Poet Alive

Hey everybody,

Took some time out of the madness that is March to 'find' myself. Turns out I never really left. Let me explain further...

Long before I started on this venture called the BLOG, most of you guys knew me as more of a creative writer...namely someone who wrote poems pretty frequently. Whatever the case had been, maybe because of doing more professional writing with the Standard, or just looking to blog out, I hadn't been doing much of the free writing that has allowed me to share the most of myself with people. That, in essence, is the purpose of the upcoming "Lost Art" poem, and hopefully you guys can now see why that poem and other poetic gestures have taken so long. That being said, thanks Jig, because Wednesday's freestyle, in conjunction with other events, brought the Showstopper back ('cuse me being confidently cocky, ha ha ha). Well, as a result, I wrote this poem, funny enough, at a revival at my church that I was unaware of. My logic was that I'd be teaching Bible Study; no, apparently revival was going on. Made me feel more detached from things than I'd already been...and made me glad that I was in the right place at the right time. Revival preacher was screaming and singing instead of teaching...but that's another matter entirely. Long story short, these are the notes that I took at MY revival...

Poet Alive

Understand the Words
One black book is principle
If I can do all things
Does that make me invincible?

Have to start poems with a pretense
I hope this makes some sense
Because it's only recently
That I rediscovered my deliverance

These words I write like Moses
In talks with burning plants
Which goes from a pen in the hand to former bush full of prose
Watch the water flow do-si-do as I begin to dance

With my father like the late Luther
Ordered steps and steady reps help me to see my future
And like my Father I aspire to sit high and look low
Because the meek will inherit the earth, or so I'm told

So I must apologize for now and later for breaking so many promises
I live in a future tense
Hoping for everything that can and will happen
I hope this will make some sense

Did I return to myself by freestyling with Jig for a hour?
The providence of God's power? Or did I return after some time in the shower?
All of the above, and if you take the time to look at all 3
You will see that this life I speak comes by land, air and sea

So the poet that claims to be alive was never dead at all
Only dormant, allowing pride to set up the fall
But halfway down I became determined to no longer stall
And revisit the road unflawed...

...These cold, dead words unthawed.
I have returned...

--11th Letter

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*wanted to call this post 'the ebon phoenix'...I don't know either. Just wanted to give you guys some insight on where I've been, and where I'm going. More where this came from,

The Good Doctor

Marching towards Madness

Hey everybody,

Just a quick post about the March Madness pool that I'm extending to all of the readers. I know it's short notice, but you have until midday Thursday to make up your brackets. Good luck to everybody!! Oh yeah, here's the name and password of our group:

name: the ides of march
password: caesar65

Hope to see you guys there!

The Good Doctor

Thoughts I had while sitting at my desk at work:

The Bible never ceases to amaze me.

"Being a professional is doing the things you love to do on the days when you don't feel like doing them."
--Dr. J

Do all things without murmurings and disputings: That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;
--Philippians 2:14-15

Now to make that a mantra of a little newsroom in my hometown...

I think this desk is the lightest weight on me right now, but then 12:12 a.m. just hit, and there was the most oppressive gravity on me EVER. I said that to say that I quickly need to become my own boss. Not that I don't like my job, in fact, I love it...quick synopsis of the day...

New sports guy at work (he's a brother), interesting enough
Covered a famous hoops legend (James Henry, played for Vanderbilt)
Covered a state championship team (Wardlaw Academy girls)
Covered a college softball game. About softball, wow, there is this young lady who is very enchanting...certain je ne sais quois. Can't put my finger on it...but she dropped a fly ball with 2 outs. And I still don't care.

Fellas, curious...you like sistas with straight hair? Braids? Or the sister that goes to the same hair stylist as you (two spectrums there, folks) :-D Or not down with sistas at all? And i'm not hating on this one. I just said all of those things to say that once you get to the clever medium of valuing a woman for her essence...not just beauty, then you'll find out that we are SURROUNDED by beautiful women. So just enjoy the experience...and don't muck it up by saying 'hey shaaaaaaaaaaaaawty'...or chick. Shout to my new friend 'Trina on that one if she's still reading...

Too many people put too much stock on the Academy Awards. Everybody on the radio seems to be talking about how 3-6-Mafia set us back at the Academy Awards. Ha ha ha, NO. The Academy Awards continues to set us back by awarding us for our clever portrayals of stereotypes. With the exception of Jamie Foxx, of course, and you guys KNOW how I feel about Mr. Predictable since he won the Oscar.

