The Dead Emcee Scrolls
Page 6
for a middle-class existence. I see
through smiles and smell truth in
the distance. Beyond one dimensional
smiles and laughter lies the hereafter.
Where tears echo laughter.
You’d have to do math to divide a
smile by a tear, times fear, equals
mere truth, that simply dwells in the
air. But if that’s the case all I have
to do is breath and all else will follow.
That’s why drums are hollow.
And I like drums. Drums are good.
But I can’t think straight. I lack the
attention span to meditate. My attention
spans galaxies. Here and now are immense.
Seconds are secular. Moments are mine.
Self is illusion. Music’s divine.
CHAPTER 4
Noosed by the strings of Jimi’s guitar,
I swing, purple-hazed pendulum. Hypnotizing
the part of eye that never dies. Look into my:
eyes are the windows of the soul is fried chicken,
collards, and cornbread is corn meal, sour cream,
eggs, and oil is the stolen blood of the earth, used
to make cars run and kill the fish.
Who me? I play scales. The scales of
dead fish of oil-slicked seas. My sister
blows wind through the hollows of fallen
trees. And we are the echoes of eternity.
Maybe you’ve heard of us.
We do rebirths, revolts, and resurrections.
We threw basement parties in pyramids.
I left my tag on the wall. The beats would
echo off the stone and solidify into the
form of lightbulbs, destined to light up
the heads of future generations. They
recently lit up in the form of: BA BOOM
BOOM OM. Maybe you’ve heard of us.
CHAPTER 5
If not then you must be trying to hear us
and in such cases we cannot be heard. We
remain in the darkness, unseen. In the center
of unpeeled bananas, we exist. Uncolored by
perception. Clothed to the naked eye. Five
senses cannot sense the fact of our existence.
And that’s the only fact. In fact, there are no
facts.
Fax me a fact and I’ll telegram a hologram
or telephone the son of man and tell him he
is done. Leave a message on his answering
machine telling him there are none. God and
I are one. Times moon. Times star. Times sun.
The factor is me. You remember me.
CHAPTER 6
I slung amethyst rocks on Saturn blocks
until I got caught up by earthling cops. They
wanted me for their army or whatever. Picture
me: I swirl like the wind. Tempting tomorrow
to be today. Tiptoeing the fine line between
everything and everything else. I am simply
Saturn swirling sevens through sooth. The sole
living heir of air. And I (inhale) and (exhale) and
all else follows. Reverberating the space inside of
drum hollows. Packaged in bottles and shipped to
tomorrow, then sold to the highest NGH.
I swing from the tallest tree. Lynched by
the lowest branches of me. Praying that
my physical will set me free ’cause I’m
afraid that all else is vanity. Mere language
is profanity. I’d rather hum. Or have my
soul tattooed to my tongue. And let the
scriptures be sung in gibberish. ’Cause
words be simple fish in my soulquarium.
And intellect can’t swim.
CHAPTER 7
So, I stopped combing my mind so my
thoughts could lock. I’m tired of trying
to understand. Perceptions are mangled,
matted, and knotted anyway. Life is more
than what meets the eye and I.
So, elevate eye to the third. But even that
shit seems absurd when your thoughts
leave you third eye-solated. No man is an
island. But I often feel alone. So find peace
through OM.
OM
CHAPTER 1
Through meditation I program my heart
to beat break beats and hum bass lines
on exhalation. BA BOOM BOOM OM.
I burn seven-day candles that melt into
12-inch circles on my mantle and spin
funk like myrrh. BA BOOM BOOM OM.
And I can fade worlds in and out with my
mixing patterns. Letting the earth spin as I
blend in Saturn. NGHs be like spinning
windmills, braiding hair, locking, popping,
as the sonic force of the soul keeps the planets
rockin.
The beat don’t stop when soul-less matter
flows into the cosmos trying to be stars.
The beat don’t stop when earth sends out
satellites to spy on Saturnites and control
Mars.
’Cause NGHs got a peace treaty with Martians
and we be keepin’em up to date through sacred
gibberish like “Sho Nuff” and “It’s on.” The
beat goes on. The beat goes on. The beat goes
OM. BA BOOM BOOM OM.
CHAPTER 2
And I roam through the streets of downtown
Venus tryin’ to auction off monuments of Osiris’
severed penis. But they don’t want no penis in
Venus, for androgynous cosmology sets their
spirits free.
