esta frio

Autumn Harvest

Collect the remnants
Of the realness still existing
In the stash under the benches
In the back park

So many sessions
We peaked and could only
Go downhill

Everytime we lit up
No frowny cloudys

If I could call you sunshine
Your smile better be beaming

Enough wattage
To keep the whole cipher electric

Connect with other travelers
Walking round without GPS
With the homing device
Beeping the closer you get
To relieving your bladder
At that second cuz you might
Explode if you don’t empty
What you just filled up

Cleanse your condition
Though critical upgraded to
Unstable regularity
Of monotony macabre
Moral massacre
Motivating the movement
Motion seeming slow

The secret revealed
Coulda held back but just slipped
No solid nor would you hold me down

I’m pushing up the sky
Standing on top of the pavement
In the middle of the crossroads
Wanting directions but won’t ask
To hitchhike towards the road of success

Sick with infectious intentions
Might flow looser than the Johnny pump

Let the puddle overflood
The curb reaches your stoop
Where the first step drops
You where you not ready to head

But there are no places to go
Just right where you are welcome
To keep waiting on hero
To fly over the skyline

Retrace your origins
So you can understand the foundation
To design the blueprint for the future
Reference your search
Blue notes spring from tired feet

Put up in the projects
There are thousands of fantasies

Fame’s fickle flame
Attracts fluorescent kisses
From misguided quitters
Livers besieged by liquors

Leather scuffed by weather beaten
Worry with typhoon of tears
Hellish hurricane on your hope
Thunderstorm during theatrical threats
Don’t let the stress get the best

Damelo bacon suave
With huevos fritos
Pan caliente café con leche
For the breakfast bomb to blow up

Half the time you don’t even
Show up because we all cynical
So much subliminal sucka shit
Selling out becomes so simple

Like once upon the occasion
Where the circles kept the smiles
On permagrin permanently within

Special senses lottery of lenses
No pretending inviting the conflict

To seduce survival
Into tempting tomorrow
To see one more second

Until leaves start to shift
With the seasons seizing the day
So our vidas could be extraordinary

for rs stay awkward forever

Preposterous monstrosity

From the depths of my past
Fried chicken capitalism conspiracy
Sacrifices resurrects the ghosts
Of ancestors who been freestyling with your fate

Feeling like the air is speaking right to you
Listen closely

Learn to fight fight to learn

Let the world rotate burn truth be sold
From what you can remember
Couldn’t afford the price
After worthily spending any amount of saving
Down to the pocket lint and the expired mint
That won’t refreshen the lesson far from

Planned the power within hands
Could relocate mountains right next to the projects
Where the experiment with closed spaces
Has made you reexamine the basis of your philosophy

Impossible how the battle for your conscience
Is between greedy angels and saintly demons

Breathing fire when you reject your hidden desires
You have yet to discover an antidote
That will cure your insatiatable hunger

Where are you running to so fast in place
When the finish line keep going further away

Your epiphany has surcharges
That will eventually be due before activating your account

Without a doubt your inspiration will fly south
Before your evidence heads north
Feeling back on the block
Though on the otherside of town

Whatchu talking about when there is no substance
Controlling the message
Before delivering the audience
You could rewind the replay
Won’t find what you left behind
Your definition been highly fuzzy
With only guesstimates
Of the guidelines to the ghetto

Whoever stands on the corner
Should have a fitted dunce cap
With engraved stitching showing your nickname

Your spit game only brings you nearer to the flame
Where your knowledge is easily disposable
Compose yourself with beautiful conduct

Whereas your abstract understanding
Has developed into concrete actions
That have deadly consequences that may revive

Redialed your regressions back to session
Where your freedom of speech equals freedom to dream

Often scheming instead of teaming
Where you so interested in seeming
not becoming fully human

Sincere integrity with severe levity
perhaps now is not the occasion for the fronting
if you care so much for the progression and elevation
please show me something

asi

Don’t nothing change just another year

Snaxx Playlist
Trying to add at least half

Go up in that mafucka and take whatever I want

Can’t shake the answer

If I did that I die with that cancer

Just another poison prescribed
Analyzed the dosage just hanging on to survive

Walk with the kitten’s addiction
As the mirror desk forces you
To examine the yearbook

Add up the change

How much of the planned revolution remains
Found poetry like moving the pieces along 64 squares
Of a chessboard how the bedroom switches with no sheets

Origins of gansta rap from mean streets
Where the beast hunt with hungry teeth

Though the inspiration be brief
Continuously seek minutes to delay satisfaction
The reaction has shaped
By the grouch right next to the dusty bandera bandana

To stunt anyways possible
In a land which seeks to keep you not breathing

In a hospital land vertical to regain senses
The spirit of the benches
Mind in trenches with body in state of flux