Oh, and Crash won! (This is the part where I get excited) Another example of how you can play the race card to overrate something. Yes, the acting was on point, and it flowed smoothly. That being said, there wasn't one time in watching it where I thought it was an Oscar performance. Still, better that than some gay cowboys. Parents, make sure your young ones aren't playing the newly controversial kids' game Cowboys and Indians. Or as the PC police are making me call it, Homosexuals and Indigenous People.

Moreover, I really need to stop listening to the radio. The clincher, you ask? No, not the umpteenth hearing of any song with a catchy snapping beat, or what I like to call the 'Oh I Think They Like Me, so I Have to Lean with It and Rock with It Because I Don't Want Anyone to Say Betcha Can't Do It Like Me and Take My Laffy Taffy Away From Me' song. It was actually a section of the radio where some DJ saying she's the 'first lady of radio' had the Deadbeat Dad Hall of Fame...or something like that.

Well, if I stop listening to the radio outright, I guess I need to find something else to listen to. That's the thing about the radio...see, sometimes people don't feel like listening to slow jams, and they need something a little more upbeat. Maybe I should just buy CDs accordingly. Or maybe Outkast, Roberta Flack, Mike Shinoda, Luther Vandross, and EWF need to put out a kill-all-birds-with-one-stone CD.

So-called slow jams like 'Bedroom Boom' really make me miss Luther. And Barry.

I think BET Jazz is the best station on television. After ESPN. I also think that I can fuse the two, or just go ahead and conjure up a new media conglomerate outright. Any takers?

Can't believe Kirby Puckett passed one day after he had a stroke. 45-year old cat won two World Series rings with the Minnesota Twins, but it seems like the brother let him self go after he retired because of glaucoma. We'll miss you, Kirby Puckett.

I might love his writing, he might be whom I most want to be like as a writer, but at this point, I am nothing close to being of the caliber of Ralph Wiley. And you aren't either, Scoop Jackson.
(sports heads can peep this link to see what I'm talking about)
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=jackson/060228

You know, I'm starting to think that there may be more prejudices in this country associated with money than with race. And I think those are fighting words for at least one of you.

This weekend is going to be one of the greatest weekends that I've had in a LONG TIME. Going to Atlanta. It's a great city, folks. Not moving there though...too many people. And apparently, everybody I know wants to move there, so maybe I'll go hang out in Canada with Jig. Or Charlotte. In fact, Charlotte's closer :-D

If Miss Tee from Share My World frequents this site, I just wanna let her know that I'm on No. 38. But it's more because of laziness...at any rate, I'm hoping what's on my mind between March 6-7 will suffice.

I've made so many promises in the last few days, months, years...and I've had the intentions of doing all of them. I still can't help but ask myself am I a bad person when I say I want to do things but don't do them, or am I simply ambitious in setting my goals? (Not a rhetorical question, friends.)

I don't ever want to be too busy for my friends. It saddens me sometimes to think about all the great friends I've lost very recently because they're obsessed with something as conditional as work. Most of the readers here are under the age of 25. We change jobs almost as much as we change draws. See about your friends out there...yes, I'm talking to a lot of you. Your friends haven't heard from you in a while...

I think those of you that have lost faith in the fact that I'm working on Lost Art should read this snippet from that work:

Shirley Chisholm didn't put that V up for Vendetta
And PUSH is a coalition in the club that calls out for Barettas
Because one of the lost arts is failure to use discretion
And we caught up in constant bull that serves as misdirection
While Bush is Captain Ahab as his Arab madness makes him sick
We reading media magazines with lies getting Moby Dicked
Tricked by a system that convinces us we are victims
Glass ceilings are imaginary prisms made up of functional schisms
Yes race is a face, but coloring between those lines
Makes us lose our state of mind...

And I don't even know if I want to use those lines anymore... :-D

I think that I've said a whole bunch, and there's still so much I want to get off my chest...so much in fact, that it makes my head hurt. Or maybe I just have a headache. Either way, I need some fresh air.

Truth is, most of the time at work, I'm thinking about wanting to do 10 things at once. The other thing about work is that it seems like that's the time where I have the energy to do stuff...but then I'm at work. That may be some form of conditioning...and that's some frickin' shampoo I need to stop using. Well, continue to pray for me like I pray for you guys. Take it easy,

The Good Doctor

Oh yeah, March Madness is here, and I want everybody on here to be a part of my pool entitled "the Ides of March." If you're down for that, leave a comment, and I'll get you the password to join. What? You need motivation? It's free, and if you win, you get 10,000 big ones. I think the sound I'm hearing is the stampede of people that need 10,000 dollars. Aiight then, later.