connecting*the*dots

i met this girl years ago
bumped into her on the back leg of my three mile jog
the one i ran each day after getting home from the multimedia factory
you know, the place where i made the pixels dance and scream
the first mile was always a bit of a mind game
as the road would rise and dip ever so slightly
creating mirages of end states
i’d convince myself that if i could just get to the horizon line of the rise
the dip would easily carry me forward
and it did
mile two cut directly through the heart of the suburbs
as my shins began to burn, the run became a game of dodge
with low branches jetting out from behind untrimmed hedges
and dogs on long leashes challenging their slack
i’d hop over the cracks in the uneven sidewalk
making sure that i devoured at least one and a half per stride
it was how i kept my gate
narrowed my focus
as mile three began
and i made it to the edge of downtown
the rhythm just seemed to kick in
on cue, cube queued up in my headphones
bringing a good day to my today
my breathing was correct
my perspective was cubist
my self was in tune
so i’d tune out the real
pump my arms and knees
and sprint the last leg home
finishing off my circuit with an exclamation point *

* the first time i broke stride
removing myself from the sticky summer heat
to enter the hum of an air conditioned store
i did so to ask for a cup of that ice cold water i remembered
the water poured from a jug kept in a stainless steel fridge
resting behind the front counter with all those bins of flavored goodness
it was like magic
freezing cold water that somehow cured brain freeze

by the time she asked me what i wanted
a sip is all i asked for…

that made her smile

Tomorrow, from 1 to 5pm, Clement Mallory is putting on the Second Annual C37Words Youth Poetry Festival at 200 N. Davie Street, next to the Cultural Arts Center and Center City Park.

From the Greensboro Public Library:

The Festival will include poetry readings along with teen steppers, games, a comedian, African drumming and dancing, music, storytellers, an open-mic, hip hop dancing and more.

The C37WORDS Poetry Program empowers young people to discover ways to earn money from their talents. Organizer Clement Mallory hopes to inspire the youth in our community by showcasing their creative efforts.

Come on down and support the youth of our community.

National Poetry Month is coming to a close in a few days, but Clement Mallory might have just put it to bed last night with a bang.

With a packed house in the lecture hall of the Greensboro Historical Museum, Clement effortlessly moved the crowd as the emcee of the competition, displaying a rare range of lyrics and emotion, delivered across numerous poems as the judges tallied their results.

But there’s something other than talent that separates Clement from his peers.

While he’s making moves as an up and coming performer, it’s his foundation as a teacher and his Brooklyn born and raised personality that makes his approach unique.

The first half of the show consisted of a teen competition and by any “standard” of a spoken word competition, the kids delivered more poetry than passion — mostly standing behind a podium and reciting their words.

But as a teacher, Clement’s concern was visibly focused on the kids growth as poets, performers and their confidence with their own voice, not their current ability to rock the stage. His realness, casualness and sense of humor seeped from his soul each time he addressed the crowd — whether killing time between acts, giving advice to the kids after the adults slammed or while making connections with his next opportunity through an ill shout out.

Before the show was even half-way through, he had the audience completely eating out of his hands.

In the end, the finals of the adult slam came down to two poets battling it out for the first place prize — Monica Daye and Keith Robinson (A.K.A. The Arsonist). If it were up to me, they both would’ve walked away with top honors.

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Keith Robinson (A.K.A. The Arsonist) ended up bringing home the $250 first prize, but it wasn’t because of this powerful drop. Let’s just say that this Marine veteran of the first Gulf War wasn’t feeling the actions of our current president.

Look for that winning slam on next week’s Lyricist Wednesday.

Another great night in GSO.

every man has a vocal chord
but not every man has a voice
some choose to live life that way
others simply have no choice
with too much to think about
too much goin’ on
too much tryin’ to survive
too much watchin’ their own get gone
so what’s the worth of words
these mere utterances in time
these rearranged thoughts
in both rhythm and rhyme?
i’ll tell you their value
but you probably won’t hear me
being caught up in the matrix
you’ll just craft reason to fear me..

when i’m struggling to get by
and trying to fly
but instead i get high
and dance that fine line
it’s the words that come save me
like dry turkey in gravy
i flip back to my quest
and push along like scorsese
to craft a moment in time
script the next one to follow
not some hollow ass production
of bling pursuit do i wallow
in the mire i find the depths
the inspiration
the desire..

to live by the pursuit of the grade
A
performance bonus
A
white picket dream
A
life with no compassion
A
way to drown out the screams
the shit just ain’t for me
and i know i’m not alone
so pick up your pen
your pad
your phone
dial me into your realm
put on your friday night best
cause when we hit the streets
it’s all about the people
yes..

