be on point at the parade gente

Isla frita

How do you process privilege

Sacrifices from ancestors made on your better behalf

Be whole

Laugh dance sing dream in whatever order you allow

Don’t suffer generational consequences

Because everything is out of service

Due to illuminati invasion anniversary of

An island 135 million years old emerged from

Angry ocean

Earth is 15 billion years old

Me I’m 33 Babita been blessed with 91 years

Infinitesimal speck on the canvas of multiverses

What are the partisan politics of quasars in another galaxy

Challenge to stay optimistic when rain on sunny days

Has you conflicted every detail of your pain

Can be specifically traced to DNA dancing

Drama down dark alleys of varicose veins

Rarely seeing victory

Let sunlight part the fog on your history

No longer typically victim statistic

Population pacified red tierra will testify

Bloodshed en busqueda de libertad

To do what you absolutely please

Don’t be apathetic or apologetic

Aggressive in search of destiny

Using best mental weaponry

Affirming path in poet’s passage

With eyes closed take a shot

Speak life into reality

Make your dreams actions

Wise ninja said

We need to show the youth

Our freedom fighters bloody scars

Lion king said

The stars will always guide you

Never leave you alone

You will forever have a home

Where coquis sings to concrete

Across 4 hour flights in business class

Whenever you land

Hear our hands clapping like claves

Bats welcome you to distant caves

Where your runaway slave great great

Great grand uncles carried their visions in bundles

Looking for holy shelter sanctuary

Hearts were the only actuaries

Turned legacy to stone cobbled roads

Breaking silence

So you could figure your path

Amidst city static

Climax to your lack of progression

Heavy depression

Will make your shoulders slouch

Oppression so numbing

You barely say ouch when bitten

Please take prescription and bounce

Purchase a light cebolla to flip into foundation

We can firmly stand upon

Our beauty is beyond condemned blocks

Puercos watch and envy to rob happiness

Want to use sadness as fuel to a greasy system

Pipeline from gutter ghetto to powerless prison

Of mind believing no one will listen

But we still hear your gritos loud and clear

Severe condition critical

Transform your spiritual to lyrical

Manifest miracles to resurrect movements

No longer losing

Your confusion isn’t exclusive

Mentality molded through umbilical

Poverty cyclical

No need for telescopes to encounter lack of hope

Down to miniscule molecules

Won’t learn this liberation inside schools

Designed to damage

Ability for proper analysis of compound fracture

Bones bursting through skin

Sin makes you pop you own brother

False thuggery uttered like pan con butter

Moments of strength never stutter

Deep within lies true conviction

Give yourself permission to shine

Eyes reflection of radioactive sun

Toca significant drums

Summon people to paradise plaza

Hay que mejorar la raza

Pero no con porqueria

Advertisements on every building

Overtly urging you to consume capitalism

As your cacique

Money is your GOD

Every cent is your santo

Referring to dollars as dona

Manana convinced that exile to rotten manzana

Won’t make you a sangana

Mira muchacho

De que tu hablas

Nunca blah blah o tonteria

Hay que ser humilde e inteligente

To see who is real enemy trying to hustle you

From not loving the mirror

Whenever the horizon is clearer

Calm before paranormal tormenta

Make our beautiful gente into invisible ghosts

Gone

Statues for sunburned tourists to drive by

Take pictures and stare

Lost footnotes at bottom of pages never read

Fed enough YUM brand fast food

Children will be malnourished in perpetuity

Cruise choppy waters tirando bombas

New world order bequeathing civilization

Savage society impatiently waiting for

Status quo sandwish mallorca bread

Lovely land with lack of liberty

Class stratification gives you no symmetry

Until you in cemetery and every tombstone

Looks the exact same

Gamble away all your ganas

Sell out all your panas

Tomorrow can’t be more lame luxury

Corporate resorts sell you jibaro nostalgia

Illegibly infiltrated from inception

Hear this motivational message after Medalla

Chasing Don Q

Pushing you pa’lante nunca patras

Mis palabras de boca will travel to Dios’ ears

Learn the lessons to break out of colonial cage

Todos somos Boricuas de pura sepa

Albizu Lolita Filiberto Piri Pedro Miky

Machetero reinvented with rage

Before I wrote this on a blank page

Took it to stage

Coquis hyped me up

Told me sigue cantando

Siempre con corazon LORD

BE BRAVE

Please help me get to VONA in Cali!!!

