The Dead Emcee Scrolls (8 page)

So, I stopped combing my mind so my

thoughts could lock. I'm tired of trying

to understand. Perceptions are mangled,

matted, and knotted anyway. Life is more

than what meets the eye and I.

So, elevate eye to the third. But even that

shit seems absurd when your thoughts

leave you third eye-solated. No man is an

island. But I often feel alone. So find peace

through OM.

Through meditation I program my heart

to beat break beats and hum bass lines

on exhalation. BA BOOM BOOM OM.

I burn seven-day candles that melt into

12-inch circles on my mantle and spin

funk like myrrh. BA BOOM BOOM OM.

And I can fade worlds in and out with my

mixing patterns. Letting the earth spin as I

blend in Saturn. NGHs be like spinning

windmills, braiding hair, locking, popping,

as the sonic force of the soul keeps the planets

rockin.

The beat don't stop when soul-less matter

flows into the cosmos trying to be stars.

The beat don't stop when earth sends out

satellites to spy on Saturnites and control

Mars.

'Cause NGHs got a peace treaty with Martians

and we be keepin'em up to date through sacred

gibberish like “Sho Nuff” and “It's on.” The

beat goes on. The beat goes on. The beat goes

OM. BA BOOM BOOM OM.

And I roam through the streets of downtown

Venus tryin' to auction off monuments of Osiris'

severed penis. But they don't want no penis in

Venus, for androgynous cosmology sets their

spirits free.

And they neither men nor women be. But they be

down with a billion NGHs who have yet to see that

interplanetary truth is androgynous.

And they be sendin us shout outs through shootin

stars. And NGHs be like, “what up?” and talking

Mars.'Cause we are solar and regardless of how

far we roam from home the universe remains our

center, like OM. BA BOOM BOOM OM.

I am no earthling. I drink moonshine on Mars

and mistake meteors for stars 'cause I can't hold

my liquor. But I can hold my breath and ascend

like wind to the black hole and play galaxophones

on the fire escape of your soul.

Blowing tunes through lunar wombs. Impregnating

stars. Giving birth to suns that darken the skins that

skin our drums. And we be beatin infinity over sacred

hums. Spinning funk, like myrrh, until Jesus comes.

And Jesus comes every time we drum. And the moon

drips blood and eclipses the sun. And out of darkness

comes the BA BOOM BOOM. And out of darkness

comes the BA BOOM BOOM. And out of darkness

comes the BA BOOM BOOM OM.

Acid wash Guess with the leather patches,

sportin the white Diadoras with the hoodie

that matches. I'm wearing two Swatches and

a small Gucci pouch. I could have worn the

Louis but I left it in the house.

My NGHs Duce and Wayne got gold plates

with their name, with the skyline on it and the

box-link chain. I'm wearing my frames they

match my gear with their tint. And you know

Lagerfeld is the scent.

My NGH Rafael just got his jeep out the shop.

Mint green sidekick. Custom made ragtop.
Strictly

Business
is the album that we play. “You're a

Customer,” the pick of the day.

There's a NGH on the block. Never seen him

before. Selling incense and oils. My man thinks

that he's the law. But why on earth would this be

on their agenda as he slowly approaches the window.

Uh, uh, I've seen you before. I've been you and

more. I was the one bearing the pitcher of water. I

rent the large upper room furnished with tidings of

your doom or pleasure, whichever feathers decree.

“Yo, Ralph, is he talking to me?” “No I'm talking to

the sea sons resurrected. I'm the solstice of the

day. I bring news from the blues of the Caspian”

My man laughs. “He's one of them crazy

MTHRFKRs. Turn the music back up. 'Cause

I'm the E double.” “Wait, but but, I know the

volume of the sea and sound waves as I will.

Will you allow me to be at your service?”

My man Ralph is nervous. He believes his

strange tongue deceives and maybe he's

been informed that he's pushing gats, Hidden

in the back beneath the floor mats. “Come on

Jack, we don't have time for your bullshit or

playin, As Salaam A somethin or another.”

“Wait isn't Juanita your mother? I told you

I know you. Now grant me a moment.”

“At the gates of Atlantis we stand. Ours

is the blood that flowed from the palms

of his. Hands on the plow, till earth 'til

I'm now. Moon cycles revisited. Womb

fruit of the sun. Full moon of occasion

wave the wolves where they run. And we

run towards the light. Casting love on the

wind. As is the science of the aroma of

sleeping women.”

Lost in his eyes. They soon reflect my

friends are grinning. But I'm a pupil of

his sight. The wheels are spinning. “Yo,

I'll see y'all later tonight.”

In the beginning her tears were the long

awaited rains of a parched Somali village.

Red dusted children danced shadows in the

newfound mounds of mascara that eclipsed

her face, reflected in the smogged glass of

Carlos' East Street bodega.

Learning to love she had forgotten to cry,

seldom hearing the distant thunder in her

lover's ambivalent sighs. He was not honest.

She was not sure. A great grandfather had

sacrificed the family's clarity for gold in the

late 1800s. Nonetheless, she had allowed

him to mispronounce her name, which had

eventually led to her misinterpreting her

own dreams and later doubting them. But

the night was young.

