água, chuva, música…

 

The rain pours, it strikes the earth with intensity. Souls struggle to find cover from the downpour. Many sit stranded without cover,victims to a power beyond their realm of control. The rain’s rhythmn sings a melody seldom understood. I spend hours listening to try and decipher what it says. It tells me sad stories…stories of truth that seem to do nothing but highlight the denial the human race has acquired.

I struggle to understand what to do. Not just for me, not just my personal reflection, but what should I tell my friends. What should I tell you? It was my only responsibility to be honest, and I struggle daily to do that. The world’s full of complexities that require the greatest degree of precision and care. The rain brings the reminder of what is in front of you. 

Time in rain is priceless. I run, but with different purpose. I run with fury. I dont look around, just straight ahead. The speakers in my ears explode with sounds: the drums, melodies, and lyrics that dictate my stride. I often fall. I continue, sometimes laughing as the terror of thunder and lightning haunt my every step. It isnt until I make it back to my porch, to my shelter that I feel safe. The rush and danger is subversed by the warmth of a fresh change of clothes and a house to take shelter in. But I love those hours spent in the danger of the melodies created by the cracks of lighting and roars of thunder all accentuated with the flickering of the drops that pound the street. 

Peace & Love.

“Lost Part 1″

Officially one day from the biggest moment of my life. This country and the world waits with a held breath waiting impatiently for an election that is 8 years too late. I have spent 8 years feeling unrepresented and misunderstood. I have stood by while a country I am thankful to live in, and proud to represent attacked foreign nation, poured billions into military funding and the great war machine. I have sat and watched the impoverished of our nation go unseen, as their lives floated away. I have seen with my own eyes the promise for a higher education slip through the fingers of many of my friends as well as across the country due to higher costs with little financial aid. Weve become a nation of bullies, tyrants, and misfits, who seem to have forgotten what this country was founded on…acceptance and compassion. This is no utopia, it is no eden. The waters have run dry and the fruit is sour. 

In one day these problems can be laid to rest. The election is only have the struggle, once elected the president of this country will be given a heavy plate, full of dilemmas of state. We should embrace change, embrace it as we would ourselves. This is an important moment in history with so much at stake. The American people need to embrace growth and challenge our minds to adapt to the climate that lies ahead. 

The struggle has been long. The future is bleak, and uninviting. 

Yet, there is always a chance at redemption. Everyone loves a comeback story. Peace & Love.

Where will this silence take me?

Living in a small town, especially a college town can have its highs and lows. Chi city offered a lifestyle, swag, and a breath of life that made it as living an organism as you and I. It offered noise, not just the compilation of sirens, horns, whistles, chatter, and construction, but an actual noise that to some- myself included- offered a subtle comfort, almost assurance.

The past three years have offered a different companion…silence. It has taken getting used to, and I’m often drawn back to the days of the street’s symphony. For me personally, the silence requires patience, and at night when i sit out on my porch the only thing to keep the time are the crickets and the coming and going of a passing car.

It has been this acclimatization to the silence that is preparing me for what is to come. While so many of my friends and peers worry about the struggling market (economic & job), I plan to take a backpack and my lap top to Africa and begin what for me will become a personal quest- not for admiration or praise- but for self-expression. I often wander through the thoughts of what life will be like, and what will the silence bring?

Till then it’s just me on this porch. Peace & love.

“Aint Nobody Worryin”

If youve never heard the song “Aint Nobody Worryin” by Anthony Hamilton I suggest you give it a listen.

The early hours of the day are when my thoughts  are clearest. I sit at a computer reading line after line of boring text, eventually the words slowly join together into one mass of ink and paper…I need a break.

When such things happen I head outside. I get my personal thinking done during these breaks. They are precious and I waste no time. The night breeze helps my thoughts as it carries secrtets with it and whispers them as it passes by.

This year holds great importance in the course of our planet’s history. I seldom drag politics into my personal, and lyrical creativity but tonight will be the exception. This country holds a major descision it its hands and rather than make a case for either candidate and alienate a specific side I will simply make the case for what the people need. The people are the prize, the people hold the will to create change and likewise the people hold the potential downfall.

Beyond the hustle of wallstreet and the mirage of mainstreet, there lies the spirit of the masses. Its a person’s spirit you crush, when he or she has to give up their house, and its a persons spirit you crush when you cannot provide them with a decent living. This is what has always been at stake…the spirits of the millions of people who yearn to live in peace. I myself have the luxury of being a student and idealist- one of the greatest gifts a person living in this world can be given. Yet, still I find myself keeping an ear to the street to get the feeling of the beating heart of an anxious people.

The struggles presented before us hold much more than a need for a proper fiscal budget, or an adequate defense plan, or a debate on foreign affairs. The problems presented require what everyone has become so comfortable without….sacrifice. Those who have the most should be responsible for bearing the burden of sacrificing the most. It should be done as a people with the greater good in sight!

 Too long have we gone comfortably behind our picket fences without going out to make an impact against the social woes that surround us. Turning one’s cheek to the injustices of the world is shameful and is one of the things that hurts my heart the most. Replenish the people’s spirit and rebuild the base for which great things can prosper from.

