The Dead Emcee Scrolls
Page 5
The wind plays the world like an instrument.
Blows through trees like flutes. But trees won’t
grow in cement. And as heart beats bring
percussion fallen trees bring repercussions.
Cities play upon our souls like broken drums.
We drum the essence of creation from city
slums. But city slums mute our drums and
our drums become humdrum ’cause city slums
have never been where our drums were from.
Just the place where our daughters and sons
become offbeat heartbeats.
Slaves to city streets. Where hearts get broken
when heartbeats stop. Broken heartbeats become
break-beats for NGHs to rhyme on top.
CHAPTER 24
I’m falling up flights of stairs. Scraping
myself from the sidewalk. Jumping from
rivers to bridges. Drowning in pure air.
Hip-hop is lying on the side of the road
half dead to itself. Blood scrawled over its
mangled flesh like jazz. Stuffed into an over-
sized record bag.
Tuba lips swollen beyond recognition. Diamond
studded teeth strewn like rice at karma’s wedding.
The ring bearer bore bad news. Minister of
Information wrote the wrong proclamation. Now
everyone’s singing the wrong song.
Dissonant chords find necks like nooses. That
NGH kicked the chair from under my feet.
Harlem Shaking from a rope, but still on beat.
Damn that loop is tight! NGH found a way to
sample the way, the truth, the light. Can’t wait to
play myself at the party tonight. NGHs are gonna
die!
Cop car swerves to the side of the road. Hip-hop
takes its last breath. The cop scrawls vernacular
manslaughter onto his yellow pad, then balls the
paper into his hands, deciding he’d rather freestyle.
You have the right to remain silent. You have the
right to remain silent. You have the right to remain
silent. And maybe you should have before your
bullshit manifested.
CHAPTER 25
Begin. Demystify the mummy within. If you
ain’t hotep then ho step, I’ll step to your friend.
Parable of the wind. Blew black through to the
end. Endless nights, kicks and fights against time
and her friends.
Slowly day and night blend. Twilight takes form
and then open sky sprouts an eye: solo, singular,
sin. Downward glance, upward grin. Half the
women are men. Children born of the morn grow
until daylight’s end.
Sunset sets on the wind. Blue-black blows once
again. Ever since ever after henceforth happy ending.
Children born of the wind take the night as their
friend. Starlit sky, many-eyed wonder of the within.
Fear: original sin. Death: nowhere near the end. Once
upon break o’dawn’s early Lyte: Paper Thin.
CHAPTER 26
When you say you love me a series of changes
begin to occur. First there is a warmth. The warmth
generates heat. The heat permeates the cold. The ice
melts. Limbs and branches are thawed. Blood
circulates. A feeling of comfort pervades.
The body is oxygenated. It becomes limber. It yearns
to dance, to move about freely and express its newfound
energy. Music is sought through voice or ear. The heart
identifies the rhythm of the song and synchronizes its
pace. A union is formed between the visible and the
invisible.
Song is the invitation from the primordial unseen to
become one with that which is seen. To nod your head
is to agree that the moment is godly: communion. To
dance is to become God. There are many ways of dancing.
Follow your heart.
CHAPTER 27
A circle forms. I enter. Footsteps from side to
side. I am forming figure eights with my feet.
Footwork, centuries old, reconfigured for the
present. NGH WHT: the expression on my face,
the name of the faceless. One hand on the ground,
then the other. Baby swipes. Legwork. Knee spin.
I’m nice with this shit. Hand spin into windmill
into head spin: Revolution. Here and now, NGH.
Who’s next?
CHAPTER 28
In a past life I was a wood-carver’s knife. The
sharpened blade of a woodcutter. The eldest
son of the chief’s brother. A maker of drums.
We scraped the insides of goat hides to find
the hollows where sound resides. Offering
the parts we did not use. To invoke the muse.
Music of the ghettos, the cosmos, the negroes,
the necros: overcomers of death; disciples of
breath. Dissection of drumbeats like Osiris
by Seth.
Breakbeats into fourteen pieces. Dissembled
chaos. Organized noise. A patchwork of
heartbeats to resurrect true b-boys. Be men.
Let’s mend the broken heart of Isis. Age of
Aquarius. Mother Nature is furious. While
you rhyme about being hardcore, be heart-
core. What is it that we do art for?
Metaphor. Meta-sin. It’s an age of healing.
Why not rhyme about what you’re feeling?
Or not be felt. Deal with the cards you’re
dealt.
Calling all tarot readers and sparrow feeders
to cancel the apocalypse. Metaphorically
speaking.
