My Shadow

My Shadow

My shadow is looking at me like I broke her in half
When I turn my back it makes jokes of me and laughs
It is tired and wants to leave me behind
She wants me to take control over my own mind
My shadow looks at me with amazement
When I let her in to my head
She says if she stays in there too long
She is bound to be dead
I have to keep my eye on her
She tries to run away
She says I have to learn to love her
Then she will stay

Stars

What is underneath the beautiful sea
But your full lips kissing me
Fondeld behind peach trees
But don't all hearts bleed?
Belles bleeds from a past unkind
From a man in a dark forest
Oh God where is the red, red wine?
It is about that that time for pills and a glass of wine
But Belle he is not him
But it sometimes feels like the same wind
I have to be reborn
A romantic scorn
For love pain was born
But the sound of his guitar
Makes my eyes see stars so far

Blue, Yellow, Pink, Butterflies

I want you so
I'm ready and wait'in to go through the fire
No water
No firemen
Will suffer through the smoke
And I hope
You'll be ready and wait'in to go through the fire
To be next to you
To be with you next to me
To kiss you
To be all over you
I'll suffer all eternities
I rather die in one day
Like a blue, yellow, and pink soaring butterflies
Then not to have you by my side
Although were as beautiful
As orange, purple, and green butterflies
Soaring high
Soaring high
One day we will die
But our love will survive
Oh
We will forever be two kissing butterflies

Every Ones Tears

Oh the crying world
I'm crying everyone's tears
I'm dieing with everyone
I'm in the ICU with everyone
I was drowning in Katrina
Away with the Tsunami
Shot with bullets in the Richmond streets
Shot all up in the Oakland streets
I'm in the thirteen year old casket
Facing him
He told me I just had a gun
He told me I'm my mommy's son
I'm on the cancer floor
The little girl told me she has no fears
To wipe my tears
And tell her daddy
She has no fears
Grandmother's last breath
She said she lived life and knew death has a kiss
Time is just years
I'm dieing with the years
Crying everyone's tears

copyright 2009

Another High

Another high couldn't even come close

The feeling of it is what I loved most

Love addict

Until I overdosed

Notes

Your notes will play in my ears until the day I die
It was like floating on air when I heard you play
As you made love to the keys
I had silent organisms to the sounds
How I miss hearing the cords and melodies your hands found
And even though we shall never kiss
If I forget everything I will remember this

Lyrics Song-30years

It's trip when you ain't handed the right cards
Some girls end up on the boulevard
So much shit but I'm still fighting hard
Never a stranger to the psych ward
But I stay true like a crip in blue
And in the end you got to choose you
I know the sky is always blue
And the sun still shines on a G and a fool
And in the end you choose between the two
I rather have a heart then a diamond ring
And tell me why does the cage bird sing?
Strange to the extreme that I made it to thirty
When a sista been played so dirty
Here's hoping forty
Here's hoping forty
Here's hoping forty

Waz up

Puzzel

I feel like

I am nothing

I have lost so many things

I have destroyed relationships that were the best

When I beat up my little sister

Never could my soul rest

When I abused my son

Will God give be the streeats to rest

The streets to run

I lay under my covers in my bed day after day

After day

And the dark shy falls again

Another day

I lay there the emotions so extreme

Regrets

Oh the regrets

But time won't let me go back

I would willingly give time my hand

Or exist in the universe some where

Where there are no rules for time

There is a tickling bomb inside my heart

It first name is pain

The guilt that I hold

Could battle with any any hurricane

Guilt can turn you into a ghost

Guilt has a coffin

Already prepared

Guilt puts me to bed and awakes in the the morning

I've made love with guilt and had its baby

And now the baby has drove me crazy

I'm trying to change but I'm in trouble

The time is passing

And I have not figured out the puzzle

Fallen

Fallen leaves
Fallen roses
fallen rain
fallen snow
fallen stars
Fallen butterflies
Pretty and Oh
So gentle
Beautiful and
Oh so colorful
Butterflies
A fallen blue bird
A fallen dream
Snow is colder then froast
In love the first to suffer has lost

Play Piano

Piano play with me

Pull me and hold me captive

Oh piano play my pain

Oh piano play my smile

Oh piano play my heart

Oh piano you play rain

My ears are yours piano

Take me into your paradise

Of sweet peach trees

Crisp sweet apples

Sweet crystal waters and summer nights

Play with me Oh piano

Play me black notes

Play me a symphony

Play sweet dreams for me

Oh piano you have been so good to me

On lonely nights with red, red wine

Keep me company oh piano

On lonley nights when bitter sweet chocolate love is absent

Play me my love

Oh piano

On winter nights when the bed is ice cold

Oh play me a song piano

Play me Beethoven

Play me Mozart

Oh piano of mine

You know thy heart

What If?

