Energy unleashed touching those in its path energizing a generation to mobilize and organize themselves against war/poverty/fascism taking the streets while plumbers, deceivers committed crimes against humanity to maintain control over other peoples' resources silence out-spoken voices with assassin's bullets the assassins the fbi, red squads, paid informer any kind of informer to take the stand against those who took a stand in the land of the free free coupons with every purchase of the american dream a nightmare scream for those caught up in ghetto webs while society moves toward the next century the fascist pigs are at it again offering electric couches for mass execution the thought that someone said that is shocking will it shock us and jump-start that dormant energy into action or will we stand by for the next announcement see the next execution on cable for as little as $1 a month energy to short out the circuit or we can just pull the plug!
Conversation with My Soul
“To maim and destroy the body of a man is no deed of recognition for valor, whether in war or in revenge, but to save a body which is the temple of the soul is an act and deed of the God-like.” Author unknown
I wonder abut their pain Their frustration Their anger I wonder of their hopes And whether the desire to see my last breath Surmounts all else that they hope for I wonder if they pray for closer To what gods do they ask of my life? What do they wish of my soul? I wonder…
If they knew me, if they only knew me Seven acres plump With depressed, dead and dying men Here we have learned to live and love
If you could lie behind my eyelids and listen To shackle men shuffle by On their way to the executioner If you could see relief flooding my wife and kid’s faces When I step into visitation and They’re reassured I’m alive I wonder if you still want me dead
I wonder if you knew I want to live That I’ve demonstrated Broken rules trying to preserve my Human right to life Would my death still be your number one priority?
I’ve grown I write poetry Read I know my history I cherish my life I cry when people die (And many people have died) I know what love is Pain is Anger is I know what you think of me I know that you wait for me to growl and Rattle my cage like the animal I’m portrayed To be But I’m human Is it wrong for me to change? To love? To want to live?
I was a child I became a man in prison A man imprisoned for a crime I did not commit But my history is your enemy still And vengeance is your only salvation But I wonder… If you settle your heart and just Thought critically for a minute I wonder if you’d still want me dead
You may wash your hands In my blood But will that cleanse your slate of anguish? Who prescribed death as a balm for your wounded heart? I am a mother’s child A loving father and husband How can killing me make you feel better? How does killing me differ from Killing in general?
No matter that I’ve grown I love life That I’m a man A father A husband I care I hurt My wife and children hurt I’m human Nothing matters – your mind is set
Yet I wonder on occasions…. If you could taste my grandmother’s cooking See my wife and kids smile. Hear their laughter See me smile, smell my hear or Touch my skin and know who I am I wonder… Would you still want me dead?
UNSUNG SOULJERS
Young Lords and other unsung souljers who have been Getting down Down in prison Down throughout time Never having heard their song put to rhyme Miguel “Micky” Melendez, Lolita Lebron, Filiberto Ojeda, Jose Marti Souljers near to the ground Ready for the next round Having always lived grassrooted Never having been uprooted ButAlways having their lives looted Who will sing their songs When the drama of their lives moves on? YOUNG Lords/Los Macheteros? Los Independistas Puerto Riqueño—always down Down throughout time Near to the ground Always getting down Never uprooted Rooted to the soul of a righteous fight Our unsung Souljers Who have turned on the lights for us Who will carry on their flight? Who will uplift their songs? They have not heard the rap of your songs—your poems Your voice is unheard Though they have always heard your blues They fought for you While you were unaware You were people not knowing why Or for what to care Yet kept a Movement Alive That you have benefited from And squandered Today they can’t get a song from you A rap from you
DIGNIFIED
“It is better to die
on your feet
than to live on your
knees.”
Emiliano Zapata
A brother asked me whether a state
sanctioned “Murder sentence” is
better than reactionary suicide???
And I answered by saying that it is,
For some of us,
Because regardless of guilt or
innocence, some of us
are challenging these murder
sentences, refusing to lay
down to it and sleep with it,
having courage enough to fight for FREEDOM day and night
to reunite
ourselves with everyone and everything we know
and LOVE!
Yes, I believe it’s better for some of us, for those of us refusing to forfeit being the men we were born to be, the men our families so desperately
need us to be—protectors,
providers and riders
in the sense of being active men to our community, fathers
to our children,
husbands to their mothers and
not just knocked off baby fathers.
And though we all won’t make it,
some of us still
find it a must, fighting to
change the gruesome
face of our present reality to the death versus
complacently waiting to die a number!
There are no appeals, pardons,
prayers or fighting back
from being dead, for death is the
promise never broken.
So long as there remains a
breath left to breathe
inside the soul of a DRIVE RESISTER,
you can bet
your live that there’s a fight being
fought to live,
to be free, and to not just sub-sist.
Anything less would make
us nothing but breathing dead men
feeding on a steady diet of oppression and self-destruction—
a life left for
voluntary neo-slaves in a new-wave
era that bends over accepting to be
penol-ogically sodomized
and laying down to accept their
judicial biocide.
We REFUSE!
“Better to die on you feet
than to live on your knees.”
