Sunday, February 24, 2013
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Childhood
Benton Harbor
“Can you cook”, can
you make cornbread, I mean from scratch, not Jiffy Mix.”
They laughed at Jiffy Mix; Jiffy Mix was not cornbread it
came in a box.
“From scratch, can you make it from scratch?”
“Can you make a cake”?
“Not boxed, from scratch, can you make a cake from scratch?”
Benton Harbor
What is the history of this place? My grand mother lived in
a house on a street called Wauconda, sounds Indian to me. Someone told me once
that that was the name of a snake.
I played with a girl that lived across the side road the
family was white; the little girl’s name was Amy. I wonder whatever happened to
that family, they moved away.
There was a company
that had sand. There were sand dunes next door to Amy’s house and we would go
over and play in those on hot summer days. We climbed the hot sand dunes and
fell to our knees, the bottom of our feet got hot climbing and running up and
down the dunes, we dug deep holes and climbed into them up to our knees and
cooled our hot feet, the sand was cool and damp the deeper we dug.
I was not allowed to
go to Amy’s door I could only play with her if she was outside already. And across the street from my grand
mother directly in front of her house
was a brown apartment building I remember one apartment in the front downstairs
and one on the side upstairs and one on the back upstairs and there was another company that was
trucking. You heard trucks all-day on weekdays pulling in and out loading and
unloading and there was a cement company down the road next to the sand
company. I know that sand in used to mix
cement. There was usually a mixer
truck, a cement mixer truck around the area in that neighborhood, I can see it
plainly in my head like a cartoon rendition of a neighborhood you find in
children’s books with a sign for each location around the block, The grocery
store, the usual things you find in a neighborhood, a hardware store, the pet
shop only our little neighborhood had three big companies that used big trucks to
carry something back and forth. I always
heard truck sounds and loud they were, but this is where she lived.
My grand mother, the domestic, lived in a big gray house
that seemed big to me then. It had an upstairs living quarter with it’s own
bath at the bottom of the stairs, and kitchen and two bedrooms up stairs, very
small, and a door right next to the farmhouse kitchen sink that opened wide and
had no balcony if you walked off you would fall at least one story below, I remember we would jump out of that door onto the ground
below, and I could feel the impact of the fall around my ankles, it would sting
for a moment when we hit the ground but we would pause and then stand up and
run up the stairs to do it again. I
think once was enough for me, maybe twice, maybe three times. The property was situated on a corner and the
grass was beautiful, in spite of the industrial surroundings.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Last Night
Last night they killed Troy Anthony
Davis, last night.
He was arrested for killing a
policeman twenty one years ago. He’s been on death row for 21 years. He said
then and still now he did not kill any police officer. They killed him last
night. The white police officer’s mama said, “his parents feel what we been
feeling all these years.” Sick. He’s been locked up, on death row all these
years. “He’s a black man, Troy Davis and his family been feeling something you
ain’t gone never feel white police officer’s momma.” She said that like his
execution makes it all right. That don’t make you right, he didn’t kill your
son, yet you wanted him to die and his family to feel bad for something he
didn’t do. So just because they don’t
believe him, they did it, they killed him, killed him.
Even Iran let two white boys go
they was holding in their prison under the auspice that they were spies, even
Iran had that much heart and let those two white boys go home after they had
them in jail two years accused of being spies. In the United States of America,
in the town of Savannah, in the state of Georgia they couldn’t leave that black
man in jail like he had been for the last twenty one years for something he
didn’t do or let him go, instead they chose to kill him.
People all over this world have
extreme desire to kill and the power to do it. They’ve done it and their
parents have done it, it’s taught that it needs to be done in some cases in
their families they truly believe in that, they believe that killing is one of those
things you do no matter what the laws of the land that God hath made declares as
wrong. One of the ten commandments says:
thou shalt not kill , but they have done it, that’s one of the ones that you
can break, the killing one, but they lie, cheat and steal, they have done it
all, let me think, are there any of them they haven’t done? No, and they do them willingly and they do them
on television shows for fun they call it, right in front of everybody’s face,
all up and down the street in public,
they just don’t believe they are wrong, they believe they have authority and
dominion over all .
