For my brothers "Imagine"

Imagine getting the phone call that everything has changed
Imagine feeling you are reliving whips and chains
Imagine thinking everything in life pays
Imagine miSsing birthdays and your own parties for arraignment
Imagine never touching your newborn twins hands
Imagine loving three sons you never planned
Imagine not knowing when you will see a real bed again
Worrying about sentencing,reality,business, and family
Imagine traveling the states in a way you never envisioned
Transferring from facility to facility
Networking from the inside like your making moves out
Imagine still being on top even when everyone says otherwise
People wearing shirts saying free you
Missing you, like they mourning you
Imagine being smarter than your wise mentors
Knowledge prior to trial and tribulations
Read all those books before you made this bed you're laying in
48 laws of powerful reminders
Imagine still being a parent
Checking in on meals, activities and engagements
First days of school
Hearing "I wuv you" for the first time
Silly laughs, giggles and miss you's from children you never seen
Imagine adapting to everything foreign yet familiar
Since this isn't your first time
Imagine reliving your denials, replaying your moves
consciously playing chess
Risking pawns for the king
Everyday is a game of strategy
Imagine sleeping on the top bunk for years
Straight climbing over dudes
Physically and metaphorically
Grinding in baby steps, learning to walk through
Imagine living among strangers
Who now become your family of goons
At any moment it could all be over for someone
Humanity is temporary
The end always comes soon.
Imagine your only way of communicating is with words
Spoken truths of your reality that soon should have been over a while ago
What happens when you don't feel like writing?
Who will know your joys and pains?
Imagine you've lived off quality cuisine for years
Now you're shifted like cattle
Meals are never cooked fully
Barely seasoned
And your body rejects everything.
How would you survive?
Imagine bathing in a common area
All eyes on you pretty boy
Who is tough now?
But what happens when you are homesick?
Imagine you haven't seen a familiar face in months
Or what it feels like to hug a loved one
What is familiarity when everything is temporary?
Imagine your freedom is all just a state of being
Powered by your mind
The art of war then becomes internal
Balancing yourself within yourself
Are you ready to face the mirror?
Imagine existing,
Adapting
Making it.
Imagine this is you.
Your loved one.
Your kin.
Imagine this is the story of one.
But the life of many.
Reality is real.
Don't imagine.

Joski Diesel

Blog Feature: AinHD-----Post: "Feed the People"

AinHD is a beautiful sistah queen!

Please check out her blog : http://ainhd.blogspot.com/





I'm blessed. In spite of the stress from family, school and scrounging up moments for my creative process - I eat. I know that I'll never go hungry. I know that I'll always have a place to lay my head. Sometimes, I sleep well having these comforts, but I'm also tormented by that fact that so many people lack what many of us consider 'simple pleasures'. Food, clothing and shelter is not a given - it should be. Unfortunately, in our hypocritical, dream-selling, capitalistic 'democracy', we have an alarming number of disenfranchised people who have no idea where their next meal is coming from. This is where FTP comes in.

While many large nonprofit businesses hoard money and boast colorless directors, FTP is of and for the people. I've enjoyed being around the positive energy of these mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, artists, revolutionaries and agents of change. It's such a incredible feeling to hit the streets with a grassroots organization that truly turns thought into action.

With that, I challenge Metro Atlanta - and I leave you with a piece from my collection [If] Life's Rotten, Write to the Core.

To My Skin Deep Revolutionaries

My lyrics send intangible postcards
To pseudo intellects and skin-deep revolutionaries
“I wish you were here”
Because I refuse to spit sacrificial rhymes in ya ear
Which I release into space in the form of art
And abandon when I get them off my heart
I’m trying to reach beyond being a well-versed revolutionary
And transform into a rehearsed revolutionary
I’d rather turn my black back against the system
Than floss a koufe yellin’ “Black is back son!”
In the form of a souped-up poem
Having rhyme but no reason
Other than the fact that the notion of bucking the system is in season
Like cats who like to wear their poems
You know the type who find a cause and try it on
Like those really earthy kids who think being socially conscious
Is synonymous with wearing a multitude of buttons
Transforming themselves into walking slogans
So at best I can slap a skin-deep revolutionary on my bumper
One who, like me, knows the system is still a virgin
But don’t realize to get by we’ve got to do more than hump her with words
We’ve gotta love her with verbs
Love her until she bleeds justice and breeds equality
And accepts the responsibility of taking care of our black babies
I’ve gotta be more than a skin-deep revolutionary
A pseudo intellect or a watered-down activist
Taking advantage of words and neglecting action
Like those who sub their bling with beads to prepare
For their poems on Sierra Leone
Because their revolution is only skin deep
But I want my revolution to scream like me
So this is my lyrical postcard, and “I wish you were here”

i am my brothers' sister

my little brother is home.

anticipation has been killing me all year.

next : 11.11.11

Overstand

I
Overstand
You.

