This is what I was feeling last week. Before you judge, ask from whence it came. Hope y’all like …

“N-Word Reverie” by Jose Vilson © 2007

They buried the n-word yesterday
The National Association for the Advancement of People Who Are Often Defined As and Often Call Themselves The N-Word
gave the last rites and buried the n-word
With n-words praising the move and others dismaying it
IT made me wonder if the n-word that came up with the idea
Sent out a memo to its constituents
Held a forum on it
Had a jury of the n-word’s own peers to decide
Whether to execute or execute it
If not, then, what is the procedure for impeachment and disarmament
of those who’ve lost such a touch with their people
It does whatever it wants like
Wage wars,
Distribute tax monies improperly
Represent the interests of the rich, white, Protestant minority
Who really has the authority?
And how do we expect to descent upon the power of this small collective’s oppression
When we mirror the oppressors?
And what will NYC do to me for using the n-word that Bloomiani hasn’t tried already?
Use it against me?
Libel me?
Lower my wages as a city employee?
Ticket me?
Support assassins who shoot me up after I dropped my wallet?
Push me into a black van with the rest of the disobedient?
Maybe I can release my Cheneys,
And get a Libby
By Scooting and commuting to the nearest
Deposit box and writing a BIG ASS CHECK
For the entire teacher salary I make to educate kids to empower themselves as more than second-class citizens
Dust off doors for them that they hadn’t seen
Hadn’t dreamed
That a racial epithet would define who they will be
Is beyond me
The root is not the rappers, R&B artists, and comedians constantly using it in their shuffle-feet records
It’s not even Imus and Michael Richards using it in public view than blaming it on aforementioned musicians
Not Paris Hilton using it in her greenlit videos published all over YouTube
And it’s not even the common underrepresented youth
The poor Latinos, Asians, or Black kids
Or that one poor White kid who listens to Wu-Tang and hangs out with the rest of us
It’s the conditions that still exist that gave birth to the word
It’s not I don’t think it’s a powerful word
It’s that the web of power and deceit continues to exist
Whether we use the word or not
So let the n-word die off
Not from martyrdom but from sheer powerlessness
True advancement instead of this foolishness
Let this Bush burn and call it a liar
Dancing to its cackles,
Come around the bonfire
Celebrate the incineration of an idea much more powerful
Culminating in a word I’d be more prepared to fight for
And die for
Freedom …

peace

p.s. - Bam’s got a good perspective on this as well. These minds definitely think alike.

This is just another one of those stream-of-consciousness poems. I’m at a point in my writing where I can just write well without thinking too much of the consequences … if that makes any sense. Check the rhyme …
“They Reminisce Over You”

What will they say when I’m gone?
Will they look back to my electronic words as testimony
To everything I believed
Or everything I could have been?
Will they reminisce on conversations we had
And silent yet powerful moments we shared
via instant messaging?
Will they research on the small instances of my gratitude?
Crossing old ladies through the snow
And passing along his dinner to perfect strangers in the frigid cold
With no audience but the people in his mind?
Will they look up my file at the Board of Ed, SU’s records, and the CIA to inform them of my own, sometimes subversive, activities?
My teaching as well as my learning have certainly broken the effervescent barriers
between people such as myself and the mainstream idea
Of what a Black / Latino man’s supposed to be
Will they do those cool personal interviews with my mom, father, stepfather, brothers, sisters, cousins, ex-lovers, friends, co-workers, passerbys, and comparable visionaries of our time to explore my essence like they do in those VH1 specials?
Or will they simply look back in the words I laid out as the prophecy and the history of one man’s journey to understand his own surroundings
By expounding on the little that he really knows?
Who knows?
You do, because when my time has come,
Certainly my legacy will precede me through my words
Not just in the rhyme scheme and structure
But that this poet brought every word he put on page
Off the ink and into existence …

