by Qwantu Amaru
Spring Cleaning
The eyes are the windows into the houses of the soul.
The wildness you see within these windowpanes is the loss of my control…
…Of my consciences kitchen,
Reeking from values long gone bad.
The skeletons have left their closets,
They’re running around like mad.
Dirty thoughts dominate the wasterooms,
The trash is piling high.
I would clean them in the bathroom,
but my hope’s water has run dry.
My goals are dirty laundry,
The washroom smells of their sweat and must,
and I’ve lost my inner child,
The game-room now only collects cobwebs and dust.
Dishes of my deepest desires,
Lie broken on the dining room table.
My love life is long forgotten,
The living room is little more now than a fable.
The room once used for relaxation,
Is now a den of nightmares.
I’m losing my lease on life,
Do you think the Realtor cares?
Because I have a basement that’s flooding,
From all of my lies.
Aspirations I keep in the attic,
Are finally saying their good-byes.
I’m restless every night,
I’ve made my bed but do you think I sleep?
and my emotional toilet is overflowing,
Revealing my inner sewage as I weep.
I have viewed the many horrors of life,
Dropping the property value of my soul.
Did I mention that the thermostat is also broken,
Inside it’s dry and cold…
So you don’t want to get to know me,
You see what I mean?
At least not until I take some time and get a chance,
To spring clean…
Reality Check
Image is nothing...
But an ignorant impression,
A blind perception without asking questions...
Just a surface story of fictional glory,
Lacking substantial evidence...
Like electing presidents without background checks,
and no one suspects...
That underneath his smiling, posturing exterior,
Is an inferior, wearier, warrior...
Who everyday tries to ignore,
The truth of his inner core...
Too poor to try to cure,
An illness ripe with malignancy...
He begs for leniency, but only secretly,
Because he’s been entangled by appearance...
And only few ever receive clearance,
To pass through the interference into the billowy depths within...
These so-called friends,
Still grin and smile at his jokes...
Even as they peer through the hoax,
The trick mirrors, screens of smoke, and lies that he spoke..
Letting him choke on the fantastic fallacy,
That one really gets everything one sees...
In his solitude, this he decrees,
From atop his throne of falsehood...
Made out of petrified intentions of good, should, and would,
His reality is but a dream...
But even as the mirage begins to fade,
There he remains and tries to stand...
Until against his will and plans,
The precious mirror crumbles into sand...
Until Dawn
Fleeting fireworks deepen the darkness’s descent upon the day
Preparing the set of the world’s stage for this night’s play
Starting with dress rehearsals of docile dreams
Presented by opaque spotlights shining on black screens
This prime-time lineup varies every night
No one knows if the darkness will bring peace or if it will bring fright
No matter which, unwilling window shoppers have no choice but to watch
As Father Time moves the night onward notch by notch
And billions of blind eyes staring out of mute faces
Gaze upon the land of the lost and all its empty spaces
Searching for the meanings of these midnight matinees
In the realm of R.E.M., lord of the subconscious maze
Trapped inside of this divine comedy, who understands the punch line
When the Earth’s highest life form uses only ten percent of its mind
And can’t even recall what makes escaping from the darkness so good
It’s no wonder so many dreams are misunderstood
For when they awake within the light at the end of night’s tunnel
They think they are safe, but they have only reached the lip of the funnel
Holding on for dear life for fear of falling off the edge
It is now that they realize just how narrow is the ledge
That separates them from that secret dark world
Within which their deepest desires and darkest fears swirl
For waking is a blessing not to be taken for granted
From places where all normal logic is more than slightly slanted
Nightmares serve as constant warnings
That each and every sunrise seen really is a good morning
Memory’s Bliss
Life passes quickly as rapids to a waterfall
And all that remains in the warped wreckage
Of another soul passing over the edge
Are thin glimmers of captured moments we leave behind
On mantles and within albums in which we categorize our lives
We haunt these images the way phantasms haunt final resting-places
Our restless souls imprisoned behind the dusty covers of long forgotten books
Hoping for the moment when we can reveal
Cobwebbed stories about the days of our lives
Speaking vicariously through the vocal cords of various freeze-frames
We tell tall tales of joy, sadness, pain, and pleasure
And as the flip books of frozen forgotten moments thaw
We have been born again through a birth canal of dark rooms
For a picture is much more than words alone
But without an audience
A picture is worth less than driftwood
Floating aimlessly in the river of life
the wall
it’s called hitting the wall
you’re running smoothly
when suddenly your whole back
tenses intensely
as if some sick puppet master
pulled all the muscles at once
it’s more than a cramp
and less than a charlie horse
but it hurts like hell
runners know this feeling well
they call it hitting the wall
or running the bear
clawing and crawling on your back
between laps he growls in your ear
telling you that you can’t do it any more
the finish line is too far
you’re too sore
to climb that wall
that stands impassively in your way
step by step the pain increases
your legs have never felt this heavy
nor your chest this hot
inhaling napalm with each gasping breath
forgetting about keeping pace
even forgetting about the race
because the pain is your only friend now
and he sits atop that cold wall
glaring down like humpty dumpty
but it’s you that falls and cracks
from the pressure
and the ground has never felt this good
so you decide to stay down
and let the wall crumble and crush you
Sick & Tired
see i've got this dis-ease
i mean i'm uneasy see
dtc drug advertising
that be--direct to consumer
directed at me
is making me feel crazy...
