Reginalds Poetry

SOW UR SEEDS/RATE MY POETRY (Intro to Omari’s Poetry Section) Okay, Okay Mayyyyyybe U get ur rocks off gawking at this soul of mine I willingly expose in rhyme. Mm-hm, mm-hm, fine. Sike! Ooooooo…. spike through ur hearts? vampires! Sorry to say, This world of mine is 2-way— things go out and things come inn-nnnn. Yeah, no propping your feet up, popcorn in hand sucking me through a straw. You gluts! Spread da wealth! And da health, Not just your guts. Ever see a mosquito drink so much It couldn’t fly? Ur hunger pains should tell u why. Ur why birth pangs inside, Waiting 2 BE Born but U have 2 open up and give it away. Ur seeds belong 2 2morrow. Harvest 2day What you say. Sow, Sow unto me what was naught Urs or mines When I wrote mine rhymes. U don’t have to be a poetry expert. Just tell me what your initial emotional response was. Did it spark some memories? What did it remind you of? Ur darkest nightmare? Did you hate it? Share your rage. Perhaps you liked the cadence, It’s pace? The rhyme scheme? The word play? What do you say? Sow… After yall do yalls thing. I might come back and explain a few things about the piece I made. What it means to me. Sow ur Seeds/Rate my poetry

FREE STYLE, 1. My hand reveals ancient signs ancient rhymes I secure reaching into da ancient depths of my mind. Mind time Moves quicker than thine, sinking quicker in quicksand. Quick San! She’s quicker than da universe made SanReg. so what are you eating? Burger king, Mickey D’s, or Wendy’s? When D’s Penny’s Value plummets Head over tails telling tells of da head who valued less our human life and moooooore… the expansion of his union? U Men Still needs toproclaim your emancipation not endure, emasculation. Your mass is accumulating as the wealth of the wealthy 2% of dis nation. Blood Sweat and tears after years and years— you’ve changed in two money is everything you is po’, po’, po’. Shit! You just remembered Ho, ho, ho! is around da corner. So what you gonna do then?

Give up your mama and your daughter just to buy gifts I hear that whip CMACK!!! Smoke Came from the slice in your skin burning bright red like crack pipes with your pipe dreams, chasing slice after slice. You pie-friend! “Find by me.” You are what you eat! you all but asleep! You all betta keep Your sickness to yourselves; But hell, yall breed fast. Fast asses! While orphan children Starve in Africa. “Africa?” Yeah, it still exist somewhere ova your rainbow that you’ll neva touch dancing like a fool Dance Fool! beside a pot of fools gold. “Ooooooo,”says the crowd. No! I’m speaking to yall too! ‘til yall blue, like me, and black from this bat. Jus’ call me… Batman! Like Morgan Freeman, Cuz this is MY Eastside High, I’m taking it back! Teaching you songs Or you might as well jump. Jump! Damnit! Cuz da stockmarkets your god. You destined to fall; Destined to crawl; dragging your balls cuz youre definitely chained. 2 million encaged?!!

But it ain’t a shame, Cuz you’re ashamed of being alive; a live part of the social-body. You’re AID’S! You’re taking your own life! Anti-bodies unite! But they label us socialist! They label us anti-social men! They label us! ‘til the truth lies under a pile of lies. Its been “9-11!” on our lives since the Mayflower glided ova violent waters like in the beginning: “let there be light. As long as the light has the might, then it’s right. “To da left, to da left,” If you don’t like. “You leftist and liberals are all alike!” So fight! Barack Obama, fight! But I’m less concerned about skin tone. We need an ideology shift, Or we might Lose our lives tonight. The assasins bullet has taken on a life of its own. They ride wit da chrome; Strapped wit media outlets; hollow-pointed subliminal messages to your dome. Yeeeeaaaaah. I got a damn chrome too! Harriet Tubman’s unborn. FOOL!!! I can go on, and on singing my song: The sun rises in the East and sets in the west! The sun rises when you see and sets when you rest! Welcome to Eastside High. Ommmmmm