The feeling...
Connected.
The knowing...
The impurity of it all.
The innocence.
The mixture of everything
Unknown yet familiar.
The " this aint right" feeling.
"Wish it was" feeling.
This feels nice.
BUT..
Making you think twice feeling.
Second guessing yourself repeatedly.
The feeling, the knowing.
Questioning internal motives.
Attempting to balance external realities.
How does my mind process all of this?
I am.
Present.
Searching for loopholes.
Trying not to like this feeling.
Trying to find a reason to enjoy this feeling.
Trying.
Wondering "why is this happening to me" That feeling...
Nervous yet calm
Relaxed but uptight
In denial!
Even though I can feel confirmation.
A reflection of the other side.
A desire of the other side.
A trip to the other side.
You are the other side.
Something to add to my list.
Out of reach
But so close.
Present.
In every sense of Now.
I overstand you.
I overstand.
The feeling.

Quote of the Day

I must not let the idea of temptation distract me.

Tell me your thoughts...

How do you feel about this billboard???

"Unapproachable" Series #4 : Too Analytical

They tell me I am too analytical.

They tell me I think too much, over-analyze, and that I am too complicated.

Their simplicity compliments me.

But they don't see this.

I am a natural learner. I love to read about new things, digest material, store it for later, and regurgitated it for others. I was never been good at spitting out random dates or the chronological order of events, but if you need concepts, theories, and how to's, then I have plenty.

I have always had a fascination with words. From the simplicity of creating metaphors for emotions, memories and explanations, to the complex thought that every letter is predestined to be placed next to another letter, in order to create what I wish/need. If everything happens for a reason, then everything that is said, written, and visualized is for a reason as well. The birth of my creations are valuable moments alone. And should be celebrated as such.

I have always been opinionated. And yes, some things should be left unsaid, but sometimes you feel better remaining true to your language, which happens to be the only way you express yourself.

I don't consider myself smart or even educated because of my degrees; but from my outside readings, understandings, and overall thought process that allows me to question everything. This has caused others to label me as being,

"Too Analytical."

I believe . . .

Everything has a reason, despite the simple things in life. I would rather know the context, reason, justification, or supportive thoughts/concepts on something.

Why not dig deeper than the surface?

A question is just a question when asked without context. When context and reason is added, the question now becomes a supported statement of thought. This thought can either lead to conversation, investigation, or simply an informative finding.

If you are asking me my views on something, I would like to know your intent. I don't believe that we just ask questions for the sake of asking. Everything is relative, but not everyone wants to disclose their relativity. It would be, "Too Open." And of course there are situations where relativity should not be known, because the answer to a question will alter/change your response, placement, focus, and objective. But with some instances, relativity is equally as important in forming the question as it is in answering it.

We generally seek out answers in hopes of direction, confirmation, counsel, or context.

Situation:

I was talking to someone, and he tried to guess my age. I asked him why is that relevant to the first thing you say to someone, as if to place me in a box based on your assumptions from knowing my age. So he then made a smart comment,

"Oh, you're a THINKER! I never would have thought from looking at you. Let me leave and come back with my "Thinking" cap on! "

Now as he attempted to put on an imaginary "Thinking Cap" this confirmed my thoughts on men being intimidated by my "Thoughtfulness" because its an extra task for them. Most males do not INTEND to do work when it comes to a lady, but yet they speak about how something that is easy is not wanted.

Overall:
Sarcastically...
A women who thinks is a threat!
A women who asks questions is considered nosey, snooping, or overly curious.
A woman who is always inquisitive is looking for something.
A woman asking questions shouldn't be trusted, and most likely doesn't trust the man.
A woman who would rather know than not has a trick up her sleeve.
A woman who poses her responses in complex phrases, is not easy to read.
A woman who thinks is not to be trusted, because she can use her mind to get in and out of everything.

A mind is more powerful than an elite system, any monetary amount, any blackmail rumor, any level of trust, because neither would exist without creation from thought.

We forget out existence alone is a beautiful, but our ability to think, act, speak, and do for ourselves pays worship to that beauty.

Why not use the great thing you will ever own?

Why not read?

Why not educate yourself on all levels of truth, hypocrisy, history, philosophy, theories, and the concrete?

Why not speak in question, and look a little inside yourself for something more than the visible?

Why not?