What if I told you the ground you walk on is just an illusion?
What if I told you the cars that move upon the ground is just an illusion?
What if I told you where you are driving is just an illusion?
What if I told you your job is just an illusion?
Wat if I told you that if I told you the money you make is just an illusion?
What if I told you your house is just an illusion?
What if I told you the shows, movies, and stars on TV are just an illusion?
What if I told you your lobster and wine was just an illusion?
What if I told you the gold you take off your neck and fingers before going to bed is just an illusion?
What if I told you success is just an illusion?
What if I told you your trips to Paris and London are just an illusion?
What thoughts would you ponder if I told you this whole entire world is just an illusion?
If you don't know the hidden secrets it would cause you so much confusion

Shakespeare's Sister

If real love is only in fairytales
But if real love lives
But if real love only dwells in hidden places
Tell me
Oh tell me
Why do my elders worry their faces
How can it not exzist?
Many girls blow out their candel sticks
For his first kiss
When I open and close my eyes
I imagin youths soft lips
But there can not be love
Where there is no pain
A world full of those born
Would say the same
And those born to die
How long will he have me?
And should I even try?
The elders tell me of haunted stories
All though my eyes are still painted with glories
Shakespeare's sister
Youth and glory
A story
A boy and a girl
uncorrupted by the evil world
Will they make it through times end?
If love is real
If love really dwells
If it comes out of hidden places
I know it is factual
Since felt
It is factual
When he kisses her
For I know
I am trully Shakespeare's sister

Paris

Paris

Real love
Real love
You mean real love?
Not me
It can not be
He came like a thief
He came like a knight
He was not a villain
He came like a Prince
He came like a King
He was no Napoleon
More like a Beethoven
He came with trumpets
He came with Congas
He came with flutes
He came with clarinets
He came with a guitar
He came with a piano
He came with white roses and violins
He came with a opera
A symphony
He came speaking French
It is he I cherish
He gave me all of Paris

