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Asi fue



Another night

In the essence

Of what remains



How can you

Ride the train

Along the spine

Of the sinister city



Time passes

By so quickly

Whenever you

Want life to pause



Often I find myself

Wandering around

Lost from the main

Objective next mission



Searching outside

Everything been here

In front of face

Right below eyes



The room where

You wish upon

The moon cracked

Light shot to awake



Questions await fate

Careful to wise choice

Another disaster comes

From fast mistake



Walking amongst guts

Butts loose lips nuts

Quick thighs prompt high

Salty tears friends die



Benches where queens

Are found strutting

To get to otherside

Smile sunshine survive



What can you say

When the words aren’t enough

Inspiration to keep you going

Sitting naked and silent



Without a clue for plans

Right now is life

Everything else is dreams

Spending money on smoke



That evaporates 10 minutes

After burned forgotten mission

And all those things

You thought you coulda did



Always same shit another day

How about different mierda

And some time to pray

For ways outside of this



Can’t describe only want you

To live it with my eyes my stomach

My legs my feets

Constant vibrations when breeze blows



Feels so weak more weeks pass

Nothing changes souls trip

Close to the edge slip

Remnants scent remains



Strange when home feels unsafe

Even more odd when you look around

And see older faces chasing the memories

You left behind in a bag by the benches



Not knowing if tomorrow will ever come

Smiling sunshine survive

patria o muerte

Let’s Bling Bling Consciousness

-after Dylcia Pagan



Let’s ice out our integrity

Let’s customize our confidence

Let’s detail our determination

And coordinate our capabilities

Can we iron out our issues

Steampress our suffering

So our revolution won’t be wrinkled

Match your motivation

With your mentality

Make your soul shine

Sparkle bright like destiny

Under a discoball

Pop bottles for the pueblo

Put your community in VIP

You voice is the velvet rope

Balance is the brave bouncer

Make your dedication diamond

Change your chains

Let love link all your weakness

Release your wishes on

The wound up wind

Will wander in every breath

Push yourself until there is nothing left

Take seven steps towards perfection

Never let your future be an exception to rules

Those who got it all figured out

End up being the biggest fools

Fix the fatalism in your folly

Grab the greatness from your gut

Until you realize you are Godly

Honor your humility

Let hope be your home

Hug yourself

All this love

You have never been alone

you will see me again

Deserve don’t got nothin’ to do with it
after snoop from the wire
Did you deserve your just desserts
Did you warrant those outstanding warrants
Did you will your last will
Did you breathe you last breath
Did you wish away your last wish
Did you ask for second helpings knowing there’s none left
Did you wake up out your dreams only to realize there’s no more time
Did you see your reflection in the mirror
Did you run away laughing or crying
Did you unlearn your miseducation
Did you continue to flirt with Satan while two timing Jesus
Did you hold on to what you are losing and lose what you need to hold on
Did last year become yesterday and tomorrow’s too far away
Did you sell your soul for chump change as your destiny fell dusty
Did the sun say no shine while the moon offered you too much
Did the sky scream your name while the air whispered this world needs you

shout out to Tony Medina

How to be Nuyorican

Cha cha in your mother’s sterilized womb
Bugalu in the belly with bomba on your brain

Nelson A Miles tried to run train
On your great great grandma

Resurrect the spirits of Betances Hostos
Lolita Albizu con otros

Operation Bootstrap
Is evidence of the New World Order

Brush your teeth
With Gandule Aquafresh

The news that Puerto Rico
Is the world’s oldest colony
Es un periodico de ayer

The pain of colonialism
El mundo quiere saber

Do everything la gente blanca
Dice que no puedes hacer

Sigue pa’lante pa’ el monte

Repair the broken fractures
of your Afro Latino Identity

listen to Willie Colon
The Hustler non stop buying pernil

Snore like a coqui

Bump Guasa Guasa and Lean Back
Dressed like SuperBoricua and the Coqui Kid
At the Parade