As a older brother, I am amazed at the tone set by my actions alone. They are mimiced and followed. Thus, the responsibility falls upon me to be a positive force and emphasize a character that is for the greater good. When did America forget its role as the big brother? This country like any has problems, but with such problems the soul of the country is not beyond healing. In faith therein lies the ability and potential to accomplish wonderful things. It is never to late to reverse a reputation or a wrong.

Generations to come will see a different place than what is today. The future holds unlimited possibility, but which road will be taken? Sacrafice is the only way, some of us are going to have to take up causes around the world, fighting to battle injustice. Some of us will have to do that here. Faith is no miracle, and it can be one of the best driving forces towards positive change. To those who would chose to hide and negate the terrors that surround us, it is your right. To those who choose to fight, pick a problem- there are plenty to go around. If you do chose to make war, make war on poverty, hunger, and oppression. Its a battle that has gone on too long, and CANNOT be left unchecked. Such struggles seem insurmountable but they are not,  have faith in the human race. peace and love.

 

“my dreams tonight bring hope for a better morning”

“We Got Da Kingdom”

Its true that greed is contagious, besides being malicious, its a living thing that dwells in the psyche, or at least mine. The struggle to put up with the temptation and urge to want more is one that is as constant as the 24 hours that organize the day. 

What is it that keeps us wanting more? It seems as though there are two pulls in my own character that each make a case for a completely radical form of living then the other. So often I am pulled towards the materialistic, pleasure seeking, fast paced daze that offers so much thrill with such little substance. Maybe the message is lost in the empty glasses and bottles. 

There begins a desperate struggle to find the meaning in every important detail of one’s day. I often wonder, why? For most of the time I am simply living. Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the revolutionary central and South American guerilla wrote volumes about the individual’s resistance and submission to the temptations of wants. Maybe its the simple submission that bothers me or maybe its the realization later of the true simplicity of life’s needs. 

To be free the one and only true necessity is love, and not in the plush, red and pink, heart-shaped box of chocolates for valentines day. Its in the ability to search for the good in people and take them in as brothers and sisters of a race that has much more in common than merely skin tone or expressions of faith. It comes in the dawns of the middle-east and the vigils of the modern west. The necessity for love is the only one that exists with true merit and should be respected as such. It provides the true rewards of what most seek. 

The beauty lies in the simplicity of it all. Its nothing that takes shakespearean drama to grasp and attach to daily behavior. Its structured around the soul’s basic principle to seek comfort and understanding. The theory requires no great scientific claim, verifying its importance or attainability. It rests in the common man or woman’s lap, and in it exists some of the greatest joys in lifetimes. So with that, such a kingdom should be sought out and inhabited. 

“Got to keep on walking, on the road to Zion, Got to keeps it burning, on the road to Zion.”

-Damian Marley

Peace & Love.

A Refugee

They said these things wouldnt happen when the world was laid out at my feet. There were no mentions of pitfalls to come; they said these days never happened. I followed every inkling towards the sunlight, and searched in the smoke of cigarettes when ideas were scarce. Countless nights I ran wild in the city of endless streets, corners, and frigid wind that numbs the face.

Through what some call the journey I found refuge. To the best of my ability I found a face that upon a glance in the mirror I am proud of what I see, but beware the lights in our bathrooms are always more flattering than a day’s sunlight. I found refuge in the silence, the peaceful hours when this rambunctious lot does not pester me with the grievances and details of an uneventful day. I found refuge in the warmth that is unique only to waking up next to someone who truly cares for you. Lastly, I found refuge in such details that to the common man would be cast off as mere insignificance but to me they mean the world. 

So maybe I wasnt told the rules of the game or the strategy which should be adopted in order to ensure success. Instead, I figured out my own way to play, it doesnt always work and it doesnt always guarantee a big pay off, but I love to play. I will continue till these lungs have no room for smoke and the lack there of causes air to run dry of ideas.

peace & love.

“Turn Your Lights Down Low”

I often wonder if I’ve sold out…To know or understand my roots would be to take a look at a complex life and erase the clutter. Growing up in Chicago with a brother, a sister, and a fearless mother, I developed a keen perception on what was important. There were few things back then but it was all that was needed. In the realm of entertainment and leisure my siblings and I had each other. In fact, looking back we were each other’s everything. 

Those times were often difficult. Its obvious to me now as an adult the pressure finances puts on the psyche and soul. But we were simple. We valued every morsel of life, and in turn were rewarded with the ability to find serenity in the most simple of things. Its a lesson that I sometimes wonder if I learned completely. I sit here now on my computer writing from my house in a college town, looking back to the days when I was glued to the stoop, with no idea of what my future held. 

Its both easy and human to love all the nice things made available these days. But the clutter brings a somber remorse and causes me to rethink if in fact I learned the lessons that simplicity taught me…. There has been one way that Ive been able to reach back to those roots. Its my meccha, it exists in music. Its what keeps me sober and keeps my mind active. No matter what the genre, artist, or song I can find certain things in music that were otherwise invisible to my thoughts….So maybe I sold out a bit, but redemption is great and comes with every new day.

So turn your lights down low.

peace & love my brother or sister.