Wrote this by my window
worries on a Wednesday
eyewitness of my world
young warrior, no sensei
still sending prayers cause sins play
a large part in my society
saints get weak sometimes
serpents in suits got the innocent doing time
paid bribes to say we did the crime
bottom boys, we were born guilty
other side, it ain’t hard to become who they say you are
tv screens and statistics defining out image
this is what we go through
I learned to grow to
the facts my folks used as fertilizer
autobiographies of my people
the whole lineage is straight
from Henry Dumas to Quincy Troupe
didn’t expect us yesterday
won’t expect us tomorrow
still coming hard
our excellence sneaks upon america
through rhyme couplets
and crescendos in four four time
a majority of our excellence
is caged inside america’s prisons
tucked away from our society
so you’ll never see their pain
or wonder why they were selling cocaine
in the first place
tucked away so you’ll never no their names
and how Quentin has two kids back home
a wife who works two jobs
and a mother with breast cancer
her son, caged
we treat humans like animals
with the nerve to celebrate freedom
and independence on the fourth
while having the largest
prison population in the world,
america is a lie
it has no morals
no conscience
shows no remorse
your modern day peculiar institution
your society is inhumane
complains about caged dogs
while caged men get gang raped
penises covered in blood
toothbrushes become defense mechanisms
addicts waking up in cold sweats
no help with kicking habits
brothers with mental disorders
never receiving proper medication
trapped in cages
and if america really cared
we’d put money towards prevention
by investing in our schools
our summer programs
and our communities
so we’d never be in a position
to become criminals
but citizens of this society
would rather protest cruelty to dogs
and discuss fashion over blogs
how much money Michael died with
as if any of the money would make it to heaven
america has a short attention span
forever sidetracked from what really matters
place the penitentiaries away from the people
so we can’t see the problem
but our prisons are a problem
america is a contradiction
your anthem
doesn’t match your actions.

-Christopher K.P. Brown

-Land Of The Free is featured in 25 To Life.

Excellence

Went from Reebox Classics
to Nike SB's
prayed for improvement of the pen
hoping God blessed these words
when I’m in 5ive stars
the sign says do not disturb
I used to build with my brothers
motivation was crushed herb
addicts chillin on the curb
tragic feeling in my nerves
passion spilling from my verbs
captured killers getting served jail time
25 to life, waiting on mail time
prison letters censored, say peace to George Jackson
went from snappin, marching, and clapping
to clappin’ on brothers and trappin
trapped in systems, no snitchin
but it depends on who you askin’
our language has been coded since back when
we’d hide messages in quilts
peep this patchwork
america was built
off the backs of black work
still we underestimate Black worth
we disrespect our own habitats
we wax and shine cadillacs
but throw trash on the ground
your cleanliness is a contradiction to where you lay your head
five year olds talking about getting head
cause they heard it in a song
peep how we pollute minds early on
my uncle used to offer me alcohol
spring training for addiction
played the sideline most seasons
but these are the gifts Black kids inherit
the illness, the sickness
juniors who never knew their seniors
tryna get paid in full like Ace
staring out the cleaners
presidents falling from the sky
they say benjamins make us fly
I say that’s where the evil’s rooted
testaments will testify
but serpents test if I was ever under the steeple
what you talking?
we were always a God fearing people
even before we called him God
always a righteous people
Jesus hanging from a tree
lynchings were crucifixions for niggas
we were always more like Christ
my paternal denied me three times
word to Peter
we were always more like Christ
my neighborhood was never Nazareth
never the less, we live the narrative
no earthly fathers
we carry crosses
we die before we get to read our own stories
reference Malcolm
reference Martin
see Medgar
see Lumumba
reference Jonathan Jackson
see the little brother dying for big brother
see love
see unity
see your history
see yourself
see your
excellence.

-Christopher K.P. Brown

-Excellence is featured in 25 To Life.

