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Thursday, August 28, 2014

#icebucketchallenge

"Why can’t achieving peace on the streets 
be as easy as dumping a bucket of ice water 
on someone’s head?


Is peace not cool enough? 
Hmph! 
If thats your only objection, 
I’m sure we can start a challenge 
that pleases the masses. Whattaya say?
Maybe we can have every hoodlum 
in the world on camera dumping the bullets 
from their magazine on the governments door step. 
Yeah, that way making a statement would be an 
understatement right?


Ha!

They’ll probably be practically 
begging us to keep killing each other. 
And obviously that won’t work, 
so they’ll begin to bribe us with 
MONEY like they always do. 
The all-powerful green paper God 
we can never get enough of
.


Well, 
I’m sure we all know 
how that story will play out. 
Pathetic. 
I’m beginning to think there really may be no hope after all.”

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

I See Dead People

12th & girard smells like a graveyard nowadays.

But even so, I still wonder what would it be like
if the pavement wasn’t made of skeleton bones.
If the air didn’t taste of blood and childhood memories,
would it still be my home away from home?
Would I still want to be an artist if I didn’t see their chalk outlines?

I swear,
if an apartment complex could have a heart beat—
they were that. They were the sitcom in an episode of laughter.

…Now they’re nothing more than…

Some nights, if I close my eyes tight enough,
I can see myself as a boy standing against a balcony railing.
High enough in the air to spin the sun on my finger
and play Tic-Tac-Toe in the craters of a Full Moon.
With eyes like an assassin staring down at my
grandmother and sister sitting on a weathered
park bench that chips away cleanly like hope does from life.

They both look like they haven’t aged a day.
My sister’s wrapping her hair into a ponytail
and my grandmother smiles at a two pigeons
fighting over a piece of bread. Shortly after,
they get up and walks towards the gates exit
like its a entrance into heaven.
And maybe it is.

They always stop and whisper something
to each other; then laugh hysterically.
I try my hardest to hear them or even say something, but
their voices are too low and my tongue feels like it weighs a ton.
Eventually they leave and I wait around patiently for days.
The same way a boy does when his mother promises
him ice cream if he’s quiet in the doctor’s office.
But they never come back.
And the truth is, they never will.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Where is Justice?

"Justice?…pshh, last place I seen justice 
was on a milk carton. It was ah picture of her 
and it said something about callin’ ah 1-800 
number if you have any information.
I think she was last seen hoppin’ into ah umm…
ah Crown Vic, you know the same car Five-O drive. 
Hmph, ironic right. She probably long gone now though, 
you know in the hood aint nobody talkin’. 
We either let our money talk, or that chopper stutter if need be.


Interviewer: What’s a chopper?

Don’t worry about it. But a couple of hours ago 
my homie was just telling me how ah cop shot 
down that black unarmed teen in #Ferguson 
the other day for jaywalking.


Interviewer: They’re still investigating.

Oh yeah, whats to investigate? 
He aint have no weapon on him! 
Thats somebodies son man. 
Somebodies friend. That wasn’t worth his life. 
But they got their hands full now though. 
Them protest loud enough to wake the 
world up out its bed of ignorance. 
Mark my words.


Interview: Thanks for the interview.
No thank you man…thank you.”

Monday, August 18, 2014

Journey to #Ferguson

I can hear the protest in #Ferguson
from the rocking chair of my front porch.
On foot, thats approximately 872 miles away,
which means if I left at this very moment
it would probably take me 12 days to get there.
Thats right, the riots are loud enough
to hear several states away.

However,
I have to take into consideration
that my skin looks like a bullseye nowadays,
so unless God can thread me a bulletproof vest
out of prayer, I probably won’t make it
out of Pennsylvania alive.

And last I heard there were
war tanks moving at the speed of drive-bys,
rubber bullets being buried in flesh,
and enough tear gas to make you cry bloody murder.
Before that I heard some dwellers of #Ferguson
decided looting from Walmart would be
the best way to honor Michael Brown’s memory…

On second thought, maybe I should just stay home.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

CrossFire

She use to have a block party
DJing her heartbeat. Until the
Grim Reaper crashed it with his
posse of ogres and kidnapped her
3-year-old daughters soul right out
of her smile. Now she walks the plank
of life blindfolded with cannonballs tied
to her feet and a cutlass blade poking
at her back. Afraid that if she blinks too
hard it might set off the bombs in her
stomach and let all hell break loose.
You never put anything past a grief-stricken
mother whose future looks like it
french kissed an apoca-(lypse).
Because everyday, is another day,
she wakes up, stares life in the eyes,
and remembers.

Monday, August 11, 2014

Muhammad Ali Bad!

I say what I want. 
If I smoked I would use a 
fire breathing dragon to spark up my blunt. 
Yeah I’m bad. 
Bad enough to sentence 
Satan to timeout in a confessional. 
My kind of bad is harder to find than a 
fugitive playing hide-and-go-seek 
with his own shadow in the dark. 
Harder to hold than your breath 
for ten minutes in outer space. 
I’m so bad that even my whispers 
end with exclamation points. 
If you have never played hot potato 
with the sun for fun, than we shouldn’t be 
having this conversation about whose bad is badder. 
Because honestly, I would much rather be 
in the middle of nowhere right now toasting 
marshmallows over campfires with my bare hands. 
Listening to the wolves howl and the bears bellow. 
Waiting until someone worthy enough comes along 
to remove me from this electric chair of a throne I rest in.

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Nickelodeon on Sunset

Celebrities are not Gods.

I don’t think the creator of the
universe would suffer brain damage
after being deprived of oxygen for
three minutes. If it bleeds like a
human than its a human.

We often forget that before a
record deal some celebrities were
nothing more than purse-snatchers
holding their future hostage at gunpoint.

TV is not a distant planet light years away.

In fact, the world is so small that 
President Barack Obama could
open his second-story window and
throw a quarter into a homeless man’s cup.

My point is some of us worship
the same people on-screen
that we condemn off-screen
just because they take a limo
to work instead of a bus.

But let me leave you with this thought,
the moon will never learn to appreciate
its own brilliance, if its always idolizing
the shining stars.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

The Devil's Advocate

Some people would rather be
drunk off blood money than holy water;
bathe in hell’s flames instead of baptism.

I often daydream of life after death
—maybe too often. But when the reaper
has hit home once already I don’t think
its too farfetched to believe he’s always
arms length away.

Counting down your
heartbeats like hours at work.
Lurking behind every corner you turn,
waiting for you to drop your guard
into a smile, so that he can blindside
you through a stray bullet or a drunk driver.

Vanity is what makes one think
tomorrow is promised and today
isn’t precious enough to enshrine.

The reaper has shown us time and
time again that humans are expendable.
That your life can be nothing more
than God’s coin trick. So choose now
to humbly live your life and cherish
each moment dearly or forever
hold your peace.

Monday, August 4, 2014

Silver Spoon

I was conceived in a
project highrise in Pittsburgh.
It wasn’t the safest place to live
so we moved before I was
old enough to remember,
however there are plenty of
war stories about gangs and crimes
that my brothers reminisce on
like barstools. So its no secret that
when my mother gave birth to me,
I didn’t come out with a silver spoon
in my mouth—none of my siblings did.
But we watched our parents crawl out
of hellholes like heaven was at the top
with open arms screaming their names.
Back then paradise was nothing
more than a peaceful neighborhood
with one of the top ranked
school districts in the country.
Now its just a place we call home.
My family is far from perfect.
But honestly, what fun is perfect
when you can look back on your life
and see how much it favors the
one you dreamed of…