She, the first-born daughter of water, faced

darkness and smiled. Took mystery as her

lover and raised light as her child. Man that

shit was wild. You should have seen how

they ran. She woke up in an alley with a gun

in her hand. Tupac in lotus form, Ennis' blood

on his hands.

She woke up on a vessel, the land behind her,

the sun within her, water beneath her, mushed

corn for dinner. Or was it breakfast? Her stomach

turned, as if a compass. She prayed east and lay

there breathless. They threw her overboard for

dead. She swam silently and fled into the blue Si.

La So Fa Me Re Do Si. The seventh octave. I

don't mean to confuse you. Many of us have

been taught to sing and so we practice scales.

Many of us were born singing and thus were

born with scales.

Myrrh-maids cooks and field hands sang a

night song by the forest and the ocean was the

chorus in Atlantis, where they sang. Those thrown

overboard had overheard the mysteries of the

undertow and understood that down below there

would be no more chains.

They surrendered breath and name and survived

countless as rain. I'm the weather, man. The clouds

say storm is coming. A white buffalo was born

already running. And if you listen close you'll hear

a humming.

Beneath the surface of our purpose lies rumor of

ancient rain. Dressed in cloud-face, minstrels the

sky. The moon's my mammy. The storm holds

my eye.

Dressed in westerlies. Robed by Robeson. Ol'

Man River knows my name. And the reason you

were born is the reason that I came.

Then she looks me in the face and her eyes get

weak. Pulse rate descends. Hearts rate increase.

Emcees look me in the face and their eyes get

weak. Pulse rate descends. Hearts rate increase.

Emcees look me in the face and their eyes get

weak. Pulse rate descends. Hearts rate increase.

It's like “Beam me up, Scottie.” I control your

body. I'm as deadly as AIDS when it's time to

rock a party.

We all rocked fades. Fresh faded in La Di Da Di.

And when we rock the mic we rock the mic right.

But left's the feminine side. Ignored the feminine

side.

I presented my feminine side with flowers. She cut

the stems and placed them gently down my throat.

And these tu lips might soon eclipse your brightest

hopes.

I could recite the grass on a hill and memorize

the moon. I know the cloud forms of love by

heart and have brought tears to the eye of a

storm. My memory banks vaults of autumn

forests and Amazon River banks. I've screamed

them into sunsets that echo in earthquakes.

Shadows have been my spotlight as I monologue

the night and dialogue with days. Soliloquies of

wind and breeze applauded by sunrays.

We put language in zoos to observe caged

thought and tossed peanuts and P-Funk at

intellect. And MTHRFKRs think these are

metaphors. I speak what I see. All words

and worlds are metaphors of me. My life

is authored by the moon. Footprints written

in soil. The fountain pen of Martian men

novelling human toil.

And, yes, the soil speaks highly of me, when

earth seeds root me poet-tree. And we forest

forever through recitation.

Now maybe I'm too Sirius. Too little here

to matter. Although I'm riddled with the

reason of the sun. A standup comet with the

audience of lungs. This body of laughter is

it with me or at me? Hue more or less? Human,

though gender's mute. And the punch-

line has this lifeline at its root.

I'm a star. This life's the suburbs. I commute.

Make daily runs between the sun and earthly

loot. And raise my children to the height of

light and truth.

If I could find the spot where truth echoes,

I would stand there and whisper memories

of my children's future. I would let their

future dwell in my past so that I might live

a brighter now.

Now is the essence of my domain and it

contains all that was and will be. And I

am as I was and will be, because I am and

always will be that NGH. I am that NGH.

I am that NGH.

I am that timeless NGH that swings on

pendulums like vines through mines of

booby-trapped minds that are enslaved

by time. I am the life that supersedes

lifetimes, I am.

It was me with serpentine hair and a timeless

stare that with a mortal glare turned mortal

fear into stone time capsules. They still exist

as the walking dead. As I do, the original

suffer-head, symbol of life and matriarchy's

severed head: Medusa, I am.

It was me, the ecclesiastical one, that pointed

out that there was nothing new under the sun.

And in times of laughter and times of tears, saw

that no times were real times, 'cause all times

were fear. The wise seer, Solomon, I am.

It was me with tattered clothes that made you

scatter as you shuffled past me on the street.

Yes, you shuffled past me on the street as I

stood there conversing with wind blown spirits.

And I fear it's your loss that you didn't stop

and talk to me. I could have told you your future

as I explained your present, but instead, I'm the

homeless schizophrenic that you resent for being

aimless. The in-tuned nameless, I am.

I am that NGH. I am that NGH. I am

that NGH. I am a negro. Yes, negro

from necro, meaning death. I overcame

it so they named me after it. And I be

spitting at death from behind and putting

“kick me” signs on its back, because,

I am not the son of Sha Clack Clack. I

am before that. I am before. I am before

before. Before death is eternity. After death

is eternity. There is no death there's only

eternity. And I be ridin on the wings of

eternity, like yah, yah, Sha Clack Clack.

I exist like spitfire which you call the sun,

try to map out your future with sundials. But

tic toc technology can no tic toc me. I exist

somewhere between tic and toc. Dodging it like

double-dutch. Got me living double-time. I was

here before your time. And my heart is made of

the quartz crystals that you be making clocks out