The Massacre

No apologies,
america
will forever
have blood on its hands
forever
have blood
on its hands
for every unmarked grave
our great great grandmothers
lay under
will forever
have blood on its hands
for every lynching
every noose thrown upon
our uncles necks
blood
for every African
who chose death
once stolen from home
will forever
have blood on its hands
forever
for every
nine months our mothers
carried their babies
only to leave us with the burden
mixed children
broken homes
drums destroyed
languages lost
religions and gods
choked to death
in the name of new world wealth
blood
forever
for every nigger they made breed
only to sell off the seeds
in the name of new world wealth
blood
forever
for every death yielding device
you sold to the motherland
blood
forever
for every inch of vomit
and feces
that touched our beautiful skin
on the bottom of your boats
forever
for every African
who called you a beast
in their native tongue

america
fuck you
and fuck your bullshit apology

my people will stay
as pure as we were
when you found us
and you will always be as corrupt
as your forefathers were

and we
along with the world
and God
will always see
the blood on your hands,

Like your deeds
your apologies are unacceptable.

-Christopher K.P. Brown

-The Massacre is featured in 25 To Life.

Say Hello

Say hello to my home, my hood

where helicopters hover over

the holy shout hallelujah

half pints question Jehovah

holding heat in one hand

holding pennies in the other

the pennies held holds

no heroes, they say we hopeless

our heroes turned hypocrite

like the haters of hip hop

who complain but

don’t buy quality albums

when they drop

would even hate on a poet

if that poet went pop

wouldn’t realize who’s shot

if this poet ever went pop,

Say hello to the bad guy

who really ain’t bad

but when the bad fake as good

then the good must fake as bad

just to separate themselves

from the ones who are bad in real life

I mean them poets

who never even respect the mic

til they step upon the stage

never studied e.e. cummings

so their poems suck on page

while k.p. speaks of longevity

when it comes to my destiny, it was written

this is more than me just spittin'

I’m recycling a talent that God has already given

did I mention my purpose,

Say hello to my home, my hood

where I scribble in scripts described by other scribes

Dr. Asante said we should never call them tribes

cause it’s demeaning to the place where we left our pride

inside the city my folks is still living true lives

working two jobs with one hustle on the side

copping the two piece with mashed potatoes on the side

pushing two strollers with one baby on her side

feeding three seeds with no husband by her side

still don’t think twice about letting brothers come inside

long as they come around on weekends and put gas in her ride

she doesn’t have a favorite poet

doesn’t come to open mics

but every few shows

I hear these poems that relate to her life

and “come on sister, where’s your self-respect?”

her self-respect is in our poems

it’s just that our poems are in the wrong place

our messages are dislocated

from the masses in our communities

disconnected

so say hello.

-Christopher K.P. Brown

-Say Hello is featured in New Day.

New Day Nefertiti/Worldwide Underground

New day Nefertiti

burning me a disc full of Badu

as we speak of stolen civilizations

but some won’t see the contradiction

some won’t see the beauty in us

some will exploit that beauty

music labels

team owners

some will say 2 Pens exploited poetry

but we just collected the debt

owed to Thelonious Monk

the money owed to Billie Holliday

reparations

and all the free labor

that my great greats gave

on plantations in South Carolina

Georgia, and Arkansas

remember that people owe us

we owe no one

the purpose is community

I still believe in robbing the rich

if they don’t give to the poor

I search for balance

walking this tight rope

arms stretched in front of crowds

what’s written down is transferred aloud

no negatives but you’ll still get the picture

images developed

imagery enveloped

with the spirit of Paul Laurence Dunbar

some of us still wear the masks

piece my world together on pages

like Jacob Lawrence

you speak of Black art

you speak of Baraka

you speak of Black hearts

passion filled blood still pumpin'

push up the fader

bust the meter

shake the tweeter

bump it for Eleanor Bumpers

rock history like it’s the newest trend

but for now we embark upon this New Day

the host just told me to “go in”

how far? all the way

hard like Cassius Clay

when you refused to call him Ali

get the name right

or it’s gone be a short fight

never had time to battle poets in slams

the dudes I respect don’t give a

about a perfect ten from somebody who can’t relate to our story

bottom boy vision

we hardly see fame and glory

struggle seems mandatory

I stayed up nights in the dormitory

praying to connect when I got back home

hoping education wouldn’t separate me from the life I’ve always known

seen so many sellouts

seen so many forget

always gotta remind my folks

that my intentions are legit

my intentions are concrete

my purpose is tangible

easy as one two three

(WE)alth starts with we

gotta invest back into our own communities

so I stashed twenty at the ATM

hit the music store, thumbing through the alphabets

Aaliyah, Aretha, Bilal, hold up, there it is

Badu, copped the album

hope Erykah gets her portion

popped it in the stereo, no distortion

track one pierces the ear drum

the back drop of conversation for me

and this new day Nefertiti

as we speak of ways to preserve this

beautiful Black culture.

