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Writing...





Hip-Hop runs through me like milk through a lactose intolerant body--
Feed me a dope beat and damn if I gotta go potty...






Books/Authors:

Go Tell it on the Mountain - James Baldwin
The Fire Next Time - James Baldwin
A Lesson Before Dying - Earnest Gaines
The Autobiography of Assata Shakur -
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
Manchild in the Promised Land - Claude Brown
Makes Me Wanna Holler - Nathan McCall
Black Boy - Richard Wright
Native Son - Richard Wright
The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Alex Haley
Queen - Alex Haley
The Color of Water - James McBride

And many more...






Fortified (free write inspired by LadyLavender's "Absolution")

http://allpoetry.com/poem/4419061

Left over wine leaves me fortified.
Like a Mad Dog, my vision's blurred
20/20 through beer bottle goggles.

Everything's beautiful until I'm hungover,
chewing my last arm free.
Damn... I leave another piece of me!


Mad Dog 20/20 was a fortified wine (like Fred Sanford's 'Ripple') popular amongst winos and college students especially in the early to mid 90's. Popular because of it's cost and intoxicating effect. The line was discontinued BECAUSE it's cost was found to encourage homelessness/vagrancy. It was so cheap, bums could wake up from their park benches and with their paper cups, would have enough for one or two bottles by the time the liquour store opens. It was more a 'quality of life' thing. BUT during those years, that liquor franchise made it's loot and didn't give back to the community. Cool huh?

Old joke of chewing your arm off after sleeping with someone you shouldn't have. Wheter you should have or not, each time you sleep with someone, you leave a piece of yourself and you take a piece of them. You two make memories.



Branded (freestyle inpired by JohnSwails' poem 'Branded')

http://allpoetry.com/poem/4449899

At first it was whips, shackles, and chains
and changing our names that branded us
like a "Lazy N" on a cow's behind
(You know a "Z" implies that we're sleeping).

Now were branded with Prada and Dolce
as slaves to fashion on concrete fields.
Yo, we've come long way from not reading
to not wanting to read and from being whipped

to chuck and jive for potential buyers
(See, soul traders wanted "souls" to "look" happy).
Now we chuck and jive BECAUSE we're buying--
Buying into our own slavery that is!

Slave traders (dubbed "Soul Traders") used to force slaves scheduled for the auction block to dance and play cards for potential buyers. They did this in hopes that the slaves LOOKED happy.



Bottom Feeders (freestyle inspired by BlueEyez "Rancid Meat")

http://allpoetry.com/poem/4512337

Racid meat is a feast for maggots
and bottom feeders like shrimps and scavengers.
Leftovers left over by hunters
like those who stay on top.
The top of the food chain, that is--

lions and tigers and bears! O, my!
There's me, on top. The king of all beasts
killing them softly as I poot to release.
I poot firm from my bottom
to feed those maggots their feast!



Peanut Butter and Jelly (inspired when asked if I'm off the market)

Damn, Skippy, Jiffy crunchy peanut butter
I'm off the shelf with Smucker's Jam!
I kiss her Jelly jiggles

when I cut the middle like I'm Peter Pan.
There's no Wonder about this dough we make.
Baby, bread keeps creamy cakes.



Emmett Till... (Inspired by Peteskid's "Blues for Luis")

http://allpoetry.com/poem/4569951#

One of the forgotten martyrs
of a forgotten time
in a long forgotten war
where complancency replaced
revolutionists.

You know, forget the whips
and move on to other clicks
like cliches and 'he says'
it's cool bringing guns
to schools for show and tell.

Damn, kids in that age were sages.

At least they knew that the problems
they had with each other
paled in comparison to having a Ku
of what the world had in store
for you and me and we were one
moving in unison, in uniform...

"Hep on your left-uh...
Hep on your left your right!"