We are also mercenaries

What kind of knowledge will be possible ?

When the impostors woke up  nodding with authenticity

we did not   blame them   for listening  to our music   at the crucifixion      oblivious to irony   we can

                                                                                                            all hang out  

in a disco

quote the rack of lamb    with sluggish     gluttony      I see  you      resent  the women  you admire  — the black entertainer's admirable  blues — what  kind of knowledge   will be possible       when    you   can no longer    horde a rhythm  against the will of  its   substance          and  desire is no longer a minefield  occupied by nihilists    and    there is   no  longer any dilemma   in  the shy    watermelon    which shows  up  as an analog for contrived  shame   every time I'm   saying  I  love   you      sugar loose   as    spooks on     ballots             How evangelical!    

The democratization of intimacy

The house of the damsel

Well as I watched and listened to where sound went     I didn't get closer to god

                                                                                                                                     I became God





You have to be  a hero      my mother warned       and then    how do blacks   show fear   with love      she asked                       I just laughed        by example      all the revolutionaries  are perverts      an excess of skill    spent   on imagination  and sex            is   a million different  demons  clutching their shadows   on the folk  invisible      a prolapsed  dream  


In the script  they have me waiting  at the top of the staircase  in a red dress   that is some days,   green    


for some punk who expects to impress me         with diamonds        when I love him for     his demons  

                                                                        finally                                                      the way they                                    

                                                                                                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                                                          shine    

Media Resurrection

The Inside Songs

Willingly

 For efficiency     I'll address my lover and leader  as if they are  one  and both  me    and   a Sunday  kind of /  I  mean/  like  a preacher   the only people who know how to say nothing  and everything    break  into me   as myself    and wait with for her with   objective  eyes   how I  prove   I love  you    as much when I'm  high  as when   I'm  riding   a loose wheel alongside  the   fire     daring it forward       have  I already   used   that   thought   before     maybe    in a different   or lazier  radiance    maybe  but  who cares   

The point is   what about the Invisible Woman    his perfect compliment    where is Ellison's     finally treatise  in honor   of her.   What  is  she like.  The fierce  one   fiercer  still with  every triumph  with every   defeat    even  her defeats   make you feel triumphant   or effete    look that up   again to make sure  too refined   by  your  morals   to rage   and bless  and be under siege  and running free like her       who is  she    what is the thing that is most important   to her      and how does  she rile it into  joy and grievances   alternately   how does she use self-awareness to avoid  herself.  

And will it all get easier   when niggas are obsolete   willingly    and her invisible wings show up on the craps table   double seven   gold fronts   a knack for laughing with old men  and turning their sick jokes into parables      

Miles began taking a little bit of cocaine occasionally      recreationally addicted is the latest clean  

I'm dealing with the myth that I'm an angel

    

The disorientation of sweet violence (again)

Kill    /  For the Echo      

Our silver lining word  immortal   with the thrill  of it           the settlement   millions 

           the right to say beginner   and mean    we  recur     and  find comfort in 

recurrence   otherwise I'd   watch him  burn   jive  the oracular  rains  back to shore   and   treat  the brief epic  like a  glaring alternative  you wish you didn't require    you cannot  live   without.   

I'm saying what is the sweet thing aching in the eyes   of the lifeless    that we risk their   envy     their fit   of  ghosts    to  invent    the hero   who disappears     them      Who is the hero  now?   

Your power's all dirty  and  a rapper out of Miami, calls himself   Clams Casino     he reached   out to Osiris   got him     off  that Al Jolson  Jazz Singer   horror      was you hero  then  fisted chorus of a negro  entropy empathy   trophy   immediate  and sober    who is  your    hero    now?      

I'm a peaceful  girl   in   spite  of it   all     but   I'm   considering    spreading these  limber   things   into a fine  and mellow dynasty  while  it's  still  supple   will and wine     I mean    on a couple   covers     I mean   that seductive innocence  that makes the men touch  themselves    until   the clouds  swell    while I whisper   a faux submissive who's  your hero now ?      Going the healer   route       is power  beautiful   as it ebbs into  duty   how is your beauty  now     automatic     I'm  howling      against the urge   to  be proud   of   war     when  it  coordinates   my  people      and the lure  of the solo  is    who are  my people   now?       Patient  for crime.   The disorientation of sweet violence awake   in   us   again      

and we are expensive  

we are so expansive  

and freedom  isn't even  romantic   unless it's by accident     we wondered              

and the will only  fails  when it opposes   the imagination         so  much           the lucky trickster  tricks  himself  also          He wears  false diamonds  as willingly   as real  ones