Scream WEPA and Que Bonita Bandera
At the 1116th street festival

Rock a hoody under a guayabera in the summer
Wear chanclas with sweats and socks in the winter
Have a cousin in Castle Hill
A primo in Hunts Point
A grandma in Rio Grande
And grandfathers drinking café en el cielo

See Marc Anthony
As a poor man’s Hector Lavoe

JLO needs more sofrito
In her movies and videos

Demand Bronx politicians be brave
Fight for the people

Praise De La Vega
As a Puerto Rican Picasso

Watch red states complain
When Carlos Arroyo cooks Carmelo
And say Puerto Rico should not have
Any Olympic team

When Puerto Rico
Is a sovereign country
That is our American Dream

Rise from Los Sures
Be humble in Humboldt Park
Holleame en Spanish Harlem

Young Lords are our heroes
Takin over Statue of Liberty
Creatin strikes with garbage

Feel the pain of Filiberto’s familia
As the federales fill his body with bullets
And leave it there lying

Know that Borinken es la perla de Carribean
Hype yourself off this fact chilling en La Perla

Love your brothers and sisters of all shades

Understand the history of your blood
Royalty criminals and slaves

Hang a flag on your wall
Wear a flag on your sneakers
Display a flag in your car
Tattoo the Lares flag on your heart

Baptize your family
With Puerto Rican Obituary

Recite the Spanglish National Anthem
Like it was the Pledge of Allegiance

End each statement
With Punto Asi es check it

Punto

Asi es

Check it.

I love you China

Made in china

Pomp circumstances reveal iller challenges
Beneath the cracked rubble. Tianammen square
Squeezes images of defiance behind bootlegs
And knockoff authenticity. The eyes of god
Examine effortlessly investigate innermost intricacies.
Happy wok Chinese chicken wings are laced with
Nationalism, wonton soup tracking devices
Slowly spying your cynicism into spheres of influences.
We all know we like leftover revolution
Handed down through faded memories and
Trademarked terrorism, sold through crass commercials.
Gold medals garish looking like from goodwill.

que viva

Que viva pollo frito
Crisp skin cracklin crunchy goodness
Que viva bistec encellbao
Tender brown meatt clear soft circles
Que viva sofrito
Making seasonings of suffering sazonrific
Que viva recaito recovering our roots
Que viva shots of Bacardi making us tell the truth
Que viva el espiritu santo
Blessing our way
Que viva el sol for lighting the day
Que viva la noche the moon rises again
Que viva goya porque tiene que ser bueno
Que viva my family as broken as we are
Together in blood
Que viva la gente trabajando siempre
Only for short money but rich in love
Que viva Puerto Rico Libre la isla bonita
Que viva el Bronx y todo el resto de Nuyorico
Que viva viviendo vida
Instead of worshippin death
Have no regrets determination
Dedication in every breath

RIP CURLY 2006

Never a Stooge
-for Curly, after Max B’s Take Me Away

This is for
Smiles on slow days
Jokes when its cloudy
Even when I’m most lonely
Got people around me

We called you the hood ODB
So young so many babies
Maybe that was your way
Of letting us know
Pass it on to the next ones

Where we come from
You should retire at 21
The threat of pollution
Prison drugs guns
Makes it difficult to have fun
But we do
A select few that stay cool
True from the point to the view

Why do we lose so many
Good ones early

RIP my dude Curly
Met your fate escaped
To the gates that pearly

Crackers think freedom
And good living we not worthy
Ghetto existence
Build beyond negligent nonsense

Witness the powers of prophets
Judgement not to be fucked with

Anybody tired of fool shit
Young brothers and sisters
Deaded with full clips over bullshit

Thugged out thespians
Experts in drama
Temperature risin
Block hot like sauna
Pigs sweating every move
Last thoughts regrettin’
Sacred memories we never forgettin’

I’d bet anything to hear
Your last freestyle
Seen the faded to brown pictures
At the Ortiz Home Funeral
How we all look alike
When we a child

Grown men crying
Grown women screamin
Feeling of cold heavy skin is not mild

How long will we mourn?
How long will we mourn
Til the pain moves on?

