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Hampton, Like Fred
Hampton boulevard buzzes. I stalk sidewalk. A Free Palestine flag flaps in front of an old tree, towering, like a symbol of an American today, a tale creeping along flesh, begging for the right interpretation.D.… Read more
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Too Short Narrates American Morning
Flip the switch. Press the gas. Cruise Waterside Drive until sunlight blurs the traffic lights. Icarus before the crash. Maybe. Too Short talks that talk. Runs down the science of hustle. Rock the Bells on… Read more
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Audio Leak Sundays: Savage Life
THANKS FOR LISTENING. MAKE SURE TO SUBSCRIBE TO MAILBOX WEEKLY! Read more
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Our Father’s Flag Is Quite Different
Freedom and liberation hop and skip down broken boulevards and polluted streets. Decay is decay, no matter how one explains it. Metallic rhetoric chips the air. Only valid when the right complexion is involved. It… Read more
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‘Murican Monday
Not of this planet. Navigating polluted winds is essential, like jazz finding synergy after a few minutes. Coltrane’s code to the heavens. American politicsare boring. I stretch. I yawn. I liberate with each breath. A… Read more
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Cosplay_is_the_Norm (Sheesh)
Back in the bag, or the gamble,or the risk, rolling dice against gray concrete, trying to fortifywings to clip polluted skies. The boy is too fly, unkempt, and unruly,escaping the hot mouthed silliness of so-called… Read more
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Ready_for_I-64_and_America’s_Smile
Switching lanes on Interstate 64. Backups don’t mean much. Latin jazz vibes. Surfing on steel drums, congas, keys, melodies. Police cruisers patrol the spots between Military and Brambleton–ravens setting speed traps, but the people smirk… Read more
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Smoke_is_Normal
Hop and skip over social debris. Pursue the daylight, hovering toward the East. Oceanfront got them good vibes. Play Kind of Blue and let me lose track of the noise, the talking heads, and the… Read more
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Taking_Notes_from_Behind_an_American_Wall
(Inspired by Darryl Moss’s “From Numbers to Power“) Outrun hope. Sidestep hate. Allow the people to see Resistance as the new Golden Rule. I rule the space between my ears. The American puzzle is nothing… Read more
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Blue_in_Green
Listening to Blue in Green and Miles Davis offers a glimpse of daylight. Coltrane blows lightning. She says, “What are you listening to?” I say, “Prelude to a Revolution.” Subtle like God peeking through off-white… Read more
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Mr._Monroe’s_Ski_Mask
Mr. Monroe got a ski mask. Nothing but a smokescreen for plunder, for pillage, for rape, for robbery, for exploitation, for OIL, for global theft in the WEST. Indigenous lands don’t stand a chance (don’t… Read more
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I_Too_Sing_of_Decay
I, too, sing of decay and rot, swinging for the noses of State Repression and Control. Imperialism hides his hand; he tucks a ski mask in his back pocket. He talks about promises of wealth… Read more
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Sum_of_Man
Ease into morning. Stealth-like. A Robert Glasper melody establishing a new beginning. The day yawns, stretches, and turns the key. Ignite the motivation to live freely. This day-to-day thing takes a certain mastery, a skill,… Read more
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Black_Joy_is_a_Breakbeat
Shaking dice or pistachios during a pulsing breakbeat–a 1980’s thing. Boom-boom, bap, bap, bap, bap Boom-boom, bap, bap, bap, bap Militant intro to a New World blues. BLUES. Preacher offers a sermon. Our Father who… Read more
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Sunflower_Seeds_and_the_Work_of_Tomorrow
No filters up here. Alone on a tightrope above the noise, the metal, the grit, the social pollution; miles away from a soiled Constitution, I sharpenthe edge of a brain fixated on survival. Laced up… Read more
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Tethered_to_the_Master’s_Feet
High-stepping over snake-like structuresseems to be easy when avoiding them filthy cherry pies. I keep moving, like grit is a small bird perched on my shoulders. Trump hollers about immigrants with darker hues. New identity… Read more
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Dopamine_Drip_From_Cracked_ Pipes
Don’t chase the temporary high of click bait and sophisticated ways to steal attention. We have been reduced to mindlessly scrolling for our enslavement–prisoners trapped behind walls, claiming we are free because the Constitution says… Read more
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Delineation_for_Dummies
Delineation without nationhood is cosplay. Delineation without nationhood is COSPLAY, is cosplay, is cosplay, IS COSPLAY. They love them red, white, and blue apples, falling from Empire’s ripped garments. They pray to colonial fathers to… Read more
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No_Mercy_in_the_American_ Jungle