Gentrification Poem

An inglorious peace is better than a dishonorable war – Mark Twain

Stock full of flaws

Laughable if not miserable execution of humans

For no other reason than profit

Infinite bankroll for generations of grands

Stand upon stolen land speaking foolishly

Reaping benefits much to the dishevelment of barrios

Vulture capitalists smell rotting realty from 2 towns past

Crush corners put up luxury condos

Hood been gone yo

No signs of quick recovery

Crills and welfare stunted elevation

Same poison brand new packaging

Unraveling mysteries as you unwrap

Reassemble thin leaves

Sending smoke signals to confused stars

Wondering where you are

Why are you calling me with your petty concerns

On otherside of world

Bombs dropped on baby showers

Baptism was burning even corpses got charred

Monsters in administration

Violence makes them villians

Who is being protected

Who has all the weapons

What will it take for Joe Saltine to learn lesson

See beyond complexion

Who is illuminati machine really oppressing

Nightly news with Brian Williams is your check in

plastic bag in breeze

Vacio

Got love for empty hearts waiting to be filled

All that pain makes life real like your nerves are tingling

How much happiness do you let linger

Float around on faith; each follower wants you to fail

Can’t swim your ship already sailed

Deepest point of ocean go overboard and take dive

Blessings provided for you to survive

Angry mundo always plotting revenge

Towards open sky when you have reached end

Each of us perfect blend

Powerful seasonings marinated

Pobre nino don’t know where to look for hopeful hug

Streets will grip you and trip you

Evil will rip you from warm clutches

Diablo will tempt with truest desires something luscious

So much nonsense almost nauseous

When bugging out never too cautious

Truth is consequences are easily predicted

Insisted on your way now you have little say

On decisions determining final arrival

Accumulation at speed of snowflakes descent

Pray to live decent

Dip at most recent gravity

Primitive instinct with unlimited gimmicks

Intimate spirits within inanimate objects

Flawed logic stunts growth process

In la manana

Love is all we need to acknowledge

where you been at

please don't call it a comeback

been here as long as tears taken to dry

was that fly on the wall during every reading

was there in spirit when you slammed your heart

we all caught the blood

everyone fought the web wrapped around

nightmares right where the needle

meets the vinyl groove before first note

causes you to rewind selector

bring back that classsic from the top

no need for external affirmation

to make my dreams pop will believe

in personal possibility until gravity

drops apples causing epiphany

rapidly actually statistically if was

going with easy entropy likely wouldn't

even exist i won't ask for your permission

to cause you to listen

there won't be any choice

to acknowledge this voice

calling for recognition off rooftops

the air will pick up frequency across

breeze carry across seas causing ripples

in puddles every poem pieces to puzzle

don't need your help to make me spit

but sing along to my struggle

speak up

Say it like you mean it

Pa’lante Ashe

Que Viva Mi Gente Para Siempre

There must be some reason

Behind the evil they speaking

Figure it out

Work

Understand

Communicate

With what

Is staring

At you

So tired

Energy

Is like

Winning the lotto

Inhale

The musty musk

Of seasoned funk

In the stale air

Seems like

I only

Touch myself

Fall asleep

Wide awake

Still with

All my problems

Cono

Eso

Esta

Muy

Pesa’o

Lo que

Pasa

Pasa

Me gusta

Arroz con pasta

Can’t quite

Put my finger

On exactly what

Is holding

Me down

If only

Was the phrase

That never paid

This kid

Recovered

From regrets

For the final act

I guess I was

Supposed to

Bring it all together

Why

When everything

Feels so apart

Probably not

If you followed me

It would be

A joke

You couldn’t stop laughing

All the money I owe

I’m still paying

For shit

I never use

Whatever you will

Will be the curse

All those mistakes

Made still feels

Like the first

As I sit here

Wherever it maybe

Hopefully

I’m not

breaking any laws

Just by being

me

I swear

There is

something

out there

better

than this

I want

To remember myself

As one of

The greatest

Ideas

Who didn’t have

Enough time

You go

Right now

You do

you gonna get this work

For me it was all about figuring this shit out. I know I took my sweet time with everything but I guess the lord has her own script for the way I’m living. Sometimes I’d like to think that those visions are entwined, but I’m often shown otherwise. So I bask in those small moments that remind me that what I’m going through is so much bigger than I am. Only a small dot infinitismal molecule in the galaxy of humanity. Just trying to keep moving every day like the sun shines new light on old scars in the hood.

So what is the deal? Statis, nothing else fams. If I tried to tell you otherwise I’d might be someone else. But me, stuck on the block with the same old folks doing the clichéd same old shit. Really. Even if you ask them, what’s good, they say, same old shit. As if we don’t have different bowel movements each time we eat something else. But what can you do when the only option are Kansas Fried, Kee Hing Chinese Restaurant, Hot Millions, snack cakes and sour powers washed down with High Fructose Sugar Water? So all that schooling, even going round the country and the Caribbean still got you in the same spot you was drooling as a young’n. Thinking that hanging out with the dropouts and criminals was going to instantly add to that the street credibility you been so desperate for. Like that saying you take the man out the ghetto but you can’t get the cold corners dark lights and smoky rooms from the soul. It stays trapped in the walls of your skin like that metallic musk you smell when you step in the elevators and sazon sticking to the hallways of your hope.

Where I’m at? Right in the back park, headphones on, zoned out, looking at the moon shift shape in the purple sky while the clouds cling on to the good memories of today trying to make the pain go away so that the sunrise can be brighter tomorrow. Analyzing the parts of myself that I keep hidden tucked away like the secrets behind my eyelids. Most likely just catching my breath while about to breeze around the city, scooping inspiration from the beast when the conga man bangs boogaloo on his bongo, the iron horse rumbles to the next stop, hopefully I will be getting wherever on time at least within reasonable colored people tardiness. Right to action.

But what happens when the words aren’t enough? Do we ever stop being poetry in life?