My Casual Soul

I work best as a fetish

And other things nobody ever says  (aloud)    are  audible    and heckle  the soul    bait the madness of great ones     into  the tame Monday   blues   I say blues   too   much   I mean it    usually    as  a fetish  working   its  crease   into   my     awakened spine    I   mean    I'm one of those    stageless in fancy polyester   man  says     queen   and means       breakfast together   once  in a while   in morning after lobby purple    when  his wife is out of town

He was sharp enough to take things off records

Alchemy at Daybreak

Wake up craving terror and Buckminster Fuller  is there on a trapeze and rapture as majestic as torture was  yesterday,  as   yearning   as    one   love    one  lo  ove    Marley  singing  while his skin   betrays him   his sun betrays,  his many women stay, which is betrayal  for what he is capable  of  is too obscenely  just   to be human or imminent      two  pieces of one :     what of it   he mutters like an apparition     disappears walking and clapping  into the spotlight's past black gimmick glowing with absence and merchandise.   He was practically sauntering   whisking the spell into song  and some sublime  apathy        as the searing  fix of babble  becomes the one  valve  of clarity  do   we  fear  ourselves becoming  whole.   If only we  were all a little crazier  more soul    just to enough to say what we aren't thinking    how lonely it is to overcome  ourselves   and the choreographed oppression    mellower   and more comfortable  some days    I'm tired  of the resin   in every great black preacher's voice,  the perfect  sanctimony  of manhood is better    pimps   are better   than holy men     at convincing    me  of anything   worth risking the illusion of duality  against     but you'd be surprised  how many of them  pump  the resin   at  daybreak

Leadership

Wanted :    high yellow black  man  who   hangs like a red bone  , not as in nooses  as  in pleasure  dome blues fetish/ muse / whatever  / well spoken in both protestant ethic English and  vernacular    knows when to use nigga when to use blood and when it's appropriate call his enemy  brother in the most sincere masochism this is a stick up back up must black up like cousins on rubber bullet crutches after strutting down the tuck-me-in blvd of fatherlessness    which is no longer an excuse and also impossible (repeat)          Must baffle with poise and know only how to feign dejection, never truly experience it     turn it into delirium  and ecstatic austerity.  Please, we are orphans, stand on the turnpike with your bullhorn and tell us we're born again, of kings  and queens and how can it be that we've allowed ourselves to be ruled by the barbaric cruelty of these cowards,  how can it be  that our would be leader strides a borrowed bridge looking for his soul in an eclipse of token disciples who don't know how or what to call themselves.  How can it  be  that we swell with fury  until our hearts are mythic  and elsewhere     I woke up from the comfort of my nightmare  to find a parody of wobbly gates   we could swing from  like a phase out of Atlantis   under  the demands  of our near extinction   I found  a banner of gates  that we can swing from  like flags    and brag and reminisce about when we had it like that    those virile high yellows  and the good luck microphones   and the crowds  and the  titles for groups who would stay a while   SNCC, Black Muslim, Panther,  someone  to name  the spectacle, a man,  a proud danger.  And America resents our new imagination, it is all wrong, too specific.  The freedom to love gets too close to the freedom to kill and they call the products of this: niggas / still / and we reproduce and cuddle with our mirrors looking for pointy things, and we become a city of gold crowns bobbing on the ocean surface hoping, just wishing you would come after us and trouble the mask/ 

what trauma, what glorious trauma, an act of perfect war, to love that man, that shallow leader, to love my country, to love myself again       invisible   like a proper soldier / property  / slave  -   low   in the cotton  playing a rotten   cello / pose /  for me /   baby, look at my shadow    papa  is no hardworking  martyr    in their grove          

As if we are the runners again

Her comments   on the universal   are naive  and Reconciliation  is   leaping     toward me like a violent violet hue          The   tainted  hue     of media   lucky ruthless bluette / it's  supposed   to be     the    20s ,   dread   is prohibited ,  my soldier,  the   legend overindulges   in rare souls and         there's   never one woman     ever        it's   incredible / video goals  /  and         she's   no   hoe   when  she's     in   hell  denouncing   sex without   love elbows to the cellophane  in the enigma melody,   Miles , 58-63 /  the noble , years   the   wife  fell to the floor   and found a well there -   years     liberated  -   elegant     But  the idea of universality doesn't  trouble   you    at all?       That we've all been       drinking  from that one careless stream of each other  and tripping down    the hearts of lenient  gods who pretend to be severe and so singular   like I'm your dearest    lore  or    like  the father   our father       had finally  reconciled  one calling with the other   just in time   to ball them all 

How a genius exploits  silence    for trembling   in that   late night diner   coke down the wrong  pipe  / gonner  / gonna  come back   to  light  the numb  in us  with terror    we trust  well as tenderness      

