It takes a Gentleman to deal with the NYPD
And if you’re Black you better have your Hands bound back

We’ve always had problems with the police, cops, bobbies,
Boys in blue, crime fighters, night watchmen, Gulliani soldiers
What was it that makes a man with a gun in his hand off at a boy
Was it the color of his skin, was it the damage within

In his own mind, a world of racism, power and control
On patrol, walking the beat, answering a call
Come a coming, come a come a knocking

In neighborhoods with the drugs, the scrubs
Eye on you, eye on me, eye on everything they see

But this is who we be:
We be brown, black, tall, short, wise, wounded, apprehensive
Proportioned with potential, juvenile delinquent, Afrocentric

We be black businesses, oppressed for centuries
We be Jamaican, Rastafari
We be Bronx, Brooklyn
We be U. S. of A.

It takes a gentleman to deal with the NYPD and if you’re black
You better have your hands behind your back

Police officers doing police duty, every morning, noon and night
They are called upon to save a life, protect a husband from a wife
Charging at him with a knife, is it her life they’ll take, a black woman
A black life, what can’t a policeman with a gun control even if a knife

A black man attempts to kill himself, cops are called to his door
They are met by his family at first, apprehended and brought outside
He is wild and wooly, lectured, handcuffed, put in the back of a patrol car
Tonight he’ll sleep in Bellevue mental ward, locked up for as much as a week

Two men in transitional housing, arguing and threatening each other
One man goes to the police station and reports on his roommate
He is confronted by the cops, before him they stand, a band of blue
Casual gentlemen giving orders, making him obey, closing the door behind

It takes a gentleman to deal with the NYPD and if you’re black
You better have your hands behind your back

We be chic, we be abracadabra, we come from Afrika Bambaataa
We own this, this is the mind under drugs, this is the mind getting off drugs
This is the mind getting off drugs and getting an education

We make use of grade school grammar, mathematics and social studies
We’ll never set foot in your colleges, we’ll marry into institutions

For some of us we law abiding citizens, been through the schools and education
For some of us we have come to America for a better life, a future wife and child

Where are the men with stones, gold chains and freedom, we need them now
We need them now and why do they hide behind the magazines and camera lights
We need them to take a bullet for us, we need them to walk on water for us

It takes a gentleman to deal with the NYPD and if you’re black
You better have your hands behind your back

Did I have to have gone to school when the cops came knocking on my door
‘Cause I had been a fool, took a knife to the air in front of a friend
Did I have to have gone to church when the cops handcuffed me
‘Cause I had gone off my pills and I’d been cussing at my mother
Did I have to have read James Baldwin when the cops questioned me
‘Cause my roommate said I was in on the plan to rob our apartment

Police officers doing police duty, every morning, noon and night
What is it that makes a man with a gun in his hand off at a boy
What is it the color of his skin, was it the damage within

In his own mind, a world of racism, power and control
Please don’t come a coming, don’t come a come a knocking

Mis-Education of Fuzz Glass or Prognostication on the future of Black Girls

They came from cocoa villages, black skinned with their afro dos, corn-rowed, starry-eyed
To give a helping hand nurture what was the future of Ghanaian school children, African babies
Their working parents called upon homes of homes for available girls who showed some love
Brought into this world kindness of angels, these woman-child, taught to embrace give warmth
Butter the mouths, in the houses where mothers left for work at morning’s dew, they woke
Maids, madams, bathed boys, bath water and soap, prepared them, a day which stood at guard

Accra, city where imported movies, Sodom and Gomorrah and Taxi Driver were gossiped about
Young diamonds of dust, head kerchiefs on their heads, telling stories about blood lust and skin
Matured as cosmopolitans carried on with men, neighborhood thieves impregnating them
Making them lovers, by the bars and boys quarters, getting their periods sooner than expected
Hopes and dreams brought them to America, alongside families who promised education
They came from cocoa villages, found French perfume to be lovely at stores on Park Avenue

They were born and bred New York, from ghettos in Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Long Island
At a time when words were bullets that permeated ghetto blasters, poured from lips of MC’s
It was the East Coast, gang war fare, tough turfs, cold bread and watered down tea for lunch
Empty buildings, broken windows, subway trains, graffiti walls, stick up boys spraying pennies
Sure shot girls walking rails, making beats for radio, Roxanne, Roxanne, I wanna be your man
Underground parties, brandishing uzis, cutting blow, humping girls in the dark blue after glow

