The Dead Emcee Scrolls (13 page)

They stood and waited on the seafloor. It had been written that their number would be two score and nine. Dead man float. The living found new life three miles beneath the boat.

He had been drowning for a day or two. He could no longer see the sky he left behind when he looked from whence he fell. He floated in the face of darkness, never noting when that face became his own. He knew the city, still below him, was his birthplace. He held his breath with dreams of living a million deaths from home. He had been told that he would see its sky beneath him, yet he saw no clouds. He took note of the clouded forms through which he drifted. The sleeping woman had been the first. Her resonant purr had been the birth of earthquakes. She floated alone in the darkness …

He drifted deeper.

The faint sound of a drum could be heard.

The city stood in shades of blue, gated by the dreams of those living high above in a world inhabited by those who never knew of the ones that swam beneath them.

He stood facing the wall of dreams, deciphering the master key from the mystery.

She took from the ocean

With wings of water

Sea-feathers flapped weather

Waved worlds blue girls …

And soon the dungeons

Became crystal caves

Where light prisms

Un-prisoned slaves

And we basked in our own reflections

And sought new ways to channel

Our light

A child is born in the ghetto

Only three toes

And a finger nailed

To crosses street to

Avoid trouble

Carries cowries in his knapsack

And a book of things to come

Keeps his soul inside his sneaker

Ties his laces with his tongue

Now I know niggas with triggas

Cocked and ready go gettas

My man got dimed and did time

And all my sons on the shine

Yo son, I got the answer

Lack of melanin is cancer

Melatonin when you're home and alone

Your cover's blown

Classified and unknown

Yo, what's the password?

My old man's last words labeled as absurd

But my spirit knew

“Yes, the peel ripens to black

But we aim for the blue”

We, the sea sons of Atlantis

Grace the night with our hue….

I am closer to where I want to be than I ever have been and experience more internal doubt than I ever have.

I think I should aim at nothing more than ridding myself of lying, negative attitudes, trying to control how people see me, overconcern about what others think of me, dishonest expression of emotions, trying to possess that which isn't mine, false humility, lack of discipline: physically, mentally, spiritually and of all that leaves me incapable of giving and receiving love.

Simply, I don't have to try to be a poet or how I imagine a poet should or would be. I don't even have to write, as long as I am honest to each moment rather than to my ideas of myself.

I had black coral around my neck

So I could only see the sea

Its salted water in my eyes

Parade as tears

The dancing girls

March down my cheeks

Twirling my fears

But the band

Plays on and on

Despite the years

Every morning

I rise and face

The firing squad

Every morning

There is one

Who holds his fire

His dilemma

Is my system of belief

They fire rounds

But I am seldom

In their circle

A quiet mind

Is labeled “sound”

And colored purple

My little girl

Has not yet learned

To color within lines

Her jumbled diction

Has not yet learned

Our contradiction

We speak of art

With flaming passion

Then do work

Void of compassion

And wonder why reality

Is bleeding fiction

Nigga, you better drink

Half a gallon of Shaolin

Before you pluck the strings

Of my violin

My life is orchestrated

Like London symphony

Concentrated

Niggas waited and waited

I'm birthday wishes, belated

I write in red ink

That turns blue

When the book closes