You can skip this ad in 15 seconds 

I begged him to stay away from jazz    and women  like that    who make   of it    

baffled excuses for the  duty free  future     and truisms  like 

I don't want to see another black man die  

fly down the isle   in   poker  white            

The Advanced Workers

Three Essays on a Theory of Bill Cosby

You've done everything you said you wouldn't, everything you said you despise 


Hide the beasts where I can find them   And fatherlessness   is no excuse    and          doctors make the best killers        observe  like an essay and    confess like   a poem  or       Antigone       because we  needed another paranoid nigga   to prove             pimps ain't shit     and another heroine chic to lure him into    it              

It's just that   what's not to love about the   way   righteousness buckles    as self-deception and the  tender  wet     mumbling   machines     of          smack  my bitch up    comes on the radio  right after Bach and Miles         fell to the knees of his still bloody wife  and begged her to stay   while she dialed  for help

Everyone is afraid   of being rejected   but everyone is more afraid   of being black     and abandoned by yourself, your own self  sold  to  Robert Johnson as        Heathen    Jackal   Hero    circus  code   fear of the telegram   fear of the telegram that reads   : yes    slowly,     act like you know me             jazz aficionado  pervert   early riser       my  cheeks   hurt    from smiling   at your   jokes     and   these   tears      are mostly     descending  the isle   of another   hungry   lie  

--

I had it all figured out, how in a country where the black man feels like he has no power, landless, oppressed in every direction, what better way to alleviate the strain of it than by oppressing women. And  then I thought, like Sterling Brown said, the strong men keep coming on. And I thought, love and respect are signs of that strength, no strong  man   would buckle   under   the pressure of his righteousness   let his mind slip  into the scarce  place   and a tight noose around     the eyes of idols   reads   loyal  in cursive   in   roots       And then I realized     could all evil  be some trite  form of helplessness   probably  not        but a hero    could  be evil and heroic   at the same  time     probably  not      but a   woman   can  be quiet   for almost a whole lifetime   but speak once      and crush your world  

---

I had this dream  that   me and O  were in a pick up truck after a dinner in Malibu  and I decided  to give him road  head on the way home.  But while I was distracted     he turned the car  on   in reverse   and drove  us   of a cliff   on purpose.  A paradise of innuendoes as we sloped  into  wings.  It's not that we survived it's that there  is  no victim     and     there is no one   to blame  for what we've overcome

My experience with addiction

The mark of one man talking

Any good magic man can cure the sick sometimes,
and many of them can cast out devils, especially if they've installed the devils in the first place
And I've seen a good bit of weather magic

love your enemies and all that    

He wanted to continue by saying that the war on terror has been a failure              
                                                            so no one puts it into practice              And that about solves   the absolute  tyranny of abstract   gods

Thank you very  much.      'Pleasure.

Witness 40

And no matter how much trouble the heroes are in

don't worry, look at your watch, by the end of the hour we're going to win—

The man who is singing / always

The Golden Day

High Food

Confound and gain godliness / Correspondence (7)

Microwave popcorn ass niggas

I think a lot of y'all have just been watching Dr. King get beat up and, ah

                       vacillating opportunists straining for a note of militancy     and ah    

Hold your great buildings on my tiny wing      or     in my tiny   palm      same thing different                                                                                             sling    

and then they shot him   and     uh               left him on the front lawn  of everyone's    vulgar  delirium   for          having been chosen       walking home that night       that'll show you like   candy     and   love   god     openly          reverse   order          

A bird gets along beautifully in the air, but once she is on the ground that special equipment hampers her a great deal.

Just beyond your dreams, right before your eyes

Funkadelic. Say Brother [TV Show 1969] by capitainfunkk

Little Fugitive (1)

Nirvana Millions

And so urgent is their purpose that not one of them can trouble to be perfect

A slow news day's dream

There's this penalty mingling in the blood  of kings and queens     and it   rusts   into   disease  like a   child   with     no education    but   eyes      In one sentence  I can say    the west invented   the virus   and in the next    they  deserve   it     have earned   their deaths   and   curses   and rebirths    early     and in the   sentence   we're  doing   everything     in our   power     to   keep    them    out of   the  air  ,   their words, their nerves, their parakeets of mercy   and see irony    between passages       water    or    trapped    blood    or    whatever       I'm the daughter of,   I invented        

trust the laws  of transformation     they finally came   by  with flowers  for my father's        milestone   and the courage   to deliver   them     and   some deliberate    witnesses  I called     men      fell in love   with   myself   again   this   season    when all the saviors    are the killers       again    this   season      it feels   meaningless to  lament   again this season   I'm suddenly smiling  again this season    for      

Marcus  Garvey   

June Jordan  

Erupting chords or a broken sun  and     in their torpor a tour of  becoming 

the top downness of   the comedown  and have been  down    in the summit kind of   way   I   wish   Sun  Ra was alive so he could  storm the governor's  office   like a highly visible  one  in high   places     singing the downbeat weightless    as     if     maybe    he lost   his  name     

Never let your army go home   

Night Watchman at the Election Machine Factory (1)

I knew I'd sing

Until there was no hole to speak of

When the radio starts talking to them

And the dj be sellin coffins,   or  not coffins    whatever you call  'em     p l o t s 

and god is no different   than   a gangster  

and only the actors  know what to do  

Stompin in High Cotton

Kiss Ass/ Whoop Ass/ The Black Entertainer's Fast Pleasure Blues

Do you keep your past in your present all the time then?

