fatigue.

No rest for the weary

Sleep is for suckers

Dreams are for losers

Breathing your goals is for winners

What are you having for dinner

Warm lunch or leftover breakfast

Waterfall might run dry

Don’t ever be unwilling to try

Peace of mind connected to pieces of time

You have strung along into significant meaning

Groove got you leaning way too early

No nighttime patrol of things you can’t control

Make those quick turns where you can find

Safe stash crash wherever is comfortable

Run a few fulls sweat out tired impurity

Little impunity for past completely gone

Saddest song must sound joyful

Wash every load until nice and fluffy

Wouldn’t freedom be so lovely

Not without solid structure

How will this rapture leave you dispassionate

Good intentions signify proper dedication

Lively up your focus

Be faithful to your future

Don’t let the dust bite

Before you have fought your devils

Have the sniffles because project heat

Was a lil real last night

Let the window give you breeze

But you gotta wipe boogies

Wish that common cold was all that is wrong

Gone in a fog what could you do with your hall pass

Except stay in the crib cause you couldn’t afford gas

Watch the Knicks then pass out

What’s all the madness about

Raging towards tranquility

Master your abilities

New travels must be daily commitment

Submit to your higher calling

Tickle in your throat words you float on loan

To whoever would return a smile

Been a while since I had the torture of your identity

Complements are plenty unopened packets

Of condiments ready to flavor your desire

At your command how can you withstand

Any more shallow attempts at organizing the project

Forever unfinished diminishing returns

On shaky investments

Protesting lack of participation

Motivation towards being meaningless

Seeming less concerned

with power totally podrido putrid

rest in poetry, trayvon martin.

Cuatro

This is not for shorties who sit silently hands folded

Who lovingly smile at the camera

This is for the wannabe who screams

He is shuttling his soul to smoke loudly

Declaring death is inevitable and tomorrow

Might be his last so why would he wait

On the world when he can grab it from any victim

Obviously fuck the system

When your projects is prisons

Playground is the yard where they swear

They never believed in God because

He never had the time to listen to their dreams

Congregate 10 deep on one bluntville

To simply scheme and steam

Never capture any confidence condensation

Teachers condescend trying to relate

Understand plight of underclass

Wondering why this talented young man

Never comes to class

This is for powerful potential

Muffled explosions of deferred dreams

Dark shots that won’t ever reveal the light

Hoodies hiding hope for holy moments

Where their life stories mattered and triumph

Actually recognized so that they would be proud

Of their god given names not saying

Damn why you blowing up my government

Call me E Burna or Slugga or Trigga or Banga

Or Gutta or Lil Something or Big Nothing

This is for aliases becoming the character

That has been created for you highly improbable

Reality customized to shape your actions

Accordingly to the substandards of keeping it wrong

In vain attempts to garner more props or stripes

So occasions where you put in twirk

Could add on to your ample rugged resume

Seeking approval from OGs who told you

To hold heat so they wouldn’t get in trouble

This is for hustling not to stack but to keep

The corner with miserable company and puff for free

Easily distracted to crack or pop

Won’t stop the grind to build each block

Every hood into organized nations self sufficient

To believe in prosperous futures we should be living

This is love for little brothers scrambling

Tagging to see who is it

Still searching for do overs when the hood

Missed your perfect pitch

Or greatest crossover

With the weight of universe on shoulders

Constructing those chips

Into a monument of your greatness

Rather than a tenement of fuck shit

knowledge plus action equals power

Tres

Whole lot of nothingness destroying the being

Your lot has become sparking rapidly

Extinguished instantly distinguished as less

Than gentlemen more resembling rough draft

Without edits credit reports how many times

You’ve held something on the arm how quickly

Was the debt repayed with interest or lack thereof

Quite simply whatever the question answer is love

Unlimited by false standards of success contaminated

With hatred can’t fake intelligence or bullshit facts

Horrorshow is no hologram hard to hold onto

Holy moments without signifying the divine

Rewind to where you need to be right now

Paradox of present convergence of past and future

Colliding not so neat when body heat reveals

Fever beneath epidermis won’t be nervous

Once the show starts insecurity begins

Once the applause stops crowd won’t congratulate

Your confusion so deal with isolation

While yearning for uncomfortable community

Drown out the static noise with your heart’s monologue

Building towards a confident climax

Where nothing is resolved

But we a lot closer to declaring the truth

everyday is poetry, give us this day our daily bread

Dos

What’s the matter

You afraid of a lil shit?

Never that just saying I been quite regular

Flow continuously are you quick enough

To wipe leave you squeaky clean

At the peak of the dream flick the light

To adjust levels impossible like deciphering

Characters who randomly appear

Tiptoeing thin line between sleeping and screaming

Can’t figure out meaning of time and places

Switch seasons to leave you bleeding

From particular orifices opening of the way

For ancestors blessings to pour in from

Hole in sky dropping like tears from sudden clouds

Frown at sunset because another day has passed

From lovely now into uncertain future

Structured life around loops in quest for truth

Bubbling to boil from inside provided another

Chance to dance with shy devil

Ignored like too much heat in room hot

Sufficient light to interview your brave angels

Needing to be celebrated as fast as possible

Breathing highly improbable if you haven’t

Been planning your obvious benefits

Life never came with script nor instructions

What's good gente, hope all is blessed with you. been on a roller coaster of love attempting to define the mystery of life. making up everything along the way. trying to revise the manuscript for existence. been great to build with folks on the road to redemption. this story ain't been told yet, no one is stepping on my toes. but it's time. ya por favor. please wake up. make this book happen. no time for half stepping. make whatever moves that need to be made immediately. can't be watching the world on worldstar. experience the savage brilliance of illumination. touch it. feel it. smell it. taste it. see it. knowledge plus action equals power. pa'lante. asi.

ventilation

I've been teaching for the past 10 years. My brother asked me how many students do I think I've reached over the past decade. My guesstimation was roughly 50%. Which for any teacher feels like not nearly enough. In the beginning of this business, one of my Columbia Urban Educator mentors said, we go to bed thinking about how we can forgive ourselves. This is a thankless job.

