Ethereal Jewlz

Obama

2008-06-29T10:32:00.000-07:00

I haven't drunk the Kool Aid yet, but I'm adding sugar and stirring briskly. In a perfect world Obama would be older and better on the fly. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound....But he's not. But John McCain is a man I would vote most likely to use our military as a cure for Erectile Dysfunction. It's not about age as much as attitude.

The reality is that America is not the only Democracy or even the best functioning Democracy anymore. Our Economy is worse than it looks/ $4 gas is the tip of an iceberg that includes the migration of good jobs for lower middle class folk and a debt that our children and grandchildren will have to pay with wages from jobs that will pay less and less. May I take your order please?

The Democrats are better on the economy and I believe Obama when he says that he will pull the best of the best into his administration. He hasn't been on the scene long enough to have many political debts, so I take him at his word. Deeper still, he seems humble enough to negotiate and compromise when it's in the best interest of everyone involved. That goes for Foreign and domestic issues. The politics of all or nothing my way or the Highway with us or against us is the reason our economy is addicted to Chinese capital and Arabian oil. We need a smart guy in office and he's the best hope left.

The cold war is over and we need to be a nation that can be prosperous and GOOD in the absence of an enemy to focus on. I don't love him, but I like him and am not afraid to give him a try.

This is Planet Earth

2008-06-12T07:38:00.005-07:00

Haven't posted lately, having been caught up in the election goings on , and have spent too much time battling my inferiors in the blogoshere. Enjoy the slings and arrows

[Read the article: The mix master] [Read more letters about this article: Here]

After all and not some Anime Utopia where everyone is pretty, holds hands and sings Kumbaya. The writer's ignorance of Black/White dynamics and American history are betrayed by statements that could only be made from the outside looking in. The one drop rule is not a Black invention. It is the Ante Bellum and Jim Crow designation of racial impurity. When Black people say someone isn't Black enough it has nothing to do with skin tone (witness Huey P Newton, Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan etc) it means that a person is not strong ehough to hold on to our trust without selling us out. Therefore Clarence Thomas was not Black enough since he's proved to be Scalia's bootlicker. Colin Powell would not be a race traitor. He is an intelligent thoughtful and strong man who only recently wasted his ethical capital in service to George Bush. But he would have gained 75 to 80 percent of the Black vote easily.

The issue is that in the course of attempting to become color blind, certain segments of society would like black folks to forget that their physical characteristics were labelled as sub human by the White Supremacists that ran this country. To forget that yes, we too had Apartheid in America and not that long ago. That is why the public pretends to be shocked when the old social order rears its ugly head. You think Obama is post racial? Ask Geraldine Ferraro and those so-called liberal white women who called him an "inadequate black male" or decry his inexperience when he has as much or more experience as half the men already elected. Ask the Clintons who dog whistled Appalachia to come out against him. I believe the Clinton supporters were more racially animated than the Republicans will be. Republicans KNOW the power of the lynch mob and use it more selectively.

It's not Black people who won't let this race thing die. It's the "white man (including women)" who sees the ultimate symbol of his power, Leadership of the Free World, slipping into the hands of one that was meant to be ruled and not to rule. Wake up and smell the coffee. Most black people who have been to a family reunion see the gamut of color shades in our kin folk. We already know that skin tone is no indicator of character. But we don't have to PRETEND it doesn't exist to ACT and LIVE as if it doesn't.

When enough people of the older generations die out, race will be irrelevant. The question then will be, How will people measure superiority, class and rank and why will that criteria be more acceptable?
Permalink Tuesday, June 10, 2008 10:49 AM

Church Switch

2008-06-12T07:38:00.004-07:00

[Read the article: Big weekend news] [Read more letters about this article: Here]
I sometimes think the media listens for what it wants to hear as opposed to what is really being said. Obama explained yesterday quite clearly that he was leaving not only because he was asked to account for everything said from the pulpit over which he has no control, but for the good of the congregation. Your fellow members of the media were taking church bulletins and hounding the SICK AND SHUT INS for more dirt on the man. Sheesh. Funny that THAT isn't mentioned in the coverage and was not addressed by the media in the Q & A.
The Silver Lining. I kind of liked the snappish irritation that I saw as he answered inane question after inane question. I believe the primary, the church controversy and Hillary's cheap stunts (I don't THINK....he's a muslim) have toughened and hardened him. I think he will be glad to take off the kid gloves that he had to don to keep from attacking Ms Clinton and playing the bully. ( Can't you see Hillary going all Scarlett Ohara when he questions HER judgement HER associations HER supporters " Well I....cue the southern drawl ... NEVAH heard such a thing a'tall"
Give the man a break. All of us who join a church are usually enraptured for a moment and then when the rapture doesn't come we find other reasons for coming. Friendships social interaction, a child's comfort zone. You show me a man who's attended church for twenty years and I'll show you a man who's checking his watch, wondering if he cut off the coffee pot and thinking about the cubs line-up halfway through the sermon. I know the minute I hear words like exegesis or philosophy or apologia... I zone out. I'm not anti-intellectual, but I'm too jaded to expect great wisdom from a man in a robe that looks like mamas housecoat. I'm not looking for the sermon on the mount or a socratic exercise. Church is not where the Manchurian candidates get their instruction. It's just a church. A place to take a 90 minute trip away from everything in the comfort people who know you and like your company. It's just an opiate after all, right.?
Permalink Sunday, June 1, 2008 07:09 AM

coronatius interruptus

2008-06-12T07:38:00.003-07:00

[Read the article: Waiting for the first Madam President] [Read more letters about this article: Here]
If for some reason decades pass before another woman mounts a strong campaign for the White House, Hillary Clinton will be largely responsible for the delay. Why? Because by treating the Democratic Primary as a coronation and not a contest, she was caught with her guard down while the no-name from Chicago emerged from the phone booth with an 'S' on his chest.She has wasted the potential to become a mentor/groomer of talent by burning bridges alienating constituencies. She has become a caricature of a candidate, the once and future Ferraro. Unsupportable in her attempts to portray Obama as unelectable. She mistakenly believed that name recognition and gender( Not to be confused with experience, since she has held elected office for less time than Obama) were an unbeatable combination.
News Flash. The triumph of feminism is that IT IS GOOD TO BE A GIRL IN THIS CENTURY. A girl is more likely to go to college and less likely to be murdered or go to prison than a man and everything between these extremes becomes a matter of choices. I feel better about my daughters' world than mine. Women cannot count on the solidarity of aggrieved parties because the grievances are institutional and not Constitutional as is race. Women are the largest group of voters in the country. Why should we expect them to form into a minority-like bloc? The success of feminism has diluted the power of their vote.
The next Female President will have the IT quality that Obama has. The word has not been defined yet, but it's quintessentially American antecedent is
"cool". Yes, she will be cool. Not Faddish cool, but Competent, confident and easy to understand. Fair, Just, Brave without being masculine. She will ba a lawyer or an executive. She'll be here. American politics is always about the fulfillment of a myth and hers has already been born in Hollywood. We need only wait on the auditions.
Hillary. IF she had only been genuine in the beginning. If she had only acted like a woman with a draft age Daughter during a questionable war and voted No. She would have been practically unopposed and Obama would have been jockeying for a post in her administration.
Permalink Sunday, May 25, 2008 01:49 PM

