The Dead Emcee Scrolls (16 page)

Once upon a dawn's early light

The symbols assembled

Crosses of every sort

Emblems of every fort

Phallic and lunar

Mystic and solar

Symbols of civilizations past

Politics and heretics

Of the asterisk

Mathematic symbols

At the cusp of a new age

Gathered on the grains

Of a brown page

I am not a writer

I am the plight

Of unfigured equations:

A stick of cinnamon

A grove a cloves

Cayenne and a bowl of honey

Water and money

And the irony of the evening

Was that only the white DJ

Would spin the record

With the refrain

“Black man know yourself.

Don't forget your past.”

We cannot forget

Our past because

You will re member it

For us

Collective consciousness

Will there be war

Declared on this soil

In my lifetime?

History tells me, yes.

But I have difficulty

Imagining fighting

Something that ain't

Invisible.

Can music change the world?

Are these simply songs to be heard

And forgotten?

When JB said, “Say it loud …”

Did that affect a shift in consciousness?

Can the music of a society

Help mold its mental state?

Can a great song affect more than the way

A musician approaches his next song?

How about the way they approach their children.

Their loved ones, their lives?

I believe that I am

A man molded by music

And my intent is to mold

To shape

These are the ways

Of a carpenter

What has become

Of my simple truths?

They have become

Complex lies.

You close your eyes

When the beat swells

Feathers in inkwells

My word is bird

Purple pigeon

Of a street tale

Learned the ropes

Like strange fruit

Cloaked in brown shells

My tongue, the noose

Of untruth

Chants, prayers, and spells

Delegate of the

Unconventional

Member of the

Society-less

Author of the

In between

The graffiti on the

Whitewashed wall

Of the institution,

Now crumbled,

Has become

The cornerstone

Of our compound

Compounded dreams

Distilled vessels, refilled

Belief systems

Will be billed

Payable to

Who you pray to

If you wish

To pay in person

Addresses may vary

According to beliefs

Some will have to die first

Some may have to suffer

And be free from desires

Some may have to purge themselves,

Fast, cover their heads, think less

Of women, beat their children, abstain

From the secular world …

Yet others may simply be

Themselves

And in being and embracing

All aspects of the mother:

Patience, responsibility,

Compassion, open-heartedness

They will find themselves

Provided for, they will find

Their dreams fulfilled, they

Will find their spirits nurtured,

And their hearts healed

Wind washed wonderful

Whirlwinds through water

Welcome to the New World

Where words wind and shadow

Whither and whistle worship

The weather call to the clouds

Walk through the winter

A week of new sounds

We wish for clear water

It's a wonder her wing-fruit

Seeds smile like my daughter

Whether she will or

Whether she won't

The wind will still whistle

Through thistles and thorns

Son of the Sun

Friend of the wind

Life of the womb

Reborn once again

May the sun shine through

Your clouded testament