SECTION TWELVE
POETRY PAGE ONE

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COLUMN NINETY-FOUR, JULY 1, 2003
(Copyright © 2003 The Blacklisted Journalist)

RUN UP THE MOUNTAIN (SISYPHUS BOP)

Don't be 'fraid

                       The Beast is never strong

                                   As he said

Charge into your future

           Of destiny to come

                      Don't hesitate

                                 Submit or succumb

We are the world of what's  

           Coming into being

           It is a new life

           You feel and be

                       Seeing

Don't doubt your strength 

Or the wisdom of yr heart

Resist Triple Six & his

Multiple faces, Don't Believe

           Or be tricked by the

                    Slickest of Racists
 

           We are the people who  

Created civilization

Now our highest art

                    Is to make the world

                               One Nation!
 

 Go On, fly if you need, Climb, walk  

Run, Fight, rush

To the height, stalk, talk, do what

Is Just, Swing, Sing, do what we must

There is nothing more noble than humanity's

Being, re-being, go higher, on fire, the

Sky past desire, move fast, sail wail

Stay up, out last, educate, mobilize

Don't let ourselves be trivialized

Get in, Get out, make a fist, just insist 

Look out, See in, speak to all, never fall

The road is long the path zigs and zags

Some who are friends might become drags

Be clear on what you hear, be certain

What you see, always know yr enemies

As well as you know your friends.

Don't be slow, but don't be too fast, it's 

A protracted struggle, we got to last

But learn the world, and all its looks

Be able to distinguish the wise from the crooks

Learn from everything, the sky, the earth,

The people, animals, and the church

Listen to people who work every day.

Listen to what every body tell you

For free, they not getting paid.  Learn

From every, watch the moon

& read books, look at flicks, watch

the dancers, check the Singers, dig

the music, be full of poetry, understand old

people, learn from the young, babies got

something to say, even if they cant say it

old folks' way.  The sun is a teacher

clouds are question marks the stars

their periods.  Ask the question nobody

understands.  Think up answers they

will.  Be for life.  Against Killers,

& People Sellers, and the fake good willers.

Be Christ one day, Buddha the next, Krishna 

When you Blue, Du Bois when you true

Be Marley when you Sing Langston when

You rap, Douglass when you speak

Ho Chih Minh when they try to sneak.

Be Fidel & Kick They Booty, Roumaine when

You need Beauty, You can act like Zora

Running the aesthetic of anthropological

Colored Hip.  You change to Margaret Walker

Tao Valorize the people, Jimmy Baldwin

To hyke the simply evil.  You can be

Cesaire & talk about the entire island

Of the soul.  You can speak immediate

Wonder Spanish, & then you'll be

Nicolas Guillen

 You is all the Africans you wanna

Be You was Diop yesterday, Sembene

This morning.  I heard you in the bathroom

You was Marvin Gaye!

Any one you love you can become

Instantly, you was Malcolm in the evening

Dr. King afternoon, just a little bit later

You was talking like Robert Williams

& your mouth became a gun.
 

 Was you Robeson on the weekend

I heard that Thunderous voice, I knew

You was Nat Turner when I saw a serpent

Burning.  Somebody sd you was Lorraine cause

they saw a rasin risin' & wondered was that

You who brought them slaves up north on

A greyhound, they saw yall getting off.
 

You was talking like Miles a minute ago,  

Layin Bird's crumpled vine across a chair, sd to a square,

"So What?" Waitin for Trane to come..

I know you been Monk from day number one.

You was Billie & Sassy & Ella & Johnny Hartman  

I heard you being Louis & Buhainia

Lames paid talking about Art,

But it ain't Blakey nor Farmer and it sure aint

Tatum.  You is them all them time.

        You the real President even with that counterfeit  

In your residence.  No Splivs in The Caucasian Crib.

But you is the only Rabbit, the only Ben Webster, and I aint saying

You a predictable spook, but I knew all the time

You'd show up as Duke.

I ain't crazy, I even expected Basie

Anybody with the facts wd know

You'd come as Max

&     no matter the lies

      the media got you thinking

 I knew you would also

                       Be Abbey Lincoln.

Come on, you was Nina Simone

            Hanging out with my wife

                        When I got home.
 

I was in the Third Ward, believe it or not,

            You was sliding up Waverly Ave

       As Little Jimmy Scott

Like it was the same street, You was Archie Shepp,

With that tender step, on them same kind of foots

Was Pharoah delivered, I remembered you was also

Horace Silver.

           All who are diggers

           Know who we are

           We was last seen

           Being Sun Ra

Back in the Day, and The Day before

           & THE Day before Day

           you was acting like

Lester Young

After being

Jelly Roll

Even when you cryin

You cd be Willie The Lion

& if stuff get messy

you cd weep like the Empress

Bessie

           So deep the world

           Start to weep

Wakin everybody up

           Who was sleep

Ma Rainey hollerin

About the flood

Ethel

           the rising Waters
 

Bumpy was you that time up town  

You made the Dutchman back down

(Jesse Jackson heard him as he fell  

But didn't quote him well, Dutch screamed

This is Arthur Fliegenheimer's Town.)

