El Hajj Malik El Shabazz

The Beat

They gave the Beat a name and called it Hip Hop

The Beat was stronger than a name

The Beat was eclectic records mixed in

Basements Tenements and Block parties

SOMEBODY SAY HO!

YOU DON'T STOP!

KEEP ON!

SOMEBODY SCREAM!

The Beat didn't stop

It became a 808 kick drum

Driving through Compton

The Beat made you nod your head

Biggie and Tupac left physical form

Speaking to the Beat

The Beat was sold to sound pimps

Who put whores on tour

Turning top forty tricks into radio back shots

Innocence lost

The Beat was beaten

The groove remained

Living on dusty turntables

Cracked cassette tapes

The Beat lives on

Pounded out on mess hall tables

Incarcerated virtuosos sending signals

To the next generation..

Don't fret Child

Don't fret Child

They see Jesus in Us

Save your tears

They see Jesus in Us

Jet Black to Hi Yella down to Paper Bag Brown

They see Jesus in Us

They see the stained glass twinkle in our eyes

They see the universe in our reflection

Don't fret Child

They see Jesus in Us

Carry racial stigma through the streets of Babylon, ancient

Stigmata wounds on our hands and feet nailed to the cross

Vilified crucified son of man

Son of Mothers

Son of Fathers

Plead

"My God My God Why Have You Forsaken Me"

He and Him

Hush Child they see Jesus in Us...

Deep Cool

Deep Cool

All over this azure bubble suspended

In the palm of nothing

Deep cool fails to register on a thermometer or thermostat

Below zero negroes

Indigo tinged disciples of deep cool

Cool when your feet hit the street

Cool when your life plays plays out

like the music in your ear

The hiss of an old record

speaking between beats

Cool

Deep cool...

Minnie Brown (Little Rock Nine)

They don't deserve us!

Supreme beings levitating floating above the hate

Spitting vile words vomited out of the mouths

of southern belles and southern gentlemen..

Beings stronger than thrown rocks, hemp ropes

lynch parties...

Picnics, Pick a Nigg#r

They don't deserve us!

Tarnished halos crown sanctified bodyguards

Step in front of bullets intended for us

Sanctified bodyguard Minnie Brown

prepared ground for our precarious path

adding coffee to cream at Central High, Little Rock, Arkansas

Sanctified bodyguard with no one to guard her body

Sacrificial lamb handed over to the man, she took her stand

When negros sit in, dying, trying to fit in.

Know your place when you have none

Find your place when you have one...

Home is across the water...

Home is across the water...

Pop Culture/Pop Cult

Culture or Cult

Industrial indoctrination inoculated

with the invisible hand

invisible man moving on cruise control

Pop culture

Pop cult

the master plan

Millions of Charles Mansions minions

Receive video vaccinations

eyes duct taped open

Fed enemies intravenously

Mass murder tours of duty come home a killer

Choreographed by the cult

Choreographed by the culture

Action addicts sit still for their quick fix

Sit Coms Rom Coms and Sci Fi

Ricochet in empty minds

Echo down empty hallways...

Top Forty propaganda

Do a new dance to the agenda

Culture or Cult.....

Mortal Angels BLM poem

Mortal Angels

Fly in low trajectories

Cautionary tales

For Negroes with Alzheimers

Forgot they Negroes

Its still Emmit Till and Philando Castille

Dying angels

Dying in the light of day

White knuckle hate taste metallic and bloody

Instructed by the power structure

to handcuff detain, maintain order

By crushing your windpipe

I cant breathe

I cant breathe

Three words from a mortal angel

Reminding us of the price of admission

Calling ourselves players

When no one is playing games

They left Mike Brown

on the ground

Mortal angel with clipped wings

and covered body

Our angels have a shelf life...

Our angels fly low to the ground...

Our angels, mortal angels.....

Something for Martin

Alone on his mountaintop

Lookout Mountain Georgia

Martin could see for decades difficult days ahead

Moving, marching, shoe leather warrior

Holding hands forming a human daisy chain link fence against brutality

Martin held a barbershop mirror up to Americas unwashed conscious

Blemishes imperfections magnified

Turned love into a double barrel shot gun leaving pellets in hollow hearts

Imbedded in hardened human hides

Martin voluntary martyr wearing the undertakers suit

tailored by hate

sewn by supremacy

Met fate in Memphis

Martins dream realized in speeches

Remembered in hearts...

Something for Martin...

El Hajj Malik El Shabazz

Malcolm Little gave up a slave surname became brave not bulletproof

Light skinned superhero eye witness to original sin

 southern hospitality with fire hose tactics

northern apartheid, long strides through Harlem, call him brother minister

Incarnation of the Negro voice muted by James Crow

Stood up straight when the weight of two worlds pressed down on narrow shoulders..

He became X

Last name of the stolen, Last name of the unknown...

Used truth, weapons as words falling like Molotov tails

incendiary and pure

facing the east as he prayed

Pray for us Brother Malcolm

pray for us...

Hard Drive

Never erase your hard drive.

Hard lives..

Stay alive.

Stillborn, still here..

Midwives witness labor pangs in cotton fields.

Personification of super slaves..

Fear of a black , phallic fratracide

Pathological cuckold castration of the Negriod.

Paranoid whipmarks keloids.

Slavemaster going bareback, living life staring at stepchildren.

Passive aggressive Quadroons slander Mulattos who despise triple black Sambos.

Download into your mental hard drives.

Hard lives.

Stay alive.

Stillborn, still here.

Still here....

The Parable of I and I ( a Rastafari Toast )

I and I chased the empress Neffreti across the eastern sky. Him caught her stride somewhere near Orions Belt.. I and I captured her glance and made life to her face to face.. She gave I and I rhythm, I and I gave Neffreti sons that cupped glowing embers.. I and I seen time divided by shadows on holy ground.. I and I fashioned talismans from bone and tendon, conch shell Shamans breathe hoarse incantations. Chanting ancient formulas. I and I is you, seen? I and I is you, seen?