By Don Juan’s Daughter

The Artist





Red light.
They parked. Looking out the window, she thought, “Was it him?”
His fingers played the wind like a piano. His clothes were soaked with dirt and many, many months of old sweat. The hair on his head had matted itself into dreads passing his ear lobes. His hands were rough, cracked, and his nails were malnourished. His face looked like somebody had given him an intense makeover with dirt. The strangers who walked by him moved quickly. A foul fragrance came from his neglected pores. Most people passing placed their hands over their noses to block out his odor. His sore eyes looked drained and weary. Bus stops, alleyways, abandoned parks, and sidewalks were his home now.
Across the street a candy apple Mustang came to a red stoplight. The car had blocked my view of him. Two eighteen-year-old boys bobbed their heads like two toy dogs on a dashboard. The speakers were vibrating the beauteous ride with Tupac’s “All Eyes On Me.” The two teenagers were dressed down to the T. The guy on the passenger’s side wore a baby blue and white Roca Wear hat. You could see his crisp white 100% cotton Roca Wear shirt sparkling like a bright star from a mile away. The youngster’s Ecko jeans still looked as if they were hanging on the rack at Macys. And last but not least, the passenger’s one-hundred and seventy five dollar baby blue Jordans were spank’in clean. The shoes didn’t even come close to hurting his pockets.
The driver had on a Claiborne dark silk red shirt, Sean Johns pants and dark red and white Nike Shox, topped the passengers attire, totaling 4,000 g’s. Which included his gold teeth with white diamonds shining brighter than the Texas sun on its hottest day.
The drug game paid them well. For now. They were laughing. Laughing at each other’s meaningless jokes. They had this energy. Energy that young people have when life’s just life, and nothing more.
The passenger pointed in discuss, “Look at that bum ass nigga.”
The driver looked out the side of the car window. And the laughter became about him. His clothes, his failing appearance.
“Here eat this! The driver yelled as he let go the wheel, pushing a bit harder on the break.
He picked up a half-eaten double whopper out of a Buger King bag. “Here eat this?” The driver said throwing the burger out of the car at him. Rose was not that much older than the teenagers himself.
And the teenagers laughed a bit harder when he picked the Whopper off the ground, and clenched his yellow teeth into it. But where his mind was there was no shame. The mustang made a right turn. Blocks away you could still hear Tupac’s voice.
“Live a life as a thug, until the day I die, live a life of a boss playa….”
The faint music was a reminder of a time, when she heard the most intriguing sounds ever imaginable. Los Angeles in the Pine Valley apartments the outstanding music could be heard blocks away. The Rose’s neighbors never minded the loud music. Some even left little notes in the Rose’s mail box.
“Good music. Keep it up.”
The Rose was handsome. The Rose was 6’3 and in tiptop shape, six pack wide back and all. But not too muscular. He went to the barber shop twice a week and always kept his goatee looking sharp. The Rose smelled of Obsession, other days it was Eternity cologne. The Rose had pretty features. He was fine to most women, and just cute to others. But was never once called ugly by any one in his whole entire life. The Rose carried him self in high esteem. That just added an extra boost to his appearance and pride. And by him being one of the most talented hip-hop, jazz, and R&B musicians, the Rose was definitely what you call, the whole packaged deal that had mastered his craft at an early age.
The Rose knew many trades of his profession. The piano, different keyboards, sax, guitar, drums, and even the congas. The Rose had a recording studio. He composed music and wrote songs for people. The Rose could record voices on his Protools or Reason software just as if he graduated from engineering school.
The Rose stood in front of his male teenage artists Balance and Storm. They were just one of the many young groups that looked up to The Rose.
“We got the singers coming in tomorrow to lay that verse. Meanwhile we need to finish up these two songs,” The Rose told them putting out his blunt into a small white plastic cup.
“Rose you gonna put me on that one cut, you got to let me flow to that beat. I could make miracles happen with that, that music is slam’in,” Storm said jumping up and down.
The Rose untangled the head phone wires. “You got your lyrics ready? You got your rhymes together so we can record it tonight?” The Rose asked.
“What I wrote last night, is tighter than any thing you ever heard me write,” Storm said popping his collar.
“You better be able to back that up when the mic is on,” The Rose said jokingly.
“Come on Rose you know me,” Storm said excited about hearing his voice on the new track.
“Heah Rose how’s this,” Balance said handing him a wrinkled up yellow piece of paper that he had been writing on for hours.
The Rose looked the paper over moving his head to his music saying the rhyme in his head. “Balance you only got seven bars, you need one more man.” The Rose handed Balance back the wrinkled paper.
Balance tossed the wrinkled paper in frustration. “Rose I don’t think I could come up with another line, I can’t think no more, my minds gone blank.”