CHAPTER 29
The corner coroner. I smoke for weeks. Dead Pan,
like dead man, through chimney peaks. I streak the
skyline. I blew through bird. High notes. I space
float. I’m lost for words.
The storefront preacher. The Sunday best. The
dangling cross between legs, on chest. The country
farmer. The hoedown champ. The rhythmic armor.
The cosmic dance.
The buck and gully. The native son. Bigger and Deffer.
The freshest one. The sewed-in creases. The flavored
twills. The confidence snorted through dollar bills.
The “Fuck I care for?” The boldfaced lie. The been
there and done that. The do or die. The dirty dirty.
The filthy clean. Thugged out and nerdy. No in
between. The blackest berry. The sweetest juice.
That complex NGH born of simple truth.
The solar/polar. The chosen side. The black face
mammy of the bluest eye. The battered woman.
The dream deferred. Now caught up and paid in
full, that’s my word.
The jungle brother. The sly and stone. Rock hard,
NGH. Give a dog a bone. The marrow’s morrow.
The newest breed. The headline merger between
word and deed.
The search for balance. The quest for peace. A
tribe called NGH. NGH WHT, the chief. The
distant lover. The close-up clown. The iced-out
grill with the screw-face frown.
A wealth of violence. A violent wealth. You caught
up, NGH, better watch your health, the beat is dope
though. The junkie nod. The use of breakbeats to
beat the odds.
The odds are even. I paper rocks. Rocks smash
scissors. NGHs trigger Glocks. The blackened
target. The dick-long chain. NGHs kill NGHS
in Jesus’ name.
CHAPTER 30
God and pussy. Objects of desire and ill repute.
Some’d rather seek up high, than dig and grind
that inner truth. The angel of my eye a bit too fly
to substitute with any other form than the messiah’s.
Black Maria, mother ship, grandmother moon
and sea. The wave and form of beauty born
of Eden’s apple tree. And every single atom
stands erect and prays to be the follower she
offers sweet communion.
Holy union. Let me see you wind it, just like
that. Move your hips from side to side. Come
forward, push it back. Let me know firsthand
the land of glory that I lack. I surrender all to
you if you’ll surrender back.
Holy crap. Where’d you learn to squeeze it
tight and then move it slow enough for me
to question everything? You slowly start to
tremble. Heaven’s walls begin to sing.
Tsunami ever after. Cosmic slop on everything.
CHAPTER 31
Shower me with blessings. No second-guessing.
’Cause God, herself, is sitting on the edge of my
bed, slowly undressing. A night symbolic as the
resurrection. I’m about to slide up in the kingdom
of God with no protection.
And I can guarantee a second coming. ‘Cause I
already hear the drummer boy barumpumpum
pumming. A host of angels look at me through
your eyes. My first communion with my hands
on your thighs. You’re catching the spirit, the Holy
Ghost and the fire. Yo, this is wild.
I’m every Jay-Z album played in reverse. I’m
risen from blunt ash and stashed in a purse.
I’m smuggled over borders, contraband, ‘though
I rock. I paper. I scissor. Nah, NGH, no Glock.
CHAPTER 32
I’m the aftermath of five percent you figure
aftermath. One hundred twenty lessons cover
one-third of my path. Two totes of what I spoke
contents hit and system crash. The greenery of
scenery, but essence dark as hash.
Pay me cash. Simply ’cause what money means
to you. Your currency has currently devalued
what is true. When freedom rings through costly
bling, it’s overdrawn, past due. The bankroll of
an empty soul kept vaulted. Code and clues:
NGH WHT, I represent the truth you claim to be.
The hero of the eastern sky, the storm’s eye, westerly.
Rough, rugged, raw, eternal law recited over beats.
Some poetry to oversee the dance floor and the streets.
CHAPTER 33
Feel the beat. Understand the rhythm that you seek.
Let it be your guiding force you speak from when
you speak. Hold your tongue just long enough to
find your path, unique. Then spit the seeds the forest
needs to garner what we reap.
It ain’t deep. As simple as a breakbeat and some
rhymes. Type of shit to nod your head while
chillin with your dime. But hold her tight, ‘cause
she just might read deep between the lines and start
to think the words that she now reads are simply mine.
Give them voice. Spit them over beats. Repeat. Rejoice.
An anthem you can put in your own words or chant.
Your choice. May heaven smile upon your earthly reign
b-girls and boys, as it has upon mine: fancy pens on paper,
poised.