In seconds ticking spending bucks
On what would bring closer to heavenly oasis

All praises due don’t get it confused

Si sale bien llamame en la manana
Blink for resurrection of tomorrow
Pausa para la causa to purge
To the porcelain god

Looking at the Diablo flag around ankles
For freedom to get through the night

When the stars wish upon you
To motivate creating
Somehow someway to make it out
The hood one day

Pray to power in the final hour
No flowers in the garden
Like the earth stomach starving

Mobbing with heart throbbing
Sobbing on the page
Like words cry Bronx River
To flow into higher consciousness

Critical minded you been finding
Pieces of puzzle scattered
Until you unable to add up the data

Lines you outta but connect the dots
To scribble in the block

Love in the location
Where respect marks the low spot

Lessons learned with every step
Up and down the lane

Big parks where the ghosts
Of retired jerseys claimed
Hood glory and fame

Buncha doing nothing expecting something

Rubbing the fur the wrong way producing static
Shock to the system
When the volume too loud
Can hardly hear the lyrics

Ironically stating how much we getting it
When even the breeze feels hollow
Next day more of the same
Feet so long in that place
Sprouted roots gathered moss

Brush under doo rags to keep it wavy
But what would you find if you floss

peace tio

Fester from the Adams Family

This is for my uncle Richard
Still living with Babita
After dropping out in the 6th grade
He brought me to MSG
To see Hulk Hogan and Patrick Ewing
Still watches RAW on Mondays
The highlight of the week
Everything drops downhill from
The 1st to 15th to Hep C to
Metadona ta cabrona to still loving
Sylvia trife bitch faded tat
In his own handwriting
For last year’s jordans on sale
Yesterdays’ new shit turned exclusive
For beauty products from the 99 cent store
Mane & tails to wash nonexistent curls
Camay to lather dome
Disposable BICs to shave closely
Green rubbing alcohol for nicks and cuts
Faded wrestling magazines from 80s and 90s
Praising Shane Douglass and Ultimate Warrior
ECW and WCW dubbed on 6 hr VHS
Every bootleg kung fu flick
Plus horror movies with commentary
Long way from 7A 710
Fire brought flames through roof
Incinerated memories pictures report cards
Gone in wind’s puff of smoke
Was the fake Christmas tree
With liquid lightbulbs
Mirrors with stones
Plastic covered sofas
Handball in hallways
Rafaela and Artie’s room
Back where you could see the moon
Paint the skyline over the South Boogie
Like those courts
Where his invisible jersey
Returned to the rafters
Used to say he was skinny
But look how depression brings disaster
Now we getting older faster
He limps with a cane
A messed up foot
Those heels and nose are passed through generations
Cracked needing to moisturized
With meaning motivating your mind
To move one in front of the other
What would I tell him once
God forbid that day happens?
What has been your contingency plan?
Who will show that same love
That he had for Babita in quiet days
When the phone never rang
And she had only Tres and Law & Order
To keep her company
This is for Uncle Richard’s humanity
Lovingly holding on to a past
That has passed him by
I want to picture him back in the day
Jumping running balling
One word
Fly

11385

Ridgewood Rigid
Let the rain clean the musty smell
Of leftovers money and food going to waste
Many good meals been forsaken
Forward motion doesn’t allow you
To rewind times to when you was getting it
Everything was Gucci
Or maybe at least a knock off
Where can you go when its rainy outside
Scribble along the page to keep your mind alive
The voices in the back attempt to distract
Wondering why those shorties running through the block
Turning up the temperature in a quest for trouble
Jumping above before searching below
The puddle shimmer while you shiver at
The distorted reflection gather your greatest perception
Might reveal your latest deception
How you tricked everyone into believing you
So gullible almost garish in your appearance
Gaudy where you are raised makes you nature naughty
Remembering those moments
Like the perfect mixtape stopped and paused
Recorded from the radio we still rip audio from the air
Eavesdropping down the surrounding sound
That inspires you inhibitions to escape outta town
Where else can ever be so familiar
Beyond first names you understand
The frustration on the front lines
But as soon as you lose faith
You have already lost face
A focused interruption
Constant corruption
Striking away instead of embracing
The natural entropy ebbs and flows
How the riptide pulls you under however long
You plan to stay submerged
Drowned in your own depths
Deciding how many separate deaths
No one will attend the services
Just tearful puffs
Saying damn that was my dude
No one wants a session with your suffering
A cipher with sad solitude
Its like yes man causes you to yearn
For everything else except your own needs
Even steal what remains after you bleed
Scavengers who won’t let you escape
Still picking the crust out your eyes after you awake
Fate depends on the next favor you aren’t willing to ask for
In the whim of a split second
You have decided dumb shit takes precedent
Over the priority of Pa’lante
Your flashback foreshadows more fuck shit
Future foggy like cars after being hot boxed
Block hot concrete like sand at the beach
Only the coast far from clear
Trying not to hear what is too difficult to see
Free when the most confined
Identify everything when blind
How can we live up to the legends of our minds
Don’t ever think loving yourself is a crime