But I think my love will overcome that

And we were beating on one another so fiercely because we were so happy,  we were so happy  

Blue Skies take 1

I had to be black in order to justify my slavery/

I had to be white in order to justify my terror /   eyes   /     all eyes   on me     a mock paranoia    for    vanity         and  the  boy    we  chase  away   grimly     joyfully        returning    bent reference   to genes     and   exposure

the hardest thing for anyone to do   is to forgive somebody they know they have wronged

My father was the son of a slave,  that has something to with it  

Something to do with what      I'll be your excuses  if you can   guess  my true name  

Over this blues stitched recording of the confessions across   two  killers   as   they fall in love    

On the closing off of history / The Black Entertainer's Still Singing Blues

Every christening was a little bit of a dirge          and the whistleblower's nightmare  was  his over-achievement      that people   may listen   and change  later     blame him  for the useless exchange of base desires   for noble  ones           let's face it      embrace   the   denatured  root of redemption    once   you understand more than  one language   and sainthood  is as  blank   hood rich  al sharpton    wailing about the closing off of history      

In a total black theater        I was just thinking out loud   

I'm a singer   

and I   sing a song         

and that  song    hungry  for it's  own collapse  into choruses      will claim   anything    

sabotage anything 

shame anything  

for a chance    at repeating   

the transformation from  thing  to person and back and forth      that occurs on the closing off of history   

and life   emerges,   one of those   ancient     tongueless limitless   in all languages      revival   meetings  to be alive       where all the eyes   of former lovers      careen   into   one     witness      and the soul is not forlorn    and the   irritable   mystic is irritable   no longer       and    memory    is not the only  prize   for trying 

I'm a  singer    

and I   sing  a  song  and celebrating   the accidental appropriation   of all those   moods      as a gift    for    recklessness      as   a  chore       as      pious   as   denial    as   a strip  club  addict  stripping      cars    for the sound   of triggers      as    church   goer   stripping    god   for the   sound    of   the fearless    as what unites   them  ripping   meaning    from  the haven of brass   senselessness      calling    everyone a basic  bitch   and then  taking it back  on Sunday        we only     pray   for moods      and the right to be amplified      usually         so  much     of your  silence   belongs   to me    

A good man on most days

Black Privacy

I will say this to you though
It is not as if there were any                   more beautiful  way       

Kick a rhyme drinkin moonshine / Correspondence (6)

Summary: 

Diary of The Movement. No dancing in public, And the hustlers say.  Live at the Someday, trying to love our crooked neighbors with our crooked hearts.  Privacy is arbitrary, so we came here with new faces, all at the same time, hoping to confuse the enemy, succeeding in becoming our own enemy.  I think I was sleeping    about two hours  a night   if that.   Every murmur was a deposition. Angela Davis was young and faded justice was a phase away from Dorothy Dandridge.  Every saturday I took him back. Maybe in love with the slap of careless love, the light purple knife is his back pocket shaped like an obnoxiously supple junk yard wing of the angel Michael, the one black angel of everything trite and meaningful. A redeemed sinner with gangster  proclivities. Life's a bitch   treat her good   or she'll get you back.   Wisdom he lacked,  wisdom he acted as. 

Highlights: 

Here we are again. Albert Ayler disappeared. Brother Weldon blew his head off on the turnpike like an ice aged epic, pac man in the hood acting sophisticated about depression, self-consumed, lethal sophistication. Miscellaneous niggas heard the news and asked where  there is to get to    as they sliced the changes in the miraculous /    ( arcade )    together like a deranged boyband, my cave, my clan.   Durational aesthetics.  And/nah don't talk to them, they can't read, we murmured at the deposition.  We were in love with that ignorance.  That orality. What a fetish for the spoken. A fetish for infatuation itself.  We stole all their tapes and sold them to Harvard where no one would hear them but intellectuals, who couldn't make out the screen on the drawl  on the hanging code  of  no more sober solo emcees.  The essay A brief history of black suicide    became   A sudden epoch  of black collectivity.   Identity was the reckless seed of early leaving.   They disappeared into one another as protest against their one name.   Ayler's resurrection, Weldon's resurrection, MLK's resurrection,  all those true rumors  as bland  as assumptions posing for thought camera.  So this archive belongs to the shallow ghosts of memory we  name   heroes  when they oppose the surface.   There are no women on those records, we are rarely that easy on ourselves.  We hold onto the scrutiny all our lives  daring it to let go of us    for one day  of  rhymes  and moonshine.   

