Amethyst Rocks - Saul Williams

What I got, come and get some,
get on up, hustler of culture.

I stand on the corner of the block slinging amethyst rocks,
drinking 40s of mother earth’s private nectar stock,
dodging cops, cuz’ 50 be the 666 and I need a fix of that purple rain:
the type of shit that drives membranes insane.
Oh yeah, I’m in the fast lane snorting candy yams
that free my body and soul and send me like Shazaam,
never question who I am. God knows, and I know God personally,
in fact he lets me call him “me,”
I be one with rain and stars and things
with dancing feet and watermelon rings,
I brings the sunshine and the moon,
and the wind blows my tune.
Meanwhile I spoon powdered drumbeats into plastic bags,
selling kilos of kintae skag, taking drags off of collards
and cornbread, freebasing through saxophones and flutes like mad.
The high notes make me space-float,
I be exhaling in rings that circle Saturn,
leaving stains in my veins in astrological patterns.
Yeah I’m serious B, doggone niggers plotted shit lovely,
but the feds is also plotting me,
they’re trying to imprison my astrology,
put my stars behind bars, my stars and stripes,
using blood-splattered banners as nationalist kites,
but I control the wind, that’s why the call it the hawk.
I am Horus, son of Isis, son of Osirus, worshipped as Jesus,
resurrected like Lazarus, but you can call my Lazzy, lazy,
yeah I’m lazy because I’d rather sit and build
and work on top of a field and worship the
daily yield of cash green crops,
your evolution stopped the evolution of your technology:
a society of automatic tellers and money machines.
Nigga’ what, my culture is lima beans and tambourines,
dreams, manifest dreams real, not consistent with rationale,
I dance for no reason, for reason you can’t dance,
call me an activist of intellectualized circumstance,
you can’t learn my steps until you unlearn your thoughts,
spirit, soul, can be store-bought, fuck thought,
leads to naught, simply leads to you trying to figure me out,
your intellect’s disfiguring your soul,
your being’s not whole, check your flagpole,
stars and stripes, your astrology’s
imprisoned by your concept of white, of self,
what’s your plan for spiritual health? Calling reality unreal,
your line of thought is tangled, the star
spangled got your soul mangled, your being’s angled,
forbidding you to be real and feel, you can’t find truth
with an axe or a drill in a white house on a hill or
in factories or plants made of steel. Selling us was the
smartest thing you ever did, too bad you don’t teach the
truth to your kids. My influence on user reflection you
see when you look in your minstrel mirror and talk about
your culture, your existence is that of a schizophrenic
vulture who thinks he has enough life in him to prey on the dead,
not knowing that the dead ain’t dead, that he ain’t got enough
spirituality to know how to pray. Yeah, there’s no repentance,
you’re bound to live in infinite consecutive executive life sentence.
So while you’re busy serving time I’ll be in sync with the
moon while you run from the sun. Life of the moon,
reflected by guns, worship of moons, I am the sun,
and I am public enemy number one, one one one, one one one,
that’s seven. And I’ll be out on the block, hustling culture,
slinging amethyst rocks.

©2003, Saul Williams

Are you going to follow in your fathers footsteps?

Q. Are you going to follow

in your Fathers footsteps?

A. My fathers footsteps

lead to my Mothers bed

where I spent most of my childhood.

Why return where I have already been?

--

Saul Williams.

A different Jenny Browne

So here I was doing what I often do on a Wednesday evening, reading a bit of Jennys poetry - its even easier now cause it comes straight into my email via RSS along with a few other of my favorite blogs. Anyway, I've been aware of an American poet, also called Jenny Browne, and this is her.

Space has always reduced me to silence.

I love these first two quotes, havent had time to read this particular article from

http://fluxwurx.com/placemaking/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/bachelard_poetics.pdf but I'll have a gander and let you know if its worth reading, seems pretty deep and no doubt an interesting read.