They were native tongue, Afrocentric and conscious, spitting poetry about kings and queens
Queen Latifah and Moni Love, Come on and get some, brown skin honey, spoonful, cinnamon
Political activist, sharp blunt blowing smoke, cut cutting the system, public enemy number one
It takes a nation of millions to hold you back, watch glorious girls in kente cloth braid their hair
Dance the way from Boogie Down to Canal Street, Blondie did not put hip hop on the map
She smoked the puff out of tall white sticks, was to CBGB’s, what Big Daddy was to Kane

Hips be macking, big booty be shaking, white, black and brown skin girls all out club clubbing
We were peas in a pod, Super models, glamour age, R & B soul singers, all world was a stage
Acid jazz, higher learning in black colleges, art, dance, nutrition, nursing and a doctorate degree
Queen divas were born in the 60’s, black girl groups like The Shirrels, show stopping numbers
1, 2, 3, Hit me, God Father James Brown, They bowed to you, from Tina to Chakah to Whitney
Modern day bombshells, black goddesses under a spell, talking eternity, singing songs of soul

They come from Cosby, they come from Aaliyah, they come from TLC, millennials, smart phones
Uploading selfies, Instagirls, septum rings and twistas, short blonde afros, blue lipstick, necklace
FKA Twigs, what Sade was to Neo Soul, the young urban girl is to social media, dance killa dance
Break the bones in your body, shake shake it until you set the monsta loose, grown groan girl
Singing the blues, trick tricky, modernist sista in a mondernist world, Zadie Smith, white tongue
Lick her pubis, suck her nipple, girl on girl, you make me wanna, you make me wanna, girl fight

I am man of the world, never set a foot outside your door, New York, New York City, I spit
Not blood but words, been analyzed, profanitized, they called me Fuzz Glass, gave me white ass
Black boy in a black bandana, lived among the treacherous things, drug addicts, alcoholics
A double life of art and madness, saw the fear of midnight, like a morning star followed
A home in Harlem now, after having made amends, Black Gold of the Sun, a book, a memoir
I am a black man in a black world, revolutionized, I dream of days where black girls spin webs

Sitting with Keith at a Bar on A

Some guys walk easy, they don’t strut, they are one with the ground
They are a walking flag pole, tattooed and torn, blowing in the wind
Eye of a pirate, pissed on street corners, waited on broken bombshells
Sometimes straddling a rhythm guitar, dirty jeans, wicked alligator smile
Leather skin, British boy good looks, Marlborough lip, tobacco tongue
Come dirty like a knife, shaking the reggae off the street, Rasta boys
No body guards, no lifeguards, looking death in the eye, laughing
The tall and thins, slip in like fins of sharks, gritting bloody teeth
On the dark corners they fight with breaths so hard, move to the beat

In walks Keith, rock and roll ghost, perpetual smoke pours from his lip
Puts his arm out for the usual, bartender nods in agreement, the regulars
Make like regulars, playing cool by the juke box, playing pool in the light
All at attention, he’s angling over, locking up a doo-wop tune, so soon
He calls up a girl to dance, body tight, match light, groping the way down
Falling for him, stranger, dolled up just enough, in her eyes, a magic puff
Backing away, he stands there watching her dance alone, smoke lifting
Original Van Gogh, painting her with his eyes, ashes builds at the tip
No Jumping Jack Flash, no Rolling Stones, cock eyed and wonderful

Blues on a Monday night, thump thumping through a seduced bar crowd
Here to see Billy go at it again, his band is really big shit, yeah, yeah
To my left is a Marley man, to my right is Keith, tap tapping is knee skin
Jiggling the cubes in a glass, smoking a rocket ship cigarette, blazing
His face is a weather map, takes me through Tahiti to the cold under
Whispers something in my ear, can’t understand, bob bobbing my head
Smoking a rocket ship cigarette, alarming, he blows a whistle into the air
Loud and above it, I give Billy the fist pump, look at me, I got Keith
Sitting beside me, orange and blue, like a decked hammy boy bitchin’

So like he doesn’t stay for the encore, makes his way out before Billy
There on stage smashing his guitar, Keith would have liked that, maybe
He wasn’t Live at Leeds, he was cool with a cigarette, held that baby down
Played the chords so easy, always hammering down, lighting up a crowd
Never saw him play live, here on A he never bothered to strap it up
Just walked in on us when we least expected, sat, listened on, dangerously
We were the lucky ones, never saw Mick, Charlie or Ronnie, we saw Keith
Sitting there with a smoke, glass of fire water and cubes, playing himself
A delicate British gentleman, walking wounded, crazy with the days