complexity simplified
down to a complicated flow
while the divide grows more real
i congeal and heal slow
feel out the stitched up steel
while i revel in the real
living to merge
the floor with the ceil-ing
the door with the squeal-ing
hinges
the future of our collective knowledge of self
intellectual wealth
nourishing stealth
cost of entry is just about gone
for the taxpaying throng
so it’s time to find the other
mothers
fathers
sisters
brothers
long-lost souls
if i had my druthers
we’d frame the scene
tape the green
capture the in-between
rhyme writing poly-rhythmatic pointing machine
neutrons circling like natives to the wagon
iterating faster than the anti-matter
machine
reverse feeding
on the atoms
on the really simple syndicates
the aggregate crowd
jumping up and down
squaring a level five as exceptionally loud
and clear
step to the rear…

Bruce Sterling isn’t throwing a party this year, but he’s loving the bubble echo of this 2.0 SXSW2006 get together. He says “enjoy it while you can.”

He’s loving flickr and Wikipedia; companies that are completely unlike anything else, opening up their API’s to create platforms, not sites. What a contrast to standard, American business. “Only in America… where dying phone companies lobby the government as if they’re Indian casinos.”

“Are people in Washington drinking their own bathwater? The guys in power are so eager to monetize the web, they’re turning America into Banana Republic with rockets.”

Get his book: Visionary In Residence

Serbia is absolutely disfunctional; Sterling has a ringside seat. He’s global, as many more are becoming. His Austin stead collects mail, while he bounces around the world. “National borders are like speed bumps.” America is a state at war. “The dollar is low compared to the Euro, which should be in intensive care.”

“Creationism is an intellectual calamity.”

al Quada bomb mosques. How many are enough? (we Americans don’t give a fuck about the “near enemy” issue). When the culture war is over — we are within a culture war — one doesn’t get to say “I served on this side.” “We’re on a slider bar between the unthinkable and the unimaginable. We’ve got a fire in a theater, but the exit signs are just a bunch of glowing letters in jumble.”

Warren Ellis: “The spread of the possible futures and the people on the ground figuring out how to use them.”

Unimaginable does not mean catastrophic, nor does unthinkable.

The word: Spime - In 2004, Sterling did a speech at SIG-GRAPH and spoke of spime. It’s not a word; it’s a tag. It’s a theory object. William Gibson’s cyberspace is a conceptual realization. We’ll never have that, but the word is now passe.

Spime is a speculative imaginary object:

• An interactive chip, unique identity, It’s got a tag
• Local precise positioning system
• A powerful search engine, auto-Googling object
• Evolved in cradle to cradle recycling
• 3D virtual models of objects; a product of CAD cams
• Rapidly prototyped, it’s a fabject — a laser-centered model

If 21st century objects had these qualities, people would interact in unimaginable ways. Spimes begin and end as data. We want to do it to build an internet of things; engage from the moment of invention to the moment of decay. It’ll feel like auto-magical inventory voo doo. I ask, and I’m told. I Google to find my shoes. This concept needs distributive participation.

“The semantic wit is turning into the wetlands of language.”

A theory object is a platform of development. The 20th century could not write, think in this way. Theory objects can have permalinks, trackbacks, databases, etc. This is why the legacy media is going down, because legacy people don’t get it.

We need to become the change we want to see. Make no decision out of fear. None! (my emphasis).

Globalization needs to be understood culturally. Leaders are culpable, but the people are complicit. A society that lived in a locked closet and fed on their own illusions (Serbia). How different are we? Evil has a face in the world; people who don’t like people who don’t buy into their parochial bullshit.

But time passes with historical perspective.

Sterling closes by quoting Carl Sandburg. Picture 1937, the age of depression, WWII at the door…:

The people, yes

The people will live on.
The learning and blundering people will live on.
They will be tricked and sold again and again sold
And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds.
The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback,
You can’t laugh off their capacity to take it.
The mammoth rests between his cyclonic dramas.
The people so often sleepy, weary, enigmatic,
Is a vast huddle with so many units saying:

“I earn my living.
I make enough to get by
And it takes all my time.
If I had more time
I could do more for myself and maybe for others.
I could read and study
And talk things over
And find out about things.
It takes time.
I wish I had the time.�

The people
With the tragic and comic two faced hero and hoodlum
Phantom and gorilla
Twisting to moan with the gargoyle mouth
They buy me and sell me
It’s a game
Sometime I’ll break loose
This old anvil, laughs at many broken hammers
There are men that can’t be bought!
Fire borne or at home with fire
The stars make no noise
You can’t hinder the wind from blowing
Time is a great teacher
Who can live without hope?
In the darkness with a great bundle of grief the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people march:

Where to? What next?

—–

I didn’t finish my live-blog of Bruce Sterling’s brilliant speech; I couldn’t.