-Christopher K.P. Brown

-New Day Nefertiti/Worldwide Underground appears in New Day.

Killa Season

4,000 soldiers on my mind
so 4,000 soldiers is how i start this rhyme
very sublime like lemon lime
how the value of life diminished
my people prematurely pass for peace
president say we ain't finished
too much pride to quit now
people who once took a stand
now choose to sit down
so i jump up off the porch
begging to carry the torch
two lighters in my palms
i hold fire in my pockets
dislocated from my folks
poems place me back in socket
so i guess i need these joints
lyrics serve as ligaments holding my world together
some cats be using big words just to prove how clever
but that's exactly how the umbilical gets severed
i mean, that's how artists get cut off from what originally gave them life
most be lying in the booth, i birth truth through mics
like i'm worried about the economy
and the sub-prime lending crisis
while we argue on the train
debating on who the nicest
slices of the american pie rarely served in my community
american dream rarely seen
no queens
just Billie Jeans
who birth unclaimed sons
who learn from tv screens
making Plies a role model
makes me wanna get a gun
so i can ride out for my folks
put a hole in his lungs
and shout power to the people
like Huey and his boys
and i'll call it self defense
my folks were being destroyed
and who cares
if i kill some rapper for his rhymes
when my country kills without reason
4,000 soldiers on my mind.

-Christopher K.P. Brown

*Killa Season is featured on The Straight, No Chaser Mixtape.

A Poem 4 Poets

Papermates poison the papyrus with no cure
matter of fact, peep the data
this is potent poetry, pure
told em, naw, this ain't no hustle
this is passion filled art
an abnormal love
ink's pumping through my heart
so when i get killed you might imagine oil spills
with ten niggas standing over
saying damn, that shit is real
mesmerized to learn
that i really bleed black
reveal my scars on stage
sometimes the crowd bleeds back
and that's a beautiful thing
i mean, artists need feedback
when i'm hungry for hip hop
i listen to three stacks
used to ride around rapping along to each track
rhymes are roadmaps for dope boys in these traps
cause real direction is what cats in the streets lack
when they call, i respond
and tell em to look beyond
if you wanna keep it real
start by raising your sons

I mean, no man should play God

but it's cool to raise your son
guess i'm just trippin
cause my father never raised his son
having a dad was my dream that dried up
like a raisin in the sun
childhood deferred
i was referred to spoken word
any poets feeling that?
let me hear you say word
"WORD"
word to the cats still addicted to the page
addicted to that white
cocaine flow
tryna get high tonight
might catch em in the corner
overdosing at open mics
getting high off haiku
strictly poetry, no prose
metaphor junkies
we put similes up the nose
sniffing line after line
producing internal rhyme
nostrils bleeding back ink
so once we fall ill

you might imagine, oil spills
with first timers standing there
like damn, that shit is real
mesmerized to learn
that we really bleed black
reveal our scars on stage
sometimes the crowd bleeds back.

-Christopher K.P. Brown

-A Poem 4 Poets is featured in New Day.

