Now and Then (10 page)

Hey yeah, we're the same brothers from a long time ago

We was talkin' about television and doin' it on the radio

What we did was to help our generation realize

They got to get out there and get busy

'Coz it wasn't gonna be televised.

We got respect for young rappers and the way they free wayin'

But if you goin' to be teaching folks things, be sure you know what you sayin'

Older folks in our neighbourhood got plenty of ‘know how'

Remember if it wasn't for them

You wouldn't be out there now.

And I ain't coming at you with no disrespect

All I'm sayin' is that you damn well got to be correct.

Because if you goin' to be speaking for a whole generation

Do you know enough to try and handle their education?

Be sure you know the real deal about past situations

And not just repeating what you heard on a local tv station.

Sometimes they tell lies and put 'em in a truthful disguise

But the truth is, that's why we said it wouldn't be
televised
.

They don't know what to say to our young folk

But they know that you do

If they really know the truth,

Why would they tell you? 

First sign is peace

Tell all them gun-totin' young brothers

The Man
is glad to see us out there killin' one another

We raised too much hell when they were shootin' us down

So they started poisoning our minds and tryin' to jerk us all around

And then they tell us they've got to come in and control our situation

They want half of us on dope, and the other half in incarceration.

If the ones they want dead ain't killed by what they instigated

They can put some dope on the brother's body

And claim it was ‘drug related'.

Tell 'em ‘drug related' means there don't need to be no investigation

OK at least that's the way they goin' to play it on the local tv station

All you 9 mm brothers,

Give 'em something to think about

Tell 'em you heard, that this is the new word

They got to work that stuff out.

'Coz somehow they feelin' the wrong way with a gun in their hands

They feelin' real independent

But they just pullin' contracts for
The Man
.

Live at Five
will tell you it's hopeless out there on the avenue

But if they really knew the truth, why would they tell you?

And if they look at you like you're insane

An they start callin' you scarecrow and say you ain't got no brain

Or start tellin' folks that you suddenly gone lame

Or that white folks have finally co-opted your game

Or worse yet, implying that you don't really know

That's the same thing they said about us a long time ago. 

Young rappers, one more suggestion before I get out of your way

But I appreciate the respect you give me and what you got to say.

I'm sayin' protect your community and spread that respect around

Tell brothers and sisters they got to calm that bullshit down

Coz we terrorizing our old folks and we bought fear into our homes

And they ain't got to hang out with the senior citizens

Just tell 'em damn it, leave the old folks alone.

And we know who's ripping off the neighborhood

Tell 'em, that bullshit has got to stop

Tell 'em, you sorry they can't handle it out there

But they got to take the crime off the block.

And if they look at you like they think you're insane

Or start calling you scarecrow thinkin' you ain't got no brain

Or start telling folks that you suddenly gone lame

Or that white folks have suddenly co-opted your game

Or worse yet saying that you really don't know

That's the same thing they said about me a long time ago.

And if they tell folks that you finally lost your nerve

That's the same thing they said about us

When we said ‘Johannesburg'.

But I think you young folks need to know things don't go both ways

You can't talk respect on every other song or just every other day.

What I'm speaking on now is the raps about the womenfolks

On one song she your African queen, and on the next one she's a joke.

And you ain't said no words that I haven't heard

But that ain't no compliment

It only insults eight people out of ten and questions your intelligence

Four letter words or four syllable words won't make you a poet

It will only magnify how shallow you are and let everybody know it.

If they look at you like they think you're insane

Or they call you scarecrow thinkin' you ain't got no brain

Or start tellin' folks that you suddenly gone lame

Or that the white folks have finally co-opted your game

Or you really don't know

They said that about me a long time ago.

If they finally start to tell people that you lost your nerve

Thats what they said about Johannesburg.

You
ain't
insane

You
have
got a brain

You
haven't
gone lame

You
have
got your game

Remember, keep the nerve

We're talkin' 'bout peace.

Speed on by. Don't seem to have the time.

What about this life, what about this life

Can I call mine?

Issues in the paper, but somehow I'm not concerned.

Seems I've been this way before, but I never learn.

Children slowly turn. 

Time sped gone. We didn't see it go.

Now what do we have, now what do we have

That we can show?

Friends you swore you'd never lose melted from your style

Down the tunnels of your youth and now you never smile.

Children learn to smile.

I have believed in my convictions

and been convicted for my beliefs.

I have been conned by the Constitution

and harassed by the police.

I have been billed for the Bill of Rights

as though I'd done something wrong.

I have become a special amendment

for what included me all along.

Like: ‘All men are created equal.'

(No amendment needed there)

I've contributed in every field including cotton

from Sunset Strip to Washington Square.

Back during the non-violent era

I was the only non-violent one.

Come to think of it there was no non-violence

'cause too many rednecks had guns.

There seems to have been this pattern

that took a long time to pick up on.

But all black leaders who dared stand up

wuz in jail, in the courtroom or gone.

Picked up indiscriminately

by the shocktroops of discrimination

to end up in jails or tied up in trials

while dirty tricks soured the nation.

I've been hoodwinked by professional hoods,

My ego had happened to me.

‘Just keep things cool!' they kept repeating.

‘And keep the people out of the streets.

We'll settle all this at the conference table.

You leave everything to me.'

Which brings me back to my convictions

and being convicted for my beliefs

'cause I believe these smiles

in three piece suits

with gracious, liberal demeanor

took our movement off the streets

and took us to the cleaners.