Johnny’s got a Blade

Johnny’s got a blade six inches long, he picked up at the Army Navy Store
We sat the stairwell at Phipps, while he went to chat up Eva Lamore

When he came back he told me to smell his fingers, they smelled of pussy
Johnny’s got a blade six inches long, he used to penetrate Eva Lamore

Johnny was the new kid in town, girls stopped to stare when he came round
Had that hair slicked back, black with streak of grey, no curl could be found

Wore shirts rolled up at the sleeve, no tattoo on the bicep, none what so ever
Swore he had it removed back when he broke up with a girl named Clover

Johnny never knew how to play the guitar; sometimes he used his fore arm
Imitated Billy Zoom, tapped fingers to play chords on songs that went boom

Nobody stood up to Johnny, wasn’t the way he fought, was the way he stood
Had those hips slanted to the side, cocking a cigarette, showing some pride

Older women loved Johnny; they looked him over where ever he would go
Some brought him home for coffee; others kissed him under the mistletoe

Johnny never owned a gun; he wasn’t a bad boy who got caught with a .45
Kept this blade in the pocket never knowing if there would ever come a day

Johnny took to drinking too much; he had gotten on with the wrong crowd
They pulled him every which way, never knowing if he would end up alive

One night Johnny got into a fight, he pulled out the blade, stabbed somebody
Stood over the man, watched as he bled to death, Johnny dropped the knife

Ran for his life, never looking back, sat at a bar wanting to talk to anybody
Tell a story about a good looking man and a knife he owned, a life he took

Johnny had a blade six inches long, he picked up at the Army Navy Store
We used to sit the stairwell at Phipps, while he went to chat up Eva Lamore

META Postmodernist Black Revolution
Queer Culture, Gangstas, Lit Kings, Word Pimps

The post Gil Scott Heron revolution emerged as a boom box in the ghettos of New York City urban culture, inside and outside buroughs like the Bronx. With turn tables, dis jockeys spoke a new language. MC's rapped over human beat boxes wearing Kangol hats.

It was an uprising much like the revolutionary turns in the 50's, 60's and 70's that preceded. It had always been a sense of who were we and what did we stand for. What were our rights? What would it take to demand them? Who were the ones to lead the way?

In the Jazz Age we were refined as entertainers. The Duke Ellington's of the world. They fed that innate white sense of endearment. The revolutionary aspect came from what it was we were channeling. What would be deemed as jungle music, given a classical turn. But as the years and decades passed, with each performer we saw spirituality take its toll. That the power of black spirituality as well as sexuality, incorporated with strength in talent and composition can outrightly speak for a generation. From Miles Davis to James Brown, Aretha Franklin to Tina Turner.

The late 60's into the 70's were crucial because were dealing with Woodstock, Vietnam, The Black Panther Party, Blaxploitation films, birth of Long Dong Silver, Angela Davis and Disco. Gil Scot Heron as much as many black revolutionaries emerged from this decade. They were driven by essays on slave narratives, the civil rights, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X among many others. This decade helped in defining the present understanding of the sociopolitical status of the black person from unemployment to imprisonment, how the black person has been denied his right as intellectually free and with that the continuing of enslavement due to the increase of black men sent to jail.

The status of the black man has often on been questioned by the presence of the police. Be it Peter Tosh in Jamaica. Linton Kweisi Johnson in England. Ruby Dee reading off the list of black men killed by the police. In this our new age we are once again confronted with the reality that the black person is not free. How unarmed young black men can be killed with no resolution. The young black man is being denied his freedom. His freedom to be. His freedom to exact a sense of manhood and intelligence. What can be said is that what is being done to further the cause of the young black man with respects to education and employment.

How a group of young black men walking the streets can cause a stir in the heart. Why should that be. Why should they be inspired to behave in such a way. Are they products of a system that fails them, forces them into a life of crime. Once investigated further it can then be revealed this is the system; a white system that keeps governing with an upper hand.
To settle on a deeper meaning it would be one that keeps its black citizens in jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail. That is the supposition. To be black and walk the streets you are easily on the verge of being approached by the police for questioning.

But this is a new revolution. A Meta Post Modernist Black Revolution. There are divisions of black youth. We have been desensitized by the horror of young black men getting killed by the police. Michael Brown is a hero. His name stands for something. Perhaps a martyr. There has been many others killed but as a name he brings light to what has been a massacre of black youth. It speaks on the future of politics and socio politics, urban politics and situational politics.

