Three strokes and a pull, me lookin in a little closer only to see where a world would form, for eyes a global swarm of quick thought, two eyes to see dreams appear, but eye for one could always find it there, settle at the base, round-bellied rims collecting exhausted visions, iris detailing the mission patterns, lashes batting ideas hitting the air for a six, breeze is what he makes of this free-flowing remix- of a silhouetted spirit, he has the drive that creates it, so he persues it, so that all I end up seeing is the beauty of a struggle, so intense, the world view sits there in his inner-lens, lids draw fleshy curtains from an old hiding place, darkened ovals holding purpose right in place, he writes in the place of any wrong energies, so at the end of the day the whole world could see, and eye believe in boys becoming men when they could build their dreams.
Keep up the great work ballo,
God Bless yuh.
Showing posts with label Rebel-ution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rebel-ution. Show all posts
Friday, May 2, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
The Wind
This village now is silent.
More silence than I, for myself ever heard before,
With nothing other than the wind, to make her signature across a dirt floor,
And me in the middle of meh front door, waiting like a fool for something to make sense again.
Silence as the ancestors bathe themselves in ashes,
Bitter tears, screaming in an infinite anguish, but still…silence.
Silence as the land swallows the blood of those who lived,
Of those who died here.
Here where these rebels come on horse-back,
Their skin was too, but ours were the darker of the two blacks,
Not armed with atomic weapons, or sophisticated machine guns,
But with machetes, knives, blades and clubs,
And a dark greed hovering above
their consciences…thaz if God did make them with any at all.
So I sit here on the earthen floor,
Hands squeezed between my knees,
Just as my thoughts are compressed into forgetting hope.
Then as though to mock meh, I feel a slight breeze,
Coming as a gentle reminder of things not so gentle.
The dust here rises, circles, and rests again,
With the years of this soil, swallowing the ambitions of our men and women, …and children…our children.
Dead.
History taking us hostage, but who to pay the ransom?
Our days to be stalked by these merciless phantoms, fantasizing daily about,
Virtual cash - flowing below our bare feet,
Forming thick black rivers that all anxiously meet
At the intersection of foreign investments and human life,
Economic development and human life.
Human greed and human life.
Our lands are fertilized -
With these bodies, bones and blood,
Until these too are forgotten and they become fossils to flood
This entire continent.
More silence than I, for myself ever heard before,
With nothing other than the wind, to make her signature across a dirt floor,
And me in the middle of meh front door, waiting like a fool for something to make sense again.
Silence as the ancestors bathe themselves in ashes,
Bitter tears, screaming in an infinite anguish, but still…silence.
Silence as the land swallows the blood of those who lived,
Of those who died here.
Here where these rebels come on horse-back,
Their skin was too, but ours were the darker of the two blacks,
Not armed with atomic weapons, or sophisticated machine guns,
But with machetes, knives, blades and clubs,
And a dark greed hovering above
their consciences…thaz if God did make them with any at all.
So I sit here on the earthen floor,
Hands squeezed between my knees,
Just as my thoughts are compressed into forgetting hope.
Then as though to mock meh, I feel a slight breeze,
Coming as a gentle reminder of things not so gentle.
The dust here rises, circles, and rests again,
With the years of this soil, swallowing the ambitions of our men and women, …and children…our children.
Dead.
History taking us hostage, but who to pay the ransom?
Our days to be stalked by these merciless phantoms, fantasizing daily about,
Virtual cash - flowing below our bare feet,
Forming thick black rivers that all anxiously meet
At the intersection of foreign investments and human life,
Economic development and human life.
Human greed and human life.
Our lands are fertilized -
With these bodies, bones and blood,
Until these too are forgotten and they become fossils to flood
This entire continent.
-By Arielle John copyright 2007
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Stickers
These are just some nice stickers I came across...erm hmm...
Happy New Year to you and yours...God's blessings for 2008.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Under full crescent moons...
There’s a crescent moon tonight
To cradle a North Star.
Fixed and proportionate
Like infant Child and Mother,
Green like New Life,
Green like new birth,
Watchful like planted seeds
That will rise from this earth
As foreheads do,
From a carpeted ground,
Chants and mantras,
Bearing the sound
Of awaited relief.