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2008-06-12T07:38:00.002-07:00

What Ferraro REALLY wants
[Read the article: Ferraro wants study on sexism, racism in campaign] [Read more letters about this article: Here]

is the kind of old guard coronation for Clinton that has gotten us Democrats BLASTED or PUNKED OUT in 7 of the last 10 elections. By her own words, Ferraro is the party's affirmative Action Baby and an ungrateful one at that. Sexism, goes both ways. Saying you won't vote for a candidate because SOMEONE ELSE says or does something offensive is equivalent to guilt by association. She doesn't like his supporters or spokespeople, so she will vote against him. Let her go.In the end, Sexism, Racism or any other "iism" that does not respect an individual's right to be judged by the content of their character is foolish and wrong. Ferraro is doing McCain's dirty work for him by ginning up ridiculous issues that take the party's focus off of the general elaction.
I am an Obama supporter. But not because he inspires me the way he does others. I see in him a bland sort of competence and intelligence that we need in government. He also has a hard streak that hides behind the smile and the humor. He has cojones. He just keeps his zipper closed. He's a different kind of man. Man first. Label second. And that, I believe is what galls Ferraro so much. He doesn't wear grievances on his sleeve. He doess'nt wear the Blackwomangreenlaborprolife tags that they issued him to facilitate quoting him a price. She is too corrupt to accept a Obama's sweeping in out of the blue and cooly toppling the staus quo by playing the game on the party's terms. She doesn't like audacity of a man who swept past the pecking order and owes her nothing. She's from New York. She wants to get her beak wet.

As a party, we have always been fairly disfunctional and we've always had to cut deals with each other to get anywhere. I say we cut Geraldine out this time but save her a place at the table in case she wants to come back. Geraldine, we'd love to have you. But we won't be your hostages
Permalink Saturday, May 31, 2008 10:42 PM

Crybillies

2008-06-12T07:38:00.001-07:00

Crybillies
[Read the article: A great debate about Obama and Appalachia] [Read more letters about this article: Here]
The number of posts I've read apologizing or rationalizing the 20% of WV DEMOCRATS who vote on racial (read "white only" lines) is laughable. As a Black southerner born in North Carolina and having moved to the deep south, marched with Jesse Jackson against the Klan, survived race riots over school integration and butted heads with racism in a lot of places, I have to say that West Virginians make me proud of the Georgia and Alabama whites I live and work with.
Here racism takes a backseat to enlightened self-interest money, jobs, grants, contracts etc.... Those WV Hillbillies are so hateful of a race that poses absolutely no competitive threat to them (at less than 5% of the population), that they will vote against their own interests to justify the racist/xenophobic actions/votes and use the loony-tunes arguments of proven fear-mongers like Hannity, limbaugh etc... to give themselves a moral cover. To hell with them. Keep voting republican. Keep watching gas get higher and your children keep getting left behind. If you're not smart enough to see that you're not better off than you were 7 years ago, maybe you deserve more of the same.
WV and KY Democrats may be the best proof that Darwin was wrong about the survival of the fittest. And for the guy who made a crack about people of the Shenandoah Valley not having Affirmitive Action, I've got news for you. Being born white in America WAS Affirmitive Action for a long time. You were just so used to white privilege that you thought it was divine right.
Permalink Wednesday, May 21, 2008 11

Rumble young man Rumble

2008-06-12T07:38:00.000-07:00

Haven't posted in a while since i've been battling my lessers in the blogosphere over the campaign and such. Here are a few of my slings and allows

Rumble young man Rumble!
[Read the article: How much will white racism hurt Obama?] [Read more letters about this article: Here]
What sets the Obama campaign apart from any other I've seen is it's relentless drive to stay on message and out of the mud. With the exception of the San Francisco "Bitter" speech, you don't see Obama trip himself with words or trap himself with the ham fisted feints that Hillary uses in attempts to draw him into a battle of aggrieved parties. She thinks she's Rocky duking it out with Apollo Creed. But that's Hollywood fiction. She's not Rocky. She's Goerge Foreman and Barack is Muhammad Ali (an ACTUAL Muslim)He's a boxer, not a slugger and he out points HRC when he can like a smart pugilist, when he can't he covers up. North Carolina was the left hand that Ali stuck in Foreman's mouth as he sprang out of the rope-a-dope. Oregon was the right that knocked Big George out. Or am I the only one who recalls the Rumble in the Jungle?
Why should Obama waste his strength contending for states that he can't win. Pride? Ego? No. Professionalism. Why actively campaign against Hilary"a chicken in every pot" Clinton in Appalachia when it would require his lying and pandering and then disappointing them like everyone else has done for the last 30 years. No Obama's skin color isn't his problem. It's the problem of those Appalachians that can't see past it for their own good.
Hilary is so frustrated that he won't take the bait that she's only half a news cycle from saying "your mama wears army boots".
Good Judgement. Cool under fire. Not the pop quiz format of Debate, But the cool processing of information from sources he has handpicked and trusts. This campaign is a machine. No more yale schooled cowboys, or chicken hawks who use the our military strength as a cure for ED. We are at the mercy of Sheikhs to sell us oil, Chinese to lend us money and homegrown leadership that wants to bring about perpetual war as a growth undustry. This is the time for smart people. For thoughtful persuasive and trithful people. We don't need anymore Sluggers. We need Ali.
Permalink Saturday, May 24, 2008 02:54 PM

Track Notes/Jackson Street Blues

2008-05-03T11:33:00.000-07:00

There are at least 3 crack houses within rock throwing distance of the Sally and they all have been raided in the last week or so. A word to the wise being sufficient, I would advise fellow travellers on the same orbit on my rotation to stay clear if ya stridin dirty. I aintcha daddy and I aint got no bail money and if I had it then your dumbKNOWyougot warrants ass couldn't get it after you ignored this sweet advice. The Horror-scope says its time to change playgrounds and playmates if you can't change toys.