word

Say word

Don’t let that dolla dictate your dreams
Even your closest friends ain’t what they seem
You are the only person
Who opens and closes those eyes
Every midnight and morning
Everyone already got it your ideas are just dawning
You realize your company
Is worth more than the initial public offering
Always defaulting on down payments
But on time for your crooked school loan
If you clink your bones
What secrets would you reveal
You will never sell out for mass appeal
Sometimes you don’t even like you
Type to distance before getting in tight spaces
The basis for your overanalysis
Is a composite sketch of the hood’s misunderstandings
Unfriendly interactions leads to hormone laced beef
That gets grilled and served in the streets
Maybe there is a difference in dedication
Lively up your determination
Watch the imagined nation grow
You’ve got that glow
A hardened sparkle
That lights up the shadows
A dull arrow
Pointed at misguided pharaohs
The devil’s lasso
Has you far from Picasso
Great impostor
To be real you must improve your posture
How are you standing
Why them shoulders slouched
Please stick your chest out
So many reasons to be proud
But you are never loud
Even if you whisper
Emotions alone
Could still move the crowd

i miss the hood sometimes

Remix the Hood

Gather the spirits inside from whence you came
20 Clason Point Lane Apt B
Bronx NY 10473
Right off the ave called Story

Trying to rewrite the scripture that still sounds amazing

A prayer for the faded pictures
Institutional degrees conferring graduation
To a different place somewhere looking like elevation

Horoscope said forget about everything outdated
But these moments which turn into the past
Have been the most sacred

Hot and Mega Millions made the Stationary retire
Took the Bruce Lee and Hogan posters without saying good bye
Chinese and Kansas new competition with Jimbos
To see who will clog our intestines the fastest
New poison in town called 4Loco
That will literally bring you through 4 stages of crazy
Denial
Ascent
Crash into Smacked/Twisted
Lean back right after

Another night sponsored by flavored Dutch Masters
The hood’s lungs have evolved taste buds
To leave the 4 wall box in the projects foggier than ever

Regardless of weather or not
The block is temperature forecast
To constantly rising

To walk around here
Is to know nothing will be surprising

The concrete has sprouted its own roots
Creates children who throw fists
To chisel how hard their soft interior will be
Recognize that nothing is free
Even your breathing will be taxed
On the next food stamp used to buy a Black and Mild

Day is bright but the night is certainly darker
Seen families who are starving
Because the cabinet was colonized by roaches and rats
Like the scavenger stranger who stay in the crib

Burning the fans in their playstation
Because they watch the world through WorldStar

The screen screamed back
You won’t go too far
Stay here we’ll be bringing more commercials
Where the money back guaranteed
You will want to kill yourself
With no questions asked

Just flickering candles wrinkle pictures
Bottles and els passed
Until the breeze blows and extinguishes the fire

Wondering why did you love the hood
When the bitch don’t love you back

You on the right track
Like back to the wall in front of a mural
Capturing the sunset in the intersection
Of Story and Soundview

You come back around the way
To find YOU

i see i says

I see I says

New dawn awakening to dark midnight
Stumbling to find vision hitting the positions
Where everything clicking

Back on mission rocket pointed at middle of universe
Folded tight on top of self centered censorship

Advising the parents the children are living explicitly
The broken symmetry has
The rough outlines of their research
Misquoting the footnotes of their ancestors
Plagiarizing the past
Only see failure in their future
But that’s fallacy will all fall in the same hole
Floating in the thick air

Amazing gaining grace from the gutter
Small wonders lead to giant habits
Daily with deadlines for damage
Not your average chimney releasing smoke signals
Howling at full moon for help
Lost in the wilderness of the city

The concrete has trails of tears
If you could connect the dots
You might find constellations
In the soft sticky cement

Vivid images turn foggy fuzzy
Analyzing the ugly
You found your screwface
Resembled the ice grill and gas
Held an ace but your poker
Made you show your weak hands

Strong for simple risks
Just walking is a death defying adventure
Your attention is a terrible thing to waste

Face forward in the mirror
What is the dull reflection of your glazed pupil

Why are you used to movement all around
Except your internal affairs have been investigated
By flaw and disorder

Feed the meter with quarters
So you can keep sparking

Getting darker earlier couldn’t capture the sunset
Right next to happiness

Sadness is salivating
But your squad smacked the bullshit emotion
For violating

Confidence is changing
Rearranging the reason for breathing
Your existence never just to get even
I’d rather run up the score
Make it a blowout and slaughter

All running to catch the same train
Pull the emergency brake if you really see evil
But please be advised
It don’t look like our people