© jose vilson 2007

“Season’s Change” (first draft, so don’t bite me) © Jose Vilson 2007

The buds blossom on trees still covered with frost
The calendar tells us to switch modalities
To warm weather and less layers on our person
Yet, she lays there in her puffy coat
In the middle of the world’s great metropolis
With her eyes to the sky
Her fingers on her left hand caressing a little black book
The other hand held tightly onto a plastic, ivory-colored rosary
Her woolen black hair mops up her stress-wrinkled face
She collapses on the grass next to dying leaves
Rolling her eyes back as mental images of her childhood illuminate the screen behind her eyelids
Eating Apple Jacks while her mother fixed her school uniform or
Fernando Villalona playing on those Saturday afternoons with the smell of salchichones and platanos
Her brother running around with his Transformer and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys
Singing the theme songs in tune with how a 5-year old should sound
In a little apartment building on Sherman and Vermilyea
She’s now restless on her patch of grass when reminiscing about her own past
She yearns for the true love she once felt outside of that apartment building with the man
The seed-bearer that would transform her body for 3 months
Her uterus now a uninhabited vessel
She was christened as an adult once she made that decision
Now she beckons her that child back
Not the one she once carried in her womb
But the one she once carried in her heart
In one false act of sincerity, she’s a season removed from a beautiful growth,
and a part of a season ill-conceived …

As a poet, I often have a hard time coming up with something to write about. For those of you who know me well, you’re probably snickering since I’ve practically filled up my little notepads and 3-month old MoleSkine and constantly write on 3 different Internet venues. Yet, I can’t sit here and tell you that I’m a well of words. The problem isn’t writing about randomness; if that was my objective, I’d have a whole world of experience to fall back on.

Instead, I want to do something different from what I’ve seen in poetry. A couple of weeks ago, I went to Tribes on 3rd and Ave. C to hear, among other women poets, Tara Betts, who I’ve reached out to every so often for poetry advice. Anyways, she read a poem inspired by a survey a friend handed her. The “survey poem” outlined many of the (mostly negative) stereotypes that she’s seen in the poetry scene, and I thought it was an awesome reflection of the stagnant poetry coming out these days.

I personally have more experience with the performance poetry crowd, and it’s gotten so bad that now every poem sounds like an Amiri, Saul, or an Audre remake. While those just learning any craft have to imitate their inspirations, they also need to grow into their identity (read: stop biting!).

I live but a few blocks away from many of the great poetry spots in New York City (The Nuyorican, The Bowery, and Bar 13), and I still have an aversion to going to the shows to watch people talk about:

- how bad hip-hop music has become (when they’re contributing to the dilution of poetry as a whole)

- the latest on Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, George W. Bush, or anyone else that’ll make the poet sound revolutionary or non-conformist

- the names and quotes of MLK, Malcolm, 2Pac, Rosa, Angela, Maya, or anyone else that’s associated with true Black leadership for the same reasons as the last point

- how to make a slam poem (you can’t slam slam poetry by making a slam poem)

- how well or badly some sexual partner performed oral sex on the poet

- a random assortment of words that combines the last few topics together with a ton of words no one understands or even why the poet put them together in the same verse, but people call them “lyrical” so it’s hot anyways :: snickers::

That’s a small list, yet similar to drugs, women, and money in popular rap music, too many of the poets these days harp on these subjects, so I rarely go to the poetry spots anymore unless I want to perform. I always see myself up against what I see within the poetry scene as well as my own writing.

Speaking of which, apparently, I might be twice published by the end of the year (as in through books, because I have a good web presence as is). I’ll let you all know.

Mi gente, paz …

jose

*** I thought maybe some of my readers wouldn’t know some of this number theory I’m presenting here with this poem. Basically, the fundamental theorem of arithmetic states that for any number greater than or equal to 2, one can rewrite that number as a product of a unique set of primes. While our lives aren’t exactly like this fundamental theorem, the following is based off this idea.***

“The Divisibility Theorem” by Jose Vilson 2007 ©

Life is divisible by a set of infinitesimal moments
Broken up definitely by a unique set of primes
Makes our lives similar in structure to everyone
But individualized from everyone else’s
Those moments between the first part of one’s scalp
Exiting our mothers’ wombs
To our departure from our Earthly vessel
From the first time you had your underwear put on for you
Until you become someone who can pull up your own breeches
From the time someone becomes responsible for us
To the time we become the standard-bearers in our society
And all points in between
The first kiss, and the subsequent ones from our one or maybe multiple lovers
Of our being
The first anniversary of our birth,
our commitment to one,
our greatest achievements
The accomplishments and praise thrown our way
The awards and graduations we use to measure our life’s successes
The little acknowledgments we receive from those who quietly cheer us on
The pain and hurt from the everyday struggle
The hurtful remarks and actions towards one another
The disasters and catastrophes affecting our personal lives
Within a world so satiated with enduring visions of living beings
Passing on past this world and consequently past us
And that one moment when you realize that your life is divisible into those moments
And the resulting ones when you build on your newfound theory …

Today, I performed for my kids and they didn’t believe I wrote this myself. Surprise, surprise.