First Baptist is moving to Lee County, but will continue its First and Third Saturday Meals at it's current location on Broad across from SunTrust and Jefferson across from the Post Office 11:30 Am. If you can't act like a human being with these folks or the First Methodist Folks (5:45 pm)
every Sunday or the Christian Covenant Ministry on First and Third Sundays ( (8:30 am) or Bro Larry's people (3 times a day until further notice) or Faith Community (daily lunch 11:30) or the episcopals (tuesday and thursday) 11:30am or the presbyterians (second saturday snack packs) then keep your ass at what passes for home and stop selling your stamps to the Dope Man for fitty cents on the dollar. Ungrateful Bastards. Say what? Well, an old friend useta tell me that if you throw a rock in a pack of dogs, the one that hollers is the one that was hit. Holla.

The Dray line seems to be drying up. It's partly a slow economy and partly because all those hungry, thuggish/ruggish looking cats want to rush the trucks and your potential employers get cases of Reginald Denny complex and L A riot Flashbax. I wouldn't come through there either and I can fight and have been to the Chain Gang twice! How bought the first man there gets the first two tryouts. Number two gets the next 2. If a break needs 3 men, then the first three get to audition.. and if nothing pops off after 2 chances man number 1 slips to the back of the line and so on. When word gets out that the line is organized and user friendly, things will pick up. Until then the Line will be victim of word of mouth of scared breaks who need your services but can't risk getting car-jackd or robbed. And those of you haters who throw salt on each other. What business is it of yours or a Breaks what a man does with HIS money? Keep that salt in your pocket and stop putting it on your brother!

Peace to sister Sandra

2008-04-23T07:37:00.000-07:00

We are the disinherited, the misfits, the poor and downtrodden. We quietly buck the social call to normalcy. Family doesn't get it. They always ask "WHY?". "She was so......" ;"He was such a ...."; "they were doing so good before....". And shake heads , cluck tongues, wring hands and lament. As if we were dead. We quit jobs because we don't feel like going anymore. And they treat us like criminals. We quit school because we were old enough to quit and made more money on the hustle than that high school graduate cousin changing grease at Church's. For every dozen of us, there are 12 stories for how we got here. At this table. On this street. We are the exceptions that disprove the rule. Good people lose homes. Eat at Soup Kitchens. Need help to get by. We run the same circuit every day. The limited number of places we can go to escape the heat or cold or rain without being captured and put on limited display at Dougherty County Jail shrinks almost daily. No loitering signs at the HOMELESS Shelter-How cruel is that? Broke-in-America is a crime waiting for a charge. We make some of them cringe. They make assumptions about our character without knowing our names. The nasty look from a lady with a fish on her tag( must be a pisces cuz she aint no christian). The man with a bumper sticker that proclaims his church's name and frowns and speeds past, afraid he'll have to make a christian decision if someone asks him for change. We draw the bile out by just living and refusing to die to make someones morning drive more pleasant or spoiling a kodak moment while going through the park. We are the test of your faith.

"How can you say you love God whom you have never seen, yet hate your brother whom you see everyday?".

Fuck you. I don't bow down to you or anybody else. I'm broke. Why do you care where the money went? Will you give me enough for shelter tonight? Why do you care why I don't have a job? Are you going to give me one? Or do I add yours to the mountain of rejections that I already have? Fuck You. I see the world you live in, the fear you drink like water and piss on those around you stinking the planet up with the stench of fright. Misery loves company and we leave you lonely. you hate to see us laugh you think we know what you do not. We make you paranoid. Why would we opt to live outside of your zoo? And collect cans and scrap iron. Work day labor and sell blood and clean houses when we could go to work like you and be too afraid to lose a job to stand up like a free human being in the face of some one's shit. Puppet. Dance Shine Dance. Run that race like a hamster in a wheel in a cage. Indulge yourself in that madness of contributing to the maintenance of a machine that is designed to kill you. Do death row inmates plait nooses for the state? No right no wrong just venting because sister Sandra is dead. We met on the track. We laughed and smiled. I liked her a lot and I will miss her.

RIP Grandma Dynamite aka Sandra Williams

peace and
Power to the people

Ether idge knight

2008-04-14T09:11:00.000-07:00

Never knew the man but he speaks to me across the decades like we shared coffee this morning or broke bread last night. X con like me. Junkie like me. Pulls the humanity from the street and makes the truth ring like church bells on sunday.

Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane

by Etheridge Knight
Hard Rock / was / "known not to take no shit
From nobody," and he had the scars to prove it:
Split purple lips, lumbed ears, welts above
His yellow eyes, and one long scar that cut
Across his temple and plowed through a thick
Canopy of kinky hair.
The WORD / was / that Hard Rock wasn't a mean nigger
Anymore, that the doctors had bored a hole in his head,
Cut out part of his brain, and shot electricity
Through the rest. When they brought Hard Rock back,
Handcuffed and chained, he was turned loose,
Like a freshly gelded stallion, to try his new status.
And we all waited and watched, like a herd of sheep,
To see if the WORD was true.
As we waited we wrapped ourselves in the cloak
Of his exploits: "Man, the last time, it took eight
Screws to put him in the Hole." "Yeah, remember when he
Smacked the captain with his dinner tray?" "He set
The record for time in the Hole--67 straight days!"
"Ol Hard Rock! man, that's one crazy nigger."
And then the jewel of a myth that Hard Rock had once bit
A screw on the thumb and poisoned him with syphilitic spit.
The testing came, to see if Hard Rock was really tame.
A hillbilly called him a black son of a bitch
And didn't lose his teeth, a screw who knew Hard Rock
From before shook him down and barked in his face.
And Hard Rock did nothing. Just grinned and looked silly,
His eyes empty like knot holes in a fence.
And even after we discovered that it took Hard Rock
Exactly 3 minutes to tell you his first name,
We told ourselves that he had just wised up,
Was being cool; but we could not fool ourselves for long,
And we turned away, our eyes on the ground. Crushed.
He had been our Destroyer, the doer of things
We dreamed of doing but could not bring ourselves to do,
The fears of years, like a biting whip,
Had cut deep bloody grooves
Across our backs.