Humanity beyond color
Our veins bathe in same blood
Sweeter than azucar causing you to smile and think
Eyes wide blink examine where is the brink
What are the barriers of your barrio

Existing between borders
Brought to respect elders
Honor your history

Your perspective has peaked
Your inspiration has reached
Another level of understanding faintly everything
But mostly absolutely nothing

Your palabras only matter
If you make it to manana

stay away from that poison

Fruit Punch 4Loco
Everybody got their own motivation
Choose carefully
The weapon to get your enemies shaking
Awakening from unrealistic
Not so simplistic intricate quasars
Capture your pulsar
Leave you rapid
In the vacant shade all the same cages
All so amazing how the occasions evaporated
What’s once sacred becomes befouled
Out the game resting overtime put in work
But the team outta the tournament
Every now and then bent to a different direction
More progression leaves less stressing
Infinite ways you can go loco
How can you cope
With the mechanisms of the system
Leaving you in critical condition
Confined to the chair almost electric
Has you skeptic on the hood’s health statistics
There’s a natural mystic blowing through the air
Trapped in project stairs prowled by predators
For upward mobility
Your capability surpasses your IQ
Have many Clue? tapes but won’t ask a question
Profession of every session experience
You couldn’t fathom the sheer amount
Of examining the extinction agenda
While right in the center of reflection
From the inception you came out guessing
Wondering if this is where I need to be
Free is you in the backyard
Still trying to hit something over the fences
You still huddled right by the benches
Running away from the demons
Usain Bolt was a Nuyorican reaching
Higher levels of speed through
Where you ain’t searching
No more somewhere else more positive
Tell em you gotta live
Project the image you want captured
In the rapture of revelry
You finally stepping outside
To get right back internal
How many of those rainy cloudy moments
Remembered in journals
Dusty like underneath the bed
Bouncing off four walls
Still hear the calls when it all falls down
Realness makes you recover
As you hover through how sanctified
The sacrifice of sudden appearances have been
Lessons never learned in classrooms
More like gatherings by the chessboards
Flowerpots low cribs backpark under full moons
Each trying to scramble to the next morning
Where the floor screams
How much not giving a fuck has done damage
Hope that greasy food can cure hangover
Know that each second ticking
We getting older
Far from over turning the page to the next shit
Circle quickest way home trying to collect
Inspiration from the quiet riot
Of rhythm recalculating the path
Leading you to this point
Where you are still hunting
Accept the future you are wanting

pa'lante

Tryin to hold on until tomorrow
Connect a bunch of yesterdays
Back with today’s promise
If you waste away you might not
Get the courage to say what’s important
Play by play color commentator
That examines the invisible grey of the rainbow
The window reveals the world beyond
Depending on your vision
You can keep searching forever
Never find your alma in front of you
A chance to turn it upside down
Drowning in a dried up puddle
Of what we poured
Explored what is integral
The interval a participle dangling
Strangling simplicity
Intricacy of engaging while impossible
What is highly probable is your uncertainty
Surgery to your perjury
Slice apart your lies
Stitch up your truths
Sins get separated
Chaos finally coordinated
Fry your frustration
Make sure it’s neatly plated
Your entrance admission
Will increase after you lose momentum
Taxed for your tardiness
Late fees assessed
As you are leaving love behind
Library of nonsense
Multiple volumes
Allow you to reference
What’s really hood
Regarding your search

Strife and Doubt
How can you contribute
To the rotation of the world
Keep that shit spinning
Cuz once it stops
You automatically drop
The block is your graveyard
Your stoop is your headstone
The curb is your coffin
Will you be at your own burial
How soon will you get up
With the big homie Grim Reaper
You better give praise
For your blessings or they might
Pass you by without saying what up
The best part of liberating
Yourself is finally shaking off
The heaviest chains
Live like tomorrow is guaranteed
If it’s fucked up
Check the receipt or warranty