Whole Foods

Born and raised on single parent lands

bottom boys because we didn’t inherit grands

from our grands, understand

poverty stayed in constant rotation like second hands

what kept us cool

love circulated like kitchen fans

eating cornbread and cabbage

hash and black eyed peas

those days long gone

I’m thinking Ph.Ds

conversations with my grandmother

the other end of the phone

I’m tryna explain

why I stopped eating neckbones

stopped eating pork chops

don’t even want bacon in my greens

ain’t running from my culture

I’m running from heart disease

daddy died of diabetes

granddaddy did too

giving myself insulin shots

ain’t what I’m tryna do

plus I don’t like needles

hate taking pills

when waiters ask about desert

I say, naw, just bring the bill

can’t afford cheesecake

nor apple pie a la mode

mint chocolate chip

I’d like to eat the whole bowl

but I’m tryna preserve my health

tryna preserve my wealth

I’ll eat anything for free

but I won’t sponsor my death

I said, grandmother, I love you

I just hope you understand

I’m just tryna improve

tryna become a better man

tryna stay healthy

so I don’t have to pay for pills

wish I could invest all of that money

I’ve seen you spend on hospital bills

I know it’s southern hospitality

you show your love through soul food

I guess the times are changing though

I’ll take my kids to whole foods

and all that extra money

that wasn’t spent on doctors and meds

I’ll take it and buy stock

take it and buy land

so financially, family will be straight for generations

both money and love

will be in constant rotation

I said, grandmother that’s my plan

I just want your great grandkids

to inherit grands from their grands,

understand.

-Christopher K.P. Brown

-Whole Foods is featured in Harlem 65.

A Different World

My father still laughs when he sees footage of the Rodney King beating

we first watched it one Wednesday night during dinner

I’m not sure why, but I cried

he kept eating

my mother didn’t say a thing

my brother, Peter, he’d just turned sixteen

he smiled, saying “Why did they stop?”

“They should have killed him”

my father tells stories of when Black people knew “their place”

he says their men are all thugs

and their women, all whores

says he’d kill me if I ever brought one of those ignorant, dirty…

through his doors

“respect your people

your forefathers

great men died for this flag

these stars

these stripes

these colors

red, white, and blue

this represents the true south”

he says “don’t forget your heritage, Timmy

remember your history, Timmy

put it in your poems if you have to

this is your home

this land belongs to you

so don’t let any nigger take this away from you son

understand?”

too young to know otherwise

I’d never left Adel, Georgia

the place I call home

where the only Black person I’d ever seen was old man Thomas

he’s the janitor at my school

my school, composed only of white students

my school, where race was never an issue

except for last year when this one kid hung a confederate flag

on our school’s flag pole on Martin Luther King’s birthday

my father could probably never understand how I felt about that day

so I wrote poems about it, questioning what it means to be

white like me, not black like you

in America

even in 2009

lately, my mother keeps asking me why I never come home

lately, I find myself hating my father for the hatred he holds in his heart

for the hatred he taught my brother

for the hatred he tried to teach me

cause this past August I started school in Atlanta

where many of my friends now are black students

who make good grades just like me

they laugh and they cry just like me

and when their fathers don’t understand them

they write poems just like me

last Thursday, our poetry professor asked us to write a poem

describing our college experience so far

I titled my poem A Different World.

-Christopher K.P. Brown

-A Different World is featured in Harlem 65.

Transformers

Tomorrow rapidly transforming into today

Open ears are rare, I had a lot to say

The more you see black and white, the more I see gray

It ain’t all good, it’s barely okay

I’m not stable

But even the earth rotates

In constant revolution

You’ll see your beginning again

Then again and again

Until God says the end

Until then

My pages keep kissing my pens

Life as about as shifty as the wind

Look, you lost another friend

That’s how quick death is

Homo sapiens wasting their 365’s

By the 24-7’s

How can we say one is legal at 18

When kids die at age 11

Hard to say what’s the length of a lifetime

How long is left is hard to say

Tomorrow rapidly transforming into today.

-Christopher K.P. Brown

-Transformers is featured in New Day.

We Make No Apology

We make no apology for this skin

no regrets about who we are

or who you want to be

could imitate

but they’ll never be us

looked down upon

but we influence the whole globe

kids in Tokyo bump Lupe

South Africans worship tupac

Malcolm leads men to Mecca

London looking at the election just like cats in College Park

while me and Henry

still be in this closet racist society

tryna make the next buck

and be stand up dudes at the same time

I got a habit of hating poets

who try to hustle lame rhymes

disrespectful to the whole game

the type of cat that would ruin Haki Madubuti’s name

plus most don’t know who he is

write my poems like history books

our story was rarely told

rarely shown

barely known

tricks of the slave trade

Europeans lying to Congolese kings

just to get free labor

showing Christ to the savage but still raping the beast

even stole our diamonds and gold

only to sell it back to niggas

so we could rock it at shows

shirts off

sweating for descendants of Apache killers

the stage becomes an auction block

and everybody’s tryna make it rain

even Australians wanna be Lil Wayne

back in north philly I ask this kid

if he’s ever heard Hollywood Divorce

cause struggle never destroyed our excellence.