Militant / tenderness

Why you had the open heart to begin with

I only want you for sex (letter from the field)

The waltz on the edge of solipsism      another     golden  grill   in a  wall of blood   some  say    the thrashing stillness  of   motherhood   is an anti-lust     a   purification   ritual      don't trust   them     they    are the unwed   mothers  who    flock   to courtrooms    looking  for suspects   and order is reckless      Never confuse  me with a feminist  or manifest destiny      a few  steps   ahead   in the   oppression    I   am       visited   by   a vision    of   Horace Tapscott's  The Giant is Awakened  on the courtroom  turntable     and all mugshots   are public  domain so I  find a painless MLK in Memphis and frame him   in  gold  and I'm the lightshow (dj)   and all the   innocent ones   await    the fumbling  violin    and stare  blank   at   blonde ambition   pinups        and     a revisionist  history   of love       is     penned right there in the stairway between  myth and desire    where a woman   learns  to admit  hers   before   it devours  another   moment  in  the affair       it is better, some days,  to be terrible   in the service of  reverberating     mirrors        show them   how   it  feels       to have a goal   an agenda    that you're never  afraid  to speak   of      and   duck     when   they  realize   it's  a  decoy      we're not at war with our own  people      but Hollywood had   called

You bear the illusions of others as if they were your own

now repeat that into this nest of microphones   everyone's a phony  

You bear the illusions of others as if they are your own

You bear the illusions of others as if they are your own

You bear the illusions of others as if they are your own


I get bored calling everyone cousin , for example , when there's no blood

I like what Yoko Ono says about madness,  that it's  performance, for example

a form you channel when bearing the illusions of others as if they are your  own  

a poem arriving like  sand  through the palm of glass hours   and   shattering   like   sermons  

a man I love distracted  from my naked body by a commercial for chicken wings

the last prince of non-violence

The best seat in the house

Everybody's dead, so they can finally say what's really on their minds

Rhyme you outta  jail in time   to steal your rhymes    

How they love to use dialectics in a way to make you feel things that are not true

Like reticence stretches into abandon on the skin of confidence or confident desperation       the difference

                between life and death is finally  coming into question,  in the most optimistic  way  the plague is finally    Immortality



Break for war

Break for epidemic

Break for race  card         I am   a woman       woman is the nigger of the world     break   into her    for    her         what forest   of motives   this    sure     thing    

Remember the time   when we fell in  love   /     break for Michael     Jackson

Jesse Jackson  is full of shit,      break   for him       in the break    for     satisfaction        happy cantaloupe   /  island   break    for nourishment              

Never give  a sucker and even   break       ever     even    in the break   for courtship

break for judgement     caught  you   a   case    break   for    winning       glove     as vague  as breaking   with   tradition      what does that bullshit   even     mean    /   break   for translation         you   put  it down    and I pick   it up again         by   the time          the  tongue      the miner's    silent   confession   breaks    for          someone's  mother         breaks   to  blame    her         to  point   somewhere     like    forever       and   break   it into   images   savages    salvaged       made up of the thoughts   you   made   up  of the vibrations  that were made into  you        is  to   make   up   infinite future          and    break    for   life      slave /  wife     correlation   breaks   for   massa's    rape      at   sundown  1700 and something   forsaken      and   someday  far   later     in an earlier  way      this  great    mind     violator   meeting  violated  in the middle    with a tender   smile   of  misrecognition  (oneness)  tilted  like     prey   and prayer    away   from the mercy  to call it   forward    all,      Haven't you heard?  

A con is a dream

Correspondence (5)

Summary: You know when you're watching a movie and you keep rewinding to the part before the hero is killed some billowing love scene or accidental  seance between  notions   of when  suspense is the most unreasonable    shield   all around   intermittent  acts of violence   / I really have to look at the world  from  inside their  heads      where shadows rotate and you can follow the time in shadows  /   shallow upsloped blindness of the blind  hero  saving everyone but himself  /  advanced    suicide  /  nobel  effort    ,    what is the afterlife       He can be evil   but you always like him           goodbye to sequences   but language  survives  them and we are born   teen   in the middle of a discourse  on motives   / and are not crushed   / and are not crushed      New habit  of reading  treaties where some abuse is reasonable     good stupid  people  getting married    fighting    wars /  all of us  

And I wanted to see what propaganda  does  to   the language   of us.  A fabulist's anatomy or stark distress, was it,  the pharaonic order of the jesters.   Does it become more elegant to snub  all  excess or does it begin to deflect   the  innocent extra in the background  there to make the scene    a home  within itself. Brightmoment. (echo) (echo with a difference) (Narcissus / trick or trick narcissus) More to say about morals  than   the morose way one line folds into pictures  of a whole community sorted by  the invention/fabrication of oneness. Otherness Blues. Ovanuss Ball. Negroes in vogue.  Prison Notebooks on the arm of a plush velvet sofa , phd students supple with theories that will  save the world  if only they were of the world. Can propaganda help us populate the other vision with no more scams  but  candid / some   dandy / some daddy     plath   ease  of reality   pretending to need a dream.  And   how will the icon fare  if he cannot  tapdance   when the amateur  assassin   saunters  in     to tell his story fast.    