happy b day tone

Cinema Paraiso
I’ve seen why the chickens cross the road
Quickly trying to survive
Put away instincts to look behind
Right in front of has been the title for this journey
Mahalo ola nani
Thank you for a beautiful life
I want to chill with the lazy gatos in the sunlight
Fly with the sandpipers scream at the horizons
With the nene gooses
Bite on a pineapple until the juice drips to toes
Embrace the fullness of life with no restrictions
Rigid rules arbitrary regulations
Hang on defiantly like that tree atop a mountain
That might no exist or still will if you never saw it
How did the mountain goat scale that Montana
In search of something like me
Dropped from there eyes open
Still figuring it out
I’ll say good morning to whoever while
Relaxing in the shade
Incredible to take first wobbly steps outta cage
Rub that sol in your face
Stop running in place for life’s race
Continue to wrap arms around memories
New that will become old
How do you describe paradise never seen
Just pairs of dice
That still shake with you in your dreams
Like this all happened déjà vu
Having reruns of greatest episodes
With the best crew family on the planet
Can’t understand it flow with the waves
Don’t got that ground squared away
Still renting reality
Air shaky because of gravity
One day you will flap your wings to soar
We can listen to each other
Sing the struggle and smile for distances
Unnatural and scowl at the factual fallacy
Pushed to fall over
First the privates then the nipples then the shoulders
To get used to the cool temperatures
Of that aqua lava life blood of mother earth
Trying to tread water
Swim away from slaughter
Rather put order of reverence to the elements to master
The first 29 years gone faster
Than I could learn
Burning to slow down the turning of the globe
Examining the meaning on the otherside
How could you be the best facilitator of the future
Finding its fate when your mind
Has yet to awaken the significance
Of each step taken
Somehow foggy
With the clarity of crystals
Forming into blown glass
Missiles blow the whistle
Ring the alarm charmed
With the swarm of molecules
Motivating you hunter gatherer
Something from nothing
Always add up the sum of your heart’s drums
Building that rhythm
The mission to go beyond maintaining
Training for the flaming
Of Babylon travel on the road to zion
Heaven right down the block
In the next projects
Profit from the experiences
Pour pain from the pocket
Acknowledge the prophet
Who don’t got that knowledge
Staring back in the mirror
Reflects a clearer picture
Of the scripture you manifest
Man at his best
Accepts beautiful flaws
Tragic triumphs
Effort not enough
Keep marching keep sparking
Light through mental darkness
If you don’t believe then who will
We can make time stand still with the silence
Vibrant thing to be alive
And bring forth every blessing
This ain’t no messing around
This is like lost but now I’m found
Got the crown of royalty
Nothing but love and loyalty
Let the day be proclaimed
In the name of the holy trinity
The hood always in the vicinity
Within me god like divinity
Sky keep going for infinity
With the wind to my back and front
Couldn’t stunt this if I tried
So much to see
So much more to ride
We got the world in our hands
But don’t know how to hold it right
Make conversation
Crack a corny joke
To break down any anger
No frustration in this imagined nation
Toasted bread luxurious land
Liberty in all I see
NYC CPG the mecca of the universe
But the way will be more milky
With stars starting fires
To electrify the mundo
Want the next of kin to feel like a king
Never flinch an inch
In the blink of an ojo
Never be flojo
Release these words as un despojo
Cleanse the spirit
Bathe those lyrics
In melodies so your loved ones
Can hear the echoes travel
Through the islands to the ghettoes
From a concrete jungle
To visions that make you stumble
For exact descriptions
The prescriptions been written
Those knocks to the head
Will help you read better
Take a shredder to the confidential
Hug the monumental
Freestyle to the breeze as your instrumental
Plentiful fantasies
Arouse sensitive emptiness
Let the blood flow freely
To feel righteous connection
No more failing your own multiple choice
You already have the answers
Give yourself a chance
To realize why before you say no
Gather your angels before you go
Pack your pen and pad
So you can record the most exclusive flow
Stay you
Love this life
Absolutely unquestionable

Ya Understand Me

Ya Understand Me?

 

The otherside of nuclear                            More like benign bombs

Never meant to blow                             only sit quiet wait to be broken down

 

No need for peace treaty

More like declaration of intentions to speak freely

 

Like Heal the World make it a better place

Shoulda just started on my block

 

They don’t want the Bronx to organize

Because our reparations would like the reservations

Neglect can negate your very existence

An insistence on instigating your instinct

 

Things fall apart barely hanging intact

The natural setting leaves nature sitting

The hatred simmering til the suffering steak is sautéed

 

Medium well                            the tedious spell of dizzying cycles

Riding that wave more like tidal

Before drowning in your spit puddle

 

Wear a life jacket in those deepwaters of reflection

Perception is more important than confessing

 

All those back of the closet secrets whose bones

Still rattle and clang                            trying to find the hood where freedom hang

 

Him and my mother kissing cousins                            but what do we face now?

An empty crib with a cat making dog growls

 

Pictures from yesteryears that tell you half the story

Fill in the rest                            thinking bout how did we end up here gets me stressed

Conventionally conveniently silent

Montage of memories that keep echoing the entropy

 

Mental telepathy would be amazing

Power to transport me faraway

To the fantasy side of family where

There is always a happy ending               everyone says good night

Bendicion             

 

This rendition has a reservation at the windows of my world

Beautiful night to examine the skyline of my spirit

Every valley and peak                            each alley and street

That hides a little bit of my hope

Behind a tree under a rock by the fence

Sit on the bench the secret note will be hidden above

Or below the brick holding the keystone

 

Type to roam dust between bones

Mellow all alone sleepy sometimes scared

 

Beware when the heart bounce

Cautiously avoid being caught up feeling like luck

Is something only a dolla might provide

 

Along with the public there is a darkside

Where the light don’t shine too bright we ain’t wrapped too tight

 