“This is what we’ll do. Take a break from writing. Go in the sound proof, lets try to record what you got, then we will punch you in for the last line later. Come on just get started. And while you’re in there let us do the chorus too.”
“That will work,” Balance said going into the sound proof.
The Rose sat in his chair and pushed the play button on his Motif. Then he got back up and hooked some headphones up. The Rose put a set on his head and sat back down. And threw the other set to Storm. “You ready Balance, I want you to come in after you hear,” The Rose began to rap, “and you can get your little nose swoll like rust trolls, I bust those, kind’a fat raps, to make um step back, you dogg’in my rep black, I’ll never will let that occur, I thought you knew that wasn’t my caliber.” The Rose took a sip of his Mountain Breeze soda to wet his throat. “Is the music loud enough in your head phones Balance?”
“Yeah the levels are cool,” Balance said positioning the mic to fit his height.
“Make sure you take your breaths between pauses, so you’ll have enough air. And make sure you pronounce all your words clearly Balance, I want to be able to hear everything you’re saying. None of that mussing your words together. Let me hear you run through it once before we record.”
And that was The Rose’s everyday routine. All the young musicians looked up to and admired The Rose. Some even envied him. The Rose was too likeable for anyone to be jealous. They admired The Rose’s hunger for composing music. Not just any music. The kind of music you don’t forget. Going about your day, and all of a sudden, out of no where you start to hear a melody. The cords smoothly follow their way into your head. And the words begin to play over, and over, and over. No matter how hard you try, you just can’t get the damn song out of your mind. Everyone that heard the Rose’s music felt just this way. Goose bumps would often appear on the listener’s arms.
The Rose composed the kind of sounds that sent sensations through your entire soul. The kind of music you could play when you’re feeling happy, feeling down, feeling in love, and when you need to escape the weight of the cold world. The kind of music only someone who truly loved it could compose.
Quiet. The Rose could make no sound at all, become many. All sounds working together in harmony with each other. Like Hagen Daz ice cream and Belgium chocolate to your ears. Like your soul mate hugging you on your darkest night. Saying, “Everything will be all right,” and you believing it.
The Rose woke up at six a clock in the morning, and didn’t stop creating music until six a clock the next morning. Sometimes he would do this for days at a time.
The Rose was truly the king of his castle. He was not rich. The Rose did not have lots of money. There was no green in his eyes. The studio was a safe house for young thugs who wanted to do something with their lives. Music. Everything there was positive, productive, and even peaceful, making something out of nothing.
The women singers that came into The Rose’s studio fawned over him. Like The Rose was an Elvis or Michael. And the Rose’s wife, she allowed it. Even when hours of recording with gorgeous singers turned into an all night session.
The Rose was sitting at his Keyboard adding another drum sound to his latest R&B song. The Rose’s girl singer came up to him. She began to kiss his neck, and caress his chest.
“Cut that out, my wife could come in here any minute, you try’na get me killed women.”
“You didn’t mind it last night.”
The Rose pushed her arm off of his shoulder.
“Look I’m trying to finish this song, maybe you should come back tomorrow.”
She grabbed her coat with an attitude, “Fine.”
The Rose’s wife slowly and quietly pushed the studio door open. Not wanting to disturb the session. Just in case any one of his artists was still in the sound booth recording. The Rose played the situation off as cool as breeze. The last singer artist for the day was just leaving.
“Bye I’ll see you later girl,” The Roses wife said to the singer.
The singer smiled glad she thought she had an advantage on the Rose’s wife and walked out of the studio.
The Rose was now arranging where the sax would fit in the song they just recorded. The Rose had been working for hours, but still hungry. Hardly ever satisfied. As his cramped fingers touched the black notes, he heard his wife’s quite footsteps.
“Babe,” she said in a very low timid, submissive voice. She took off her pink robe, feeling pretty hot.
The Rose turned his head towards her.
She took a deep breath. “Honey, they’re going to cut off the PGE if we don’t pay it in two days,” his wife pleaded in her sexy, silk, long white night gown.
She was a perfect match totally in sync with The Rose’s appearance, kind of like a Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie type of couple. Her jet-black hair hung low, way past her full child barring hips. The Rose’s wife’s eyes were the color of the darkest night you ever could have seen. But were just as bright as the stars in them. She was a sight for sore eyes. The Rose’s wife. The Rose’s trophy.
The Rose pressed repeat on his Motif. “I will figure it out.”
The music started.
“Honey,” The Rose’s wife said raising her voice just enough for him to hear her.
The Rose pushed the stop button on his Motif. “What babe? I’m trying to work,” he said this with his back to her. When The Rose heard no reply he swung around in his computer chair. “You know babe. It does not even matter if I never make it in this music industry. If I never get that distribution deal. Go gold.” The Rose’s eyes beamed with thunder. “Or platinum. The whole world loving my music. Having every thing we want.” He stood like a great weight had been lifted from him. “I’m doing it, right, right here, right now. Can’t no one ever say I wasn’t an artist. I love it. And that is all that matters.”