Devotion lives here
Though Iraq’s streets
Are littered with corpses,
These symbols lay as
Collected losses
Though never too heavy
To be carried on crosses,
But that of course is
Already understood.
But by name,
It is a brotherhood.
Not that any brother would
Shed the blood of his kin,
So rites of blessing,
Help take away
Appearances of
Sin.
There’s a crescent moon tonight
To cradle a North Star,
And my head also bows in prayer,
Fixed and proportionate
Like infant Child and Mother,
Green like New Life,
Green like new birth,
Watchful like planted seeds
That will rise from this earth
As foreheads do,
From a carpeted ground,
Chants and mantras,
Bearing the sound
Of awaited relief.
Devotion lives here
Though Iraq’s streets
Are littered with corpses,
These symbols lay as
Collected losses
Though never too heavy
To be carried on crosses,
But that of course is
Already understood.
But by name,
It is a brotherhood.
Not that any brother would
Shed the blood of his kin,
So rites of blessing,
Help take away
Appearances of
Sin.
There’s a crescent moon tonight
To cradle a North Star,
And my head also bows in prayer,
May you soon find truth
Sister and brother.
Amani daima.
-Arielle John
Copyright 2006
Monday, September 3, 2007
ABC's
First dey used to call us ‘third world’, but now is ‘developing countries’
Capitalism doh end without revolution, so until then it will jus accommodate the centuries,
So let we get past de euphemisms, to put down something substantial,
Dissecting our local reality but without becoming partial
Because we gargle- with acid to numb our tongues,
So that we could see all that happenin, but wouldn’t dare make a sound- about it.
Cuz sometimes the opposition put yuh in a position where you yuhself might begin to doubt it-
That this ‘third world’ label already branded into yuh flesh, and they make sure to have it heavily mentally impressed,
But only if yuh choose to accept it-
Don’t.
Get respect from them? We won’t.
At least… not yet.
Instead we get enough problems to give us a new alphabet
To teach our children-
So from the time they reach age 5, we should teach them that
A is for AIDS coming from
B for biological warfare
C for corruption, consumerism and cancer,
D for drug trade,(a.k.a. America’s welfare.)
E for exploitation and environmental damage
F is for famine, free market forces, free trade and financial drainage.
G is for globalization, global warming and godlessness
H is for homosexual legislation, hedonism and a chronic air of hopelessness,
I is for indigenous peoples, the sufferers from day one.
Whose culture has been totally dissolved to house empty western tradition.
J is for justice being denied,
K is for kidnapping circles,
L is for the legalization of abortion,
M is for the music that funnels- rebelliousness to our young people. Like a needle,
N is the New Age nonsense, able to pierce people’s minds so easily, neglecting to hear the word of God, and so cling on to everything earthly.
O is for the oilfields formed by the fossilized bodies of dead black African slaves,
P is for population control and the silent witness borne by their graves,
Q is for the questions, all the right questions that still not being asked,
R is for a racism that when elections surface, slowly becomes unmasked.
S is for sexual vice, fully promoted by the media,
T is for terrorists who call others terrorists, but doh see themselves in de mirror.
U is for the ugly scars, left on this nation’s history,
V for vendetta on Palestinian soil, victims of provoked anarchy.
W is for words of wisdom now holding no weight on our human consciousness,
X is for the times that we cross out God and replace him with our self-centeredness.
Y is for the years before anything in this place could get done,
And Z is for the Zen mentality, this country’s most potent poison.
So while the thousands obey the herd instinct,
Only dead fish does go with the flow,
Cuz all the darkness in the world,
Could never stifle the light of one single flambeau.
So know,
That it still have a fight worth fightin for,
Learn
How to use silent weapons, in the quietest of wars.
UHURU
- Arielle John
Copyright Ó 2007
Capitalism doh end without revolution, so until then it will jus accommodate the centuries,
So let we get past de euphemisms, to put down something substantial,
Dissecting our local reality but without becoming partial
Because we gargle- with acid to numb our tongues,
So that we could see all that happenin, but wouldn’t dare make a sound- about it.
Cuz sometimes the opposition put yuh in a position where you yuhself might begin to doubt it-
That this ‘third world’ label already branded into yuh flesh, and they make sure to have it heavily mentally impressed,
But only if yuh choose to accept it-
Don’t.
Get respect from them? We won’t.
At least… not yet.