And they neither men nor women be. But they be
down with a billion NGHs who have yet to see that
interplanetary truth is androgynous.
And they be sendin us shout outs through shootin
stars. And NGHs be like, “what up?” and talking
Mars.’Cause we are solar and regardless of how
far we roam from home the universe remains our
center, like OM. BA BOOM BOOM OM.
CHAPTER 3
I am no earthling. I drink moonshine on Mars
and mistake meteors for stars ’cause I can’t hold
my liquor. But I can hold my breath and ascend
like wind to the black hole and play galaxophones
on the fire escape of your soul.
Blowing tunes through lunar wombs. Impregnating
stars. Giving birth to suns that darken the skins that
skin our drums. And we be beatin infinity over sacred
hums. Spinning funk, like myrrh, until Jesus comes.
And Jesus comes every time we drum. And the moon
drips blood and eclipses the sun. And out of darkness
comes the BA BOOM BOOM. And out of darkness
comes the BA BOOM BOOM. And out of darkness
comes the BA BOOM BOOM OM.
1987
CHAPTER 1
Acid wash Guess with the leather patches,
sportin the white Diadoras with the hoodie
that matches. I’m wearing two Swatches and
a small Gucci pouch. I could have worn the
Louis but I left it in the house.
My NGHs Duce and Wayne got gold plates
with their name, with the skyline on it and the
box-link chain. I’m wearing my frames they
match my gear with their tint. And you know
Lagerfeld is the scent.
My NGH Rafael just got his jeep out the shop.
Mint green sidekick. Custom made ragtop. Strictly
Business is the album that we play. “You’re a
Customer,” the pick of the day.
CHAPTER 2
; There’s a NGH on the block. Never seen him
before. Selling incense and oils. My man thinks
that he’s the law. But why on earth would this be
on their agenda as he slowly approaches the window.
Uh, uh, I’ve seen you before. I’ve been you and
more. I was the one bearing the pitcher of water. I
rent the large upper room furnished with tidings of
your doom or pleasure, whichever feathers decree.
“Yo, Ralph, is he talking to me?” “No I’m talking to
the sea sons resurrected. I’m the solstice of the
day. I bring news from the blues of the Caspian”
My man laughs. “He’s one of them crazy
MTHRFKRs. Turn the music back up. ’Cause
I’m the E double.” “Wait, but but, I know the
volume of the sea and sound waves as I will.
Will you allow me to be at your service?”
My man Ralph is nervous. He believes his
strange tongue deceives and maybe he’s
been informed that he’s pushing gats, Hidden
in the back beneath the floor mats. “Come on
Jack, we don’t have time for your bullshit or
playin, As Salaam A somethin or another.”
“Wait isn’t Juanita your mother? I told you
I know you. Now grant me a moment.”
CHAPTER 3
“At the gates of Atlantis we stand. Ours
is the blood that flowed from the palms
of his. Hands on the plow, till earth ’til
I’m now. Moon cycles revisited. Womb
fruit of the sun. Full moon of occasion
wave the wolves where they run. And we
run towards the light. Casting love on the
wind. As is the science of the aroma of
sleeping women.”
Lost in his eyes. They soon reflect my
friends are grinning. But I’m a pupil of
his sight. The wheels are spinning. “Yo,
I’ll see y’all later tonight.”
CHAPTER 4
In the beginning her tears were the long
awaited rains of a parched Somali village.
Red dusted children danced shadows in the
newfound mounds of mascara that eclipsed
her face, reflected in the smogged glass of
Carlos’ East Street bodega.
Learning to love she had forgotten to cry,
seldom hearing the distant thunder in her
lover’s ambivalent sighs. He was not honest.
She was not sure. A great grandfather had
sacrificed the family’s clarity for gold in the
late 1800s. Nonetheless, she had allowed
him to mispronounce her name, which had
eventually led to her misinterpreting her
own dreams and later doubting them. But
the night was young.
She, the first-born daughter of water, faced
darkness and smiled. Took mystery as her
lover and raised light as her child. Man that
shit was wild. You should have seen how
they ran. She woke up in an alley with a gun
in her hand. Tupac in lotus form, Ennis’ blood
on his hands.
She woke up on a vessel, the land behind her,
the sun within her, water beneath her, mushed
corn for dinner. Or was it breakfast? Her stomach
turned, as if a compass. She prayed east and lay
there breathless. They threw her overboard for
dead. She swam silently and fled into the blue Si.
