kumtia siku - seize the day in Swahili

I was a victim of fraud, but look at Gwad!

25 years ago… I lived in Japan

Just became a married man

An officer in the Navy in Yokosuka, but I was still quite poor

There was no WiFi at sea back then then, so I had to wait until we got back on shore 

An error on a travel claim, cause me to sleep… 

In a rack on the ship for a whole year, so all that I could ever keep

Was about $200 each month from my Ensign pay after taxes

So I basically served in the Navy, for free, back half a lifetime ago!

I protested, filled out paper work and exceptions, waited in lines for weeks, demanded explanations, and each time was still told no!

I had no proof of how (or why) I lost a year of my pay

I believe that I was a victim of fraud to this day

But I survived, and eventually started making and saving my money

Those dark clouds retreated and my outlook and perspective became more sunn...

diaspora zombies

Before racism, religion, and debt

The world would change and long live to regret

Dozens of deadly and incurable sins

Crisis caused by vices, war, drugs, sex and gin

Eggs break

We learn, but make even more mistakes!

Knowledge conquered by morally bankrupt cunning snakes 

Selling afterlife reservations 

Disguised as spiritual manifestations

The melanin and culturally deficient ‘global minority’ use greed and manipulation 

To spread lies and weapons like a plague

Whiteness, land ownership, and money is stupid and man made!

Courtrooms, credit scores, and zip codes limit hope

Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness is just a cruel joke for us brown folk!

Assimilated aliens so far away, our home feels like another planet, not a continent 

Neither African or American, blood infected with our captors curs...

Tell them about me?

Sometimes I writes poems to time travel

Brainstorm, dabble, peel back the layers and unravel 

5am at the airport reading and writing to myself 

About big and little things, famine in Darfur, my mental health

Jokes, dreams, and history, maybe one day my daughter will read it

Faults of hers that I share, yet still criticize more than I should - so be it

Please do as I say, not as I may be

I see the little girl that I once knew, and a young woman before me

Light years ahead of me, in wit and creativity 

With the eyes and grin of her mother, so lucky are we

Days seem like hours, leaves on your family tree

I just read a poem that I wrote about you when you were just three

I mused about you and your family living in the next century!...

Am I just a hair wiser?

Gray hairs are...

Like grains of sand falling in a hourglass

When they appear

Marking the passage of time

Predictable, yet surprising

Never quite sure where they will appear

Or even when they will show up

Like some type of 'Body Bingo', and my face is the ‘Free Space’

They don’t lay down or blend in, do they?

No, the stick out, no matter mustache, eyebrow, inner nose, or outer ear

‘Bingo’! I got five in a row!

It was not there yesterday - B12

Or even this morning! - I17

Look at this one, it’s half brown and half grey - N33

Rolling down a pile of other gray hairs - G47

Proof that another moment has passed - O55!

And I have lived…

Taken up space

Created, loved, praised, learned, listened, read, laughed

And perhaps, now am I just...

Monopoly

Turns out those old American dreams

Were just nightmares, it seems

Strange what ‘democracy’ brings

To our huddles masses 

Races, parties, and classes

Just like the game of Monopoly, do you recall?

Rolls of the dice and that one player who manages to own it all!

The utilities, railroads, properties, and apartments, while your money always gets spent

On jail, fines, insurance, repairs, and expensive rent!

Hoping to just pass ‘go’, avoid taxes, trade or make another deal

But you're never in control, can’t even enjoy the game, because it all just feels so real!

Why all the angst and regret?

Reality is nonsense

It feels like January 6th

But somehow we’re all Mike Pence!

But they ain’t storming the capital (no, no)

The government and media are spewing lies instead of reporting what’s factual…

Firing federal workers and teachers?

Fans in the stands threatening athletes from the bleachers?

'Shut up and dribble,' but you call yourselves fans?

You called him a (again), so he rushed up into the stands!

You 5’8” dummy, he’s a foot taller than you!

Your neck’s in his hands and you can’t breathe, so now what you gonna do?

We're in the age, when misplaced rage just might get your a$$ kicked!

All that money and security is just an illusion, my conclusion, just don’t be a !

Why in the hell are y’all so upset? (Anyway)

Your ancestors weren&rs...

Life.time.water.waves.sand.one

Notice… how time moves in waves

Like water at the beach

Slow, until the sand shifts

That soothing spritz

Tickles your feet sink as the water retreats 

As it always has done

You are already one

With both the water and the sand

Understand?

appreciate all of the lessons yet to be learned

The mistakes that you make today may seem heavy

But when you take time to relax and are ready

To understand the ways that this lesson will assist

Your future perspective, I guarantee that you won’t want to miss

The chance to appreciate all of the lessons yet to be learned

Do what I say, not what I do, your current error is no reason for concern 

You like me, tend to overthink things and are way too hard on yourself 

I hope this wisdom that I’m sharing with you today will be beneficial toward your heath

Tell me this is real?

Tell me this is real?

Not a dream or the truth, but how you feel

All our time and history can’t be fiction! 

Memories together just a plot or description 

Of a cruel author’s pen

Characters doomed to paradise or hell, may all depend 

If I’m awake or asleep, but I only care

If you’re really real and I’m actually there.

They turned ‘DEI’ back into ‘DIE’

When there’s no there there, what should you do?

When love, friendship, goods and services aren’t equally exchanged, you already knew!

After 1865, our ancestors couldn’t get a fair wage or a loan

Without chances and opportunities, they made a way on their own!

Before the invention of the phone 

Until their black Wall Streets and churches were burned

They said to hell with other cheeks being turned

American governments and businesses discourage diversity, equity and inclusion because…

Honestly, I don’t even care to know what the oppressor thinks or does 

They turned ‘DEI’ back into ‘DIE’

Because black, brown, and red bodies are just fossil fuel for America’s engine 

Centuries of Native America bones and nightmares 

Misspelled in cities and states as brazen dares

Slave labor...