Said the shotgun to the head.

your priests and presidents

no longer matter

only you and I, my love

[…]

throw away your map

and swallow

this cratered pill

pull it from the sky

and let it dissolve

under your tongue

it is only a matter of time

before we are timeless

two kinds of hell

I sat in the same bar for 7 years, from 5 a.m.
(the day bartender let me in 2 hours early)
to 2 a.m.
sometimes I didn't even remember going back
to my room
it were as if I were sitting on the barstool
forever
I had no money but the drinks kept
arriving
to them I wasn't the bar clown
but the bar fool
but at times a fool will find a greater
fool to
admire him,
and,
it was a crowded
place
actually, I had a viewpoint: I was waiting for
something extraordinary to
happen
but as the years wasted on
nothing ever did unless I
caused it:
broken bar mirrors, a fight with a 7 foot
giant, a dalliance with a lesbian, many things
like the ability to call a spade a spade and to
settle arguments that I did not
begin and etc. and etc. and etc.
one day I just upped and left the
place
like that
and I began to drink alone and I found the company
quite all right
then, as if the gods were bored with my peace at
heart, knocks began upon my door: ladies
the gods had sent the ladies to the
fool
and the ladies arrived one at a time and when it ended with
one
the gods immediately--without allowing me any respite--sent
another
and each began as a flash of miracle--even the bed--and the
good ended up
bad
my fault, of course, yes, that's what they told
me
but I remembered the 7 years in the bar, I hardly ever bedded
down with anybody
the gods just won't let a man drink alone, they are jealous of
his simple strength and salvation, they will send the lady
knocking upon that door
I remember all those cheap hotels, it were as if the women
were one: the delicate little rap on the wood and then:
"oh, I heard you playing that music on your radio...we're
neighbors, I'm down at 603 but I've never even seen you in
the hall..."
"come on in..."
and there go your balls and your sanctity, Men's Liberation,
they say, is not needed
and then you remember the bar
when you walked up behind the 7 foot giant and knocked his
cowboy hat off his head, yelling:
"I'll bet you sucked your mother's nipples until you were
12 years old!"
somebody in the bar saying: "hey, sir, forget it, he's a mental
case, he's an asshole, he doesn't know what he is
saying!"
"I know EXACTLY what I am saying and I'll say it again:
I'll bet you sucked..."
he won but you didn't die, not at all the way you died when the
gods arranged to get all those ladies knocking and you went for
the first flash of miracle
the other fight was more fair: he was slow, stupid and even a
little bit frightened and it went well for quite a good while,
just like with the ladies those gods
sent
the difference being, I thought I had a chance with the
ladies
from "Third Lung Review" - 1992
http://bukowski.net/poems/hell.php

Ione, Dead the Long Year

EMPTY are the ways,

Empty are the ways of this land

And the flowers

Bend over with heavy heads.

They bend in vain.

Empty are the ways of this land

Where Ione

Walked once, and now does not walk

But seems like a person just gone.

Ezra Pound

lips consume every corner of my mind

he is the boy who always
listens when nobody else will

i am the girl who waits until
everybody else has left the
house just so i can let every
syllable that escapes his
lips consume every
corner of my mind

he is the boy who empties
words that he cannot say
to anybody else unto me

i am the girl who feels
the same, nods and
echoes the pain

he is the boy who tells me
that he cannot bring himself
to love his father because his
father refuses to love him

i am the girl who wants the
boy to be loved, because
he loves everything else
in this world so fiercely

he is the boy who dances
under the sun and kisses
under the moon

i am the girl who watches
and smiles and knows
that i will never have
anything quite like
that again

he is the boy who tells me
that not even the people
he could spend hours and
days and weeks with will
ever understand him

i am the girl who will
always understand

he is the boy who is
judged for something he
is not

i am the girl who is judged
for something that i am

he is the boy who will
never refuse to stop loving
even if miles of grey tar mac
stand in the way

i am the girl who will never
be able to behave herself
the way in which he can

he is the boy who loves the
right way

i am the girl who can never
fight drunken desire

he is the boy who tells
me that everything will
be just fine

i am the girl who could
never have asked for words
like these from anybody
else's mouth

he is the boy who listens
to the story that i have
only ever told a few people
and says that i can fight it

i am the girl who will
fight it

he is the boy who will
fight it
too

I can see the answer in her tired eyes.

Deep.

Some degree of understanding.

Found something I wrote a few years ago,
Its rubbish, but I like the memories it brings up for me, what does it do for you?

Some degree of understanding.
that desperate jokes inner meaning.
The crusty cracked stem of the old book.
Creaking like a door crying to be opened.
to find yet another blank room.
the room is the canvas of life.
I splat a few lines of paint on the walls.

Dream people

...If dream people where the world there would be no time for reflection.

We would never decipher the language of our lives, despite the methaphoric cluues all around us.

