Vibes Of Inner City Echoes

Voice Quarterly Updated!

dizwater@gmail.com (Dizwater) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:27:00 +0000

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dizwater@gmail.com (Dizwater) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:44:00 +0000

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My New Novel

dizwater@gmail.com (Dizwater) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 03:13:00 +0000

My new novel Split Ends is within me complete with missions, high tensions, and soul searching. My characters have been in limbo and transformed several times into well kept "Frankensteins." Not that I have writer's block, but this particular piece of work has been through numerous pitfalls. The first pitfall is that I completed the final draft and saved it to one (eight track of drives) type A floppy disc. I had the first three chapters saved on a another floppy disc and the entire the freewriting rough draft written in a notebook. Sounds safe enough? Well I got cocky and started playwrighting more since my first pieces met nothing but grand reviews from my colleagues. Some how between the unorganization of my files, I lost the floppy drive with the completed rough draft. I looked all over in libraries, coffee shops, bookstores, bedrooms, back packs, briefcases...everywhere! My search was unfruitful. Reflecting back I see that I was a literary nomad venturing one too many places to write. I was devastated to say the least!
A month later I finally got the nerve to start piecing together what I had in memory and in my free writing. Then I noticed something... my characters were more interesting due to the adventures of happenstance and environment. I always thrived off of characterization. My anguish turned to sudden relief and there I was with a new lease on literary life. My characters need more independent depth and realism. However, something happened as I started to write... I was faced with a dilemma I had a whole new idea for the direction of the plot. It was so much better. Many writing instructors would warn from this "scattered brain" approach to writing. The alternative was to stick to my guns and just keep the stories focus so I can get the novel over with!
One year later, after mountains of notes and research I had finally decided to start with the new story plot. Why so? This plot has everything and more to offer; suspense, the warmth of close friendship, tragedy, mystery and adventure. Best of all, it has rich characters. I never thought that this novel would consume so much time and energy, but instead of having my readers share the casualties of misfortune. I'd rather them share the care and riches of redemptive work handled with care and patience. Now my writing is like water in a love affair with gravity. I'm realizing that it's time for it to come because it's ripeness and it's maturity is making me fall in Love with writing again.

http://www.voicequarterly.com/writers-conference.html

dizwater@gmail.com (Dizwater) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 04:55:00 +0000

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Excerpt from "BEHOLDEN" poetry by Water Blakmon

dizwater@gmail.com (Dizwater) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:06:00 +0000

感激--Casts of My Shadow

Did I ever mention this, mention this, mention this.
That I'm here, but I was gone a long time ago.
I'm that ghost you wake up to in the morning.
I'm that wind that makes you cringe

When you sniffle in the dawning.

I'm right here baby, but I'm gone

And I was gone a long time ago.

Let your ideas of me be confiscated by the laws of that

Alarm clock that looses it's power every night!
I'm that black ghost you kiss good night and
I'm that terror in your shadow!
Because I left a long time ago and you still find the time to

Appeal to the stillness of my hollow.
And you entertain the empty echoes of my "I Love you“

But it brews in the stew of your soul as sweet food,
But leaves you so hungry.

And baby its all for nothing

Because I am the ghost of a lover's past

Loved passed by once

And I never gave it another chance

感激—The Literary Heavy Bag

Extend the five fingers on my right hand

Contemplated the grace of peace

Forsook my fist and released my strife with an exhale

Literature beat downs over my brow

Felt like Rakim...nobody smiling

Smile at what?

What forewords that curve

Like right hooks on a notion

Left jab strokes of inhibitions

If I mentioned her name it'll stain my page

Raged that that counterfeit set my stage

I thought it was complex like chess moves

Restricted by moral logic

After that Toc Tic clocked my heart hit the bricks

Sticks and stones don't break bones like these

Saw you squeeze out that last bit of malice in intrigue

To author my anger and watch me

Re-percuss with a disgusting discussion

Over your harvest that begs me to reap it

Did I mention that I'm no longer hungry

For what we planted together

Weathered a storm with nothing to eat

Feet sore had my pains poured on in secret

Freak in you...lol...not enough

Got me twisted like a twissler

'Cause I still remain sweet

Done learned what it takes for those words

To Lurk around in a premature puzzle

And not bless it with a familiar figure

I don't stress it...I just let you forget I got the cure...

Part @ 2

Woke up with clinched fist

Tisk tisk tisk...risk talking to walls last night

(Read the rest in the book Beholden)

An excerpt from the book The Nappiness In My Soul ...

dizwater@gmail.com (Dizwater) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:46:00 +0000

Acirema! A cry for Unity!