Do you sometimes feel lazy?
voices in my tv be askin me
tell lie vision harrasin me
Are you sometimes sad or lonely?
if i could only turn off these voices
maybe pick up a magazine and read...
Do you know what you need?
i need ya'll to leave me be
instead of tryin to convince me
that somethings wrong wit me
what's wrong with this society?
we pop pills and pill pop
to stop feelin anything
Are you depressed?
Are you in denial?
Do you have trouble focusing?
now i'm pacing through the halls of my life
wondering when not if i'll have to go under the knife
for ulcers or hemorroids or cancer or heartache or heartburn or wringworm or aids or myalgia or nostalgia or aneurism or amnesia or Alzeimer's or Graves or Parkinsons or Sanford and Sons...
where the hell did all this dis-ease come from?
Is your vision sometimes blurry?
Do you have a medical history?
that one is easy!
i know more about my family's medical history
than my own ancestry
i can check all the boxes on that medical form
sure i can tell you how i've coped with all this dis-ease since the day i was born
There's a pill for that
There's a name for that
There's hope for that
does insurance pay for that?
will i die from that?
will i die?
will i?
where does this dis-ease come from?
was it in my food or drink? the tap water in my sink?
preservatives
pasteurization
stress
chemicals
meat
vegetables
poisonous
materials
airborne
genetic
heredic
alcohol
tobacco
bacteria
hysteria
Do you want the answers?
yes...God yes!
Ask your Doctor for more information
For the Jena 6
All together now
Let's put up our fists
We got to let them know
That we won't stand for this
Because racism is still alive
And they just be concealing it
Because the hatred that has poisoned us for so long
Continues to persist
Some people think this situation is outrageous
Because 6 black kids put up their fists
These must be the same people
Who have sympathy for Don Imus
All together now
Let's put up our fists
We got to let them know
That we won't stand for this
We've got a history of violence
So don't try to claim ignorance
Stop trying to dismiss this as an isolated incident
Just check the statistics
There you'll read
About a system that punishes blacks disproportionately
That's why we descended on your small backwoods town
And this time we're going to stand our ground
All together now
Let's put up our fists
We got to let them know
That we won't stand for this
And we will not leave until true justice is served
These kids didn't receive the treatment they deserved
Imagine the grief of coming to school and seeing that tree
With three white nooses dangling
Imagine the grief of spending 10 months locked up
Charged with second degree murder and conspiracy
Freedom becoming a memory with each days passing
Now imagine a sea of thousands of black and white faces chanting
All together now
Let's put up our fists
We got to let them know
That we won't stand for this
Work Shit (remix)
Is it worth it?
All this work shit?
Let's put they game down flip it and reverse it
Pops told me I should work to live
and not live to work
I guess that's a perk of the retired
Meanwhile I'm sick and tired
of being sick and...
Well ya'll know the rest
I wake up every morning and try my best
To be better than the rest
To set the curve on these corporate tests
and to minimize my stress
but these colonizers keep yo boy stressed
Dressed in a monkey suit and expensive silk noose
Working overtime to find the truth
And is it worth it?
All this work shit?
Let's put they game down flip it and reverse it
I'm composing verses of rebellion
Yelling silently from behind my computer screen
Instead of making a scene and screaming out my frustration
I should be calling Minister Farakhan and the nation of islam
To swing by and drop a coupla X bombs on this God foresaken territory
ya'll need to pray for me
Cuz if my boss calls me into her office one more time
I might just lose my mind
And my job...
But is it worth it?
All this work shit?