We would never wake up to realise we were dreaming.

Cascando

Samuel Beckett

Cascando

1

why not merely the despaired of
occasion of
wordshed

is it not better abort than be barren

the hours after you are gone are so leaden
they will always start dragging too soon
the grapples clawing blindly the bed of want
bringing up the bones the old loves
sockets filled once with eyes like yours
all always is it better too soon than never
the black want splashing their facessaying again nine days never floated the loved
nor nine months
nor nine lives

2

saying again
if you do not teach me I shall not learn
saying again there is a last
even of last times
last times of begginglast times of loving
of knowing not knowing pretending
a last even of last times of saying
if you do not love me I shall not be loved
if I do not love you I shall not love

the churn of stale words in the heart again
love love love thud of the old plunger
pestling the unalterablewhey of words

terrified again
of not loving
of loving and not you
of being loved and not by you
of knowing not knowing pretending
pretending

I and all the others that will love you
if they love you

3

unless they love you

(S. Beckett, 1936)

from Collected Poems in English and French, S. Beckett, Grove Press, Inc. N.Y. 1977

What Burns Above My House

What Burns Above My House from dirtyverbs on Vimeo.

There is so much happening in the sky
it’s all we can do to keep ourselves distracted.

The monsoons roll in the late summer.
We set the mowers against the grass,
they graze like domesticated helicopters.
Their growl fills up the neighborhood.

Hawks fly down from the foothills
bending the wind with their wide arms.
They watch for mice running
from the mowers’ whirling mouths.

The clear sky hemorrhages a beautiful white cancer,
the sun becomes more beautiful in its gradual eclipse
because we notice only transitions
and invent things like boredom
to camouflage our moments.

Everything smells of clean electric sex.
The wind has distance on its breath.
The afternoon begins to explode.

A season like this
makes me wonder how we ever managed
to shove time into clocks and watches,
keeping time like a tiger on a leash,
oblivious to its obvious rebellion.

Sooner doesn’t always come before later.
Now is never stuck in the middle,
monsooner or later it will all come down.

The dirt roads will arrive eventually.
Today they’re running late
-Logan Phillips

The sun said Shine

Out of my mind, there's no love in there I move on, move on

I don't know whether to laugh or cry
And i don't know whether to live or die
I kept my love for her locked deep inside
It cuts like a knife
She's out of my life
Out of my life, out of my hair
Out of my mind, there's no love in there
I move on, move on
Dear god, i wasn't breast fed
And most of my conversations with men seem to revolve around music
I'm no musician but the pain has been instrumental
My sense finally tune the instruments of
Of being lonely, of being lost, of being loved, of being human
Man i could use a metaphor but i can't get beyond this shit
I could use someone to talk to
But most of my conversations with men seem to revolve around music
I am a poet who composes what the world proses
And proses what the world composes
I am a poet who composes what the world proses
And proses what the world composes
Damned indescion and cursed pride
I kept my love for her locked deep inside
And i don't know what to do
To get it through to you
Get out of my life tonight
Get out of my life
Out of my life, out of my hair
Out of my mind, 'cause no lovin' fair
I move on, move on
She had nothing but time on her hands
Silver rings, turquoise stones and purple nails
I rub my thumb across her palm
A featherbed where slept a psalm
Yay though i walked, i used to fly, and now we dance
I watch my toenails blacken and walk a deadened trance
'til she woke me with the knife edge of her glance
I have the scars to prove the clock strikes with her hands
And i don't know what to do
To get it through to you
And i don't know what to do
To get it through
Out of my life, out of my hair
Out of my mind, 'cause no lovin' fair
I move on, move on, i move on

Poetry by Saul Williams, photography by Neil Krug

A common sense of direction

she is the one who said 'fun' sounded like a word of german origin
she thought too much

like me

our time together like summer (concentration) camp
emaciated possibilities lie lifeless

oh this intellect burns
the crematorium below my nose keeps life
above my ears

silence is the star that i shall wear to mark my difference
yet we have so much in common
tonight
that the sun has made light of it
while we contemplate the weight of it all

it is we that are emaciated
our bodies subject to our minds propaganda

forgive the distinction but
intellect fairs moments genocide
and we should have kissed hours ago
you hold you breath when you should hold your tongue
and hold your tongue when you should hold my hand
and i should delegate more authority to myself
but i can't help thinking
that you're thinking
thinking
what is she thinking

"She stuck a bookmark in my heart and walked away."