In the midst of his swaying through global references of humanity, ubiquitous concepts and reflective precision, Sterling briefly mentioned the humanity of the Serbian people, how they still gather to listen to poets speak and grown men openly weep within their shared language, as if their hearts were still broken.

I felt that.

When Sterling hit the very first line of Carl Sandburg’s poem, he began to weep; I immediately closed my laptop and felt the words of a man in the midst of a depression tumble out of the mouth of a man in the midst of priviledge.

Bruce passionately pressed on, as each word struck a newly discovered nerve, setting off a choked up throat, a twist in his chair and freshly drawn tears. And I wept with him.

My last words at SXSW2006

The rule of the robber baron corporate power structure might be coming to a close, but that is no victory. Not even close. Each of us — the creators and collaborators in this 2.0 revolution, especially the ones fortunate enough to spend this time together — are the new leaders of this world.

Each of us.

The choices we make will shape our world; from the choice to harness our personal voice to the choice of developing real relationships with our fellow human beings to the choice of creating an innovative, enabling world of objects in-between…

There is nothing else but choice. Don’t you fucking think for a moment that there isn’t.

So, the next time you come up with a brilliant service idea, try going that extra step to make it just that much more useful for your neighbor… or for that family living on the other side of the tracks… or for that child who was born into a depressed world where jobs were scarce, children were starving and a world war was on the horizon.

Because, you see, we already live in such a world.

Thank you, Bruce.

UPDATE:

• Video of Bruce reading Carl Sandburg’s poetry.
• A complete audio recording of his presentation.
• A full transcript of his presentation.

(via down the avenue, Jill Brown, and Sean Harton respectively)

rumor
lies
spin
facts
propaganda
policy
intelligence
jacks
jills
bills
currents
friction
fear
courage
suppression
nixon
bush
tookie
limbaugh
derision
respect
outrage
faith
religion
torture
laughter
humane
sport
(calling a spade a spade and taking no shorts)
listening
learning
responding
iteration
elegance
simplicity
reduction
inspiration
frame
digest
spit it back whole
flame
incense
discerning reality from a cajole
dollars
sense
exchange
provide
music
service
seek
hide
i’m not going down as if i never tried
hidden
blasted
obscene
apparent
flow
journey
knowledge
transparent
partake
imbibe
reveal
subscribe
the dotmatrix is forming
its time has just about arrived

so what’s it gonna take, people?
when is enough, enough?
how long until his actions reflect your morals?
how long until we pay for his sins?
are you feeling me?
are you fucking feeling me?
every day it’s something new
a smirk to the right
and a pound to the few
the base recognizes His play
our theocratic dictator
our aborted yesterday
i mean, tomorrow
tomorrow
yeah, keep on sitting back for tomorrow
shit will just get right
right!?
right.
so right that trees will snap back left
so right that bass will become treble cleft
you can’t get much righter than that
turning a c sharp into a b flat
so right that a woman loses her right
so right that good men lose sight
that an emergency contraceptive replacement
is a backhanded slight
so the question that remains
is what are you willing to do?
are you ready to alter your life?
are you ready to let reality shine through?
are you ready to put pen to pad?
are you ready to find that voice within?
are you ready to step up and grad?
are you ready to stop being chagrined?
it ain’t a simple move
(discerning truth from lies)
it takes a whole new groove
(cutting away from some comfortable ties)
friends will drift away or straight up get cut
from your roster of ideals
your ability to deal
in a life of new found zeal
but that’s where i live
how i move through my day
it’s my warrior way
my soldier’s pay
my march in step to a brighter day
the difference between
feelin’
knowin’
holdin’
showin’
askin’
tellin’
seperatin’
gellin’
Contact!
Can I get a ***!?
***!
Bullshit.
Now there’s a Scenario that won’t get played…?
Out

15 to life maintaining the strife
caged right on time to spite the fight
reached some height
reached some tight
level of sight
might i
be too deep to plant that seed?
might i
be too right to evoke that speed?
the quickness
the slip
the moves
the eclipse
might i
be too down to get back-up?
might i
get around to say wassup?
no doubt
it’s my life
it’s my em-oh
my hustle
my flow
my dabble
my toe
shivering warm in the bottomless pool
my dive
through the too thick layer of too cool
my push off the wall
my flip of the script
my sober blackout
my sunken cruise ship
ask me just right and i’ll shoot from the hip

I tag like a 15 year-old kid in the South Bronx with a box full of Krylons and a yard full of freshly sandblasted cars.

I tag like I just got jumped by a handful of punks who made the mistake of letting me follow them to their trailer park homes adorned with freshly cleaned aluminum siding.

I tag like I get told who I am, what I’m supposed to believe and how I’m supposed to act on a daily basis.

