The Dead Emcee Scrolls (15 page)

Brown bags on the corner

Pants cuffed at his shin

Keloid from a razor

Right under his chin

Son's looking at me

No sign of recognition

Sun shines on my left

No time for superstition

I peep the bulge in his vest

The smell of the cess

The glare of distress

The fear of the rest

The mark of a test

The mark of the beast

The streets of the east

The laws of the west

The flaws of the west

The cause of this mess

The haves and have-nots

The gets who get got

The shots from the cops

And cops who get shot

Innocents getting popped

Got whole blocks down on lock

But son's looking at me

Yo why you looking at me?

I turn around and look back

Look down and look back

Say a prayer and look back

Yo, why you looking at me?

I wake up with doubt and fear. The first two faces I see in the morning, first cousins of the face of death (which I later found out was only a mask). The first thing I smell is most usually hesitation.

This feels like the kind of slump that is only healed by tragedy … or is that me willing something into existence?

I'd rather be propelled than go by foot.

I want her to call me first. At least that way I can construct a window in this house of fear.

A cardboard box called home.

These are the thoughts of the sinking. My pen man ship is the Titanic.

Maybe I've idolized too many dead geniuses. They all wore the same costume to the masquerade party hereafter.

Maintain a safe distance from these ideas. They are simply the many i's attempting to be your capital. “I” that is.

These ideas float around my head like many little islands around the globe.

I may write something brilliant that I may not be able to read due to poor pen man ship.

See what I mean? That one was smaller than Tahiti.

A volcanic land mass.

Like an open wound.

I bowed to her

And when I rose

Found my head

In my hands

I bore a gift

Yet at the same time

Bore the pain

He was pronounced dead.

Pronounced dead.

Is that all it takes?

I was born at 12:30 in the morning. By 1 AM I was certain I would not remember much of my past. By 1:40 I had forgotten my name. By 2:12 the ancients had bid me farewell. By 2:30 I had swallowed a foreign brand. By 2:40 I had begun to hallucinate. It's all coming back to me. I met my parents' spirit guides at 4:30. It was they who told me of the sun. It was not what I expected. It only seemed to hint at light.

By 6:17 I had decided what I wanted to be. At 6:18 I discovered my outer shell. At 6:19 I began the process of dying: piss, shit, and crying, crawling and not flying. At 7 o'clock my mother held me and rocked. The spinning world stopped. She sang, “You're the one. Indivisible son of sun, ancient mystical spirit come to become our tongue….”

As the rockets' red

Glare in your eyes

Will you look down

Or glare back

As the one

Who defies?

I am concerned about a repetition of events. History only repeats itself for those who do not know their history. I must learn to accept each situation as a (k)new (unknown) situation, regardless of how much it appears to be a repetition of things that once occurred (yet, with different characters).

New—Knew

Knew—New

I love English. Through its dissection a million things are under/over-stood.

This is a new day.

Believe it or not.

Re-live it or not.

Everyday I am led

Into another room

Of your mansion

How foolish I must sound

Complaining about how wet

God's kisses are

Mental states

Have physical boundaries

How could you not

Realize the power of word

After being forced

To serve a sentence?

The walking dead

Walking with their own

Solar systems of blood and tissue

Circling around them

We are coming forth by day

And swollen with sway