The marking of young black men as criminals is the first mistake. The employing black youth as prisoners is then another mistake. This wronging of a society and a race leads to a larger question of survival, monetarily and even intellectually.

Among those who chose a safer path we see the progressiveness in new music and poets. Saul Williams changed the scene in the late 90's with his spoken word. It brought a new voice to poetry. Theater gave way to voices in new actors and actresses. Writers like Zadie Smith with their academic intellect found their way into the mainstream where now we find
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

There's a newfound sense of sexuality among young black women who tend to be queer with their septum rings and different hairstyles. They can be inspired by female rappers like Angel Haze and songstress FKA Twigs. A variety of streetwise white girls are drawn to the masculinity of some young black men. Certain sections of certain streets and neighborhoods are governed by gangs.

The black person has been crucial to the birth of a new culture in a modern world for centuries. For now he uses the white affectation and influence to ward off danger. He and she manipulates the greater white culture by accessing themselves as intellectuals be it in education, science and government.

Despite the wrath of poverty and the future of the disappearing middle class, the third to fourth generation of blacks will define a future where they are able to survive by making use of technology and implementing facets of what was once detailed as white circumstance, blonde and blue eyed by tracing their history to a once privileged world where blacks were dominant, making way for a brighter and better world.

Mia Bella Morte

Kofi Fosu Forson

Monday massacre I hang by the bar with daiquiri thinking of Delores Romanyshyn a Puerto Rican Italian
who was the most beautiful.
Her face Sophia. Mouth Monroe. Eyes Bardot. I look at the reflection in the mirror back of bar I see Delores.
Drunk the devil I am I see Delores. May not be Delores who told me I would never forget her. Could be
Delores woman who sells at the market. I want to bring her home make love. Taste jalapeno. Shoot Tequila."

Fall to bed. Mindfucking Ezmerelda. An Isabelle Allende novel. Woman stands on patio long haired dressed in silk
Channeling her guapito. He arrives hot dust in back of limousine fresh from penitentiary five years done.
Walks into her room salsa salsa conga conga bella bella Ezmeralda pop popping champagne bottle.

Make love to me as if you couldn't breathe you needed my love to give you air bring you back to life.
Make love to me as if we were animals we didn't know when to stop or continue we were possessed.
Make love to me as if we were dead nothing mattered whether we lived or died we didn't exist.

Hanging by bodegas shooting rag cussing bout government polluting our minds crime pays I tell ya.
Made more this week than I would washing dishes at Mexican. But each time he puts them shackles on me.
Wrist buckle pin striped fall in line head on up into the bin white control white smack white disease white rice.

Revolutionaries making vodka out of hog water scraping burnt sugar from walls of rent controlled apartments.
Money doesn't matter tonight we can play Monopoly go on out paint graffiti hop a few trains to Times Square.
Score some from Isabella street walker lipstick love dildo lez makes it with men who like it weird and freaky.

Bar bolero washed up done night people looking for loud love pissed drunk drug happy shimmy shimmy.
Backroom orgy wild thieves making music chairs rocking bottles spill crash to make a sudden burst boom.
Loon room sophisticated chico chicas Harlem hustlers ramblers from Upper West Grand Central crash
Smoking phillies chit chat spanglomerican jive ass slow dancing something some one said blood on the floor.

Mommy Amore makes living off tips serving drinks to pimps cutting up blow transvestites giving head.
Hatian black girl stole her man did some woo yoo voodoo on his ding a ling wang dang ding dong.
Dresses up night after night leaves home comes here where there is no life people die night in night out
Two boys and a girl Pedro Ricardo Lisa the beautiful ones are not born they are made molded messed with
Pushed into corners they fight Salvador Sanchez Alexis Arguello Earnest Hemingway Hurricane Carter.

Tonight she had no soap for her bath took a shower piled on the perfume stood in a corner like usual
Poured drink after drink nothing funny about tonight Pedro locked the door after she kissed him goodnight.
Nothing funny about tonight she'll make some money for rent food stamps will take care of everything else
Catches herself smiling thinking about the future Pedro wants a job in maintenance Lisa wants to sing
Little Ricardo Little Ricardo standing looking forward she feels one two three quick shots in her chest area
Touches with fingers turning red her eyes open wide face explodes with fear she falls down collapsing