The Rose’s wife smiled. At her trophy. Her genius of a husband. And her worries about the lights being cut off disappeared.
The Rose grasped his wife’s hand gently. “Babe you know how it feels when I work on a song all day, finally getting it right. My artists come through to the house, I play it for them and their eyes light up, and they smile up at me. There is nothing like that satisfaction. I’m making people’s dreams come true! Me! Right here! No producer out has music like mine. I’m ahead of my time.” For a moment The Rose got lost into the night of her eyes. Suddenly his train of thought returned. “And I can’t be faded!”
The Rose’s wife giggled at his cute pride. No one could disagree, pride was something he deserved.
“I know babe,” The Rose’s wife said swinging her nightgown left and right, left and right.
His eyes started to follow it, left and right, left and right. The Rose looked straight through her gown. The Rose thought to himself, “She’s wearing no underwear,” The Rose looked into her face so intensely. Wanting to quench the thirst he knew she had for him.
The Rose’s wife looked down toward the carpet blushing. “You ready for dinner,” she said sweetly.
The Rose hurried over to his computer. The Rose shut the Protools down. Then cuts off his Motif. The Rose returned to his wife. And slowly went under her silk white gown. The Rose’s hand slowly rose up her inner thigh.
The Rose’s wife felt a warm sensation through out her melting body.
“What’s for dinner?” The Rose said slowly going up and down her thigh.
“Creamy garlic mash potatoes, candied carrots, and smothered steak,” The Rose’s wife said sexy and slowly imitating a southern accent.
That is about the only thing The Rose would cut his music off for. The Rose’s wife’s good cooking. The second only thing was his sexy wife’s long legs wrapped around his torso. “And what’s for desert,” The Rose said pulling his wife’s silky warm body towards him.
“I could be the main course if you want me to,” The Rose’s wife said giggling. Then she slowly pulled up his wife beater shirt touching on his sexy six pack.
“Uummm that sounds good,” The Rose said covering her firm breasts with his hands. Then wrestling her to the floor.
“Oh Rose, oh Rose,” she giggled as The Rose began to caress her like his black and white notes on his Motif.
The next day in the studio Balance sat up against the wall practicing his lyrics in his head. The Rose had been in the studio for days. He was starting to get really hungry. It was now dinnertime and he started to wonder about his wife. For the past few days The Rose only saw his wife when she brought him breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She’d bring him his meals so he could work while he ate. Except today, there was no breakfast or lunch.
“I didn’t know your wife liked classical music,” Balance said scratching his pen to the note pad to see if there was still some ink left.
The Rose pushed stop on his Motif and turned to Balance.
“What, what you talking about?”
“Sounds like Beethoven Rose,” Balance said getting another blue Bic ink pen out of his backpack.
“Yeah it is,” The Rose said rising from his chair. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be done with this verse before you get back Rose.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
Balance laughed as The Rose left out of the studio. The Rose opened their bedroom door only to find a total chaotic disaster. For one, all their clothes were scattered about the room. The Rose’s wife’s makeup was all over their clothes, and the walls. The family photographs were scattered about, some torn, some completely destroyed. It seemed as if the Tasmanian devil had popped out of a Warner Brothers cartoon, and had an episode right in their bedroom.
When The Rose laid eyes upon his wife, his heart jumped two beats. Her hair was all over her head, and she was pulling at it. She had this fear written upon her face. This terror. Like she seen what hell was and couldn’t get out.
“Honey,” was all The Rose was able to get out.
Beethoven symphony was the only thing that made any since of the situation.
And for days and days things went on that way, bouts of fits, tantrums, yelling, screaming. And then, The Rose’s wife made no sound at all. Like life had left her. The Rose didn’t know what to do, he was in complete shock. The Rose couldn’t understand or comprehend that his wife had went crazy. Out of the blue sky, just like that.
She’d left for days at a time. Then would come back home with no explanation at all. Or no relocation of where she had been or what she had done. The Rose had closed up shop for a while. No artist was allowed in the studio, no, not until his wife got better. Not until she got her mind back.
And then one day he got a call.
“Hello is The Rose there?”
“Yes this is The Rose, who is this?”
“My name is Dr. Cartright. I’m a psychiatrist here in LA at SF hospital. Your wife is here on a 5150 hold.”
“Is she all right, I, she, is she ok,” The Rose said his voice trembling.
“As well as one could be in a psychotic episode. I believe your wife is suffering from a mental disorder. However, I can’t put my finger on which one yet. It could be Schizophrenia, could be Bipolar, could be multiple personality disorder, could just be a nervous break down. To come to a conclusion I have to monitor her for some time. I’ll have to keep her here for a while, she very….”