Everyday I’m hustling
Everyday I’m wondering
When will they take me away?

ok

Influenced

Your family been broken
Longer than it was together
Almost like round pegs
In square holes

You always want things
You dare not hold
Let it drop from the sky
To circle round and round
Til it falls flat

The certainty of urgency
Has disappeared
Whenever you open the door
To the crib all the lights are off
Only the cat purrs and greets you
The walls have been silenced
The TV still on but muted
Actions with no words
Pictures with no sounds

The outside breeze has been remixed
To soundtrack these moments
Precious and few that flew by so fast
Even with old mitt couldn’t catch
The inside pitch that led to foul ball
You wish to do over

But no cheat code will make it possible
No returns or exchanges

This is a one way ticket
To your future you can’t miss that flight
Because you on it and it’s landed
Somehow somewhere unrecognizable
Kinda like your life
But nah couldn’t be
Supposed to be closer to dreams
Crazy distances from nightmares

The current GPS coordinates are
A stalactite frozen in the summer
Off a keystone right in the middle
Far away from happilyeverafter
Rather unique it seems
Once in a blue moon might
Assemble the team
All seasons everyone on DL
Or 7 steps towards emotional rehab
Nonstop affirmations
Self love unlimited orchestra
In Dolby Surround
Have surplanted soft subtle
Sweet times of everyone in the party

Clapping hugging
Hands on bottles
Arms on each other
The space the void hangs
Like lint in sunlight

You wish you could just run right
Up to it through it to live there

But tis all very necessary
To fly to skip through suffering
To hold on to hope
To figure out faith
To push away pain
To make sure you maintain
But never settle never doubt

To rise in the morning
Proclaim a blessed day
To see your history
To stand up be proud
To speak up grab your voice
Throw it out loud

To look at your reflection
Laugh and smile
Realize though times is tough
God done blessed you child

apathy

Apathy

Steady stream of I don’t
Give a fuck followed by shrugs

Watches broadlight brain
Blown onto new sneakers
Without flinching

Ignores the future
Letting 6 year olds scream
I’m a real nigga
Wearing shirts stating
I’m the King of NY

Structure resembles
Backyard clubhouses
Pack of ratty pictures
From Word Up! Magazines
Decorate walls

The world blew up
2 seconds ago
The block replies
Stop bullshittin me
Who burning it right now?

for real

Esperando Godot

No more muddled messages
Clarity is imperative
Searching for the good ole feeling
Walking down familiar blocks
Trying to see smiles that will warm
Inside like skin sweating
Instead find parts of self frozen
Like piraguas pain
Can come in all flavors
Poetry well guarded break in case
Of emergency urgency in delivery
Is now or never
Have not figured it out yet
Not that quite clever
Wandering everywhere you’ve
Already been not eagerly
Awaiting new like comfy routines
Never getting reserved
Reflections from ripples in puddles
Have you disturbed deeply
Continually probing
Forever owing interest on debt
That will never get repaid
Sitting around playgrounds
Brings you to throwback days
Simpler times when pimples
Were the worst thing on your mind
Still got the map in the back pocket
But lost confused befuddled
Hence the genesis of this thought
Auctioned off parts of self
That can never be brought
Or bought again
Mastered the art of pretend
Everything’s all cool
Everyone’s all right
Everywhere’s all good
If only you could
Turn back those hands
If only that would
Make it all better
Let’s face facts
Never been a hustler player
Or go getter
You are no longer allowed
To have regrets for lives
You have not lived
Your family are the ones
You have gone to war with
Keep them trapped inside your heart
What flows through your veins
Is straight love and leftover memories

Keep outside all that is hated
Keep close all that is sacred
You are the one who determines
If you will make it