The Positive Prime, a book of Poetry Read online

  THE POSITIVE PRIME

  (A Book in Poetry)

  Jeffrey Perry

  Copyright 2009 Jeffrey Perry

  This effort in poetry is dedicated to my grandfathers,

  Calvin "Mack" Edwards, and G.A. Perry (a poet himself);

  They are My Gemini spirits."

  Acknowledgements:

  Thanks to Ann Lennon for her supporting work in this project.

  Thanks to Marty Cohen for the photos that he took of me

  Thanks to Dexter Perry for the pictures in the Photo Gallery

  Thanks to Dr. Thomas Edwards and Carolyn Green for their sound advice (and as my uncle and my aunt.)

  And thanks to all my family, my friends, co-workers and all those who have given their opened-ended support!

  And a special thanks to Esther B. Perry, my mother, and my brothers; Dexter, Zeggory and Stuart there is no more I can say&, just read it.

  (William Oba Perry, my father. Rest in Peace)

  And by the grace of God!

  THE POSITIVE PRIME

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1- I LOVE AMERICA

  1. Still Here - Millions Strong

  2. The Positive Prime

  3. One Cell at a Time (Sounds like prison)

  4. Soul

  5. Pineapple Upside-Down Cake (The poem)

  6. Blood is Thicker than Time

  7. I Love America

  8. Gladio (Part 1 & 2)

  9. The Impossible

  10. Honestly

  11. Ode to Will

  12. Junkies

  13. The Big "O"

  14. Martin

  15. Rap Music

  16. I Don't Know No Black People!

  17. to Black Women

  18. Street Change

  19. Blacausion

  CHAPTER 2 - THE ROOM WITHOUT A WALL

  1. My Gift

  2. Room without a Wall

  3. Lust

  4. My Misfortune

  5. Land

  6. Intelligence

  7. Anger

  8. Beyond Good and Evil (Part 2) -Balance

  9. Respect

  10. Rain

  11. I Give to Me Love

  12. The Gift

  13. Special Love

  14. Hopes

  15. Beyond Good and Evil (Part 1)  Faith

  16. Good to Be Near

  CHAPTER 3 - UNDERSTANDING THE UNIVERSE

  1. The Ghost with the Most

  2. Money

  3. Got It Wrong!

  4. Gemini Spirit

  5. Emptiness

  6. Humanity

  7. Faith and Truth

  8. The Promise

  9. The Truth

  10. The Calling

  11. Self - ID

  12. Understanding the Universe

  13. Endless Love

  14. Talent

  15. You Are What You Eat

  16. The Cream In - Between

  17. Devil and Angel

  18. What You Going To Do?

  CHAPTER 4 - WORD ON THE STREET

  1. I Know What They Pull!

  2. New York City Winter

  3. Poets and Prophets

  4. Some Are Too Fat...

  5. to Bill Gates

  6. Our Mind's Hearts

  7. It's Been a While!

  8. My thoughts on 9/11

  9. Words

  Chapter 1-

  I LOVE AMERICA.

  STILL HERE  MILLIONS STRONG

  It seems like forever and a day

  That we have been on American soil

  From Captive people men and women from African soil

  Transported to this land from far away

  Inhumane conditions to have to produce free toil

  And how the blood does boil!

  Weve come through it all with just our song

  From the beginning still here Millions Strong

  History does not want to even record our plight

  We remain a legendary soul in humanitys sight

  From behind the mask (of darkness)

  We waged the fight

  Call it faith or truth

  We have the might

  To endure times challenge

  Because we know what is right

  Although in the eyes of Dr. King

  (He) was not thinking of blink-blink

  And Dr. Dubois in his mind could not have

  Imagined being a professional athlete making millions

  It is not written in a fairy tale

  That we would be killed and sent to jail

  Or eat at McDonald until our ankles swell

  From rages to riches we are here to tell

  It has not been the best of times

  Crying for civil rights all the damn time

  To cry for freedom in the land of the free

  You know it would seem to me

  That in America theres nothing free

  Were saying that we are just like everybody else

  We like no one but ourselves

  And why by the grace of GOD should I really care

  How somebody else wear their hair

  It is just there on their head

  In blonde, black, brown and red

  But I am so proud of the people with skin like mine

  Especially the ones with flat noses, big lips and big behinds

  Because these are my people you see

  Doing exactly the same as me

  I think we all live as one on a spiritual plane&

  But mostly because we shared a slaves name

  But now the day has come

  To let you know where were coming from

  We come a long way baby

  From a slave to a designated minority

  (When will it ever end?)_

  THE POSITIVE PRIME

  When looking at the primal man

  The first roots of Africa

  Then correlate that to the world of Eden

  They are beginnings in simplicity

  Of a primal innocence

  Also one of goodness

  Beyond our understanding

  Who is the Father of invention?

  And is necessity his mother?

  When we say yes to one thing

  Then there is a start.