And then Dr. Cartright got the dial tone. And an hour later The Rose was sitting next to his sick wife on the westward Psychiatric unit at SF hospital.
The Rose’s wife just starred out of the window. She was just as beautiful as she had always been, maybe even a bit more. He loved her so. Almost couldn’t bare to see her in such a state. His heart was crashing and crushing into the gray tile in a billion little pieces. Her in a gray baggie hospital shirt and pants and brown hospital socks. He sat with her. Holding her hand starring out of the window with her.
“I’m sorry, times up, it’s time for her medication,” the nurse told The Rose.
He stood up and held his wife. Then he had to let her go. The Rose left out of the room feeling like he had betrayed his wife. Leaving her there with all the coo coos, needles, and cups of medications.
The Rose got off the bus and in the pouring rain with no jacket or umbrella. The Rose entered the Sun Valley apartments. There was a notice tapped to his front door. And it read, Eviction Notice.
The Rose opened his front door with not even enough energy to turn the knob. The Rose sat at his Motif. Quite and alone, where no one could ever tell another, that the rose pedals fell that day. The Rose wept, and wept, and wept like a child who’s mother left him on an abandoned doorstep.
And then The Rose pushed play on his Motif. But when his fingers hit the keys nothing came out. And everything was vanity. For he could not see beauty any longer. He couldn’t hear the music. And the music couldn’t hear him.
For the next few years the Rose’s wife went back and forth to mental hospitals and back and forth to The Rose as well. Until one day she served him divorce papers. The Rose’s wife left and never returned. Along with her, The Rose’s mind went and never returned.
As her eyes still looking out of the window. His sore, weary eyes finally caught hers. Like a photograph they would forever remember. And he smiled remembering her. Remembering her in her innocence. Seeing him like that shattered her heart. Like a favorite art piece your lover brought you, and you break it.
A few tears trickled there way down staining her red silk skirt. Then she brushed them away, like they were never there. The poem just like his music shot up like a pop toy and shook and scared her soul.
Your notes will play in my ears until the day I die
It was like floating on air when I heard you play
As you made love to the keys
I had silent orgasms to the sounds
How I miss hearing the cords and melodies your hands found
And even though we shall never kiss
If I forget everything
I will remember this
Green light.
“Donna?” As her second husband opened the car door. He opened a case and put on his new glasses. “How do they look?” He asked Donna about his expensive glasses.
But she could not here him. He put the key in the ignition and turned it.
He took his foot off the break and pushed on the gas, passing through the green light. “Are you all right? What’s wrong with you? You looked like you saw a ghost.”
“O-------o------o----- oh no, I thought, I saw my old girlfriend, but it wasn’t her,” Donna said trying to sound as convincing as possible.
Donna pulled herself together. To think any further was too much. She looked behind her towards the back seat. Donna smiled sadly at her seven year-old daughter. For she would never know whom her real father was.
When traffic passes him by, travelers going back and forth to work, picking their kids up from school, or leaving for long romantic weekends, they will glance at him with shame or disgust because of his appearance. They will never know that he was a brilliant composer of his time. A Beethoven of his era. A genius of his art, his craft, his love. Hidden beneath all the clothes soaked with dirt and many, many months of sweat. The hair matted into dreads. The face and hands made up with dirt. The foul fragrance coming from his neglected pores. They will never know he was The Rose, a true artist. His fingers playing the wind like a piano.

To You Sam Cook

To You Sam Cook

I didn’t think I would last this long
But my heart by angels hands are carried on
A mother is a purple royal gem
But to the world she is gone with the wind
A fighter you have to be
Our this cruel world will drain thy
So at night at the face of death
For a loved one’s last breath will bring down your mental and physical health
It’s a strong heart that keeps loving
It’s been a long time coming
But I know a change is going to come
What about George Jackson?
What about him?
And the many African brothers and sisters
That got caged in the system
What about the mixed slaves
Yellow to the bone
And the darker in the fields
All died without armor
No swords
No shields
What about the younger generations?
Young mothers and their babies’ sons and daughters
That grows into adult hood with no fathers
I am not speaking out of a novel
Or a class in college
I am speaking of my reality
And what about this system?
That inmateded Judas’s kiss
It makes one sometimes wonder
If peace and justice is just a myth
It’s been a long time coming
But I know change is going to come
And the crack, cocaine, heroin,
Don’t be fooled there was no mistake
They sit around tables to plan destruction
And inner city wars they create
We suffer poverty
Do you see the African eyes in me?