From The Essential Etheridge Knight, by Etheridge Knight, © 1986. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA 15261. Used by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.

The Idea of Ancestry

by Etheridge Knight
1Taped to the wall of my cell are 47 pictures: 47 black
faces: my father, mother, grandmothers (1 dead), grand-
fathers (both dead), brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts,
cousins (1st and 2nd), nieces, and nephews. They stare
across the space at me sprawling on my bunk. I know
their dark eyes, they know mine. I know their style,
they know mine. I am all of them, they are all of me;
they are farmers, I am a thief, I am me, they are thee.
I have at one time or another been in love with my mother,
1 grandmother, 2 sisters, 2 aunts (1 went to the asylum),
and 5 cousins. I am now in love with a 7-yr-old niece
(she sends me letters in large block print, and
her picture is the only one that smiles at me).
I have the same name as 1 grandfather, 3 cousins, 3 nephews,
and 1 uncle. The uncle disappeared when he was 15, just took
off and caught a freight (they say). He's discussed each year
when the family has a reunion, he causes uneasiness in
the clan, he is an empty space. My father's mother, who is 93
and who keeps the Family Bible with everbody's birth dates
(and death dates) in it, always mentions him. There is no
place in her Bible for "whereabouts unknown."
2Each fall the graves of my grandfathers call me, the brown
hills and red gullies of mississippi send out their electric
messages, galvanizing my genes. Last yr/like a salmon quitting
the cold ocean-leaping and bucking up his birth stream/I
hitchhiked my way from LA with 16 caps in my pocket and a
monkey on my back. And I almost kicked it with the kinfolks.
I walked barefooted in my grandmother's backyard/I smelled the
old
land and the woods/I sipped cornwhiskey from fruit jars with the
men/
I flirted with the women/I had a ball till the caps ran out
and my habit came down. That night I looked at my grandmother
and split/my guts were screaming for junk/but I was almost
contented/I had almost caught up with me.
(The next day in Memphis I cracked a croaker's crib for a fix.)
This yr there is a gray stone wall damming my stream, and when
the falling leaves stir my genes, I pace my cell or flop on my bunk
and stare at 47 black faces across the space. I am all of them,
they are all of me, I am me, they are thee, and I have no children
to float in the space between.

From The Essential Etheridge Knight by Etheridge Knight © 1986. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA 15261. Used by permission of the University
of Pittsburgh Press.

As You Leave Me

Shiny record albums scattered over
the living room floor, reflecting light
from the lamp, sharp reflections that hurt
my eyes as I watch you, squatting among the platters,
the beer foam making mustaches on your lips.

And, too,
the shadows on your cheeks from your long lashes
fascinate me--almost as much as the dimples
in your cheeks, your arms and your legs.

You
hum along with Mathis--how you love Mathis!
with his burnished hair and quicksilver voice that
dances
among the stars and whirls through canyons
like windblown snow, sometimes I think that Mathis
could take you from me if you could be complete
without me. I glance at my watch. It is now time.

You rise,
silently, and to the bedroom and the paint,
on the lips red, on the eyes black,
and I lean in the doorway and smoke, and see you
grow old before my eyes, and smoke, why do you
chatter while you dress? and smile when you grab
your large leather purse? don't you know that when
you leave me
I walk to the window and watch you? and light
a reefer as I watch you? and I die as I watch you
disappear in the dark streets
to whistle and smile at the johns

No Time

2008-02-18T11:25:00.000-08:00

Before he heads to the bus station to build and trap flies, my man D (Darius) drops a jewl that makes me laugh because its so true. We were snatching from the ethers downtown when a cat fresh out of jail comes to cry on our shoulders, well not on our shoulders but he did shed some real tears. He loves his woman and she loves him, but she is bi-polar and has a cyst on the brain and has had him on a roller coaster ride for the last year of the three they've been together. In jail and out of jail and back to jail again always because of her drama he says. Fucked up a job paying 1200 a week. Supporting her various habits through petty crime. Beating up men that she sends mixed signals to. Taking beatings from men she sends mixed signals to. "I just don't know what to do", he says. D just shrugs and says"leave the bitch". There's a big ass asteroid headed this way right now and aint no time for the bullshit."

Truer words have seldom been spoken. There is a big asteroid headed this way and if something doesn't happen, then we're all fittin to see whose been right or wrong. Streets made of gold, crystal cities, valhalla and endless war 70 veiled virgins and a case of viagra. whatever your idea of the afterlife is. I imagine that if one polled the nation you would see very few responses along the lines of "Oh yeah, I'm definitely going to the lake of fire" or "I'm pretty sure it's gonna be hell". No one really believes that because that would ruin the whole purpose of the threat of everlasting punishment. Hell would not be Hell if it was your destination. There is something wrong with a scenario in which a true believer sees hell coming. There are too many ways to get out of it. Too many last minute confessions of faith. Deathbed conversions .Last rites etc... Always an out. Always a trap door to escape the clutches of Justice.

If you are a true believer in a living God ( and I don't mean a regular church/temple/masjid attendee), then you have to believe that there is a payoff for not killing the lady in front of you at Harveys that brings 12 items to the 10 item express line or stealing for the helluvit, sleeping with your brothers wife etc... Why fight the instinct without the reward? Deeper Still, the payoff should be greater than pleasure/relief obtained from staying one's hand from sin. Otherwise "mere anarchy is loosed upon the world".

No Time is closing in on us. 2000 years ago John relayed the words of the Ancient of Days and they were "Surely I come quickly". Is he riding the Asteroid?

that rough beast

2008-02-12T07:49:00.000-08:00

The mortar is dry and
flaking in the seam of the walls of this cell and
I have gazed upon it
absentmindedly for most of a cosmic year now,
staring,
flicking with
cracked and blackened fingernails
Twitching
from
time to time with
other things than freedom
on a mind
aswim in the ethereal sea.

There is light behind the seam
There is life behind these walls
There is death beyond these gates
for whom?
for all.

My time is come

I thrust my arms from the concrete floor pushing my body
skyward for only a couple of feet yet
I knock my head on
heavens door.

Rising and rising
tapping
knocking
banging on
heavens door

One more set and I push
then let myself down
my arms swell
my shoulders swell and I push like
The tower in
Babel The Gateway of El the Most High
Babel where I first rose
Where I first Pushed
then fell like a
prince

Language confused by the whispering Jinn
but no more
I've forsaken speech in these grab bag tongues and
Close my ears forever
I come again
I am pure thought devoid of word
Pure of Deed
I am shiva
the destroyer
I come
To lay waste to the land
To bring fire to the land
To prepare the land

I am ready to build again

I'm uninspired yet obligated to steal SOMETHING to feed the tribe. Here. Enjoy.