DA VICIOUS CYCLE You all ‘bout the stupidest fools that I’ve ever seen!!! Now you have to “suit it up!” Spewing gas through our cage-screens. THE PROTEST WON’T STOP!!! Can’t break what you can’t see. Tried to experiment with a different gas, and my Luga* didn’t choke nor plead. But your 5-pig team, with their gas mask on couldn’t stop puking up spit. And when my Luga came out he still had the breath to protest the acts of these sadists. And all for what? The unwarranted taking of all his property?!! When you’re really trying to suppress his voice by preventing his corresponding with the masses; giving verbal lashes to yalls asses, and the classes, educating The People of what’s really happenin’- The Death Penalty Fashion. Worn like a fur-coat by materialistic fascist ‘cause it’s cash man. The Government is being payed to vitually cut our throats by The People’s cash and those taxes won’t be coming back in Social Security - it’s Social Security. The People are secured in an unsecured state mentally, economically, and politically…. the harmony In the flow of the Amerikan Machine “We don’t give them what they’re worth, We’ll give them what they’ll accept” is the Amerikan creed; the only way they’ll pocket the green. Can’t you see this vicious cycle? The Amerikan system needs an oppressed class to fed the oppressors capital. Hell, we’re the capital… who built a symbol for Amerikan capital: The amerikan Capital. Where the capital lies

to capitalize for the status quo. * Luga is Swahili for “brother.” This piece was composed when my Luga, Haramia, was gassed for refusing to “collude” to his own murder. -- Omari Huduma. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A MAN I’m a Man, at least now. Though in my eyes, I have yet to reach its height. I’m a Man nonetheless, Because I aggressively attack my ego like an urban-guerilla in camouflage fatigues, hanging upside down from a tree, waiting on it to make its way around my corner. Other times, I lie in wait in the bushes For the ambush. “The change I seek starts with self.” So, I’m engaged in a revolution within. A relentless, loyal soldier. A man. There’s a coward hiding from me, in me, my scope is looking for— he’s not gon run no more! No more wrapping itself in complacent comforters. No more running from its humanity. An utter coward, scared to express Love, his own essence, the sustenance for creation.

But sometimes the predator gets preyed upon; and before I realize it, I’m taking the coward’s way, running from the light into the dark crevices of my mind, ‘til I realize Hey! I’m the one with the gun! But I realize. And that’s what makes me A Man. The other day, A comrade asked me, “do you need anything?” I said, “a hug.” Yet, it’s beyond that. Though I’m a realist, understanding the ramifications of my confinement, I can’t take the coward’s way. I must say, I need affection, a woman’s caress, and I want to be held, with my waves rubbed ‘til I fall asleep. Then, awaken, sometimes held, not always doing the holding. Bottles of hot water line my bunk, like a woman, between me and the frozen wall, keeping me warm at night. Awakening to a frozen Warden and Major who feel I should die before the state takes my life. Life is more than merely breathing— it’s feeling, feeling in places never known, with feelings never owned. THIS is why my captors can’t get me to follow their “rules.”

I’m a Man. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------RESISTENCE Chemical-agents and smoke from trash-fires sit and stare, hanging in the air-a smoggy-spectator; while my skin does the cheering, 'cause there has to be an audience in my skin raging burning churning my anger into rage. "BURST-2!" --CLING-my home-made face-mask shielded that swing A swing they thought would penetrate deep through my black-meat; through my black-beat, breaking my black-drum. But drum-Man my oppressors can't see. My technology's beyond their expertise, like the Pyramids-centered in perfect Light, with righteous sight. "No weapon formed against me shall" suffice. I fight with a might, beyond "sight-beyond-sight." Ready to explode, an Ebony nuclear-payload. FEEL MY LIGHT !!! ...........chshhhhhhhh. --BRANDED-by the flames of CONSCIOUSNESS.

