Govern Yrself Accordingly

                   By Kalamu ya Salaam

i have dismissed

the minister

of emotional defenses,

distributed

confetti to all

the guards and given

faithful and ever vigilant

caution

several days off

the city

of me is well ready

to joyously receive and

rainbow celebrate

your unanticipated but

nonetheless profoundly appreciated

arrival into the intimacy

of our space

know that you are warmly

welcomed for howsoever long

you should choose to stay

here, you need no keys

no door is locked to you

every window is open

feel free 

Source: WordUp. 18 Apr 2010

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You Can’t Survive on Salt Water

seven haiku for old Orleans

                      By Kalamu ya Salaam

1.

dead dogs hang from trees

bloated barges sit on the

wrong side of levees

2.

dumb pigeons have flown

now it’s people’s turn to perch

roasting atop roofs

3.

a caravan of

yellow busses drowns because

the mayor can’t drive

4.

official death counts

exclude so-called looters shot

on sight of their skin

5.

dry folk uptown hold

their noses, rejecting wet

people’s funky stank

6.

things that go bump in

the night: your boat against a

dead baby’s body

7.

a son returns, finds

four month old bones wearing his

missing mother’s dress

20 April 2010

Source: Wordup

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If You’re Still the Same Afterwards

It Wasn’t Love

(to nia, thanx for making me better)

              By Kalamu ya Salaam

to say

"i am touched

by you"

is to be

changed

            / into

a person neither of us

was before

entering the other

more open, a sun of sensitivity

emotionally nude, erupting joy

& willing to kiss life open mouthed

emoting the vibrancy of glow

endemic to souls in the flow

in fact, it's even unscientific

not to evol

ve/not to love, not to

grow & give back

the only humans who actually evolve

are lovers

all others

just simply fuck and reproduce

the transformation

of touch

that's all

love is

21 April 2010

Source:  WordUp

*   *   *   *   *

Be About Beauty

                                By Kalamu ya Salaam

be about beauty

as strong as a flower is

yet as soft too

as an open petal

receiving the mist

of a midnight raindrop,

be about beauty

no matter life's dirt

be about beauty

Source: WordUp

*   *   *   *   *

Flying Over America

                      By Kalamu ya Salaam

                        i'm flying home

                       flying, flying, flying, flying

                             flying home

this, ancient land was once

not unified but free to be

whatever the sun shone upon

not furrowed by industry

nor ribboned by concrete

but simply a life path

trod by bare and moccasined feet

now from coast to coast,

from great lakes to gulf

there is the mechanical roar of engines

the boom of bombs

the staccato stutter of hand guns

the quiet binary clicking of computers, and

the tortured cry of nature writhing

twisted by modernity

i am an african encased in aviated metal

surrounded by the sad contentment

of civilized progress anxious to maintain

its hegemony of coercion

as we fly forward into the future

unmindful of the feces we leave behind

intermittently dozing i dream

of appreciating the simple silence

of a heavy metal epoch rusting to dust

of meditating in the amber

of a muted spangled banner song

this land we jet across was ancient once

and though i know we can never again

atavistically return home

into a nostalgic past, still i long

to see this soil be ancient once more

unmolested

by a social order so unrepentant

in its disdain

for the womb

of our earthly environment

that only its death

can justify the manifest destiny

of this nation's existence

only death

can possibly cover the debt &

repay the cost of creating

this hubristic nation state

which so wantonly & methodically murdered red,

so avariciously & cruelly enslaved black

if this is truly one nation under god

then surely their god must be a devil

25 April 2010

Source: WordUp