being dated by bigger me’s so much so that I came to believe in its relevance too. What we adults don’t realize is that with modern medicine, children have a higher rate of staying alive, much higher than there was a long, long time ago. Back then, you dated children because for the first couple years, it was touch and go if they lived passed infanthood. Nowadays, little concern should be put toward this end and so I believe adults should concentrate on the continuity of living – the continuity of Love than what we assume is “new exposure to life,” ergo a baby.

Strangely enough – oddly enough, if we excuse the use of time as just a marker for coordinating our days, its belief does more to hurt us than to help us. Time has a way of putting limitations on when we should get things done. I.e. I should have my undergraduate degree by 21. I should be married by 30. I should not compete for a gold medal at 35. Our bodies and the way we take care of them, does enough to create limitation on what we can or cannot do. We do not need phantom time helping us towards those decisions.

In a day and age where my mind continually fights to hold on to what’s left of humanity, I find myself creating makeshift wars with this notion of time. And as calendars and clocks remind us that it keeps moving even when we’re not, calendars and clocks also remind us that if ever there was a battle against time – regaining it; slowing it down – we can never win. So there must be a different way of thinking about time so that it does not sell us falsehoods of losing. The absence of time means that, for all things we’ve come to believe, they can only happen as subjugated by a timeframe. Let’s rid ourselves of those confounds and live, forever more, as infinite, as time immemorial, as time continuum, as absent of time.