Raised up with the rhythmic
instincts of mayfield, marvin
& P-Funk
i rode the love, peace
& Soul Train
through city, country, city –
excavating the articulations
of orchestration lost ( then
found again) in translation
when the 80s came and went
digging in the crates of M.F.S.B.
(mother, father, sister, brother)
looking for the perfect beat
in search of the perfect blend
of knowledge, wisdom & understanding.
©2014
Excuse my French
As my mama would say.
But, Corona can go
Straight to hell. The real
Pandemic is racism
& a vaccine for this virus
Remains to be seen
As does liberty & justice
For all…united we
Stand, divided we fall. It’s,
Still, the choice of
Wrong versus right, but
Hindsight is 20/20.
©2020
“In the beginning was the Word…and the Word was God”:
ingrained in the ecology of the poet tree, echoing from its myriad
of rings, through its ageless roots & enduring branches.
& God, the wordsmith of wordsmiths, made the Word flesh
to dwell among us & blow riffs of tradition through us, the leaves
of forever soloing on the indigenous versaphone…
as we with an ear to the ground, search for purpose within
truth, discovering truth within beauty, carving a brand new nuance
of meaning from the beauty of our own expression…
as we with the winged thoughts of our angel eyes take flight
through another long day’s journey into night, to where
our deeds, begotten in births of cool winds blown
everywhere all at once, return as reflections
in the kaleidoscopic urn of ubiquity
breathing life eternal into our words.
©2014
(for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery)
“Respect our existence or expect our resistance…we, too, are Human.”
Our origin is not arbitrary
We are no longer pawns
In the fun and games of Dick and Jane
We are the citizens who fell victim
To a dream that, after 400 years, has
Been transmogrified and magnified
Into a firestorm of indifference
And intolerance, as our system
Falls deeper into a divide
Of dissension and ignorance;
Yet, we emerge from the margins
Like a metaphorce of ancestral sighs
Speaking truth to power in the tongue
Of survival’s drums, wandering through
The wilderness in search of Zion,
Unlearning everything, pondering in lieu
Of wondering between dilemmas
Of perish or live to cherish the rituals
That define us. and though we may
Grow weary, we will rise to revitalize
The revolution that never died
But rather has arrived, to be streamed
Via black soul and the versaphone, only
To unveil the wail of a new day, as we
Become the swing of its perpetual
Pendulum in the continuum of our
Human spectrum, a constant verse
Within the canon of a scarlet history
Moving, with the momentum
Of immortality manifest in murals
Of our own montaged soul-flesh,
Towards freedom and peace of mind.
©2020 MDSHall
“It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday…”
Life:
1.
We Who Are Like God
I remember his
Hands, a palm reader’s garden
With roots tracing back
To the beginning
Of the heavens and Earth, grown
Deep as Atlantis
As though he’d been here
Before, planting seeds of our
Divine DNA.
2.
Scars on the Heart
To wield its weapons
Has been the way of the world
Which now wears its wounds
As it walks through corridors
Of a hemophiliac
History, with scars
Of our malice still marring
The heart of Mother Earth.
3.
Can Words Be Weapons?
Iconoclasts of
Baffled creeds feed on arcane
Seeds of mystery
Like culture vultures
In a dance cadaverous
Of life beyond death
Who cursed for cowards
Are ‘fraid to be convicted
Of their convictions.
Never let your thoughts
Be bought…knowledge is power
In the war of words.
4.
Evidence of Things Not Seen
Proof of things unseen–
Faith ain’t no fairytale, but
More the avenue
To where life sheds→love
sheds→light on the fact that what’s
Meant to be will be.
____
Love vs. Lust:
5.
For Suite Luv
By faith not by sight
I walk in grace, baptized by
The fire in her eyes.
6.
untitled
With a cunning tongue
As I kneel at her altar
She is communion.
7.
The Art of Love (& its carnal confections)
Let’s neck & nibble
In the temple of our flesh
& minds intertwined
With words savored by our tongues
For love is the last supper.
8.
Dorothy Dandridge Dreams
Redbone to the bone
With dark chocolate eyes, creamy
Butter pecan thighs,
Lips of caramel
& brown skin that glows as though
Dipped in honey, she
Is my sundae
Of sunday dreams, my own black
& tan fantasy.
9.
Domino Effect
More than mood for thought
Condemned to a road of faults
To arrive at truth
Love is like a domino
Always falling fore we know.
10.
Mystique of a Panther
Amidst the lure of
Her feral eyes, she buries
Me in mystery.
11.
Lion Queen
Lioness, with your
Mane of auburn flames, Sol of
My soul burns for you
Crystallized in piscean
Dreams of sunship horizons.
12.
Full Moon
Fine as frog hair down
To her marrow, she’s lush as
A full moon in bloom.
13.
Like Kerouac Said
I love pink tacos
With strawberries & whipped cream.
Some call me dirty
Old man. I say, “fuck is a
Dirty word, but comes out clean.”
____
The Sunshine After The Rain:
14.
Light of the World
Visions of sunsets
Forge infernos upon skies
Diaphanously
Dancing heliocentric
Circles around the capstone
Of the cosmos, till
The light of the world is cast
In shadows of souls.
15.
New Moon Blues
The sky is crying
Down upon the midnight lamp
Of my beating heart
Flooding the gates with new moons
Riding carpets of bright rain.
16.
The Word of Bird
for Charlie Parker
as he flew, Bird blew
Trying to play clean, looking
For the pretty notes.
In the voice of the
Coolest breeze, the Apostle
Of Hipness hovers
Like a satellite
In orbit of mother earth
& the universe.
17.
Changing of the Guard
For Amiri Baraka [who passed January 9, 2014]
The ripples of time
& space transbluesent like jazz
Interplay like night
& day, where novas
Explode amidst shadows in
Brilliant bursts of life
That open the doors
To the oneness of two eyes
Observing the light
Refracted by streams
Of consciousness curated
In the margins of
Our minds, left behind
As footnotes to changing times
For us to study.
18.
Blood of a Metaphor
As words flow through me
I don’t know where I might be
Without poetry.
19.
At The Heart Of Art
What is art but that
Which hands of men & women
Mold from the thunder
Of hearts so as to wake souls
Following in their shadows.
20.
Curators of the Lost Art
for Amiri Baraka & Albert Einstein
We are curators
Of the lost art of thought, forced
Into existence
By revelations of mind
& the imagination.
____
©2014 MDSHall
Lingua: Ex Libris Life 