A loose pull leads to a weak push

 

Hard to even open the door for a quick look

Contents shaken under pressure ready to burst

 

Curses are symptomatic of the larger havoc

If you could open the attic only imagine what you could find

 

All the divine signs that have shown you

To walk the thousand steps down the path

 

Of Pa’lante so that nadie

 

can ever

 

Take your love from your hands

 

ProClaim

Pro- Claim

 

Where’s the monument to surviving the ghetto

 

We only celebrate independence

To becoming dependent on this beloved country

 

We hold cookouts on courtyards

Of public housing named after dead presidents

Who never wanted us residents of these blessed blocks

 

We have holidays and days off

Commerate the closing of our culture

 

So where to run when we need

Moments of sincerity amongst the insanity

 

Let’s claim every corner in honor of fallen soldiers

Whose shadows hang over our broken spirits

 

The Bronx River is like Rio Grande de Loiza

You might still see Julia De Burgos

Screaming at the wind They Lie They Lie

 

All vacant lots have become jardines del pueblo

We plant our souls in the soil

So we can reap the revolution

With no apologies complaints or do overs

Mix blood with water in the dirt

So our past can fertilize the future

 

Tomorrow will bloom like bouquets of Pa’lante

Allowing the peoples smiles to blossom

 

Every streetlight will have inspirational quotes

From our freedom fighting writers

De La Vega will sidechalk Become Your Dream

Raimundi Ortiz will capture our heroes in murals

Yasmin Hernandez will paint each every soul rebel

 

Telephone booths will become recording studios

To create the next Cantante India or Pun

 

Newspapers should have a daily quote from Albizu

To affirm the lifelong quest for freedom

 

All diplomas will come with a pastele attached

So you can feed your mind and body

 

Bacardi will sterilize all wounds

Don Q might make you feel better

 

If your child is acting up

There are break in case of emergency chancletas

For all neighbors to use on sinverguenzas

 

Chupacabras are the boogiemen

Who invade the dark and crawl under your bed

Keeping you afraid of the unknown

 

Use your Dylcia and Filiberto nightlights

To push you to be brave

 

Ramon Emetario Betances

Said that no man should ever be a slave

Nor should your mind be trapped in a cage

 

I was told that freedom is like air

Either you have it or don’t

 

Miles from the enchanted island

Still trying to get back home

 

Where the trees stand testimony to our triumph

Coquis create the sound of blood through veins

 

We must leave a legacy

Showing that we conquered as they came

 

But our statues will be dancing salsa

Even our piedras will be insane

Shit to Write About

Shit to Write About

              After Willie Perdomo

 

The way the world turns counterclockwise

How the moon is in the morning sky to wish on

When the sound of the city screams sing your song

A stray cat strolls on by searching the meal

Transactions under train tracks dark midnite

Snuggled closely to a warm body

Love get defined in between dreams and nightmares

Why freedom is being auctioned to the highest quitter

Pushing the definition of real nigga

Who uses liquor for the truth serum to get in touch

With long lost ancestors who eventually abandoned

The main source of any power that comes from within

Mini crisis la Montana from a hill of ants

The precise moment before you ask the devil to dance

All those young faces in faded curled up pictures

Hidden messages behind withered scriptures

Lessons that got learned far too late

Sessions where you burned tried to escape

Unfinished masterpieces revealing ultimate secret

Characters with sketches too close to self portraits

Standing under streetlight silhoutee

Creating sexy looking shadows

To make you infatuated with the darkness

The heartless showing purpose and humanity

The soldiers staring in the mirror

Mysterious murder like the vanity

An affair that is conspicuous yet to be disclosed

A reflection that is shattered

Dropping rocks into puddles

Complex puzzles with the pieces waiting to be arranged

Finally recognizing this happy life won’t be the same

Riding the train home to parts unknown

The road less traveled towards the end of its course

The ultramagnetic force pulling you back to the block

With every teardrop comes new triumph

Still running towards destiny

When will the DJ cue Time’s Up

All those parties poppin til the breakadawn

The sun shines brilliantly on your path

Add up the disparate numbers to get fuzzy math

Where you holding on to hope for a little bit longer

When you slip how soft is the ground beneath you

When you rise how low is the see thru ceiling

If the only option is death then start planning your funeral

Find a suitable composition that might

Transition your abilities to higher altitudes

instead of lower attitudes that attach you to tragedy

combine the undercurrent of apathy

along with the subtleties of nihilism shake violently

to explode like your Tropical Fantasy

you are entitled to absolute effort

otherwise you are selling yourself a sucka for sale

you get discounts on dumb shit add taxes to intelligence

pass your prayers to the president

your responses won’t be politically correct

before you step on stage

make sure your lyrics

pass the mic check

 

O that yr word

O that’s your word?

