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Tonight I went home

land of pyramid poems

black soil irrigated by aqueducts carrying metaphors

in your limestone & granite adorned temple

I witnessed dismembered emotions

reconstructed & made royal

a Pharaoh impregnating

the womb of verbalized epiphanies with hotep

hope for the survival of integrity

tonight was my haij

a pilgrimage prefacing the prodigal return of a son

absentee in body yet aligned in spirit

a realm where titans use words to stretch canvasses

taller than the Pharos of Alexandria

a beacon welcoming artisans to study

a smithing shop for carbon steel verses

a well of souls overflowing with transparent hands

reaching toward a Higher Truth

even for those created of spirit & ether

what is your choice?

If you were created in blissful proximity

to Elohim

what woman or temptation would make you disobey

knowing that fallen angels are crushed between stars

charred by sulfur and boiled like crabs & lobsters

howling for a redemption that will never come?

the event horizon of free will

sucked matter from bone

goodnight Sodom, goodnight Gomorrah,

goodbye to any place that the wicked call home

a Lot of people sought Noah-like deliverance

from High Priests like Melchizedek

what is the price of Salelm?

can peace be sold like Manhattan or Pennsylvania?

how many have you witness fall

barred from paradise, tormented eternally?

how many suns Set dismembering self-proclaimed Pharaohs

whose dynasties shattered porcelain Rocs against granite idols?

stones crack under shepherd staffs

water springs forth to sustain the Exodus of the righteous

however no savior has ever spared the instructors of human vices

screech owls like Adam’s 1st wife, Lilith

Satans (accusers) of the Most High

may have shed light like blood, illuminating

a crimson darkness, a sin manufactured

pride

Lucifer, Azazel, Samael,

you were supposed to watch

instead you fucked humanity

through your avarice

your rebellion roared

a boasty lion

ultimately slain by a Lamb

macchiatos to stop him-

self from slitting wrists

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you make language a canvass

syllables paint landscapes

that rival museum frescos

part Sanchez, part Neruda

you weave textures of words,

wear poems as the most intricate garments

a keyboard & pen operated loom

rests between your ears

there is something magical about your process

you are an achlemist

life’s experiences transformed

through seemingly effortless labor into pyramids

you are Giza

creator of limestone composed musings

no sandstorm or earthquake could ever rattle

your notebook is a Rosetta Stone to destiny

a Mayan Calander prophesizing a day

when writers will remember

words are not toys

there is no redemption

no forgiveness

only fire

woe be unto those who took daughters of men

made them their mates,

laid them on feather beds

producing giant warriors as their offspring

Adam’s seed found redemption

the Nephilim, born of flesh & fire

drowned by The Flood

what tears are shed over fallen angels?

those closest to God are judged more harshly

maybe that is what humans fear most

Righteousness is a choice

even for those created of spirit & ether

what is your choice?

I see a serpent behind my wife

I know that he’s scheming

trying to get me to disobey

the Lord that I believe in

the pomegranates are ripe

wisdom lies in their seeds

does the serpent lie?

on our curiosity he feeds

he tempts Eve,

she in turn tempts me,

we fall in folly to ambition

not penitent, we raise our heads

in defiance to submission

united in our condition

I could never leave her to sin alone

the only companion I’ve known

I can never atone,

more loyal to the one made from my rib bone

I must hide from The Lord Almighty on His throne

.

We embark on a journey to a shame unknown, unprecedented,

I find the serpent’s hissing relentless

in an instant the juice of the fruit awakened my senses

guilty of enlightenment via false pretenses

we stand before The Creator naked with no defenses

prepared for wrath relentless, our punishments marked

by our acceptance, vindicated via repentance

expulsion from bliss is our sentence

our imperfections stood like a flaming sword

prohibiting our entrance

or return

to the Garden

The following freewrite is inspired by the research I’m doing for my upcoming book, the Seventh Seal. I wrote it to a beat composed by a friend’s producer. The beat is called “Forbidden Fruit.” It is more song verse than poem, and is envisioned to be the first of 3 verses to give a different perspective of the world before the Flood.

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It’s twilight in the Garden of Eden

I see a serpent behind my wife

I know that he’s scheming

trying to get me to disobey

the Lord that I believe in

the pomegranates are ripe

wisdom lies in their seeds

does the serpent lie?

on our curiosity he feeds

he tempts Eve,

she in turn tempts me,

we fall in folly to ambition

not penitent, we raise our heads

in defiance to submission

united in our condition

I could never leave her to sin alone

the only companion I’ve known

I must hide from God on His throne

We invented the blues/African people,we hardly play it/white boys are more enthralled, we hardly say it/Muddy Waters is turning over in his grave/hip-hop may be the only thing to save it/live instrumentation is raw and basic/you can punch an mpc/but you can hardly play shit/the soul has been sucked from most of our music/American Bandstands castrated edge for mass appeal/producers can’t play music and we applaud them for keeping it real?/i don’t mind sampling and looping, but i prefer live drums and acoustic/chords & Keys, string ladden basslines, ?uestlove & the Roots shit/

On this day, every year, two trains of thought depart from my cerebral platform. These twin locomotives parallel the concept of the Double Consciousness of Black Americans introduced to the world by W.E.B. Du Bois, and head in opposite directions. One is of the tradition of Thomas Jefferson, the eloquent, somewhat hypocritical (slave owner), and allegedly racially mixed Third President of the United States.

…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States…

These words make a 232 year celebration of the declared independence of the United States of America just and necessary. They are a landmark in the history of all oppressed and free peoples; a foundation upon which many have been inspired to assert their unique identities as nation-states and to buckle the yoke of injustice and imperialism. However, the continued oppression of people of color, those of African decent in particular, propel another train from the same platform at light speed. This vehicle is best embodied by the words of another American Patriot, an orator that 76 years later forced listeners on an Independence day in antebellum America to focus on another evident truth about the democracy in which they lived.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.
–Frederick Douglass, July 4, 1852.

Are times so different now? America has become the type of imperial power from which Jefferson and his colleagues sought succession.  How many black-op political assassinations occurred in democracies throughout the Third World for the protection of our economic interests? Our nation is spending 1.5 billion dollars a month on a war that has done nothing more than cause us to occupy another sovereign nation; an oil producing nation whose fields were given to Halliburton along with a blank check. We have soaring gas prices to show for it. Despite the faults of this country, its intended ideals remain the same: the America that Jefferson envisioned through rebellion, the America that Douglass attempted to awake through dissent.

We find ourselves in 2008 on the potential eve of a season of change. Imagine July 4, 2009, a year where the Presidential address on Independence Day may be an African-American. On such a day, it may be possible for both the words of both Jefferson and Douglass to be realized, at least partially. The election of Senator Barack Obama will not eradicate racial prejudice, poverty, or the disenfranchisement of oppressed peoples within this country. What it would provide, however, is a potential catalyst for lasting and sustainable change. In the years, decades, and centuries to follow, his words and deeds would be weighed and reflected upon in the same manner as the two men I have mentioned in this blog, amongst the company of other historical heavyweights. I pray that in the upcoming months that Senator Obama is able to fulfill the potential that we all see in him.

What I hope for is a future where my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren can celebrate The Fourth of July with a sense of pride and ownership that do not require a raging internal battle. How can anyone stand astride two moving trains and not be lost to division.

To the promise of change.

Inshallah,

Timothy William Prolific Veit Jones