PROUDFLESH: A New Afrikan Journal of Culture, Politics & Consciousness

Heru (H. Emmanuel Ofori-Atta)

Poets of Today | Tell-Lie-Vision (Tell-Eye-Vision) | Babylon Is | Hush, Hush, Hush, Hush

Poets of Today (Careless Ethiopians)

In this new so-called millennium,
all wack unconscious poets shall be stoned.
So I suggest that all poetry enthusiasts and people in the audience
bring any types of rocks, pebbles or projectiles from your home.
In this new so-called millennium,
All wack unconscious poets shall be stoned.
This is to prevent Babylon from kidnapping you,
taking your DNA material
and thus preventing your negative vibes from being cloned.
In this new so-called millennium,
all wack unconscious poets shall be stoned.
So I suggest you read up on Marcus Garvey
and make sure your political philosophy is honed.

Skylarking craven sad poets
be like stark raving mad when they be knowin’ that
Heru the nappy head, natty dread has entered the poetry spot.
Internal tears be flowing
and external fears be showing
Cause they be knowing
that tonight’s the night they must touch the mic
with the most cultural, conscious, crucial poems they got.

But that presents a problem...
The vast majority of male poets of today are feeble minded.
They are writing poems about women’s breasts,
how they love to have sex
and how this and that woman was big behinded.
The vast majority of female poets of today are feeble minded.
They’re writing poems about this and that man,
how he messed with their head,
was illegitimate in bed,
and how he could not functionally bump and grind it.
Is that all you can write about and relate?
You’re staying up late, contemplating your fate,
about your hormonal fantasies
and silly dilly big willie sexploits: 
That’s garbage
while our people suffer and Babylon feeds us carnage.
Is that how you’d like to be remembered,
as a person who desecrates a people’s sacred art form and music?
We should have snatched out your tongue from birth if
we knew on earth you would later abuse it.

When I read Ayi Kwei Armah’s book Two Thousand Seasons,
it became abundantly clear to me that most Black poets and writers do not fashion their
lives after the beloved Malcolm X, but rather Jackie Gleason: 
Treason.
They’re more interested in dealing with comedy or their love life tragedies
rather than dealing with our stark reality.
How can it be?
In the ancient days, Black writers were the example and light for all humanity.
But today Black poets and writers have become the example of Black insanity:
Tragedy...
The things that you say are as boring as a game of penochle.
Saying silly things like if my aunt was a man, she would be my uncle.

When we get ’pon the mic, we recite with a clarity and a passion
of an ancestor named Mahalia.
We commit this culture to memory;
therefore, we don’t need no written paraphernalia.
I’m tired of blowing up Black folk’s poetry spots
and witnessing the general psychosis of slackness mania.
I wish we were interested in each other’s liberation
as much as we were interested in each other’s genitalia.
So take this as a threat and a hostile open letter.
Poets of today, I know, you know, your ancestors,
and your future grandchildren know that you can do much, much better.
So just like second-hand cigarette smoke ain’t good for my health,
keep them silly dilly, big willie sexploits and second hand them to your damn self.
Careless Ethiopians...

Tell-Lie-Vision (Tell-Eye-Vision)

Oh what a beautiful day it was when I threw away my t.v.
Or should I say Tell-Eye-Vision?
You see, I got tired of strangers telling me how I should look, feel, or listen.
I got tired of strangers showing me how other people are living,
and therefore how I should be living.
And by the way, what does watching a football game on t.v. have anything to do with
celebrating a so-called day of Thanksgiving, oops I was mistaken, I meant Thanks-taking.

Oh what a beautiful day it was when I threw away my t.v.
Or should I say Tell-Lie-Vision?
No more lies for me.
Mental sabotage I won’t be missing.
So many potentially great people are caught in a psychological prison.
Our minds are programmed by t.v. programs, we’re caught in a media prism.
And this box called t.v. has become oh-so popular.
So many Sisters are caught in soap operas.
So many Brothers living their lives like they’re in the next show of cops and robbers.
We even get our slang from this thing called t.v.
The police are now called Five-O, is this Hawaii?
So many people are just bored, lonely or just plain lazy.
You’re spending time with something that weakens your human development,
and you’re telling me that you ain’t crazy?
Imagine cuddling up with something close to your foe.
Instead of learning something that strengthens your community or humanity,
all you did in your lifetime was learn how to quickly turn from channel 7
to channel 5 to channel 4.
Outstanding, exquisite, you did it.
You’re out of sight.
Remember, every time you turn on your t.v.,
you are inviting people into your home who you would not normally invite:  RuPaul?
Let me be more explicit,
if you cannot throw away your t.v. tonight,
you have no right to look down at a crack or heroin addict.
You see, your addiction is stronger because you’ve been practicing it much, much longer.