2008-02-05T12:55:00.000-08:00

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Yeats

MLk day in Albany

2008-01-22T09:16:00.001-08:00

Living in Black Southern America, at times is like witnessing the world after the "Big One" has been dropped and watching the roaches run the show. Yesterday, the Albany Civic Center charged $20 per head to attend the celebration of MLK's Birthday (a week late of course since actually celebrating his birthday would have negated a 3 day government Holiday. God knows we wouldn't want that shit to happen). I worked. I'm a working man and I don't get paid if I don't work. I'm sure Martin would understand. Hell, I work on Jesus' birthday when I can so don't get all bent out of shape. I object to the exploitation of the image of the last American-born sage manifested in the line of Ghandi, Yeshua, and Siddharta Gautama being used to make a dollar. I didn't have it to spend. Not to sit through the vocal gymnastics of an unlistenable choir or some Jack-Leg preacher relative of somebody who useta be something or other thumping a podium with a bible in one hand and a chicken wing in the other. Been there done that. Fuck that.

The state of the revolution is such that No one out there under 60 with any kind of Q rating is worthy to say anything worth listening to, except Obama and he aint even one of us. Not technically since He's an in-law, married into the fam, but with no connection to the pickers of cotton, tobacco ... but is he as Maya says the Dream and the Hope of the slave??? Where is the Dick Gregory of this Generation? Our Jeremiah? Our John the Baptist? Where is our Stokely, Our Fred? Our shining black manhood? Don't say "Old". Don't say "Dead". Remember "We don't die we multiply". YOU see groups of dangerous men on the street corners. I see revolutionaries waiting for direction. It's not as if we have any choice in the matter. The revolution is coming as surely as the seasons change. Not because I say so but because the son of man has said it will be so. When the earth turns away from the sun, darkness is sure to follow. When oppression reaches a certain level in its march toward The police state and slavery, rebellion and revolution follow most assuredly.

MLK might have been a softy with all that non-violence talk, but make no mistake about it, He was willing to call America on it's shit and do so without pulling punches (outside of his naturally cordial disposition). Whether you liked his methods or not, one cannot with a straight face say that he did not speak truth to power, which is something most so-called leaders cannot do. Why not? Because they have been bought like Mandingo on the auction block lock stock and barrel. "Open your mouth boy". " Hey Jeff, feel those thighs!". My adventures on Economic/Social Ladder have occurred simultaneously with my rise up the ladder of enlightenment. I have been blessed to witness the realities of the American pseudo-life. Rampant consumerism. Classism based on spending power. The new Sumerians( My term) for those who spend and consume without really knowing why or I should say without knowing how mass media influences their spending and consuming habits. With Global Positioning, pocket computers, cell phohes etc, people are literally being given the hard sell through most of their waking hours and like prisoners who learn to do their bits one day at a time by making the most mundane things into important things, the new Sumerians believe that choosing blue over red or ford over chevrolet or Mcdonalds over Burger King is somehow indicative of living in a free society. They've had Mcdonalds in China for years yet the government will expel you out of the communist (and only) political party if a couple has too many children(one is the limit MAYBE two) Why do I mention that? Straight math. McDonalds does NOT equal Free. The internet does not make you free. Education does not make you free. If your goal in life can be prefixed by the words "nice" or"good" (life, job, car, apartment, man. woman...) then your diploma or degree makes you an educated slave. Most of your time is spent on a paper chase to trade paper for stuff. Supreme Mathematics by extension says that if time = paper and if paper = stuff then time =stuff. Your waking hours(time) are a futile attempt to acquire stuff, most of which is disposable ( so it can be replaced and you can be sold another disposable replacement.)

The obscenity of charging for any MLK event seems to have bypassed these educated slaves in nominal authority around here. It's not because King was rich, though he was comfortable financially, but because he worked on behalf of poor people like me who would not be spending $20 on anything other than necessities. It is as if Kings death and the fear surrounding the violent nature of it made it seem acceptable to swallow the blue pill and act as if this illusion is somehow a life that the creator meant for us to live. It isn't. But don't kick yourself too hard for feeling fear and reacting badly to it. Not even the legions of Rome or Nazi Stormtroopers generated the fear that this government is capable of. Don't get it twisted. The Middle passage, slavery, jimcrow, lynching trees all over the south were all designed to instill fear and we all inherited a little fear of the fate -the noosegunbombbeating and ldumping on train trax fate- of those who buck. It is only Gods will that some of us-enough of us- have the sight that penetrates the facade, the ears that decipher the word, and the will to stand up and speak truth to power. It is nothing short of miraculous. But for those of us who have swallowed the red pill, now is the winter of our discontent. We must continue to support each other and meet this fear machine with a courage born of the knowledge that we don't die. We transform on this side and the next. What lies before us but the open grave? (add Claude Mckay to your reading list "if we must die".)We should not seek death, but rather the inheritance that our fathers have left on this earth in this space and time. Artificial boundaries are meaningless artificial class is meaningless. when I and my father are one, no man can cross me and live. It's like Brother Cleveland told me last week, when someone asked how he could walk so fearlessly through the projects at all time of night without a piece. Cleve just said "my bible says not to fear anything that can die like a man."

"Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!
And so I'm happy, tonight.
I'm not worried about anything.
I'm not fearing any man!
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!"

