Cry Wrong - thinking tonight about MLK.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
brings me to all my celebrations and my sorrow
and if I could, I’d like to borrow an Allusion to Jay-Z,
helping myself add light to a hazy
morning where I’m meant to cry,
wrong.

So, I place the thoughts to paper, trying to remain strong
frustrated by the song I attempt to sing
to bring
to cling
to my truth as it belongs to me --

Oh, say can you see
this isn’t accurate history,
but a tinted white milk jug
carried along a dusty road -
a road we should walk together,
but we follow different lines
(white lines blow away)
(dark lines add contrast)
blasting both of us into gray....
as we live in this half moon cookie
I want to scream,

American Dream for who?
for you?
for all?
Yes!
No!-
it’s complicated, you know?

Head to toe,
we appear as we do...
facades we know as true,
we believe,
leaving us in “shackled” limitations
brought to us by
textbooks,
and looks
we get,
simply because we are
(young friend - America’s come so far,
but has only just begun ---
the dream must move ahead,
gaining strength from moon and sun)

Run. Leap. Keep. Jump. Break. Trust. Fly
(and no matter how much we sigh
and give up -
handing our voices over is the surest way
to be silenced, and in silence,
scary secrets are kept --
secrets whispered to me as I’ve studied
and slept, trying to understand it all)

Mankind’s fall, in this modern Eden,
is knowing just enough to be stupid,
just too little to be wise,
and with these eyes I say cry “passion”,
but now they’re crying “wrong”,
putting ink to paper, feeling weak
yet somehow strong....

You put tape over my mouth
and I’ll find another way to breathe,
You cut off my hands
and I’ll teach you with my eyes...
QUESTION THE LIES!
QUESTION THE LIES!
QUESTION THE LIES!
and step out of the shadows, the cave,
letting a new voice be heard: Rebel! Rant! Rave!
(all with your heart beating to the pulse
of that maternal womb
that loves you, trusts you and
needs you to spread inevitable wings).

And this brings me
back to me.
You see, I’m constructing my own reality
in a perspective processing pride
(which doesn’t wish to hide behind everything I’ve been told,
but attempts to be bolder and grab a hold
of an intuition immeasurable by man -
only by the Grace of God, that somehow I can)

The Milk jug is spilling
and I’m sorry, tonite I cry wrong
(and my rhyme, use of rhtythm, my story, my song)
but I’m singing and that’s my point.
I’m singing to you, Fight. Enlighten the magic within.

On t.v. they say to be beautiful,
be rich,
have muscle,
and fame---
NBC network’s real good at a white game
(perhaps the peacock and its colors are actually quite lame
and I wonder if our shadows
blend together, a simpler hue,
blinded, once again, by the evil these masks do,
preconceived notions by patriotic ethnic stew,
making individuality, complex, beyond me and you).

I AM ME
YOU ARE YOU
One and One equals two
I N D I V I D U A L S
and I respect us for that
and not how commercials portray us
display us
betray us
we are more complicated than
a lumped sum of societal succotash
shown on CBS,
awareness of the mess our shades symbolize
in the shallowness of their depth.

Sigh...
so many around you try ---
and that is why I cry wrong,
unemotionally emotional
to the XY of my jeans
socialized by the habit
of masculiniity, so it seems...
(yet full of feelings, nonetheless,
confess, you have them, too)

And I can’t stress enough that they’re real...
unexplored they stay concealed...
but in epiphany, reveal
a rennaisance yet announced.

Pronounce for a second these words:
black.
white.
black,
white,
black!
white!
And for each mono syllable of “how can we not be thankful” breath,
the denotation represents a universe of complicated connotations:
explanations
revelations
innovations
contemplations
inhalations
exhalations
that perhaps says silence shows us more...

but does it?

It allows the vocal to win
(and really, who has the home court advantage?)

disadvantaged, I
grew up a working class white
a minority-

perhaps in some light,
still fighting for answers
to questions, ignored

Destiny is complicated-
omnipotence, impotent -- yet
minds capable of Big Bangs beyond
imagination with
no other catalyst but the
I
creating the you, me, my, why

All the songs
leave me crying wrong
entertaining
existentialist hip hop
and my honkey do wopping waltz
neck to neck with time
down with his need to rhyme
evolving as best as he can,
ranting, chanting, wanting you to join us...

do

you

dare

join

this

song?