Now, let’s deal with those commercials that influence people to buy things they normally
would not buy and wear things they normally would not wear.
It all begins when a young child starts to stop-sit-and-stare.
It all begins when a young child starts to stop-sit-and-stare.
There goes one, there goes another, hook, line and sinker.
T.v., Tell-Lie-Vision does not prepare you to be an independent thinker.
Just like back in the day. 
Just like back in the day when every one wanted to be cool like Fonzie.
Now, ’nuff people have become Puff Daddy zombies.

Oh what a beautiful day it was when I threw away my t.v.,
or should I say Tell-Eye-Vision?
Mental sabotage I won’t be missing.
By now you can tell that I am on a liberation mission.
So right out my window, I threw away my t.v. or should I say Tell-Lie-Vision?
But I bet the stray dogs can use that box for pissing.

Babylon Is

Babylon thinks that it’s so tough
They are stocking, locking people up
But a tree is known by its fruits, they say
And soon we’ll all see the truth, I say
They’ve got a wicked legacy,
Of hatred and hypocrisy...

Babylon is dealing with strictly illusion and artifice
Babylon is the number one producer of bogus artists
Babylon is telling me that there is freedom of speech
But if you do not pay they will quickly disconnect your telephone
Babylon is telling me that there is freedom of assembly
But some of us do not even have a home
Babylon is telling me that there is freedom of the press
But there is no truthful tone in the newspapers I roam
Babylon is telling me that there is freedom of assembly
But I stand alone

Babylon is a hole in the ozone layer
Babylon is propping up a fictitious european Jesus
and forcing Black children to school prayer
Babylon is clandestinely chopping down “X” amount of trees
Babylon is praying to your ancestors’ enemies on your knees
Babylon is the seat of the wicked man’s throne in Rome
Babylon is twenty-five percent compounded interest rate on your student loan

Babylon is the one who will never give you a job but will give you 25 years to life for some weed
But if you check it, Babylon is in Columbia planting coca and poppy seeds
Babylon is the reason why ninety five percent of our athletes cannot functionally read
Babylon is the reason why eight year old Black girls in the ghetto prematurely
menstrually bleed
Babylon is the reason why Black folks lose patience with each other in the
slightest moment of heat
Because Babylon is putting reworked chromosomes and synthesized hormones in that
bloody meat you live to love to die to eat.
Babylon is the ghetto youths disclaiming their African heritage and rather claiming their
ghetto boulevard or municipal street
Babylon is feeding us filth, sugar coating it and making us say it’s oh so sweet.
Babylon is telling me that the only way you can see God is if you go to a building
with glasses and windows shaped with different colors

And listen to some over-weight out of shape pork chop and fried chicken eating Brother
And you’ll see how the facts they like to disassemble and then reassemble
You reach God through peaceful meditation, that’s why your body is your church and
the place on your head between where you see and where you hear is called your temple
Babylon is telling me that the only legitimate form of religion comes from the Hebrew line
So Brothers are telling me that they are Jewish, Christian and Muslim all the time
But Babylon is not telling you that the ten commandments came from the negative
confessions, the 42 laws of Ma’at written in Hieroglyphics ten thousand years before
Moses even received a sign
And the fact that we do not know that and were never told that is a spiritual crime

Babylon is the reason why Africa is rich and Africans are poor
African is rich in plutonium, chromium, silver, gold and iron ore
Africa is rich, but Africans are poor
Babylon is the day of the televised harlot and the glorified whore
Babylon is the place where you can die from a cold sore for sure
Babylon is water sold by the gallon and dirt sold by the pound
Babylon is the reason why butterflies are hardly around
Babylon is the reason my people cannot let their natty dreadlocks grow
Babylon is calling yourself a poet and speaking slackness
when an impressionable five year old child sits in the front row.
Babylon is the reason why Black folks would rather go to Europe instead of Africa for vacation
Babylon is the same explanation why after the emancipation proclamation some slaves
decided to stay on the master’s plantation
Babylon is slackness publications getting world-wide circulation
Babylon is Jerry Springer getting national syndication
Babylon is watching six hours of television and getting no information
Babylon is watching six hours of television and getting no inspiration
Babylon is watching six hours of television taking away your imagination
Babylon is strictly 6-6-6, period, question mark, exclamation.?!
Babylon is people falling in love with you when they find out you have a suit and tie occupation
Babylon is those same people falling out of love with you when they find out you’d
rather skip work, stay at home and listen to Bob Marley’s Rastaman Vibration

Babylon is the reason why I get no standing ovation when I sing songs of repatriation
But if I was to sing songs of slackness and fornication,
I would without hesitation become an international sensation
Babylon is the reason why you listen to so-called Black radio stations and you don’t hear
no Black folks singing songs of liberation
Like...Babylon is...

Hush, Hush, Hush, Hush...

He said:
I’ve come to liberate you, for real
But, DO NOT BURN YOUR OIL FIELDS

Hour after hour on the hour every hour
You are now witnessing those
who shall propose
future nuclear showers
And George Orwell Bush says:
Slavery is Freedom
War is Peace
Ignorance is Power

Hush, Hush, Hush, Hush....