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I CANT I can’t let you kill my brother. I can’t let you KILL my brother. I can’t Let you kill MY brother. BANG! BANG! Open this damn cage door!!! Open it damnit! Let my brother go! Let ‘em go! …I can’t. Let you kill my brother. That was MY BROTHER. You sick ma-fuckahs! YOU killed! --Omari Huduma

FAÇADE REVEALED NOTHING has changed— I can still hear Soulful groans, mothers’ cries, As their children, ripped away from them, Are taken for a “lil ride.” Lynchings continue… Disguised and revolutionized under a guise Of justice, but look into Their eyes And you’ll see Smiling faces saying “Burn ‘em alive!” Only now And “burning” is suffocation, And the “cross” is made of steel; Horizontally laid, surrounded by glass So They can congregate, and still watch A color’d be killed. It’s a drawn out process— Approximately 6 years is what it takes; For this type of death comes extremely slowly.

They drain the taxpayers dry, While they say the appeal process is owed to me. They have to make it look good! They don’t want society to start having thoughts That They’re snatching Us off the streets, Doing to Us what was done to the Arawaks. So what do we have? Millions of dollars Being drained from You for political gain. Your money that’s supposed to be used for our appeals Is being rechanelled to the State Treasury’s veins.* Let’s go back a lil ways To the time of “old” slavery. Any enslaved person that resisted Was made an example To their families and all other potential resistors When dismembered, with their body parts trampled. The shock value of such a scene was profound— Instant subjugation by the mere sight. And they’re still being barbaric to subjugate a class By this revolutionized dismembering of lives. Comparing the past to the present— Death Row inmates’ families Are afflicted by the same psychological warfare. And by it, these families are thrown Into a state of bewilderment; An oppressive tool to suppress the fight they have left. So, the fight is taken out of the families, While their children are taken for the slaughter, And used for the accumulation of money. While the government pockets those tax-payed dollars. As our society’s morale evolved, So did the system’s, superficially So that Their means of profit won’t be taken away. They’ve sugar- coated what’s ordinarily repulsive. Executions and Lynchings, it’s all the same. By Reginald “Omari Huduma” Blanton

CONNECTIONS (PART 2) There is no “I” lest it’s a Roman numeral— uni vs. individualism. I’ve merged into the international communal vision; from the teary eyes of Tanzanian children to the indigenous people of this capitalist nation. Our resistance is more than the Death Penalty’s abolition. For our Third World brethren will NEVER BE free unless oppressed Americans AWAKEN ! Dis-United States is the impoverisher of Third World nations. Our obligation: To attack oppression wherever it’s drinking. This imperialist mosquito has injected Americans with anesthetic material possessions, while guzzling our blood, the lives of our brethren. WE have to see the connections, the Middle Passages our oppressors are still traveling. If you can’t, or don’t want to see them, here’s my question: If this government doesn’t make you a victim, whether here, or in another nation, does your silence or in-action make you a perpetrator of international oppression? Draw the connections.

WOUNDED (S.O.S) She has never cried so hard, so utterly, in her life. She cries as if her life depended on it. In fact, lives do depend on it. Dark, angry clouds haven’t even known raindrops the size of her tears. O’ the hurt. Her gapping mouth frowns with wails from her agony. I haven’t realized how my face contorts from the mere sight, the mere sight of…my wound. I’ve been wounded by the mistreatment of Humanity who sits curled up like an abused child, precious child, in the corner of our souls, neglected by the US; neglected by the STATE; neglected by this administration; and what hurts—o’ it hurts—even more, neglected by my fellow death row prisoners, whose faces turn away from this child

because they feel they don’t deserve her. And when they turned their confused faces with tears in their eyes, it ripped a hold through my flesh; one so profound, I can peer through it to my Soul, to that child, the child that cries. I lay wounded in the ditch of my cage, left to die, this child and me. Passerbyshear the cries from my wound—their reflection, but they refuse to face themselves, passing US by. My wound cries for US, which means YOU. The child in me, in US, needs YOU. WE can heal, but it must be TOGETHER; I can’t do it alone, …My wound is bleeding my Soul. Please… please don’t pass US by. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

©2008 by S. Stafford & Reginald Blanton. All text, pictures and graphics are copyrighted. Text, Picture, and graphics, unless otherwise agreed upon, cannot be copied, transferred, produced or saved without prior written permission of the publisher. Changes to the content of writings are prohibited.