It’s divine. Every page a different sort of kiss. No, not
for everyone. This pen is clenched in a black fist. And if
that ain’t your cup of tea, perhaps, a glass of piss. So hold
your nose and drink it down. Just think of it as Crys-.
But if it is, if you don’t mind the source from whence
I speak, and recognize you can’t disguise the source of
every beat, then nod your head, girl, wind that waist,
bend over, touch your feet. And go ahead and pop that
thang. Yes, yes, cipher complete.
AMETHYST ROCKS
CHAPTER 1
I stand on the corner of the block slinging
amethyst rocks. Drinkin 40’s of mother
earth’s private nectar stock. Dodgin cops.
’Cause Five-O be the 666 and I need a fix
of that purple rain. The type of shit that
drives membranes insane. Oh yeah, I’m in
the fast lane. Snorting candy yams. That free
my body and soul and send me like Shazaam!
Never question who I am. God knows.
And I know God, personally. In fact, he
lets me call him me. I be one with rain
and stars and things, with dancing feet
and watermelon wings. I bring the
sunshine and the moon. And wind blows
my tune.
CHAPTER 2
Meanwhile I spoon powdered drumbeats
into plastic, bags. Sellin kilos of kente scag
Takin drags off of collards and cornbread
Free-basin through saxophones and flutes
like mad. The high notes make me space
float. I be exhalin in rings that circle Saturn.
Leavin stains in my veins in astrological patterns.
Yeah, I’m Sirius B. Dogon NGHs plotted
shit, lovely. But the feds are also plotting
me. They’re trying to imprison my astrology.
Put my stars behind bars. My stars in stripes.
Using blood-splattered banners as nationalist
kites. But I control the wind. That’s why they
call it the hawk.
CHAPTER 3
I am Horus. Son of Isis. Son of Osiris.
Worshipped as Jesus. Resurrected like
Lazarus. But you can call me Lazzie. Lazy.
Yeah, I’m lazy ’cause I’d rather sit and build
than work and plow a field of cash green crops.
Your evolution stopped with the evolution
of your technology. A society of automatic
tellers and money machines. NGH WHT?
My culture is lima beans. Dreams manifest.
Dreams real. Not consistent with rational.
I dance for no reason. For reason you
can’t dance. Caught in the inactiveness
of intellectualized circumstance. You
can’t learn my steps until you unlearn
your thoughts. Spirit/soul can’t be store
bought. Fuck thought. It leads to naught.
Simply stated, it leads to you trying to
figure me out.
CHAPTER 4
Your intellect is disfiguring your soul.
Your being’s not whole. Check your flagpole:
stars and stripes. Your astrology’s imprisoned
by your concept of white, of self. What’s your
plan for spiritual health? Calling reality unreal.
Your line of thought is tangled.
The star-spangled got your soul mangled.
Your being’s angled, forbidding you to be real
and feel. You can’t find truth with an ax or a
drill, in a white house on a hill, or in factories
or plants made of steel.
CHAPTER 5
Stealing me was the smartest thing you ever
did. Too bad you don’t teach the truth to your
kids. My influence on you is the reflection you
see when you look into your minstrel mirror
and talk about your culture.
Your existence is that of a schizophrenic vultur
e
who thinks he has enough life in him to prey on
the dead, not knowing that the dead ain’t dead and
that he ain’t got enough spirituality to know how
to pray. Yeah, there’s no repentance. You’re bound
to live an infinite, consecutive, executive life sentence.
So while you’re busy serving time, I’ll be in synch
with the moon, while you run from the sun. Life of
the womb reflected by guns. Worshipper of moons,
I am the sun. And I am public enemy number one.
One. One. One. One. One. One. That’s seven. And
I’ll be out on the block. Hustlin culture. Slingin
amethyst rocks.
UNTIMELY MEDITATIONS
CHAPTER 1
Time is money. Money is time.
So, I keep seven o’clock in the
bank and gain interest in the
hour of God. I’m saving to buy
my freedom. God grant me wings.
I’m too fly not to fly. Eye sore
to look at humans without wings.
So, I soar. And find tickle in the
feather of my wings. Flying
hysterically over land. Numerically,
I am seven mountains higher than
the valley of death, seven dimensions
deeper than dimensions of breath.
CHAPTER 2
The fiery sun of my passions
evaporates the love lakes of my
soul, clouds my thoughts and
rains you into existence. As I take
flights on bolts of lightning.
Claiming chaos as my concubine
and you as my me. I of the storm.
You of the sea. We of the moon.
Land of the free. What have I done
to deserve this? Am I happy?
CHAPTER 3
Happiness is a mediocre standard