Unanointed, disjointed, self-appointed
so-called leaders of the so-called free world
have hearts that bleed not blood but oil,
They’ve got other countries around the world saying, “Thank God we ain’t got no oil”
Even though we’re used to being attacked for what lays beneath and above our soil:
Africa.  Asadica equals America,
America equals Asadica, because A-merry-ca sure ain’t merry,
Pumping and humping other nations for what they got,
Like Billy Bob did Halle Berry
Scary, quite contrary
Mystery Babylon the Great, Mother of all harlots, Queen of all whores,
Lift up that skirt and pop that cherry,
And watch her drip not blood, but oil
To the victor always goes the spoils,
and secret sugar daddy cartels control the price.
And to prove my point,
there’s even an Exxon oil tanker named the Condoleezza Rice.

Hush, Hush, Hush, Hush...  

As I rewind in my mind through the process of time,
I see a sixteen year old Black girl named Condoleezza sitting on a park bench and crying.
She said that young Black boys would pay her no mind,
they would all go on dates and leave her behind.
She said she would make the world miserable for everyone,
through the devices of her own design
and a burning bush shall be the sign.

Hush, Hush, Hush, Hush...  

He’s quiet, slick and crazy, quite slick and zany.
He’s the real MVP, More Valuable than the President.
He’s the VP, the zany, Dick Cheney.
Claims he
hates homosexuals, but has a lesbian daughter, yes a daughter who only likes ladies
who maybe
wants to adopt a baby
named Jamie
with her off and on girlfriend named Amy.

Hush, Hush, Hush, Hush...

Hour after hour on the hour every hour
You are now witnessing those
who shall propose
future nuclear showers
And George Orwell Bush says:
Slavery is Freedom
War is Peace
Ignorance is Power

George Orwell Bush hates affirmative action,
but how did he get into Yale
Was it not by inheritance?
Was it by his own merits?
And if you think he has a scintilla of intelligence,
then I’ve got land on the moon for sale.
He believes that Iraq and Al-Queda have something in common
because both words contain the letter Q.
He’s like a child who was forced to wear penny loafers
because he never learned how to tie his own shoe.
Remember, he almost choked to death on a pretzel because he forgot to chew.
If a wall is red, he will tell you the wall is blue.
Hell no, I will not do what you want me to do.
Speaking like a cowboy, telling folks they’ve got two sun downs to leave town,
I saw him on September 11^th trying to read to school children,
but the book was upside down.

Mayne, you’re trying to bring democracy to Iraq,
but you didn’t even win your own presidential campaign?!
Mayne, you can’t even win an international popularity contest with Sadaam Hussein?!
Mayne, he doesn’t even pretend to act like Bill Clinton and feign to feel your pain?!
Mayne, because of him, the whole world thinks everyone in America is insane?!
Mayne, see what happens when you’ve got a president who thinks he’s John Wayne?!
Mayne, I hate to crash your parade but here comes the rain.
I hate to trash your charade but let me make it plain:
George Trouble-U Bush is a raatid bad joke.
He stays rich while every one else is a raatid tad broke.
And the U.S. media is a raatid bad joke,
it’s a circus with mirrors and raatid mad smoke.
Yes, George Trouble-U Bush is a raatid bad joke.
He asked Brazilian leaders, “Brazil has raatid black folks?”
Yes, the U.S. public is a raatid bad joke.
It’s a race against time, and we’re swimming the raatid backstroke.

Hush, Hush, Hush, Hush....

Unanointed, disjointed, self-appointed...
He’s a retired four-star general who will sell you out quicker than Pat Sajack will sell you vowels.
So, while we’re trying to free Mumia,
we might as well, free Colin Powell,
Throw in the towel.
Colin, you need to start listening to your ancestors instead of listening to Georgie-Porgie.
Those documents you turned in to the United Nations on Iraq, happened to be a forgery.
Y’all are handling international situations horribly.
And Sadaam Hussein would have probably given y’all some free oil if you would have just asked cordially.
And we turn on the TV and see
Dan Rather, Tow Brokaw, and Peter Jennings lying—simultaneously.
They are teleprompter parrots who cannot speak—extemporaneously.
And even if they tried they would be fired—instantaneously.
By thieving C.E.O.’s who laugh all the way to the bank—blamelessly.
Because they are manufacturing your consent—shamelessly.
While rappers are Andy and Amos-ly rhyming about Black on Black crime-ing—famously,
And American minds are Gone with the Wind—aimlessly.
Because everyone has fallen for the American dream and illusion,
that you can live and die--painlessly.

Hush, Hush, Hush, Hush....

He said:

I’ve come to liberate you, for real
But, DO NOT BURN YOUR OIL FIELDS

Hush, hush, hush, hush...

Copyright © 2004 Africa Resource Center, Inc.

Citation Format

PROUDFLESH: A New Afrikan Journal of Culture, Politics & Consciousness: Issue 3, 2004