Beat his behind like a common crook  

Was you and Harlem wheel build the numbers

He tried to steal,

But the rulers of the land 

(Bush the president of

The klan, he his own hood!)

Who hate us worse than Jazz

Put bumpy in Alcatraz

And in a few ticks, ambushed us 

With dirty tricks, Legalized the numbers

To Pick Six, to help education and such

If that is so why the budget cuts

I knew that even when I was Fat's

When me and James P used to

Make George Gershwin Rich

Aint that a bitch, just like Jackie Wilson

Worked his pelvis to turn doo doo into

Elvis.

If you steal don't make you smarter  

I is still Benny Carter, I don't need Colon

I got Bud, and Speak the truth even when Dizzy

With my Latin ego The Tito, or Machito or this is scary, I can be

Palmeri, supossin I appeared as Mongo or Bauzo or confessed

That I also Denzil Best, that I was Sonny Til AND The Orioles,

That I was Stevie Wonder every time he opened his mouth

To see.  I wasn't Papa Doc but I was Papa Jo, though

There's Negroes cheap as clams, bloodless

blueless white stars they knighted snakes.  Who answer to the name of

Assissant oppressor, happy to say Me Am, they own

Oppressor too, heels of the big dogs shoes.

And we scream and holler

We aint really mad nor crazy

We be dead if we was lazy

We is sweet if we need to be

Hot when we wanna be  

And when we scream and holler

It makes maniac poison less deadly

To swalla, as nobly as Hank Mobley

To get down like Clifford,

Or wild as James, still me by

Any of them names, still you

Smokey Armstrong Aretha Ellington Lawrence

The Trillionth.  It's still me

With my bad blue black out side inner on under soul be bop funky rasta

Vonz dread irae uhuru amandla ujamaa digging serious deep heavy hip

Invisible red suit conk head decorated religious singing dancing playing running

Shit talking, praying, staying, paying, smart ass, slick ass, strong ass, big ass,

Colored, Club Member, woogie, nemderoloc, apex, kujichagulia, black panther,

Dr King, Stokely, Lumumba, Rap, Huey, Malik, Tupac, Mau Mau, dangerous, Ray

Robinson, Muhammad Ali (or Cassius Clay, they both kick ass), Jack Johnson,

Supremes, Miracles, Temptations, Orioles, Son House, Little Richard, Tiger,

Williams Sisters, Willie Mays, Larry Doby, Satchel Paige, Henry Dumas, Larry

Neal, Sekou Toure, Black Arts, oldest communists, 1st upright walking, language

talking, 1st singing, 1st poet, , 1st dramatist, 1st city building, 1st human, 1st scientist,

1st doctor, 1st artist, 1st preacher, 1st teacher, 1st thief , lst liar, 1st killer, 1st astronomer,

1st map maker, 1st soldier, 1st sailor, 1st flyers, 1st most beautiful, I1st most brilliant,

1st everything but the shit we shouldna been 1st in but still was, 1st creators of

religion, houses, boats, fire, tombs, plates, clothes, revolutions, is the you the me the

we us is speaking of, (we us I mean black) like we grandmamma, me nana say,

we movin on to higher ground.

Oh oldest talking, singing, dancing, tool making, furniture making,  

government making, actor, comedian, tail shedding tale telling family, I seen you in

Acapulco (yo Mix Co), seen yr pointy buildings in Yucatan, Checked you out in

Colombia, Nica(yeh?) ragua, the living black mountain Indians of Haiti, Easter was

where you rose, You always was Solar, Soul is your sunshine, Over head you

understand, to look up is to turn On, to Nut, to go out, Seen you in India black as

Ptah, Christmas is when you show, Jesus is your Jam, I Am, Ham, Sam, Kam, yeh

dug you in Cambodia, you left your face all over the place, went up side the

mountains head, Got to China you still had your locks, Buddy in the South, Buddha

In the East, Allah is Everything, Albert sd that, is Everything, Blues is your arrival

and you survival, pentatonic is the 1st liquor, the scale is the justice of sound, Monk

taught martial arts on the piano the religion of Humph!  It is never cold, Away is the

never got hot.  So we call it Zen.

Oh speaker of all languages, measure the meaning of remaining being the sea of

seeing, the Wholly C, measure what is left if what is gone is what is right, you the

child of night, the invisible wonderful 1st seer of the stars, what you looking at

High in that tree, but what is wonderful.  About to rise again, to get up off the

ground

Oh 1st thing with hands

Oh 1st digger of flats and sharps

Oh first drummer, foot patter,

Oh first with amazing brain

Oh great Artist and lover of good food

Oh admirer of the sharp the flashy the cool the slick

Oh farmer 1, worker 1, Oh explorer of everything

Oh 1st knower oh 1st card player oh creator of dominoes and dice

Oh creator of robes, trousers, dresses, underwear and the zoot suit

Oh ex monkey and 1st signifier

Oh first to play the dozens and get cut

Oh first to doo doo on an elephants head

Let us, is it time, don't be late, you always, was, where, time to climb the star, don't

stare, up the stair of yrself again, going to greet we self again, up that goddamn

mountain again, don't worry again is always again

Time to rise to higher ground

Go head sing, make that wholly sound!  ##

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