CHAPTER 5
La So Fa Me Re Do Si. The seventh octave. I
don’t mean to confuse you. Many of us have
been taught to sing and so we practice scales.
Many of us were born singing and thus were
born with scales.
Myrrh-maids cooks and field hands sang a
night song by the forest and the ocean was the
chorus in Atlantis, where they sang. Those thrown
overboard had overheard the mysteries of the
undertow and understood that down below there
would be no more chains.
They surrendered breath and name and survived
countless as rain. I’m the weather, man. The clouds
say storm is coming. A white buffalo was born
already running. And if you listen close you’ll hear
a humming.
CHAPTER 6
Beneath the surface of our purpose lies rumor of
ancient rain. Dressed in cloud-face, minstrels the
sky. The moon’s my mammy. The storm holds
my eye.
Dressed in westerlies. Robed by Robeson. Ol’
Man River knows my name. And the reason you
were born is the reason that I came.
CHAPTER 7
Then she looks me in the face and her eyes get
weak. Pulse rate descends. Hearts rate increase.
Emcees look me in the face and their eyes get
weak. Pulse rate descends. Hearts rate increase.
Emcees look me in the face and their eyes get
weak. Pulse rate descends. Hearts rate increase.
It’s like “Beam me up, Scottie.” I control your
body. I’m as deadly as AIDS when it’s time to
rock a party.
We all rocked fades. Fresh faded in La Di Da Di.
And when we rock the mic we rock the mic right.
But left’s the feminine side. Ignored the feminine
side.
I presented my feminine side with flowers. She cut
the stems and placed them gently down my throat.
And these tu lips might soon eclipse your brightest
hopes.
SHA CLACK CLACK
CHAPTER 1
I could recite the grass on a hill and memorize
the moon. I know the cloud forms of love by
heart and have brought tears to the eye of a
storm. My memory banks vaults of autumn
forests and Amazon River banks. I’ve screamed
them into sunsets that echo in earthquakes.
Shadows have been my spotlight as I monologue
the night and dialogue with days. Soliloquies of
wind and breeze applauded by sunrays.
We put language in zoos to observe caged
thought and tossed peanuts and P-Funk at
intellect. And MTHRFKRs think these are
metaphors. I speak what I see. All words
and worlds are metaphors of me. My life
is authored by the moon. Footprints written
in soil. The fountain pen of Martian men
novelling human toil.
And, yes, the soil speaks highly of me, when
earth seeds root me poet-tree. And we forest
forever through recitation.
CHAPTER 2
Now maybe I’m too Sirius. Too little here
to matter. Although I’m riddled with the
reason of the sun. A standup comet with the
audience of lungs. This body of laughter is
it with me or at me? Hue more or less? Human,
though gender’s mute. And the punch-
line has this lifeline at its root.
I’m a star. This life’s the suburbs. I commute.
Make daily runs between the sun and earthly
loot. And raise my children to the height of
light and truth.
CHAPTER 3
If I could find the spot where truth echoes,
I would stand there and whisper memories
of my children’s future. I would let their
future dwell in my past so that I might live
a brighter now.
Now is the essence
of my domain and it
contains all that was and will be. And I
am as I was and will be, because I am and
always will be that NGH. I am that NGH.
I am that NGH.
CHAPTER 4
I am that timeless NGH that swings on
pendulums like vines through mines of
booby-trapped minds that are enslaved
by time. I am the life that supersedes
lifetimes, I am.
It was me with serpentine hair and a timeless
stare that with a mortal glare turned mortal
fear into stone time capsules. They still exist
as the walking dead. As I do, the original
suffer-head, symbol of life and matriarchy’s
severed head: Medusa, I am.
It was me, the ecclesiastical one, that pointed
out that there was nothing new under the sun.
And in times of laughter and times of tears, saw
that no times were real times, ’cause all times
were fear. The wise seer, Solomon, I am.
It was me with tattered clothes that made you
scatter as you shuffled past me on the street.
Yes, you shuffled past me on the street as I
stood there conversing with wind blown spirits.
And I fear it’s your loss that you didn’t stop
and talk to me. I could have told you your future
as I explained your present, but instead, I’m the
homeless schizophrenic that you resent for being
aimless. The in-tuned nameless, I am.
CHAPTER 5
I am that NGH. I am that NGH. I am
that NGH. I am a negro. Yes, negro
from necro, meaning death. I overcame
it so they named me after it. And I be
spitting at death from behind and putting
“kick me” signs on its back, because,