Let's put they game down flip and reverse it
At the end of the day
I wanna be able to look into the mirror and still see a trace of the nobility
Passed on to me by the ancestors
But the deeper I get into this corporate game
I become more and more tame
And I find myself laughing at jokes that ain't even funny
Cuz i'm too busy watching my money rise in stacks
Worrying more about my taxes than my people
But lucky for me these lapses in judgment are temporary
Cuz it's scary to think
That I could be assimilating
Imitating the ultimate imitators
But that's the difference between action and words
It's just not worth it
All this work shit
Let's put this game down flip it and reverse it
So Mr. Bossman, Overseer, and Massa
I guess I didn't pass your test
Sorry I couldn't jump through the hoops
I've decided to chill and go shoot some hoops
I've decided to be a mentor to some kids groups
I've decided to write some letters to our troops
and tell them boys to come on back to this broken home
I've decided to start my own business and struggle to pay off my loans
But at least my choices will be my own
Instead of making you and your kids and your kids kids rich
I've decided that I just ain't built for this work shit
So I quit.
I put they game down flipped it and reversed it!
I dare you
what’s it gonna take to wake the sleeping masses?
it’s like if there’s no movie stars, special effects or hot soundtrack no one gets affected
we’re living in the ag
e of cause and cause
there’s no more cause and effect
do i gotta enlist Ben Affleck and that crazy duck from AFLAC?
giving you daredevil insurance to crack through the lack of compassion
whatever happened to compassion?
i guess that intimate sentiment has gone bust
leaving a great emptiness inside of us
and we continue to feed it even though we can barely feel it
we’re scared to peel it and uncover the juicy truth underneath
because underneath it reeks of spoiled morality
calloused and hardened by choosing everyday to look the other way
whatever happened to color?
everything’s turned cold and gray, blended together with a layer of smog on top
in this environment
cops get away with beating innocents
innocence gets violated everyday on pay per view
the newspaper is used not to report the news
but as a vehicle to push the views of a chosen few upon me and you
and we can smell the bullshit in the air
that’s why we stay clear
we’d rather cheer for a sports team than organize
and start marching on every state capitol in these Divided States
let me raise the stakes just a bit more
not only did we start a war under false pretenses
spending billions of your hard earned taxes to bolster our defenses
but we said fuck you to other defenseless people
like those in Darfur
people being brutally murdered everyday
the media can’t even spare five minutes of airplay to shine some light on their plight
but maybe my expectations are too high
maybe I’m being overly cynical and pessimistic
FUCK THAT!
it doesn’t get any more realistic than poor blacks and whites
standing up to their necks in putrid pools of H2O
looking up to the sky’s for hope
only to see Mr. G. W. flying by, mai tai in hand
trying to find a nice landing spot so he could stay dry
but not even Katrina could get a full rise out of our numb demeanors
we breathed a collective sigh of relief when the next news story took over the airwaves
saving us from having to confront our deepest fears that our American society and social systems
are so deeply fragile
ask the people in the N.O. they know
just how quickly disaster strikes
but the rest of us have no clue
and that cluelessness is the glow from an oblivious nightlight helping us sleep at night
even knowing somewhere down below that our comfortable lives are nothing more than shimmering illusions
as long as we keep choosing to be entertained rather than be aware
it’s gonna get harder and harder to care about anything that doesn’t affect us directly
and I suspect that even then
even then, the social Novocain won’t wear off
because we don’t want to wake up
we don’t want to know what’s out there
but here’s an idea
maybe we’d do it on a dare?
After the Storm
It has been said that true joy can only be felt after experiencing true pain.
Just as the colors of rainbows appear after the rain…
The colorful mists are as temperamental as true feelings.
Showing themselves only through prisms of personal reflection…
When joy does reveal itself, it becomes as evident as raindrops on sunny days.
Or as teardrops descending from smiling eyes…
True happiness is the real treasure to be gained,
From tormenting torrents of emotional rain…
That in due time must subside,
Revealing the soulful rainbow hiding inside…
mic check…qwantu, qwantu (1,2…1,2)
qwantu amaru (the lightbringer) is a current resident of new jersey and a beauty mark on the world's expansive face. born in pittsburgh, pennsylvania he has traveled the u.s. extensively and spent considerable time abroad as well.
he wrote his first poem back in '98 about a love battle waged and lost and he's been using poetry to battle back ever since. complex and ever changing his writing took a significant leap forward upon joining the diverse and hard hitting backtalk! poetry troupe in 2001. somewhere between honing his craft as a passionate spoken word artist and attending florida a&m in the mba program he managed to graduate and someone actually hired this self described "conscious rebel".
"we used to work for the massa, now i've got my masters, and i still work for the massa," he says of his experience working the commercial plantations of corporate america. not letting anything stop him, qwantu is in process of completing his first supernatural suspense novel.
qwantu describes his spoken word flow as "stream of consciousness poetic truth". for more information visit the black on black rhyme website at www.blackonblackrhyme.com or e-mail him at [email protected].