Highlights: You know when you're watching a movie and you keep rewinding to the part before the hero is killed 

MLK was clutching a Newport  cigarette in one hand. His mistress was downstairs fixing her hair for dinner. Jesse Jackson and them were in the courtyard just beneath Martin's motel room balcony, allowing him to falcon for them, dressed like dandies  and value  systems   discussing  spirituals  and pigs   feet    all the doves   broke free   .   As the shot pierced his memory    he begged  one man to sing        him Stevie  Wonder   from  the future   sequence is over      please  tell your   story  fast    if you don't  it will come to   pass     In his breast pocket   a note about ritual   sacrifice   his witch  doctor's  advice  /  phone  number       someone kept it 

Propaganda for Justice

Correspondence (4)

A/Symmetry: 

Let it be good to yourself

The exorcism  of Wu-tang  mountain    jam   jam jam jam    flow     elsewhere   woke up       in my   subtle   tokenism   with a casual  urge  to conquer  all sufferers    disguised as  ourselves

Masters  of running  clubs     nightclubs    private  temples      Booker Little  sound valves , apostles but

Nigga you still ain't mysterious      (I mean, abstract)     Massah  I mean    messiah   be mean to his own true style   just to get    a good trap   on the capital

So it was fun, to be in the future  

Inanimate dancer   some surly clouds  overhead like mammy robot arms /  O Oprah, what have you done

to the future,  what have you done to the suburbs     they're  underneath her  like   layer  cakes or tourists rubbing   a brass actor  buddha/ high speed dubbed to wu-tang   discussions  ,  what have you done    to the  rappers     distracted children    of  Japanese   immersion         gives    him the chills   when you     give  away   cars  

---

Ritual     In the keeping   of soul  in tact  there  are neurotic  repetitive   magics   that show up   as  disdain  for the outside   world      a hidden language   so busy it cannot communicate.  I think our double icons (devil/god/ cons)   are the purveyors  of that  speech     and their ritual   is to fall  victim  to  the  ambivalence  as proof   of the eternal  worthlessness   of  struggle.   Struggle   is just a mode of production    superior to carelessness   , inferior   to terror      maybe.    All is full of love this way, by a strange default we join under : transcendence.  The water of our tendencies.    And   the ritual  of checking  things   has its  own scene  in the  arkive.    To wake up craving images   above even oranges,   is   a large    hybrid    of  afterlife and unlearned righteousness.    It begins   feeling imperative  to   have   one  subject    to wake up  to (as)       and trust  it's  image in handcuffs   on the internet   /   to imagine Cornel West    has   a   personal    life   nothing  like the public   one   is crucial  to the survival  or ritual  

 in a land where the sun kills questions.  

That Double Icon

Quick Irrelevant Crime

Correspondence (3)

Summary :   Love,  the most natural painkiller there is, love.  Monk quotes Burroughs to Nica , his extravagant confident,  and Nelly, his wife, in identical choked up letters toward the start of his so-called ending, trying to explain what premature retirement meant to him, that the public eye was a threat to the survival of love.  As suggested  earlier, the correspondence is vast.   The shadows take shape and we see the pianist taking notes on the shaping     

"Mind Rain 

Mind Rain 

Mind Rain 

Mind drain 

Mined drained

Mine. d   reign        ( too   easy      )    to easily   deranged   by  the mind     some hearts can be   ,

I believe  in  ( midlife  )    resurrection.  "      He   writes.       To the jazz industry in crisis

"I'm not as strange and mystical  as I seem   but  the  parody   pays  well       I like to sit around at home   and nurse   my dazes   until   they break    into   music while my son plays values on the drums Art Blakey gave him    

Don't wanna go out like those   beat  writers, getting  famous for things you're supposed to hide      futures we have yet to achieve   and untrue   love.  Wild motherfuckers  but temporary."     We find Theolonious was a lucid and most discerning   salesman     collapsing  aloof  into candor   and melody   into rumor,   using silence   the way a hype man uses  an  announcement        to  thrill   and bide.       