Personal note

2008-01-22T09:16:00.000-08:00

As I left the Library
I saw the
Blue Goose
Parked on
Pine street and hoped it was yours
Sarah
Cindy
Hunter
Lowther
fill-in-the Blank Alias of choice
Not knowing for sure
I decided I would
Squat and wait on you like Charlie in a rice paddy
Or 'port into your passenger seat and snatch you back to my dimension
instead
I ran into the Library and searched every floor
I reached into my pocket and found a receipt for a good cup of
Coffee that I'd drank in the AM and on it wrote a note that your
redneck husband could not decipher if he found it before you
It's been almost a year to the day since we talked
A year and 2 weeks since "made love" (grunting and rutting)
A year and 2 months since we met
But only a minute since I thought of you last
Are you still rough and loud and quick to laugh
at the jokes God whispers in your ears?
"watcha laughin at"
"Ohhhh sumpin I just heard"
"when did you get the radio fixed"
"I didn't"
Do you still love to cook and Mama everyone around you?
Do you still dream of escaping to the Keys with me and your kids?
Do you still have those seizures that bring the whole thing to a grinding
Halt?
Wouldja believe that I remember your birthday? (December 7 )
and I celebrate it with cabbage soup( ugh) and frown through every drop.
Anyway, the note says

Hey Pookie
Greg
Sally

you'll know what it means

Lousy Black Poetry/ My Poetry Month

2008-01-16T12:11:00.000-08:00

As we approach the official celebration of MLKs birthday (Must you government employees use EVERY excuse for a 3 day weekend? Hell you're a week late!) It occurs to me that I should say something about the state of Black Poetry that I've seen lately. Shit Sucks. That's pretty much it, but at the risk of beating a dead horse, I'll just say that much of it sounds derivative.
Scene: Somebody's mommas basement
"Ohhh shnappp, that shit sound like Saul Williams, Black! Lemme hear it again.!"

Aaight G, "I stand on the corner of the block slinging kryptonite rocks". Pay me nigga!

Saul aint even on that shit no more. He did what I do, He snatched it out the Ethers and put it out. That's what Poetry and all good writing or sensual communication is, rising through the Ether Plane and bringing back prizes to share with the tribe. Imitating Saul from 5 years ago is like tearing a picture of Romare Beardens work from a magazine and coloring over the greens with blue crayon. And calling it yours.

So with this in mind I declare January (The month of Janus, Roman God of Doorways and Halls and... Janitors. I shit you NOT) National er regional er Personal bring back good poetry month. I recommend Etheridge Knights Hardrock Returns and when you're little sister sleeps around for money and Watching you to start. Also Don L Lee (not that Haki Madhupuwhatever) , Queen G Brooks Sonia Sanchez Amiri Baraka/Leroi Jones (either name, but Leroi is easier to understand) and whoever else floats you're boat. Good Poetry is like Cheesecake or Pecan Pie, You don't want it every day but when you get some you always want more.

I was gonna publish my personal stuff, a daily dose of me, right?, But I can't seem to find the current owner of the hard drive I was using while I had that goodass job in Chapel Hill that I got fired from because of racism- well Okay, I stole some money but it was green and I was black and you know how white folks in blue heaven get when you get between them and their green... Heyyyy,,,,,,,,there's a poem in there somewhere!

Anyway, I'll try to bring some Ethermail as soon as I get back from the next trip. Peace and love-Power to the People

I remember

2008-01-14T12:18:00.000-08:00

I remember a slight
sweet film of
sweat
on your top lip
that I licked
and your smile as you leaned and
melted off of
space mountain
the cat chewing the last bit of canary
yellow sundress with sandals
black wispy hair and a grin that was
bursting at the seams
"like", your favorite word and
"y'know", your contraction of choice and
I
I and I
mesmerized in the glow of connecting
soul
Hustlers Holiday
hohoho
But we were both cheating on
christina aguilera
and I knew it could never
last
night came too fast
and hunger came too strong for
junkie fantasies of
huxtable life
so I see you sometimes
on the streets
on passing
on your way
around the way
on the grind
on up the block
to the northsoutheast side
to meet this
sugar daddy
or that
mark
and we nod when your pimps got his back turned
and I see a hint of that smile and
the canary feather hanging from your
chin

Weeks/ Bynum Update

2008-01-06T11:53:00.000-08:00

Bishop Weeks has just invited me to be his friend. In case it's not clear from my profile on BlackPlanet.com , I'm a man. 100% . Hetero. ALL MAN. Not just MANISH ( Which I define as having the appearance, attributes or semblance of a man without being in essence MAN). Does that sound homophobic? I hope not. I'm not afraid of gays, but as a straight man who has been hit on a time or two I have come to be wary of the approach of men (outside of a church or workplace setting) who don't do the things that men do in each others presence for the first time. Confused? Lemme Hep. A little Background first. (I haven't forgotten you Mr Weeks) I'm a Black Man in my Mid Forties. I've lived in the streets and at times on the streets for a good portion of my adult life. I'm a 2 time felon with stints in 5 different prisons/ holding facilities and 10 different county jails. I've been shady from New York to South Fla. I'm the guy that makes you drop your keys in the club parking lot at 3 in the morning because you didn't hear me coming until I was moving past you. Don't worry, I'll just look at you and keep kickin rocks cause I'm handling some business in those early hours that doesn't involve you. When dudes pass me on the street, they don't follow me or stare too hard.

A good friend of mine in Milan once said"Mo, I been watchin the way you carry yourself around here and it took me along time to come up with the right word to describe you, but I found it." I asked what the word was and he said, "Unapproachable".
ME: Huh?
RED: Guys don't come to you with that bullshit like they do a lot of these other cats. They don't test you. You put out this vibration that these clowns don't want to deal with. You see how these cats always trying to run game on me? Loan me this, front me that, look out for me, let me eat witchoo. They know I don't smoke, but they always broke except for cigarettes and swine so I can't get paid back. I trip. I was a nasty dude out in that world Mo. On the strength. You ask these Cleveland cats about Red from the southside. If you crossed me then I'd smack you with the four fifths and if you didn't lay down fast enough I'd make you wear something. These dudes know my reputation but they test anyway. I look at you and I don't understand it.
ME:You took Shahada bruh. They think you're non-violent cause you practice Islam.
RED:We Non-Violent in a sense, but you know the Ummah Mo. Fight in the way of Allah. We rolls out deep.
ME:Yeah, but you aint on that Gangsta shit no more. They like scavengers around an a wounded cat. They waitin for a weakness- a gap they can shoot. You're like a big cat in a cage at the zoo a Lion or a Tiger behind a thick cage that can't get out.
RED:What are you Mo?
ME:I'm the Bonefish. The Solo Shark I'm the thing with the nameplate that fell off. The import from Polynesia that no body's seen before. The undefinable. They look at me and say "Fuck it, his meat probably aint no good no way.
RED: Unapproachable, Mo. That's you.