An ex-addict reads Langston at an open mic

see, it ain’t easy being ugly

and beautiful too.

-Christopher K.P. Brown

-We Make No Apology is featured in Harlem 65.

The Sweetest Taboo

Doing it, and doing it, and doing it well
doing it, and doing it, and doing it well

Even deeper
some things just ain’t worth dying for
no matter how good it feels
middle initials, keep pushing
he just tryna keep it real
most don’t understand like foreign accents
when I say I practice abstinence
and they ask Chris
well, you’ve never done anything?
sexual activity absent
often not even an obstacle
that’s hard to overcome
see the modern age has me afraid
of AIDS
not to mention it’s against my religion
Christian since my early days
born early eighties
in 09 cats be flippin scriptures
to make you think sin is okay, cool

Doing it, and doing it, and doing it well
doing it, and doing it, and doing it well

but sixty five percent of the kids at my school
had sexually transmitted diseases
sixteen year old sex fiends
can’t imagine what percent actually passed away
some stories I could tell you personally
so personally, imma just wait to lay
cause some things ain’t worth dying for
even deeper, see what I’m trying for
what I’m striving for
love,marriage,then the carriage
in that order cause some be skipping the love and marriage
love, marriage, then the carriage
two parents behind that carriage
so that carriage stays on course
see, my parents never married
so there was no divorce
just a 38 year old lady
her early eighties baby
and another hard head
who’s daddy we ain’t seen since ’76,
fast forward to ‘09
and it’s some whole other shit
women only measure love in inches
and who’s slangin good dick
even deeper, how can I call you a queen
if you call yourself a bitch

Doing it, and doing it, and doing it well
doing it, and doing it, and doing it well
doing it, and doing it, and doing it well,
but umm… she don’t really represent no queens

issues my mother’s generation can’t understand
why strong women won’t demand a strong man
I said when the values aren’t passed
it leaves us all weak
my homeboy helped abort another baby last week
something something something should’ve used a condom
something something something no time for a kid
fast paced nation, apathetic killers
protestors for pro-choice
dead babies can’t protest death
word to Al Gore, for some
pregnancy be the real inconvenient truth
fast paced nation, apathetic
ain’t America all about convenience
from ipods to blackberrys
to abortion clinics
if it complicates your life
might as well just kill it
I mean, your convenience
is worth that child dying for
finding it too inconvenient to use a lifestyle, Trojan
or maybe birth control
go ahead and kill it
before it develops a soul
not to mention religion
and wasn’t sex meant for reproduction
something something something what about rape?
something something something if we aborted every child
produced from rape there would be no such thing as an African American race
no black community
or the problems that lie within it
fatherless homes started on the plantation
even deeper, we continue to play a role in it’s survival
a cycle
we just carry it on
on and on
on the flip flip
I done jumped up out of beds
and headed home
carried on
steady strong
amongst temptations
to bury bones
and never needed no pat on the back
realized the facts
and what’s gone make me happy long term
tryna keep down the right path
never make the wrong turn
early lessons learned
not to mention religion
and I’m just tryna break the cycle
of disease
abortions
mothers on their knees
cause the daddy wasn’t home
I’ve seen the effects
she asked why I’ve never had sex
something something something I ain’t tryna be no baby’s daddy
something something something not tryna have no baby’s mama
something something forget poetry
my greatest goal is to be a good husband
be a good father
so my wife and I can build a strong family
something needed but rare in my hood,
even deeper, three things plague my community,
AIDS
abortion
absent fathers,
Abstinence is my way of breaking the cycle.

-Christopher K.P. Brown