Highlights:   There are telegrams from Duke Ellington to Monk begging him to stop stealing his stuff. Jokingly, admiringly.    There's a collection of photos of hats from fashion magazines   with notes  for new compositions slashing through the photos, appearing as tempos appear. There are letters to his mother   thanking her for being so patient with him, recipes for lamb and chicken liver written  on club napkins, copyright forms for compositions that he never had the chance to transcribe, juice recipes Nelly suggested he try written in the margins of his dream diary  wherein he recounts  a recurring dream about being on stage mid concert and turning into a tiger in a cage made of tacky satin ribbons that he is meant to pave   with iron and will  until   he disappears    and wakes  up in the phrase   we sell the shadow to protect  the substance. 

We sell the shadow to support the substance

Advanced Immortality

Only saints have diabolical visions

Her father has alzheimer's         in  the absence   of desire  /  a  second   chance  / those damn carnations again  /  blush in the sorry order   of  ready-made  immortals    and          He finally forgot   her       and    all     the    others         and they cycle    the shore    for shells       for    chimes      for the  rejoicing    at    the   end of the      perfect  crime        where the  only   water    on earth  collects   in   your   footprints ,   the  sore   pears   of     all    belonging   bruised     blooded      wrong  unremembered   and   endlessly consumed  haunt   we will into    song/ He

                                                                                                                         finally   forgot   her    ,   they   both   celebrate   :    who are you     who   are   you      familiar     I     love     you        the    new    you      the       fickle    sonance      the     final  answer    some  prison  rioter   screams    at his   guard's  damned  shadow:      prove     it   ,      prove       your     love /  fiend / motherless child     and   disappear    into    denial   of               yeah ,   like     that             duty bound   motherfucker                  pioneer    motherfucker        in the backwards   direction     finally     forgotten        /     transformed    and    Los   Angeles              

Correspondence (2)

Summary :  There's no such thing as a vindictive hero.  He shoved the naked black mannequins under the bed, but later parted with those too. Radical phantom, Henry Dumas. Local rapper gone international, underground. As stated in previous transmissions, the correspondence is wild, full of anti-social prophecies Dumas exchanged with Sun Ra, Malcolm X, Clarice Lispector, and Corretta Scott King, to name a few. There is the beginning of a script for a cinematic adaptation of Ark of Bones and list of black comedians he hoped would play the lead: Richard Pryor, Richard Pryor, Richard Pryor, Richard Pryor,  reads the list, and then a sketch of a cadillac in a cotton field surrounded by artificial carnations.  He was big on symbolism even in his private journals, hieroglyphics mingled with Sanskrit text, and images of his favorite entertainers were pasted between words and paragraphs like  an advanced system of punctuation by identity. He was always negotiating with himself in that way, letting the fray of persona unravel and recoil until a single character opened up and shared the other world with him.

I want a land where the sun kills questions.


Highlights : We find out Dumas fathered 3 children with whom he communicated only in writing. There are unsent letters to each of them detailing his plans to reunite the family and form what he called 'the glare of village' together. There's a copy of Gramsci's Prison Notebooks with extensive notes and pictures in the margins and sketches for a clothing line called "It's after the end of the war," comprised of 3-piece suits in Moroccan fabrics, are tucked into the back of the Prison Notebooks. There's a stack of love letters to Katherine Dunham, unsent, tenderly written. One begins, maybe the war is our second chance to dance our savage intuitions about ourselves toward some debonaire planet only we can invent and destroy together, for I, like you, grow weary of being an accomplice, no matter how great I am at this elsewhere amplitude.  And there are two plane tickets to Angola for April, 2017.

Green Crystals

Local Rappers

And for those of us who are into staying up late, or are joining us from another  place in the world

       plus that thug   life   a girlfriend a   mistress   and a  wife              everybody's speechless on

Saturday   night    in   the  juke  a fight   breaks  loose  and   weave   might   fling   like   kites   and                
                      baptisms     but     it's     all    right                          it's   great for the industry     all that

hair   shipped from India       for sale   in what   look like    taco  trucks  bulging   mirroreyed with all the demand     right   outside the Audubon where  Malcolm   fell into   swan,   his  ballroom  closure --    it's  a   hospital  now    owned     by    the  longest   timing  University  can't heal people  but   pretend      just the other day  I was    looking   through   photos  of    local     rappers ,      mugshots,     whatever ,   and    a picture    of     Malcolm  X    at    the morgue     came  up    from out   of no where    ,    couldn't    stop   staring   ,    he  looked  so peaceful     and      removed       from    his   suffering   like      a   crease    in   the   song     of   will

Correspondence (1)

Summary :  As stated in prior renditions, correspondence is rich, with sociological, spiritual, political and artistic aspects of Coltrane's life well documented. Along with activities within the Black Panther party, afore kept hidden by the family. There are also letters between Alice and Nina Simone, and between her and Angela Davis as well as interview requests from magazines ranging from Playboy to Ebony to Bomb to Downbeat, most unanswered as far as the record shows. There is a partially written autobiography the breaks down into sheet music for a theater production of film Ganja and Hess, re-imagined.  And there is an unfinished letter to Melvin Van Peebles requesting that he direct the production.