Where was I ? Oh yeah. In prison in the streets on the court or the field or any other setting that is a metaphor for war, men generally revert to baser inclinations. Not out of violent intent but out of respect for the potential of a stranger. No smiles. No hand shake. We greet like predators in neutral territory unless someone is there to conduct an introduction. That's what I dislike about church. TOO friendly. TOO quick to accept. It's an unnatural instinct. Church people are so anxious to portray the JOY of being saved, that they want to shake hands all day and hug too long and rock and turn to their neighbors and say "Neighbor, God is fill-n-the-blank-catchphrase this morning." Makes me want to go outside and spit. But that's what happens when churches start becoming popular to compete for the leisure dollar. Happyhappyjoyjoy. Smiling men hiding a range of awkward habits and inclinations. Brassy women looking for someone to boss on the weekend and to obey like they do on the job. A soft man fits the bill. Preachers pimp women and punk the brothers until the men stop going without knowing why. You love God? You love the Lord? You can't stand church? Ain't nothing wrong with you. That's your own righteous God-given manhood rising up. Until you find a church where men are men from the top down and treat each other as such, do like CC and keep on walking.

From what I've read, Yeshua ben Yusef wasn't a soft man. He was fearless uncompromising and always ready and willing to speak truth to power. He took the stripes and took the cross when he didn't have to for principle. Love and duty. That's not a soft man. To make a long story short, The Black Church creates a sanctuary for soft/sissy men, like bacteria in a petri dish, shit just festers and grows. Gays are rewarded and praised without being told thus say the lord. The popularity of gay members will make a weak shepherd turn the other way when things get out of hand. Large Mega churches can't afford to be unpopular and so they become accepting of activity and lifestyles to keep those collection plates filled with dope and trick money. They sponsor fashion shows and become meat markets that compete with clubs and bars for the leisure dollar. Oh but I digress.

Bishop if you want to be my friend, wipe that smile off your face. If I need my dick sucked it won't be you doin it. Too much friendly is bad juju fam. Speakin of blow jobs, How you and Juanita doin these days? I aint mad atcha pimp, If you aint chin checkin you aint Hen checkin.

Hell Mary

2007-12-08T15:18:00.000-08:00

Hail Mary full of Grace
Blessed be the fruit of thy womb
Hell Mary
Montell says there's a
99% chance that
HE aint the
Baby Daddy
On cue from the teleprompt the
mob chants
WHORE WHORE WHORE as if on loan from a play-off game

Joe the cuckolded carpenter stands up
Security wrestles him to the floor
Vito whispers in his ear
punks jump up to get beat down
Vito winks at Mary
She smiles beautifully
beatifically
Mone Lisa on a morphine drip
The mob is ecstatic
Music is cued and they go on a commercial break
When the show resumes Mary and Joe are gone and an undercover
Transvestite squirms in his/her seat
I have a secret to tell my fiancee. There is a
Cross of gold on her neck
and she genuflects as they bring in the clueless
lover.

There is a lid on the world about ceiling high
above which my prayers cannot rise
Pray for us now and in the hour of our death
did I lose my connect
or am I on tree in the forest status now
and in the hour of my death
will HE swing down sweet chariot style
or will I be alone as I am now
Will I float toward the light or
Fade to Black

Life for the Georgia Blond?

2007-11-22T03:37:00.000-08:00

I've been amazed, amused, impressed and saddenned by news of Hardbody Norris's trial and conviction on charges of Pimpin in the nth degree. With a name like the Georgia Blond, one would expect to see a bleached coiffed white woman in a stained camisole and torn fishnet stockings with a cigarette nodding from her lips and ( perhaps) a wrinkled peach tattoo winking from her derriere, black roots screaming from her scalp((as they escape the madness that lurks underneath?)
But no, this Georgia Blond is a professional wrestler who is accused and now stands convicted of forcing prostitutes ( whom he met at the truckstops or convenience stores they frequented ) to (insert the proper expression of outrage) prostitute.

Yes, it's probably true that he pimped them out. In a world where common sense reigned however, Harris would simply be found guilty of exercising an aggressive management style. He did, after all take the women off the street and fatten them up. He apparently gave them things they lacked as self employed whores like protection and regular meals and an inside place to sleep .

Let's not play games here. A prostitute is rarely without options. Rarely without a sugardaddy or Ex old man willing to take her back if she would just "straighten up" which is translated to mean don't steal my checkbook or trade my Xbox to the DopeMan. The street is a rough and tumble world (note the wrestling reference) and one must have the nerve, smarts and strength to survive with body and soul intact. The sad thing is that at the end of a 72 hour day in the life, life is about all you can expect. Street level prostitution is usually entertwined with the drug-addiction-crime-jail-rehab cycle that consumes chunks of life that are weighed in years. The longer one is in the streets, the deeper one is committed to the streets and harder it is to pull out before death and prison overtake you. But a georgia pro is not to be confused with Bambi. Bambi doesn't roll drunks, shoplift or flim flam trix.

But,we live in a society that denies the existence of gray. Either we are Good or Evil. Black or White. Victim or Villain. The prosecution has taken the position that Norris is an evil, violent man who forced these hard working upstanding women to sell their bodies for filthy lucre They were for the most part, apparently virginal naifs who were holding down the front pews at first Baptist passing out MLK/JFK fans and praising baby Jesus when he came along, twirled his mustache and whisked them off to a brothel in the woods.. They have, in essence, painted him as a slave master. That cross dressing Jefferson Davis must have exploded in his mausoleum when he heard that a big black Buck Nigra was forcing the flowers of Southern Maidenhood to dress badly and be penetrated by ....Ahhwww Lawdy Jeezus. Pompey! Bring me a mint julep before I'm overcome with the vapors. Rest easy Jeff, the government will not let Mandingo have his revenge. Your nightmare is once more disspated into the ethers.

I wonder about the prosecutor. How can she pretend with a straight face that these Georgia Pros were forced to have sex when they went out on a daily basis HOPING to trade sex for cash before he met them? Isn't that a bit hypocritical? Who was victimizing these women before they met Harris? Themselves? Are they guilty of pimping self? What do the sentencing guidelines say about that?

I saw a few minutes of "Pretty Woman" the other day and was rewarded with an idealized version of prostitution that was very popular in it's day. It was the old Cinderella story cut to the bone. Poor girl meets rich man and gets married and rich in the process. I wonder if the prosecutor ever saw that and if so, did she smile and laugh and dream of meeting Fichard Gere in a LAmbourghini? Well if Hardbody looked more like Richard Gere and less like Tookie Williams, do you think the penalties would be so severe? I doubt it. This is a society built on Apartheid. classes, castes, races. We invented the "whites Only" drinking fountain and the Indian reservation We were the model for the South African System of Apartheid and Nazi theories of Eugenics. There has always been a double standard of crime and punishment in this country. Always dependent on the racial melange of victim and perpetrator. Thiis case is no exception. HArdbody, Dolemite was in California, This is Georgia where white maidenhood must always be put on a pedestal until she comes down and gives you a $7 blow job.