My Children
As the waves of life pulsate back and forth The intuit feelings we try to assort While the compulsive pain we try to abort As the pressures bear down and tend to extort painful days and nights of rage As each minute passes in a steel cage Seeking the shining strength through disunity As though we’re the Lost Souls committee No, we’re far from that A mutual bond no matter where we’re at Love is strength and power Refusing to let the system devour Family love falling like a summer shower Makes the soul rise like a tower Teach and learn and communicate With your birthright Soulmates Love giving and receiving Wisdom planted and retrieving Smiles so bright they see them in Beijing Intent on learning with eager listening Never underestimate the power of juvenescence Remember we once experienced the effectiveness of adolescence All of Our Children are truly a blessing We must continue to guide them in the correct upbringing Sentimental value has the equivalent of the strength of millions My gratitude and my heart goes out to My Children and all Our Children…
To the Lynch Mob
You got my hands in chains. You got my feet in shackles. You got my body in a cage. You want my spirit broken. You want my mind dismantled. You want my blood running... EVERYWHERE
My mind is getting stronger. My heart is getting bigger. My consciousness is much deeper. I hear you Che Guevara. I hear you Assata Shakur. I hear you George Jackson... EVERY DAY
I understand you are weak. I understand you fear me. I understand you are... A COWARD (AN OPPRESSOR!) Who can never take my spirit. Who can never take my love. Who can never take my hope. Who can never ever break me!!!
Who I Am
I sing songs melodically With soul and spirit The sweet lullabies, salsa, meringue, poetry, the blues Chanting tunes of living life, That life of a human being, of a Latino... Because I am proud to be what I am And I have no doubt of what I shall remain. You see, racists call us spice and niggers, Which means second class citizens, But I am second to none! I have been called spade, mulatto and colored, However, Latino is what I shall always be Because I was born from the womb of the Caribbean. You liberals try to be slick, But I won’t accept that Hispanic shit either, And you can keep that “soy” shit too! I’m back at the Vanguard Singing such beautiful music, Seeking the expanse of “FREEDOM!”
Denied Justice
“Like the flames of hell lick at one’s soul; the coal’s of death row burn with a constant battle between a thirst for life and a thirst to quickly see it pass you by.” Gabriel Gonzalez
10/19/06 a young man decided to kill himself And so he died With a sliced throat and arms in his cage In the stillness of 3.45 in the morning...
His denied justice became final It collapsed on him Like a great wave Slamming into a mountain of rocks.
Feeling crushed that his innocence was ignored His justice denied, and his state-sanctioned murder set to be executed He refused to give the injustice system the pleasure of his judicial murder--- He slit his throat and arms seeing it his only escape From giving his judicial murderers he sick pleasure Of watching him die at their hands. Written on the cage wall in his own blood were the words: “I DIDN’T DO IT”
As he was forced to suicide so as not to give his murderers the Pleasure of murdering him for a crime he did not commit His lifeless body lay bloody and dead (he escaped the best he could) AND all sat in silence Affected and drained, Because his death lingered on.
Minutes became hours, Days became Nights, And tomorrow turned Into yesterdays.
But eventually, the silence broke, Shouts rang out, And people calmed their fears About succumbing to the same fate.
The above poem is dedicated to Michael Dewayne Johnson (who killed himself on 10/19/06) and all the men on death row before me or after me that have been victim to some element of state-sanctioned murder whether by the state or driven to it by their own hands to evade the state murder. To see them leave, or shall I say exit in a murderous fashion, was almost like seeing an extension of myself leave because it is now the world that has become me in many shapes and forms. It seems everything was made to exist and perish, but to see men bleed just to see if they are alive is like watching old flesh wounds tear open time and time again too reassert their very existence in a world where chaos and confusion becomes our truest of allies.
Sometimes memories sleep through my veins wishing I was empty so as not to see the men I so often called soldiers leave with their heads held high trying to find comfort as they see new lights going to new horizons far away from the valley of death that awakes their shadows. When I think of the society that has taken their lives just as they accused them of taking lives, I wrote thoughts in such a troubled state that it often seemed as if the pen was possessed. A mind of its own desperately trying to feel for a reason to continue. Even as I fool myself to believe I can hate, the feeling pretends to comfort me from feeling human, but it doesn’t. It only shortens my breath, tightens my eyes, and makes me wish I was someone else except a witness to the Neo-holocaust around me that seems to amount to nothing at all in the eyes of the executioner.
Some guys would say to me, “man, I really don’t know what to say to the media. Like the victim’s family, the state and my very own family stares at me strapped to the gurney like some uncontrollable beast awaiting death in minutes?” The only time words seem to fail me is at those moments, and then the only thing I can ever say is some unintelligible phrase that makes me feel no help at all, only to eventually end up saying: “say what’s in your heart is all you can ever do.” It is often after those moments that I wrote a poem like the one I wrote today and will continue to share, and as I continue to write them, I become my own stranger each time I try to fully understand what it is I meant by each word I used. It almost seems like I don’t write these poems at all, but instead become a tool to leave a little piece of them here after they’re gone.
As I give this poem and the more to come to you all, I also give a story of someone who was what we all are... HUMAN. To understand the story look where you want to look to find an ending, because if we just believe they are still here with us, here with me, they will never leave, but dwell inside some place for all to see.