I want a land where the sun kills questions.

Highlights : There are several unreleased pieces of music including one full album entitled Run! There is a manifesto on transcendental meditation and an Oxford Annotated Bible with extensive notes in the margins. A stack of letters between her and her son Ravi, and a couple of letters from poet Amiri Baraka to her, exalting her music. And finally, there are tape recordings of interviews Alice conducted of fellow musicians who visited her ashram in California. Miles Davis, Sun Ra, and Abbey Lincoln among them.

Is love militant enough

A new moment in the republic, so far as I could tell.

God is tired of you ( and the black man is confused)

That's his skull cap covered in symbols of the occult.   That's his light hearted heartbreak   which he conflates  with   lust          that's   that Pharaoh's  Den       now   a   drug busted masonic  temple   for  one   and then    a   few   others        some   heavy   forces      that   really   ain't    shit    but    this   is    his    shadow   talking     just his image    talking       the   real him    is in    a   very   safe     place     in     the archives     of   the     creator        and     my     naive    pride      always     drives a   corvette with    weak   breaks    there      to   the    sagging  cliff    of  half - revelation to dangle   ,  reluctant sun  :   papa   ,   look at your   shadow  ,   jah  is no  over-charmed      martyr     to   your    soul    

Niggas who think of you fondly

The       one   with the pot   belly and the lollipop   makes a good  sad naturalness out of Nation Time

What is this about   .          That tame   time   when attention   had songs to fend for   and     the other woman   has  
   time     to  manicure   her nails   came   out   like   an order    in   stereo  (slow  type, heat wave,  rifle  at the dinner  table  across   from     blank   paper     as   we  mine     the      sermon     for    forgotten      members).    

 All women   have time   for   that  ,  and    enmity  , and    spastic tenderness   like  a good commercial.    Calm    be-stilling  tenderness also. And cherry    red nails    /      This   one

uses the diabetic sap  from her   candy   and mangled hot cheetos ™      and that shit is beautiful     to

melt   in twos    and  infinities     to    believing   that   trite othering  until   you die of feeble mindedness  

                      Resurrect in the dire will of a parched field     a   little   jaundiced   from   your   belief    
in the past    

--

Six months later,  1967 ,   most of our cities   were  not    on   fire   but   the  ones     that    are   be   blazing    like    a nigga with a habit               I took   to the glass         looking   for    King's   reflection -  shadow  -  mask     and     endless aptitude        and          He was  in there    with the    other   girl  blue                begging   the wind   to cry    mary      or      judas

What is this   about       we  wondered?       Why's    the   quiet  folk  hero    stuck   between   mercy     and   self-destruction        in   some   broken   shop   window        and   for   all    we   know      happier  there   than   with   us      

You keep on lookin'

What were you doing down by the watermelon / Are you my angel ?

 I went blind on my wedding day           faced with the skill of the spectator 

A girl  wanted  to use    the word   switchblade      the deft   way    deaf matron   of the radio    war       

          without attracting perpetrators   traitors   patriarchs   or ever the       opaque enzymes     my 

calves   are brimming with     hot wine    and      acid       look like greek   sculptures   act like  black   actors at     the chameleon   circus    and uncle  leon   is my favorite   one                         cerebral  

       from the heart   ,   vulnerable   and   ground in       valium   to stay relevant         it's  almost   enough   to know    what my father    would have done     to those men,     if he   were   still stuck   on    earth      how many      he almost    killed      for     her    and    her     and     me    and    the hurt    they   dream   as salvation           or   simplified    leadership        

he used to be naive        and think             that   he could live without    killing             My king         is   a million   silent   slaves   who   don't   believe   in   nightmares     

escape (continued )        bathed   in the   serial   wayward   patience       a  man   with dimples   who   could   play     the   drums      and     faint   in the     voice     like    Andy   Bey   that    man is 

fainting    

and standing up to put  the   blame   on  / song              Tradition   should be just  as

offensive      as   the broken      notes   of my  unrepentant    desire        which    evaporates          

to    announce   itself    as vulnerable     and in    charge   of    that   blind    tone      

I filed you under suspect    for the way    the love never    fades              I prayed for courage   and saw my    mother's    feet clapping   on the   treadmill     almost bare  but for company   kicks    and   this skill   of the spectator    and   we were   watching   In   Living   Color     that   show   about   funny  niggas    who cry   for money   

The Blues Offer No Solution     

What were you doing down by the watermelon ? 

Are you my angel    

(Flashback or :   White mother combs out mulatto daughter’s  hair  while  marching on the treadmill  and Watching In Living Color (muffled laughter) early  1990s     Los  Angeles   ,  California     )         Are you my angel?