Instead we get enough problems to give us a new alphabet
To teach our children-
So from the time they reach age 5, we should teach them that
A is for AIDS coming from
B for biological warfare
C for corruption, consumerism and cancer,
D for drug trade,(a.k.a. America’s welfare.)
E for exploitation and environmental damage
F is for famine, free market forces, free trade and financial drainage.
G is for globalization, global warming and godlessness
H is for homosexual legislation, hedonism and a chronic air of hopelessness,
I is for indigenous peoples, the sufferers from day one.
Whose culture has been totally dissolved to house empty western tradition.
J is for justice being denied,
K is for kidnapping circles,
L is for the legalization of abortion,
M is for the music that funnels- rebelliousness to our young people. Like a needle,
N is the New Age nonsense, able to pierce people’s minds so easily, neglecting to hear the word of God, and so cling on to everything earthly.
O is for the oilfields formed by the fossilized bodies of dead black African slaves,
P is for population control and the silent witness borne by their graves,
Q is for the questions, all the right questions that still not being asked,
R is for a racism that when elections surface, slowly becomes unmasked.
S is for sexual vice, fully promoted by the media,
T is for terrorists who call others terrorists, but doh see themselves in de mirror.
U is for the ugly scars, left on this nation’s history,
V for vendetta on Palestinian soil, victims of provoked anarchy.
W is for words of wisdom now holding no weight on our human consciousness,
X is for the times that we cross out God and replace him with our self-centeredness.
Y is for the years before anything in this place could get done,
And Z is for the Zen mentality, this country’s most potent poison.
So while the thousands obey the herd instinct,
Only dead fish does go with the flow,
Cuz all the darkness in the world,
Could never stifle the light of one single flambeau.
So know,
That it still have a fight worth fightin for,
Learn
How to use silent weapons, in the quietest of wars.
UHURU
- Arielle John
Copyright Ó 2007
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
WORDS
These poet words, nuggets out of corruption
Or jewels dug or dung or speech from flesh
Still bloody red, still half afraid to plunge
In the ceaseless waters foaming over death.
These poet words, nuggets no jeweler sells
Across the counter of the world’s confusion
But far or near, internal or external
Burning the agony of earth’s complaint.
These poet words have secrets locked in them
Like nuggets laden with the younger sun.
Who will unlock must first himself be locked.
Who will be locked must first himself unlock.
(1957)
Or jewels dug or dung or speech from flesh
Still bloody red, still half afraid to plunge
In the ceaseless waters foaming over death.
These poet words, nuggets no jeweler sells
Across the counter of the world’s confusion
But far or near, internal or external
Burning the agony of earth’s complaint.
These poet words have secrets locked in them
Like nuggets laden with the younger sun.
Who will unlock must first himself be locked.
Who will be locked must first himself unlock.
(1957)
Martin Carter
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
The Forgotten Holocaust: The Eastern Slave Trade
The Arab Slave Trade is the longest yet least discussed of the two major trades. It begins in the 7th century AD as Arabs and other Asians poured into Northern and Eastern Africa under the banner of Islam, either converting or subjugating the African societies they came upon. In the beginning there was some level of mutual respect between the Blacks and the more Caucasian-Semitic Arabs. Mihdja, a Black man, is said to be the first Muslim killed in battle while another, Bilal, is regarded as a "third of the faith." Dhu'l-Nun al-Misri, born in Upper Egypt near Sudan, is regarded as the founder of Sufism. Today Sufism's greatest stronghold is in Southern Egypt and Sudan. Islamic prosperity was based upon Black as well as Arabic genius.
The children of a stinking Nubian black---God put no light in their complexion!
Arab Poet, late 600AD,
But as Islamic prosperity grew, so did an air of hostility towards many Blacks, Muslims or otherwise. Some Arabs complained about having to work next to Blacks in high positions. After the Prophet's death, even the descendants of Bilal received negative treatment. Arabic writings became laced with anti-Black sentiment. This reaction of Blacks at the time to this can be seen in the writings of a contemporary 9th Century Black scholar in residence at Baghdad by the name of Abu 'Uthman' Amr Ibn Bahr Al-Jahiz. Al-Jahiz, to confront a growing tide of anti-black sentiment in the Muslim world, published a highly controversial work at the time titled, Kitab Fakhr As-Sudan 'Ala Al-Bidan, "The Book of Glory of the Blacks over the Whites." Al-Jahiz in his work contended that even the Prophet Mohammad's father may have been of African lineage.