America’s million-man march was not televised…
Not televised like My Lord Jesus when he was crucified
Nobody is stopping the presses today whomever they slay
Just keep praying for life to appear before you like a late episode of Happy Days
Gone astray from Massa’s whip equipped our minds with proper propaganda
We each one teach one
Entertainment gigs bloomed, assumed we finally got a piece of the pie
Relied on a math crafted for fun
Laugh everyone the camera is candid
Demand minorities produce… they call a truce
We spend they rent, don’t’ relent your idea
Don’t have backbone like Madea
Flee the whip, bust down that glass wall
Bust in that glass door fly through that glass ceiling
Quit acting as if you are too cute to be cut
Quit sitting silly with a sprinkle of your Massa’s bling
Too much pride and too fat a check
To let your people know we are not as free as you think
The lie has gotten so old it stinks
That the waters your great grandfather’s drank taste sweeter,
Than the bottled swallow laid comfortably by heated tweeters Beat me down like 60’s Bronx…

Flaunt my ice pop my Cristal
Massa’s cold steel fits all of my brother’s wrists
Still we fight ‘cause after all we are rich
Like that hooker working and jerking from 2 to 10
Stretching up a morning yawning
Snoozed and snoring through noon
Assume the mornings pouring but oh my darling
Clementine sold that dandy for that candied nose
She wrote her own prose taming her song with rhyming O’s
Like dominos she falls for Uncle Sam’s peep show
Here’s the Negro w/ more cash than poor white trash
He can eat, he can sleep, and he can work
He can eat, he can sleep, and he can work
He can eat, he can sleep, and he can work
Some Negro took time off for the struggle
Rapper’s got jerked for work
Got work in Hollywood
Who sent them goods? Who signed that check?
Who called you hood?
Who winked that eye on American?
And said I wish you would…
Freedom is what your mind deems
Cream controlled…Cash Ruling Everything Around Me How did making money become so funny? Hilarious

Greedy grins come equipped with grills and shiny trends
Bends the light we work strife and kill our own
And completely stopped visiting granny’s tombstone
Left your own stepping stone…forget being taught Love.
Forget so often you couldn’t remember her face
From the aunty that died on last September
Remembered my brother’s face and the bad taste in my mouth
We saw something
Granny got old running for something
Even with Altzimer’s she reminded us we are Loved
Some argue that we’re other
And couldn’t have been had by a mother
But rather in a mind frame of color
On a canvas of an order and segregation enforcers
Did that great Love of a GRAND-mother reach her grandson’s daughter?
Let’s ask her?
Katrina, little black girl where did you sleep last night?
Where did you eat last night…what is your big gripe?
Catch your answers in top flight security…
Protecting whose interest?
Whose race comes first?
Whose demographic dispersing poisonous airways?
Whose…dropping down diseases bringing people to their knees?
Katrina became that sleaze with a bad rep
Reputations across the nation
New Orleans had their Negro placements

But they never took J. Edgar Hoover off the throne
Never got Hitler off the phone
Shot Martin Luther King Jr. off the throne
People saw his dream among the stones
Gandhi’s body was battered a bag of bones
For the place he would claim to be for his own kid’s home
Now compare a Pick to a fine tooth comb
And ask Katrina if she think they will take her home
Can’t make us a home
Can’t break our bones w/ labor
A dollar will do you till the scales tip
We snort, we rip, we cool we grip Caddy’s
Got daddy’s money…now being poor is funny!
Everywhere you go you’re slaves… Clock, don’t watch me watch TV and they tell you to…Clock!
Watching us flee the scene who’s calling the cops?
Who’s roaming the blocks watching who’s not punching a clock?
Abraham Lincoln’s civil war, who’s calling the shots?
Who’s punching the clock…whose clocking the rocks?
Who fell asleep on a high thread count sheet and twill socks?
Who fell asleep in concrete cages and animal slops?

Nah, America’s million man march was not televised!
Until we conform to the storm and be born free
A new culture is born and we count our ki’s
We bank our green we please our boss
Though the cost of your soul may trace your breed
How fast we flee, they saw that need?
Bounced you a ball and had the balls till say chuck-em’.
Our women would gold dig to the pigs come bust-em’.
A few decades ago they’d hand the women too.
Hang your sons and hire someone else who’d sweat their due.
Who wrote these diabolic rules to hate?
Make no mistake…A Loving God caused a vicious plot to dissipate.
America owes black people more respect than minimum wage and a hot plate.