Some of you know me from other incarnations on the Internet. Today, I’m writing on a theme I’ve written before. Just check it.

“For She” © 2007 Jose Vilson

Her spells lay me captive
Her silhouette triggers memories
Of the places in my mind she touched
When she inserted her finger
Through my ears and softly scrapped my lobs
As if she was testing them before
She laid her tongue on it
Outlining my more masculine features
And complementing them with her own femininity
I was already spellbound by her intelligence
She made words I mastered seem brand new
Her deepest seduction came from when she never spoke of it
The activity we could sense between us
The thoughts I already had as she pressed her upper body To my own I tried resistance
But in time, even winter has to give way to summer’s irresistible heat
And ‘twas the season in my more secret areas
She’s now the image I remembered having back when I first thought of having a girl lie on my lap and tease me so
She’s now the goddess so many dreamers and rhapsodists dedicated their sonnets to
She’s now unbuttoning the top of the collar
I thought was too safely locked to begin with
She’s now reaching into another echelon of heaven
And she’s now climbing down my body
But she’s now reaching into my soul
Making peace with the major G_ds
My mind is unclear and totally in lock with hers
Our liquid forms become one through osmosis
Our synergy is focused
But something’s amiss
For such a woman has yet to exist …

peace,

jose

The biggest question any burgeoning writer answers for anyone is “Why do you write?” Whether one write essays, lesson plans, and poetry (like yours truly), or are into the other genres such as fashion or sports writing, one finds him or herself asking those questions as well, especially because humans always like to think there’s a purpose behind the madness they create. G_d forbid all of this actually means nothing.

Personally, I started writing when I was in the 1st grade, though my true first creative (and effective) piece I wrote was in the 5th grade. While I was misguided in writing what I did (too public to get into really), the seeds of a true writer
were sown then.

Of course, as every writer does, I went through my early phase of writing corny love poems, then the sci-fi writings inspired by X-Men and other Marvel characters through high school, the attempts at rapping, which did not come to fruition fortunately (Can you see me as a “conscious” rapper? I thought so, too), and the miscellaneous writings about my identity that still hold a place in my heart.

I found my niche in college, around the time the current performance poetry became popular in the underground. While I always knew what the Nuyorican Poets Cafe was (I live 3 blocks away), I did not understand the magnitude or significance it had amongst many of my favorite poets. These rather bombastic and semi-celestial men and women who I met through various programs at Cuse helped shape the identity I wanted to establish.

From the soul-trembling performances of Amiri Baraka and StaceyAnn Chin, to the earthly readings of Sonia Sanchez and Jessica Care Moore, I only thought to myself how I wanted to have a voice that rung so resoundingly in the ears of generations past and present. Their poetry was more than just a set of words on paper; it was a shared experience, and certainly the person on stage was to the person off-stage as Superman is to Clark.

I also began to go through a maturation process because of the mass organizations I joined, the experiences I went through during that time period, and the courses I took about myself and where I am from. This combination of elements shaped what I write to this day. This laid the foundation for what I write and how I do it.

As for why I write now … that’ll be a good post for next week. Tune in, mi gente.
jose, the everlasting …

Let me preface this by saying that anything I write here might actually have to do with my thoughts on myself. That may seem like a wild idea in this day and age, with many blogs opting instead to write about others’ lives, but I fully intend to make this blog and all the subsequent ones about what I think.

Little known fact: John Lennon wrote “I Am the Walrus” to confuse the hell out of an old English teacher from his alma mater, one he was not so proud of. He heard they were analyzing his lyrics, so he made a song that ensured they would stop using Beatles’ music for literary fodder. [Read more →]