These new attitudes towards Blacks by Arabs marked the beginning of African enslavement. Though not based solely on race, the Arab Slave Trade did focus heavily upon Africans whom Arabs now saw as inferior to themselves. At first these Arabs raided African villages themselves seeking humans for sale. This not being always successful, they soon enlisted the aid of fellow African Muslims or recently converted Blacks. Wrapping themselves within Islam, these converts rationalized the slavery of their non Muslim brethren as the selling of "unbelievers." At other times the Arabs would demand tribute in the form of human bodies from Africans weary of the fight against Arabic-Islamic incursions.
The Arabs took advantage of regional wars in Africa to buy captives from the victor. They also used the old divide-and-conquer technique. They worked one group against the other and took or killed the best and strongest.
S.E. Anderson, The Black Holocaust for Beginners
The children of a stinking Nubian black---God put no light in their complexion!
Arab Poet, late 600AD,
But as Islamic prosperity grew, so did an air of hostility towards many Blacks, Muslims or otherwise. Some Arabs complained about having to work next to Blacks in high positions. After the Prophet's death, even the descendants of Bilal received negative treatment. Arabic writings became laced with anti-Black sentiment. This reaction of Blacks at the time to this can be seen in the writings of a contemporary 9th Century Black scholar in residence at Baghdad by the name of Abu 'Uthman' Amr Ibn Bahr Al-Jahiz. Al-Jahiz, to confront a growing tide of anti-black sentiment in the Muslim world, published a highly controversial work at the time titled, Kitab Fakhr As-Sudan 'Ala Al-Bidan, "The Book of Glory of the Blacks over the Whites." Al-Jahiz in his work contended that even the Prophet Mohammad's father may have been of African lineage.
These new attitudes towards Blacks by Arabs marked the beginning of African enslavement. Though not based solely on race, the Arab Slave Trade did focus heavily upon Africans whom Arabs now saw as inferior to themselves. At first these Arabs raided African villages themselves seeking humans for sale. This not being always successful, they soon enlisted the aid of fellow African Muslims or recently converted Blacks. Wrapping themselves within Islam, these converts rationalized the slavery of their non Muslim brethren as the selling of "unbelievers." At other times the Arabs would demand tribute in the form of human bodies from Africans weary of the fight against Arabic-Islamic incursions.
The Arabs took advantage of regional wars in Africa to buy captives from the victor. They also used the old divide-and-conquer technique. They worked one group against the other and took or killed the best and strongest.
S.E. Anderson, The Black Holocaust for Beginners
For more information, go to
Assata Shakur
My name is Assata ("she who struggles") Shakur ("the thankful one"), and I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government's policy towards people of color. I am an ex political prisoner, and I have been living in exile in Cuba since 1984. I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the U.S. government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one. In the 1960s, I participated in various struggles: the black liberation movement, the student rights movement, and the movement to end the war in Vietnam. I joined the Black Panther Party. By 1969 the Black Panther Party had become the number one organization targeted by the FBI's COINTELPRO program. because the Black Panther Party demanded the total liberation of black people, J. Edgar Hoover called it "greatest threat to the internal security of the country" and vowed to destroy it and its leaders and activists...
For more info go to www.assatashakur.org
Monday, May 28, 2007
We Dream, we live.
He collects my beliefs into the crest of his palms
And pulls them into his chest,
He sees me as one close enough to him
So I help put his spirits to rest.
But Blessed
Is He, who can understand the royalty of Afrikan subjects,
Who all have been cursed at the hands of a world
Which prefers to see us as objects
Of a prolonged exploitation.
But just as these heavenly bodies
Move correspondingly in rotation,
And even with his eyes open
He dreams of revolution,
I dream it also…
And pulls them into his chest,
He sees me as one close enough to him
So I help put his spirits to rest.
But Blessed
Is He, who can understand the royalty of Afrikan subjects,
Who all have been cursed at the hands of a world
Which prefers to see us as objects
Of a prolonged exploitation.
But just as these heavenly bodies
Move correspondingly in rotation,
And even with his eyes open
He dreams of revolution,
I dream it also…
Uhuru Daima.
-Arielle M. John. copyright 2007
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