I go all city, hoping that one day, the vehicles I’ve touched get stitched together to form a complete sentence.

I tag because I saw you leave your mark and it was dope.

I tag because I know how to freeze, watch TV and (kinda) avoid the kissing bugs.

I tag because the words I drop in time will find a way to form a cohesive rhyme.

I tag because the world may be getting smaller, but it’s damn sure not coming together.

I tag your name, your spot, your position, your mood, your frame of mind when it’s too hard for you to see it for yourself.

I tag the expected terms of modern constructs.

I tag the post-modern undercurrents of miscellaneous descriptors.

I tag my tags so that when structure is forged out of chaos, you’ll know how to find me.

I tag so that it’s me you won’t be looking for.

When I tag, I’m regurgitating the meal I’ve caught for the chicks in my roost.

When I tag, I feel one with the universe of the collective unconscious.

When I tag, I can see the pillars of control quaking in their foundation.

When I tag, I experience therefore I understand.

When we tag, anything is possible.

————

Tag! We’re It! Part II
Tag! We’re It!

what?
you don’t know how to step?
no, not omega, man…
walk tall.
walk straight.
walk proud.
nothing half-baked,
straight up into the crowd.
in comes the left
to cushion the drop of the right
put it back down…
bang!
the gavels brings on the sound
of purpose
of confliction
of ceremony
of wealth
an intelligently evolved design
kansas has nothing on this stealth
y
means of operation
man, it’s twisted beyond belief
you got corrupt politicians
doing their shit live on cable TV!
so while heads drop accapella type shit
with no delay
i’ll drop gangster type shit
like tom delay
there are…
two sides to a coin
the same flip property on a bill
how you think this shit keeps spinning?
how you think they get up on top of that hill?
drilling deep for your consciousness
stepping through your field of vision
handing out my flyers
of truth be told derision
left and right
price the hike
shit
stand to the side
i’ll rock the mic
like
when i go to sleep i know where my head is at
like
when i lay down for good i’ll know that i gave it back
like
when i walk down the street i know you don’t know my name
like
when i was a child i lived for the dearth of fame
like
politics is a sport, a vice, a betting man’s game
like
i gotta put this shit to bed as my girl puts this shit to shame
hold these fucks accountable
get your congressman to know your name

damn! straight…
away
the wind blew in today
weeks past
jazz…
blues…
the funk
y
the skunk
of the streets
ripped out between
heartbeats
the skipped hearts
beat the shit out of me
you still think indivisible is them with us?
when they pry away your child to get on the bus
don’t make a fuss.
you’ve a bunch of sand people left to plug
you’ve a bunch of poor, old, black people left to shrug
away
into the streets of decay…
today
yesterday
cronyism in full effect
a flag of death on the errect
pole…
are eyes
blind to the killers?
deaf to the ’cause?…
i want you!
american people, where you at?
when enough is a black cat?
when enough is a black cat?
deja vu
do you in your home?
with two shots straight to the dome?
no one at home?
get behind the wheel
the cause?
we need
we demand
we take
leadership repeal!

our elders are often described as having beautiful souls;
aged with experience…
peppered with struggle…
garnished with the gained and lost love of family and friends.
beautiful souls whose eyes have seen beyond the boundaries,
but have not yet led to expression due to their place in time…
with time being the bottom-line for the struggle;
for the patience;
for the shift;
for the act;
time, the paradigm, encircles itself, hiding its phases of change and evolution.
so beautiful souls have been bound by time…
now, a soulful beauty can be stitched and wrapped within the construct of time itself,
in-tune with the paradigm of the real (of the moment),
more deeply than a beautiful soul might have been at any time in the past…
why?
because she is experience
because she is pepper
because she is the rough of the diamond in the state of carbon,
shimmering without compression or explicit fine-tuning at the cost of humanity
a soulful beauty transcends the constraints of time
like skin on top of skin,
five levels deep.
a timeless beauty.

we bring the live to the live to bring death to the all
barrels of dark reason tells the story of the gall
100’s of men and women have the power to stand tall
’stead they just stand by and watch the march to a fall
what’s up y’all?
who’s up for an overhaul?
who’s ready for a medicine ball
dropped from way outta site,
an old found depth and a new found height?
three times left… you know i’m right.
pushing the boundaries of air tight
i’m blasting through to ignite,
even in spite…
of my in-stability,
of my new-found city,
of the pity of a fitty-
sense
of the diddy of a twenty-
pence
of the quality of kweli…
hence
the expansion of a mos def
fence
intense custom eyes gives rise
two light blue hues cutting ties…
lost in the queue.
too much to say,
too much to do,
packing in the world for a step to the chrome-
a zone…
stepping up for a push and a lift two
a tone…
stepping back down
to step right back up
up,
up,
and away…