An excerpt from the book The Nappiness In My Soul ...

dizwater@gmail.com (Dizwater) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:41:00 +0000

All Odds & Fat Frauds

Behind enemy lines, trials of terror/
With every essence of an error, clues raid the sector/
Afraid of the alleyways of the city streets of grief/
Offering heaps of ruckus, stuck in cells and digitized so we never sleep/
We reap madness kindled passions are forsaken/
Aches from our fruits crying lakes for paths never taken/
Raped by society and shamed by our visages/
The flames of our radiance are spotted by colossal grimaces/
Forsook and pressure-cooked by our own compassions/
We were hooked in and sunk, drunk with dregs and ever dancing.

An excerpt from the book The Nappiness In My Soul by Water Blakmon

dizwater@gmail.com (Dizwater) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:24:00 +0000

Acirfa
Where the love began
Eve and endings
Adam's seedlings
Archetypes of divinity

Voices in solitude
Galloping grounds
Swinging limbs
Dancing depths

Syria's swimming tides
Nimrods rumbling rocks
Cush's kindred caves
Egypt's golden roots

Blinding blades
Embarking escalades
Trembling tirades
Scattered blood

Battered love
Fickle fruit
Trivial pursuits
Centuries turned till tired

Wearied wicker sticks
Prickly perils by priestly pearls
Plucked up precious stones
Blood baptized in Kingly crimsons

Acirfa's menstrual
Almost out of life
Her child's proximate sacrifice
Death doing part
© 2008 Water Blakmon

The Big Gun! The real weapon of mass destruction...

dizwater@gmail.com (Dizwater) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 01:05:00 +0000

The Big Gun! The real weapon of mass destruction... Man, oh man, what is it with men that makes him size up his weapon and want to conquer the world and be the last man standing? Motion picture promotions and marketing, the ethics of television reporting and the pollution of political agendas have warped the realities of future generations. America's children are stripped of core values due to mass disagreement among nations, among societies and communities.

Westerns, war movies, gangster movies, television shows and everything that is "main stream" has customized the principle of the good and bad. The protagonist always emerges the hero that takes the lives of the antagonist to save the "innocent few." These decades of picture painting and portrayals of a good versus evil have been the bases of every artistic expression for the past two centuries. It's made good men proud to fight for their country and community while bad men accept their fate and die with 15 minutes of fame on television networks. The irony is that as the program reports, the movie portrays. The mentality is mocked to favor the man with the biggest gun and not necessarily the one of higher moral character.

A great metaphor of this premise is drawn the film Batman Forever, starring Christian Bale and the late academy award winner for best supporting actor Heath Ledger. Ledger in his portrayal of Joker staged a set up to teach his highly favored protagonist "The Batman" (Christian Bale) that the corruption of society is purely circumstantial and all the enforce the laws of the land are hypocritically driven to gain power and not to save people's lives. I'll use the same premise to prove my point! The Bush Administration headed by President George W. Bush and Dick Cheney used this good and against evil ploy to fight "the terrorist." The people backed them up and supported their endeavors until they were exposed as liars. The lies turned the people mind and the same people who were praised as heroes were condemned for being war criminals. The administration proclaimed that we are fighting a "never-ending war against terrorism."

What does a never-ending war on terrorism really mean? Let's break this down!

Never-ending: This can mean nothing less than whatever is envisioned has no conception of ending not for me and not for anybody who comes after me.

War: (by popular definition) a conflict carried on by force of arms, as between nations or between parties within a nation; warfare, as by land, sea, or air.

(Against) Terrorism: a state of fear-- The use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.

The question is who administered fear in first it's own people and now in every other country? Who administered fear in Iraq and are now using these refined tactics of manipulating the media, terrorizing suspects (Guantanamo Bay) and the promotion of violence in Hollywood and film making? These are tough questions, and seemingly unpatriotic ones. However, I'm not the minister of fear, but of reality and truth. I ask these tough questions because I've concluded that to have a never-ending war on terror would mean to commit a catastrophic form of genocide. I'm not against the annihilation of someone who's predominate belief is to doom the "infidel" to a certain death, which is the same like fate. I am a firm believer is self defense and protecting your homeland, but to use the same tactics on your people as you do the enemy is the greater "evil." I think that what I've learned Al-Queda poses a serious threat because they suppose a threat to me based on my allegiance and belief in Jesus Christ. I have the American and human right to believe in what I want to believe in as long as I don't force my belief on you to your detriment and vice versa.

The American people think that the man with the bigger gun will prevail. We have the biggest gun! Some say the biggest gun is the atomic bomb. I say that the biggest gun is our secrets! Who can keep secrets without good principles, integrity and core values? Who can have such values while subjecting their children (their people) to lies and manipulation? By any means, peace should be the initiative, and if all means have been exhausted and war is still knocking on America's door, then not only should America show that it has the bigger gun, but the bigger gun must be used! If that gun must be used, then let it be used in truth with all eyes open and all hearts knowing that there wasn't any other choice. The lies must stop!