 

What can I tell you

That you haven’t heard

 

Let me make that regular look extra exotic

Let the same shit different day

Turn into different destiny same smile

 

If the world revolves around you

How can we make the orbit orgasmic

Cosmic courage that could conquer any demons

Dreaming of finding the meaning

When you define the purpose why you searching

 

Maybe that inspiration will drop from the sky

Let gravity’s good graces guide you out the ghetto

 

Make heaven echo your effort

Hell will envy then wanna trade places

Ill if grill was stuck on fuck faces

You could forecast your ecstacy to the planet

Stretch that moment into a lifetime of loving

 

Laugh until you reside in New Snort City

Chuckle until you choke giggle til those good times gush

 

Attributed fortune to luck but the divine

Donated you with your lovelies as a chance

To block the ugly

 

Let your blessings bubble over the lip of the sink

Run your hands through the thick air that fill your lungs

 

Talk your shit as loud as you can

Walk your shit as proud as you can

 

Wear your skin illest designer and copywritten

Pigment plantation destroys

All factories of frustration

 

Have you folded your future

Renewed and maintained your creases

 

Let the coming days off the leash

Screaming comeback you have barely trained the beast

Camouflage your code for explicit expression

Emotion is a weapon that can barely be silenced

Automatic continuation of chaos causes

 

Iced out chain reactions that will freeze happiness

Melt memories of dancing in the sunlight

 

When frivolous becomes fatal you finally

Might blink but instead you say fuck that

I’ma do me whatever that blindly means

 

Easily find your way into a scheme

That beams holograms of hope back

To real time horrorshows starring you

Absent minded accomplice with blood on your hands

 

If your brain draws blanks it prolly spits them as well

Hands tightly wrapped around bars in the cell

 

Visions of happilyeverafter become 3distant

After the Dutch mastered your vocals

The producer punch in your power

Adlibbing admonishment to your adversaries

 

Inadvertently you tripped over urgency

Like oh yeah I gotta be focused as opposed to

Stressed out and hopeless maintain the positive

 

As long as you gotta live you gotta give

A damn fuck or shit whatever you may choose

 

Whatever your choice

Voice must scream the truth

 

friday june 4th, nuyorican poets cafe
10 pm co feature with mike mcgee

it's been awhile. props to mo browne for hooking this up. this past decade has seen some ups and downs and the nuyo has helped me through it all. a stage a mic an audience that will listen. thanks to the universe. this couldn't have come at a better time.

far cry from the first time after the 97 grand slam in the open room. i wanna say morris the stegosarus rocked before me. i read something about being 16 and trying to wake up. i remember a line like my heart is upside down roses hanging on the wall waiting to dry and wither away. damn. i still be feeling like that.

if you around come drop by. it would be cool to reconnect with folks. oh yeah i'm getting married in july. holla.

the words walked away

Feels as if the words walked away

And never cam back home

Tyring to find a different objective

Examine the collective for factory flaws

Unwilling to pause the forward momentum

Too much to handle

Place candles by the window

Hoping the spirits may circle and surround

A wide open ear so you may hear the sound

Of silence that means the opposite of sweet dreams

Thin line between reality and fantasy

Who determines the exact outcomes

Imperfect obscenities plentiful

Observe humanity no one on a pedestal

How can you push proactivelyu

Against damaging floods

Blood blended into smoothies smoothly

Sliding off in search of whatever sin

Makes you smile

Your profile of your good side

Got your bad facing the shadows

Within the darkness brighter side on the flip

The greasy details of the script have been overlooked

Walking the straight line crooked

Who knew every step would lead to Central Bookings

You lost the combination to your own freedom

Steady killings the fable of once upon a time

Because the blunts beyond your mind

Have left you in critical spaces

You lack the basis for a fundamental analysis

Of overstanding the circumstances

Behind the bad romances of your barrio

Where there have been broken hearted

Walk of fame with teardrops personalized

With your signature the calligraphy

Of your confidence has been scribbled sloppily

There has been a severe lack of comprehension

Confounded by making connections

With stars that will never touch the ground

Rotation from the sun

Ill if we could shine below the sky

As clouds hold conferences

To acknowledge the positivity radiated

Gravitated towards the ghetto’s charm and grace

Could scream towards heaven and feel safe

Amongst all the voices harmonizing

Singing the same songs of struggle

Life just a scuffle between demons and angels

Who resemble strangers who strike you familiar

Like seen you before someplace like this

Exactly not quite

Precisely not really

The coordinates haven’t been mapped

To the final destination

Figure out how you are going to get

To where you are going

Before the clock expires

Kill em with Kindness

Kill em with Kindness,

              Or you couldn’t see your light

                            For Tyler

 

Always after the blossoms have bloomed

You ate your first cococherry icy of the summer

To let you know the season has arrived

 

Early morning wakeups just to survive

 