Love Is
The love thing is a truth of reality for most. We are
engrossed in believing in love. If
and when it does happen to us, sometimes again and again, it is all
there is. We identify it and no one can tell us it is not all it’s cracked up
to be. You will trust it totally, even if it is forbidden like Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet, look what love made them do.
It will make you do crazy things, stupid things, you
will disrespect your parents, you will risk losing your job, you will undertake
just about anything suggested, or at least, seriously consider it. You often
love those who have less than you, so you give them all you have. You fall in
love with people who don’t love you. They beat your ass; they cheat on you with
your friend or sister or brother or father or mother or cousin or neighbor, or
aunt or uncle or someone. They treat you like shit and you get a bad reputation,
when just so recently, it seemed like yesterday, almost, you were weak in the
knees at just the sight of that love, and everyone was joyous for you. Listen
to Lil’ Wayne ‘s How To Love, it’s a great song.
Over time, we don’t feel like being played for a
fool, it won’t work on us anyhow if we don’t want it to. We know better than
that by now. We diminish confidence in
the love thing happening to us anymore, if it has ever happened to us at all, yet,
we don’t want to give up expectation that there may be a singular prospect
available to us as long as we are still alove (alive).
Love changes scenes or acts like in a play. It
changes its reality after a while to… just a wish to spend time with someone,
which has been confirmed to have its mental and physical benefits. In between
scenes during a play, the stage goes dark, the curtains are drawn, the scenery
and perhaps the characters change, there is usually a pause for intermission,
refreshments and the like, and then the play goes on until it is over. It is a live
performance, like any thing living, it evolves on it’s own without any help
from the audience it entertains. We simply applaud, hiss or boo.
It begins more like a movie, you have the advantage to
pause it if you are watching at home and you need to walk away but if watching
in a public theatre and you need to walk away, you are going to miss some of it.
Like a movie, it is unreal. The special effects can be amazing, the action,
thrill and pace of it can be mesmerizing. It goes on from one scene to another
seamlessly until … the end. Maybe sequels will be made. It is inevitable even
if it is detrimental, if you’ve ever known it, you understand what I mean.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Love is not so complicated
All you have to do is do it
Why all the fuss and hub bub about it
Some will, Some won't
Some do, some don't
Some try and don't know how
Some believe it's not allowed
Some can and won't
Some can't and wonder why
Some think everything's a lie
Some will never give it a try
Some claim it as a reason to die
All you have to do is do it
Why all the fuss and hub bub about it
Some will, Some won't
Some do, some don't
Some try and don't know how
Some believe it's not allowed
Some can and won't
Some can't and wonder why
Some think everything's a lie
Some will never give it a try
Some claim it as a reason to die
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Women vs. Men
Women and Men
Why do women trust men more than other women?
Why do women trust men more than other women?
It began with Genesis, in the bible where Adam (male) is
created in the image of God and Eve (female) is created from the rib of Adam.
Therefore, man is closer to the creator, the one who should represent the
greatness and divinity of all mankind. All discoveries, inventions, technology
and even the responsibility of the development leading to the evolution of
mankind are up to the male.
Women were never to be part of this directly; she was
created from the rib of Adam and was meant only to be a supporting part of
man’s endeavor to do his duty as a direct replication of the almighty himself.
Spiritually, the design of God was for man to exist in
harmony among his other creations and on earth beholding all to the creator
making rules, laws and judgments to ensure that the course of the divine
creator be adhered to by all through male dominance and leadership with women
at their background as men stood in the foreground.
Because of the permanence and control they have in places or
positions that have historically and physically excluded women, it has been
established that men own this place in society and society is slow to change
when it may infringe on the male role as leaders in our society. There is a
permanent stigma attached to the role a woman plays in furthering the evolution
of mankind.
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