My satisfaction comes through young people seeing the connections between the classroom and the streets. The less education you have, the less critical consciousness you have. The essential question Why? can lead you down a rabbit hole where you have more questions than answers. It also brings you to a lifelong journey of self exploration that hopefully will give you the tools to dismantle the oppressive system that has condemned you to the hood. However, the current situation with our youth is a state of overwhelming apathy.

You only live once - our youth have readily adopted a mixtape philosophy to life. We have lived many lives, and this day this moment is a slice of the bigger picture. What happens in the next ten years? When these youth are no longer young? How will they mature? How will they become responsible? For each other? For the world? I pray for light and guidance because these youth have no context of how the rest of the world is leaving them behind. We just keep screaming for them to catch up. Cosby said, the young people are telling us something, but we refuse to listen. What if they don't even know what they want? God Bless and Good Luck.

respiration

Go get yourself some fresh air

Never meant to see you everytime

You been having the worst day

Hope my presence can deliver something great

More uplifting than current malaise

Always feels like a bunch of malarkey

That leads to contemporary fuckery

Facing forwards towards a future

That doesn’t want me to occupy a critical space

In the people’s ongoing narrative

Extremely feeble attempts at countering

Prevailing myths over where you should be headed

For lack of better words you been condemned

As a community garden making way for

Commercial real estate that will contaminate

Corrupt the native culture categorically

Castrated and confined to corner’s comfort

Keep biting your nails to get down to the nubs

Nobody wants to be cut open deep beneath

The skin at least the nipples need to be rubbed

Seduced into accepting raw deal where your feelings

Don’t make any sense to the powers that be

At least entertain while you educate

So your corny facts about freedom’s attainment

Will be nothing to laugh at or sneeze about

God blessed you with all that good luck

You know nothing ever happens by chance

Different circumstances dealt so you find you

Believe in your core convictions as you

Stumble down a path already promised

You would arrive safely but passage won’t be easy

Finding the groove beneath your asymmetrical heartbeat

Repetition is the mother of emphasis

Analysis of bottom basis static status

Certain cases nothing is for sure

Questions create stimulating tension to grab yours

At once considered so smart

Even dunces know where they stand

Confused by your origins in this land

When you don’t belong to any slice of earth

Much as the world is owed to you

With no shred of obligation

Such is the paradox of our tenuous existence

With such resistance to what is naturally given

Draw power from your tradition

Push past tragedy

Embrace the inevitable quit your bitching

Finally start living your own life

If the planet is in your hands

How would you hug it to show some love

Or rock it gently to sleep

If you gathered a beloved audience

What carefully chosen words would you speak?

salud dinero y amor

May the Lord be with you always

For these happy love days

Heart full of happiness eternal

Continual elevation flowing like tap water

Few blessings to quench momentary thirst

Even if you had all the answers

How would you apply the lessons in life school

Will you eat what is left over after

Being held out of a sticky situation

Improving this temporary life

Quick minutes on everlasting eternity

How will you survive your own demise

Surrounding in eager shadows

To drown out the sunshine

Words falling on the floor

Ignoring the whispers of affirmation

What will provide internal motivation

To make sure we will rise into who we need to become

You couldn’t ever stop someone

From walking out the door

Harsh reality barely settles

Before we forget critical truth

How much higher could we get beyond the roof

In this puddleluscious porqueria

Make sure you push yourself pa’lante

Towards greater overstanding

Infinite jewels shining

from concentrate

So easily distracted damage accumulates

Faster than healing to broken spiritual

Success immaterial to overall lack of accomplishment

Look at exactly where you headed

Switch up the pace and travel plans

Within your hands lie what is difficult to lift

Towards the skies which have no sense

Of obligation to your destiny only reaction

Is guttural scream to rejection of groove

So much pretends on what you prove

To no one who cares or will recall what you wish

You could envision manifest

No more tampering with a secure package

That was break in case of urgency

Collecting dust comparing tumbleweeds

Looking velvety marching by over history compiled

Into creaking shelves ignored until conveniently

Quoted for future reference no application

To current situation that captured

How far you can drift like plastic bags

After storms attempting to clean streets

Only leaving behind permanent debris

That one day if you get around to it

Will be reorganized

What is the masterplan that will liberate

You from mental slavery as fast as possible

Got a few visions but not enough ambition

To determine your life’s path

Real because it was written by your hand

Dragged pen across wrinkled page

So you could examine the internal infierno

Placing you in solitary purgatory

Created your own comfortable category

But this is no allegory direct examination

Of supposed actual fact you been poor

Believe in your own righteousness

Have you learned from what you have taught

Caught with shaky alibi or better denial

Of problems existence except stress is persistent

Enough for you to be inconsistent

With effort and follow through

What type of holy spirit follows you

Carries you when you are the most exhausted

No precaution on your preoccupation with impatience

No savings because there’s none leftover

Acquired colder temperature for warmer desires

Passing through checkpoints utterly filthy

Should have placed priority on recognizing reality

Completely altered

Stay true to your convictions

Don’t let your confidence falter