Make meaning out of confused sense

A twisted form of accepting reality

Your vision of the future foggy

 

Now you gaze groggily at the sun

Signaling a new day has risen

 

Let us rejoice and be thankful

 

Ignoring counting your blessings

Because you couldn’t do the math

The sky high price of what you lost

Has left your sense of security staggering

 

Speaking through broken teeth

Has you spitting on people for emphasis

 

Evaluating the basis of your displacement

Stagnant anticipating your next expiration date

 

Redemption has shown up far too late

Even with a remix attached to the bonus track

Exclusive digitally enhanced messages have gone

Undiscovered while you were deep

In discussion of dumb shit in detail

 

Instead of asking the mirror

What happened to your promise

What have you done for me lately

Have you said farewell to your failures

And welcome to all your wishes

 

It’s no wonder your dreams have dipset on your destiny

 

Within your energy no possibility for eventually

Only endlessly perpetually cycle of reruns

Of yesterday’s bugging whole lot of mind numbing

Nonsense to laugh at because otherwise

The flood of tears would be nonstop

 

Easier to wear a copywritten mask

With the bleak background of the block as you bop

 

If you got something on lock

Then where is the chain

 

Decide how you will be remembered

And what legacy remains

 

A stained tee shirt with wrinkled eyes almost saintly pose

A once a year candle flickering against the cold

 

Our souls are old but the stories still so young

Same song loud volume hard to understand words

 

So hard to spell out your hood

When all the letters have the same sound

Of absolute robberies triumphing over ancient philosophies

 

Impossible is where you have planted yourself

Paint yourself with the prophecies of your pain

Like rainbow colors of your amazing chase

Not the Same

Not the Same

 

The crib been silent

Stories been muted

Voices with clichéd overdubs

Capturing attention

Right after these commercials

From corporate sponsors

That have colonized our family

Used to watch TV while eating dinner

No playback of each others daily highlights

Just school and work

Institutions designed to distance us

Add the finishing touches

On a montage of moments that will capture

All the laughter and disaster

Collect the remains gather the broken images

From the backwards peacock mirror

To transport you forwards towards what to come

Run around the courts and fields

To work up the sweat and appetite

Developed acquired taste

For not acting right because I’d match my mind

To the continual movement of doors opening and locking

Bed right above entrance and exit

Thought I could get precise directions

On where I should be headed

I read recognition  it screamed off the page

At that age still trying to recover

Something that won’t be found

 

Those calls bounce through walls

Those drums dance in dreams

The unseen became in front of face

Now turned away trying to handle

Understanding with slippery grip on what I can’t
grab

Room been a lab of battling histories

Experimenting with mysteries

Examining the astrology

Of absolutely no apologies

If only it was magic everybody might reappear

Instead this is another empty night

Me and my shadow for company

Only none of these stock options have gone public

Nothing absence of space

The transferring of matter into product to say something

Your heart been a peanut shell

A door open to a cell

Waiting for the invitation

When was the last time

Faces in a picture were altogether

Like an original ensemble

Our classic hits leave me trembling

Resembling a group gathered to make history

Not fade away like colors run in the sun

Where we would squint and pinch

If only the light would last

A little longer

They will cling to you

They will cling to you…..- Robert Frost

 

All that static will make it stick

The letter people provide the music

Patty cake patty cake

Red light green light 123

If only your grownup life

Was as easy as ABC

All these verses have vindicated your view

Please don’t get your blues confused

Muse composed of memories

So poignant you can taste fingerprints

To remember how you entered

Everywhere always with love

Lifting you higher than standing up

Could ever allow               beads of sweat on your brow

Stuck on figuring the how when right now

The flow imperative to keep it wavy

Crashing it against the coast

Surfing over the flood where you able to catch

What remains below the bottom

Forever stuck in the groove

You can never lost what’s left behind

Has blessed you going forward

Fully aware of all angles

The circumference of your surroundings

Have showed you constellations of angels

Who chill with you and bounce echoes

Of the block’s brilliance to your brain

The rain reminds you of rice

Overflowing on plates

where you picked out each bean

skip right to the next chapter

on those nights where you diced your dreams

watching their elegant explosions

or how they’ve withered in the sun

the derivatives of your disappointment

are daily discussed on the Dow Jones

the misery market is in high demand

of your painful productions

short supply on happiness

hot commodity on Main Street not so much on Wall

where you been off defining your wealth

in spiritual ends not material means

mo money mo murder mo homicide

mo tears mo problems survive til solution arise

are you surprised the wind blew out

the candles before you could wish

to make an early exit before you arrived

thrive off the thrill of staying so ill

your still life would have a collage of you coughing

photo series of flavors of phlegm

no end non stop ellipsis analysis

of your culture catalyst

how will you get the fuse sparked?

The morning light

Shatters the night dark

Searching for what will stay

Stay searching

Love I’m still working