Lyrics and Spoken Word (Poetry)
Note: remember these are really meant to be said aloud not read

Joy

In all things we find a little bit of joy / Falling in even in struggle we enjoy / Calling out to a better time we have seen / Appalling life can be when we do not intervene / At times life can seem bleak in the season of winter / But some of us smile for no reason I..ve been to / Places where life moves slow / Maybe our attitude has to do with the cold / The soul holds gratitude because it extends / Beyond family, friends and the realm of men / But we offend out neighbors and fend for ourselves / And don..t mend fences build personal hells / And give this to our children like presents of toys / The gift we should give them is the presence of joy / And lessons a boy can use to be a man / Or the essence of a woman in the girls of our land / joy

Paper Cuts

I..ve captured fragments of the globe inside my mind and fleeting moments that I hold fast to then throw them to infinity / In every step a lesson every breath a blessing each confession saves a second of the time that..s slowly killing me / Inside these sentences the place where my repentance is I..m so afraid in trying to turn these exits into entrances / I..ve taken all of what I had and scratched it down on to a pad that never saw the light of day hence the tension is / Rising up inside of me crying for those that died for me my true friends but it seems the selfish confide in me / They talk but they aren..t listening kissing the ground and living in deception at the same time there..s nothing to put their vision in / They..re half empty ..cause they..ve chosen to pull the wool over their own eyes they are blind thinking the cup is full / But they don..t realize that each and every word it has potential thought become reality stanzas are instrumental / Those fleeting moments that I spoke of they are for the taking, thoughts that are often lost we call them inspiration / Those fragments of the globe we use them for illumination woven on the fabric of time this purpose just for the patent (Make it so)


Heaven Only Knows (reprise - Kamau verse)

This could be hour eleven still searching for heaven / Letting ourselves be subjected to the seven / Sins I reckon most of us are at their beckon / Call falling for their lies by the second / Lies and deception seems something is missing / Mentions any small truth to me and I will listen / Within myself is inherent intuition / Using my spirit to make any decision / Kissing the sky what happens when we die? / And when we begin to die why do we ask why? / And cry for our lives like I am any more special / Than anyone else like my body ain..t a vessel / It..s quite telling seems as if I fell in / A bottomless pit we..re going straight to hell in / A hand basket fighting and writing in prose / And asking foolish questions that heaven only knows


Rhythm

Welcome to my rhythm, pieces of my soul if I could give them / Out I would find you lives and see if I could live them / And free all the lost spirits trapped inside of prisons / Prisons in the system, slaves to television / Rhythm like the heart beating inside of your chest / Rhythm like the pulse that pumps blood through the rest / Of your body, your body breathes a rhythm when you rest / Rhythm like the wings of pigeons flying from the nest / Rhythm like strolling footsteps and Jembe drums / Rhythm like the people trying to fight their way out of the slums / Rapping on the doors of their landlords who are consorting with whores / Whose rhythm is a dollar nothing more /Another push, another thrust and another fight / And yet another sleepless night /Without the rhythm of R.E.M. harming them in dreams / And carving at your spirit at the seams / Rhythm like waves splashing against seashores / Before the end of time reveals to us we needed more / Out of the darkness to show us who the righteous were / And in the same rhythm the sun rises / The tide is a rhythm like my eyes blink a rhythm /Like the rhythm of a night-stick that strikes in racism /Rhythm like the rocking of a man that's going insane / When I was young I used to listen to the rhythm of the rain / Falling against the Pane, Pain throbs in the same / Rhythm as the thoughts that pass in and out of the brain / Like children learning make the rhythm of pages turning / Like the sparks that burn and pop as our forests keep burning / Rhythm like sound waves in eardrums and clocks ticking / Metronomes and train tracks and pendulums swinging / Rhythm like dancing adolescents sneaking into clubs / Who have yet to experience the rhythm of making love / Rhythm like my speech or nodding my head to broken beats / Refugees crossing boarders in the Rhythm of bear feet / Rhythm like stones hitting shields of riot police / Or the prayers offered in submission towards the east / Rhythm like elevator doors or Savion on wooden floors / Like bullets riddling flesh in too many pointless wars / They heard the rhythm of helicopters, the spinning of propellers / The rhythm of the rats scurrying through the cellars /That for the time was their home, the rhythm of this poem / The rhythm of a man running for his life all alone / Rhythm like the tears on his mothers cheeks as she cried / For her son shot to death in the street in the side / Of his head two times, thinking what was in his mind / When all his rhythm came to an end when he died.