Razorbladecandy

2007-10-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

Law #1-Cause and Effect.

Whether you believe in the WORD, the BIG BANG, the DREAM of Brahma or COSMIC SLOP, the constant acceptable explanation for your existence and the the totality of your experience is CAUSE and EFFECT.

I decided when I began this Blog to examine this world in light of this law because it is insulting to my intelligence ( and most likely to yours ) to live in a time in which knowledge and reason are attacked in like manner as sympathy for Stalin was not long ago. George Orwell scripted these times prophetically in 1984 and in Animal Farm as well.

In America, independent thought, prudence and reflection are often labelled unpatriotic, disloyal or cowardly. This exasperates me greatly. But it doesn't surprise me. You see, when I examine Democracy, both as practiced and as preached (not the same), I inevitably reach the conclusion that it is at it's heart a veiled extension of mob rule. I am a Black Southerner. I was born before the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts passed under the Johnson. My Birth Certificate identified me as Colored. In other words, I was not born with the expectation of citizenship in the USA. In fact, I was born in a different caste than the majority. My freedoms of speech, movement, assembly etc... are limited to the whims of the majority. Because I was not born with the expectation of these rights, what I exercise is called in legal terms, Granted Privilege. Granted Privilege is a lot like True Citizenship. It just isn't. Consequently I examine the system as an outsider. Am I invoking the race card? Nah. But if I expect you to accept my bona fides as an observer then I should disclose where I'm at when I start running my mouth. So now you know. Democracy has not been the dress rehearsal for heaven to me. It opresses. It smothers. It labels and lynches. It is denies. It withholds. It is not a worthy substitute for civility, charity or love. IT is a hammer dressed up in red white and blue velvet.

Being that it is the month of October, (originally the eighth month in the roman calendar) my thoughts go to my brother's birthday (the 25th) and to Halloween. I have always been intrigued by this Holy Day and the manner in which it is celebrated. Don't get me wrong. I love candy and hanging out at night. The vandalism and disguises, not-so-much. But in many ways it provides such a great example of the Law of Cause and Effect, that I wouldn't be a good insurgent if I didn't examine it. What do you get when you cross the portion of the population that feels shunned and alienated with hordes of snotty children practicing legalized extortion for sweets? Eventually you get razorblade candy. You get the revenge of the weak upon the strong. You get what is called terrorism. The Redcoats were too strong in the open fields of the colonies. As were the Americans in SE Asia. The Russians in Afghanistan. The Philistines in Canaan. What do you get? Guerrilla warfare. Booby traps and pungi pits. Bouncing Bettys and IEDs. Chaos.

There is a group of people in this country who feel powerless over their circumstances and yet when given the choice between seething in their weakness and eating the red pill, choose to see reality and absorb the consequences of engaging in the struggle as they see it. Kaczinski was probably such a man. Some Militia people are such men. Jim Jones was such a man. Huey Newton, John Brown, Nat Turner, Guy Fawkes .... were all such men. Not heroes or devils, just men who decided to stop bending over one day. The little old lady your children scream and throw things at for 364 days (since they egged her front door and toilet papered her Pecan tree)? Guess what? This year, some body's getting razorblade candy in his or her bag. It is not a good thing but it IS predictable behavior. That is what razorblade candy is all about. It's hindsight in the present tense. Prophesy. It's the Great I-told-you-so that you should have seen coming.

Prophesy: another false alarm terrorist threat. Must maintain that fear err alert level. must submit to triggerhappy cops (no breast feeders in that crowd) strangers overdosed on Harrison Ford movies and my permanent status of suspect. Does it occur to you that when you allow racial profiling, you are also endorsing a standard of acceptable appearance? Clean Cut. Happy. Patriotic. Cooperative. Sure officer I'll be happy to bend over for National Security! Gee that's a mighty big probe you've got there officer!

Leaving Valdosta.

2007-08-25T21:38:00.000-07:00

8/24-25

I moved back up from Georgia this past spring. I was working in Valdosta and decided that it was time to roll out. With 14 dollars in my pocket, 2 bags of clothes and a gimpy foot I started walking north from damn near Florida up Interstate 75. After 3 months in Lowndes County, I decided to trade the plantation incorporated as the stae of Georgia for another plantation with better roads and not as many 100 degree days. Then as now, it seemed like madness to do what I did. But I woke up in the dark of the morning with a need like desert thirst to leave the chain gang state. It wasn't a logical or reasonable thingto do and I am a reasonable person. But over time I have learned a lot of things about my space in the world. When to stand. When to fight. When to chill. I've also learned to move when the universe says move. And when the Universe woke me from my sleep that Saturday morning, it was shouting MOVE! And so I did.

I'd come to Valdosta partly because my seasonal job with Sally in Albany was over and because a close friend was moving to Valdosta to enroll in nursing school at Valdosta State. She needed a friend in a strange town and I fit the bill. I kept her straight helped her find a place to live. I worked, She worked. We drifted apart. The thin line between love and hate snapped and neither of us could stand to see the other.

So there I was on the road. A good 15 miles into a journey of several hundred when I see the Firetruck red Ford Festiva that I'd come to town in a few months earlier. My ex-friend through a confluence of events including a homesickness, bad traffic, a free television set and my early morning wake-up call had put us on the same stretch of highway at the same time. Long story short, I got a ride to my destination. Was it the same force that woke me up and told me to move? Did that same force allow me to run into my former boss who needed work done and allowed me to earn my busfare to North Carolina? How could it not be?

Some would call this coincidence. Some would call the events a sign of the miraculous power of God. I don't believe in coincidence, miracles or luck. My faith is in the Law of cause and effect. The fact that I cannot explain an event does not allow me to call it supernatural. It simply reveals the state of my ignorance.

The tendency to label events as miraculous or supernatural is a holdover from the days of man's development as an intellectual being. Awareness of self. Awareness of surroundings limited by a lack of understanding of that which cannot be seen or comprehended. Hence, what we don't understand we credit (or blame as the case may be) the unseen. God.

"God is man's ideal. As man grows, his God grows". My God is the creator of the Universe. My God doesn't get angry and slay villages; nor send tsunamis out of wrath upon non-believers. My God cannot be contained by the word God. But my God is good all the time. After all God is my ideal.