But he's left footprints on the inside of his sisters eyelids and they've learned to walk without him.

Come back tomorrow for the next instalment!

I am the Ocean

I am the Ocean


World of Womad is where I danced
All shimmering and blue
The animals inside of me
jumped up, went down and swam through
some people even swam in me
It tickled and made me laugh

But now

I'm a green murky colour
It isn't much fun
I'm dark and gloomy and ever so lonely
No-one comes near me
So I don't laugh any more
I am deserted
The animals have gone replaced by litter
I am lifeless
In a deathly silence
I was the ocean
Now I am the dead sea

A sudden realisation narrated by spoken word.

I hate nothing more than people who repeat things on their blogs, I mean its so arrogant just thinking that just cause you have an internet connection it doesn't mean that you are in some way some an art critic and that people should listen to what you have to say.
BUT.
As I have said countless times before I love Jenny Browne and her poetry and I want to say that I have had a particular sentence of this stuck in my head then I could justify putting it here. But I haven't, I love it all, I want to pick one line, but I have no favourite parts and I can never stop reading once I begin. Thankyou for putting my unsaid feelings into words.


It’s got nothing to do with love. A sweeping feeling dragging you down to the bottom of the ocean; your back rubs the corals, aquamarine skims by and you float motionlessly through this tunnel of blue. Like the butt of a cigarette into burning ashes - a ring of amber surrounds the tip and drags it down. Impossible situations, lost communications, broken faces and mistakes of the past. You can’t get over, you can’t get under. Hold yourself close and think of home. The safest place to stay alive, your private rooms in which to hide. I can think of nothing I want more than to disappear. Fade away into the solemn darkness, grabbing at air as you are pushed through the wind tunnel. A given name, meaning sorrowful is thrown at you and you reach out but only oxygen skims through your grasp. Nothing to hold; nothing to have. Naked in the darkness, oily skin and dry palms, perspiration rolling down your forehead and dripping moisture onto my face.. I am smiling in the obscurity but you can’t see. I giggle noisily and you collapse on top of me, burying your head into my pillow. As you raise your head I catch a glimpse of the corners of your mouth, rising to meet your ears. Warmth is at one, just as I am with you. I am thinking ridiculous thoughts. A blackbird in solitude on a fence post in spring. Waiting for the morning to rise up and sing. Reduced visibility during the lighting of the sky. It will let me out, release me and fly. When I was little I didn’t know love, now I’ve been through and out and I am still unable to breathe. A torturous rollercoaster. It melts your mind, freezes up your brain and holds you back from anyone else you had ever imagined being with. Thinking about you or me or you and me is like an epiphany. A sudden realisation narrated by spoken word. The essence of a meaning, but without a meaning, no common logic or symmetry. There are too many miles between us for this to be real. We cannot hold it together because you are never here. I can still smell you, the dirt between your fingers, your hair wet from the rain. That time we kissed was so beautiful, God opened up the heavens and the rain came down in sheets. You grabbed my hand and ran, me lagging behind. We went away to hide and you pulled me up close, wrapped up in each other to stay warm. The affection I felt for you cannot compare to anyone I meet now, and might possibly share. We are going nowhere other than down a steep slope and I wish for the day when I am finally completed, when we are older and more intelligent and sick to the bones of not seeing each other for so long. It’s so hard. I am tumbling head over heels for this image. This vision, these dreams that I cannot contain, I see you smile in the half-light, smothered in rain. If I close my eyes they will want to be open. If I try to stay awake this apparition will grab me. Alone in my bed at a quarter to two, I lift up my eyelids and turn over and see you. But it is not you, simply a space in my bed and I stroke the same space where maybe one day you will be.

A keen eye.

The clinical glow from the television.
The still ambiance of dim globes.
It sets on his skin,creating a contrast.
Too inadequate for another eye to notice.
Eyes that create a muddy puddle to reflect mine.
Eyes that hold me so gently amongst my surroundings.
They help me forget,help me sleep the way I do.
There's no hell here,no pain.
Slow steady breathing,slow beating,placid thoughts.
Barely awake,eyes half shut,my eyelashes make home for a soft haze.
There's something about this moment,this feeling.
I'm at home,literally,metaphorically.
I'm at home.

I like the lack of format or direct narreative, it's somewhat darkly enchanting. Thankyou Mimirose Lorraway