Running

(verse one)

I am conflicted, traveling the path of the soul
I..m gifted, but unable to break the mold
I lifted, the veil and still could not see
Insisted my existence began with me
It seems I lost much lost touch of reality
It cost much, to my soul what a fallacy
This world is at times, I can..t escape
See myself with new eyes now I..m trying to take
The first steps on a path, that I know is paved
With much difficulty simply I must save
Myself from a world that is falling down
All around me, I hear the sound
Of laughter calling after me, falling too fast
My close friends are asking me, casting a glance
At each other as they speak with outstretched hands
Like I might be a victim of circumstance
(but I run)

(chorus)

Run, Run away from here
Run, Run away from here
Run, Run away from here
Run, Run away

(verse two)

Beautiful and deceptive this land
Made in righteousness by his hand
But we take it and twist and turn it
Unlearn, we would let it grow just to burn it
Down like the hopes and so many dreams
Of a new day coming we face troubling scenes
Of warfare it seems for their amusement
And with their lower selves they choose it
For the riches of the world, that pass like the tide
Coming in, in the process the spirit will die
And I cannot defend their simple games
At times, them and I are one and the same
So I smile in confusion, through the illusion
..Cause even when it seems they have won they are losing
Hold on for dear life fight with my enemy
..Cause even when it seems alright something..s telling me..
(Run!)

(chorus)

(verse three)

They watch me with eyes that don..t trust
Their weakness is their heedless lust
The pain it fills their void enough
To rip their souls from flesh to dust
I..ve, made amends but made friend in falsehood
Speaking like they can..t, but they all could
Go inside and spend time in silence
Find peace ..cause no peace is violence
Of the body of the mind of the spirit
But the fact is they choose not to hear it
And it seems that we all have choice
It is calling aloud but we hear not the voice
(we run)


My Oh My (Kamau Verse)

Though life is troubling we're huddling together just to weather storms it's better stumbling like we're a chain gang / This world's a building that's crumbling from the ceiling feeling trapped under its rubble but still struggling to maintain / And we are hurting earning nothing but still working for a penny and it's every man for himself in the day to day / Trapped in the urban scape we learn to rape and pillage in a village that was taken making wars fighting to make a way / Our spirit breaks away our flesh is just a shell and hell is close at times when we combine how they live and what we say / We're hated we..re jaded and tired inspired to make it the fire is as sacred as work on a sunday / Or idols in mosques desire and loss the higher the cost of the soul that we keep in how we pay / The more we struggle to convey our own decay the more we realize that life is blessed but surely isn't child's play.


After the show

They walk in my shadow, just a few steps behind / And I..ve walked with them in my shadow so many a time / I..ve grown accustom to their taunts and their silent tease / They see my skin as my guilt with a violent ease / Predators stalk the night always searching for prey / But I choose not to acknowledge if they have nothing to say / Just another lonely walk home after the shows / That I frequent and speak in sometimes in my clothes / There..s a stench of pain, pleasure and some nicotine / That often permeates the underground poetry scene / I never partake at all but second hand stains my lungs / And when I walk I cough and take shortcuts through the slums / So it..s obvious these officers presuming my guilt / Have descriptions of skin tone and the way that I..m built / That just happen to match every black man in sight / That gives them some excuse whether they..re wrong or write / No wonder when I was in school we called police beast / ..Cause in my humble city the predators have a feast / Every time that it..s night time and often the day, / When they see you as criminal in ignorant ways / So in no way at all did it decrease our blues / When we read of racial profiling in the news / ..Cause every time I walk in a store I..m followed by eyes / So nobody I know was even vaguely surprised / No black folks at least ..cause some folks didn..t know / Unless they walked with us in the streets after the show