Mercy can’t live in a jungle. This experiment is deadly, a creature that tries to fill its belly on the flesh of humans. A game of click-clack starts as soon as boots touch the ground.… Read more
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Late_Autumn_Talks_in_Tongues
Balancing weight for the fifth time this week. Subtle. Heavy. A bluesy rhythm set to the tone of American hustle, muscle. Carlos Santanna strums a melody for a sun hanging on a cold day in… Read more
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Used to the Weather
Adapting to the changes. To changes, I adapt. Eerily. Patiently. An early November morning winks her eye. Still gambling with old dice, trying to outlive the poison of snakebites or out hustle the pigs at… Read more
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Words and Beats at Sundown
Joy is a state of mind. Even a crooked smile has value. Changing tires in the wilderness has become a thing. Greg Lee unpacks the gear for another small crowd. We fall in with the… Read more
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With Outstretched Wings
American politics weigh the equivalent of a night without Bobby Womack’s raspy voice filling this space. Eerie. Boring. Slightly neutral. Need some Soul to waist away the evening. Maybe some Blues from John Lee Hooker.… Read more
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Tell An Entirely Different Story
Allow wings to stretch, like the doors of a Cinnamon-skinned Ford Explorer cruising through the late 90s. Dad used to crisscross state lines, while I used to catch snoozes in the back seat, listening to… Read more
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Militant Kiss at Lunch Time
Step through empire, leave ruins on the bottom of black boots–lace themthings for struggle, for the gamble, for the hustle,for the swollen knuckles, for the donkeys, for the elephants, for the fat cats. Swell the… Read more
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New Poems in The Skinny Poetry Journal!
Peace and greetings! I hope this message finds you well and finding some semblance of peace in the current whirlwinds of the American experience. The Skinny Poetry Journal has published two of my poems, James… Read more
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Unbothered: After Election Time
After voting time, my face is still shaped like a fist. Tightly screwed. Unbothered. Huey P. Newton behind a podium or Fred Hampton trying to build class solidarity. The truth lives in a gray area,… Read more
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Nation-Building Escapes Fingertips
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.”–Marianne Williamson Allergic to nation-building and… Read more
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American Jazz in Late October
A different path. A different frequency. Flight is an idea, a way of life for people who are locked into alternative methods of screaming into the void, an American thing. The Last Poets talk fear… Read more
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Audio Leak Sundays: Junk Food
THANKS FOR LISTENING. MAKE SURE TO SUBSCRIBE TO MAILBOX WEEKLY! Read more
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Stand Down, Stand Up, and Kneel at the Same Time
Avoid cosplay by any means. Ten toes down. Actors can’t live here. As an Orange tyrant drives a filthy machine through traffic, hoping to convert sleepy people into patriotic minions. Toxic. Life in the margins is… Read more
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Resistance as Lullaby
Say no to empire, to both wings of the same filthybird. Parties of failure and gas lighters. Let the teacher bless cold classrooms with fiery lessons from US history. Let young Emmett Till get his… Read more
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No Emotions for a Failed Party
Hakeem Jeffries kneels for the umpteenth time this year. Tap shoes grind down to the soles on men who don’t have souls. They float, like bees, but sting and shuck, like worthless pigs, sporting power… Read more
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Get a copy of Blues in June Today!
For the next 7 days, readers can purchase copies of Blues in June, which is a small collection of poems from the forthcoming Blues Man on a Tightrope Vol. 1! Click on the image and… Read more
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Choose Smoke: If You Must Interact With Donkeys or Elephants
Dramatic. Like Gandhi tucking a firearm into the waistline of a three-piece suit, asking Congressto pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Or like Tupac spitting at reporters, and then speeding down the street… Read more
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AUDIO LEAK SUNDAYS: STRANGE DNA
TAKE A LISTEN TO STRANGE DNA AND THEN SUBSCRIBE TO MAILBOX WEEKLY! Read more
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No Half-Pints in My School Daze
I could worry. Or go with God. A superior man doesn’t fold though. Alpha. No Greek letters. No fraternities. No hierarchies. No dances. No colonial rituals or silly names to prove my worth. No Half-Pints.… Read more
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Gas Lighters Tap Dance in the Comments Section
Spare me the fan fiction. Spare me the counterfeit morality. Spare me the bankrupted hymns of polluted country. Allow me to dig into my black crate for liberation music,for the perfect anti-system record to make… Read more
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