In other words, we let up the pressure

and that was all part of their plan

and every day we allow to slip through our fingers

is playing right into their hands.

Tuskeegee #626

Somebody done got slick

When deadly germs are taking turns

Seeing what makes us tick 

Tuskeegee #626

Scientists getting their kicks

When deadly disease can do what it please

Results ain't hard to predict 

Tuskeegee #626

Pushed aside mighty quick

When brothers, you dig

Are guinea pigs

For vicious experiments.

The King is alive and twenty millions strong

And long before he ever ascended to the throne

He was made fun of, a source of great humor

His domination over neighborhoods was nothing but a rumor

Back when the King's name was so rarely spoke

And the ten million disciples mentioned by some folks

Was called exaggerated and treated like a joke

They didn't understand that the monster had woke

But the King could instantly demonstrate

That he wasn't no laughing matter

Blow folks away so quickly it would demonstrate

Nobody and nothing does it better

Now we're talking about total finesse

That's when you know you're dealing with the best

There ain't even been one whisper of force

Over the entire kingdom of Henry IV 

The awful thing about it is there ain't nothing you can do

Guard all your doors and windows and the King can still rob you

Oh, No! ain't talking about the '60s, not that f'n far back

In the '80s with folks falling into and between the cracks

And talking about being right in the center of the news

But the King don't never give no interviews

And the reporters was lined up. The King was raising hell around here

And then information just dried up and the king seemed to disappear

Gone so quickly you might have just an impression

Moved along so slickly it was like an amnesia expression

Am I certain of my facts now of course.

I know almost all there is to know about King Henry IV

What it left on the ghetto streets was an incorrect understanding

About the ways he caught on and how rapidly he was expanding

The reason I felt black kids was headed for a fall

Was the day I read this poem painted in a bathroom stall:

Fuck a man in the butt and you could get it for sure

Pass a dope needle around and there wasn't no cure

The kids believed if you wasn't gay and didn't shoot dope

You was home free, take the day off and float

But what would always make the King seem so tough

Is that he could get in and then take five years to show back up

And you can go scream at them until you get hoarse

But they don't understand and about King Henry IV 

[There was only Public Enemy with really decent shit to say

And maybe Run DMC had it with ‘Walk This Way'

15 years ago? Hell it wasn't even ten

Which only goes to show how fast the King is moving in] 

He was no more than a whisper at gay after-hours spots

If there are no bloodless revolutions why hadn't he fired a shot?

Sunday mornings from the pulpit he was blamed on promiscuity

More confusing newspaper bullshit only furthered the ambiguity

Preacher's became obsessed and called him a message from above

The creature's game progressed since nobody knew who the fuck he was

Completely taking over areas that had never seen royalty

But soon millions on five continents could all pledge their

    loyalty

The invisible monarch was steady doing his thing

He never heard folks once saying ‘Hail to the King!'

But he's got powers you can't help but endorse

And the Africans call him King Henry IV

I had said I wasn't gonna' write no more poems

    like this.

I had confessed to myself all along, tracer of

    life/poetry trends,

that awareness/consciousness poems that screamed

    of pain

and the origins of pain and death had blanketed

    my tablets and therefore

my friends/brothers/sisters/outlaws/in-laws

and besides, they already knew.

But brother Torres,

common, ancient bloodline brother Torres,

is dead.

I had said I wasn't gonna write no more poems

    like this.

I had said I wasn't gonna write no more words

    down

about people kickin' us when we're down

about racist dogs that attack us and

drive us down, drag us down and beat us down.

But the dogs are in the street!

The dogs are alive and the terror in our hearts

    has scarcely diminished.

It has scarcely brought us the comfort we

    suspected:

the recognition of our terror,

and the screaming release of that recognition

has not removed the certainty of that knowledge.

How could it?

The dogs, rabid, foaming with the energy of their

    brutish ignorance,

stride the city streets like robot gunslingers, and

    spread death

as night lamps flash crude reflections from gun

    butts and police shields.

I had said I wasn't gonna' write no more poems

    like this.

But the battlefield has oozed away from the

    stilted debates of

semantics, beyond the questionable flexibility of

    primal screaming.

The reality of our city/jungle streets and their

    gestapos has

become an attack on home/life/family/

    philosophy/total.

It is beyond a question of the advantages of

    didactic niggerisms.

The MOTHERFUCKIN' DOGS are in the street!

In Houston maybe someone said Mexicans were

the new niggers.

In L.A. maybe someone decided Chicanos were

    the new niggers.

In Frisco maybe someone said Asians were the

    new niggers.

Maybe in Philadelphia and North Carolina they

    decided they

didn't need no new niggers.

I had said I wasn't gonna' write no more poems like this. But the dogs are in the street.

It's a turn around world where things all too

    quickly turn around.

It was turned around so that right looked wrong.

It was turned around so that up looked down.

It was turned around so that those who marched

    in the streets

with Bibles and signs of peace became enemies

    of the state

and risks to National Security;

So that those who questioned the operations of

    those in authority

on the principles of justice, liberty, and equality

    became the vanguard of a communist attack.

It became so you couldn't call a spade a

    motherfuckin' spade.

Brother Torres is dead.

The Wilmington Ten are still incarcerated.

Ed Davis, Ronald Reagan and James Hunt and

    Frank Rizzo are still alive.

And the dogs are in the MOTHERFUCKIN' street.

I had said I wasn't gonna' write no more poems

    like this.

I made a mistake.