  What we will agree on is a fact

  Like the Sun came up today

  There that is a primal science

  Our religion says

  That the sun was always that way

  Our science is like

  When Hansel and Gretel left breadcrumbs behind

  To remember their path

  Because they could not remember

  The Woods on their own

  Returning to our humble beginnings

  In our times intelligence

  (Time is a man-made thing)

  We have reached the moon, the Sun and the mountaintop.

  We complete a day!

  If we fish a nearby lake

  Where we fished yesterday

  Will the world not be better for that?

  (A bird in the hand is better than two or three in a bush or the bushes?)

  Is it fear that scares us to death

  Or the actual war that is waged

  If we knew them

  Would we have killed first?

  Can you know intelligence?

  Before it happens?

  If my black skin is less than

  Then am I the only one who knows

  How to count?

  Then is one the only number?

  When the idea of equality

  Becomes popular again, yet I

  Still do not count as one.
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  I am the mathematical genius

  Who believes that one plus one has always just been two,

  Not one and a half,

  -Nor one and four-fifths.-

  When a tree falls in the forest

  And no one is there

  Does it still make a sound?

  Does my history still exist?

  Even if I do not write it down?

  Ye of little faith!

  Yes! To both, if

  You believe in sound or history!

  If I am first, last or never-

  I still exist-

  Just look at the black skin!

  (The Positive Prime)

  ONE CELL AT A TIME

  (Sounds like prison)

  I could explode sometimes,

  When I just see

  Or look and see,

  Where people are,

  What people be doing

  And saying and acting.

  Looking at the big picture,

  As a black male,

  I'd be in jail

  Or I will have to see,

  -The View (Like it is!)

  One cell at a time

  Brother, I will not judge you

  Least I judge myself.

  I can't be my judge-

  Ironic that I can't

  Judge you, - be my own judge.

  So I must be looking at you,

  One cell at a time

  Then there is whitey

  Lord knows all-

  I just exploded!

  Into a million-billion cells

  And then I also knew

  That it was by design,

  My brother is in one cell

  Doing time

  But even the White race-

  I can't be the judge!

  "I am not white."

  As much as I hated myself

  Still I can't but turn the other

  Cheek,

  Not to be meek

  "I am Black!"

  Maybe I am more humane

  I become color blind

  So, you too!-

  I see one cell at a time.

  To my sisters-

  I did not ask you for anything,

  It is there all the time.

  If whitey is the punk,

  Then who am I?

  And vice versa,

  Who is he? (And what is he to you?)

  I don't- didn't want to go there-

  Jail, hell or otherwise!

  We must learn to see each

  Other one cell,

  One body,

  One mind,

  Taking one breath

  At a time

  To tell the truth

  (One cell at a time) (Sounds like prison)

  Personally,

  I just don't want

  All you idiots

  To get in my way-

  From me, enjoying my life

  Here.

  One damn cell at a time!

  SOUL

  The sound of soul

  The music in me

  It is because I am black people.

  There is a spirit about it,

  That moves my feet

  That makes the beat.

  From Africa it came

  I am today one and the same.

  If the whites know so much!

  Then I felt so much!

  Its my soul, my movement

  My way! (Lets not lie.)

  If soul is hate

  I have it.

  If white is right

  Then might is right

  If Darwin is cool

  Then I am the fool

  Yes! I am.

  It is not a dance I dance

  And it is not mine

  It is Darwins

  (My beat still is an Africa beat.)

  My soul is owned

  To things indigenous

  To this world and all

  It is not mine but a truth

  To all things

  Like real numbers in math.

  Like hurt feelings-

  Life is real with or without

  Value

  We each count!

  This is the song of my soul

  The knowledge of my heart,

  I mean my intelligence!

  My soul music is air

  Like the breath of life that

  One day we all will live.

  PINEAPPLE UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE

  (THE POEM)

  You must come visit me someday,

  As you gaze to Mars and beyond.

  Is it I did not care if you were out there?

  And did I know that you would come?

  Am I the alien being?

  You look away from

  Or is it that I do not care

  That you are alien to me?

  Does it mean much?

  Does it mean that much?

  That you would pay Heaven and Earth?

  Not to see me

  And see Aliens?

  I think I was better off

  Seeing dead people

  And evil spirits,

  Maybe I did see you coming!!

  BLOOD IS THICKER THAN TIME

  Will I still call you brother? (or sister)

  In another four hundred years?

  Will we be as a people, my peeps?

  Or will you be just a friend?

  But I will always love you

  Forever, simply because of

  That day when we were sold away

  Into slavery so long ago,

  But I still remember:

  That your mother was my mother

  Although we were pulled apart

  You will always be my brother

  Or sister, or father or aunt, or cousin

  Or uncle, or whatever,

  Even mother!

  But my brother

  I will only know your name

  To be slave!

  I LOVE AMERICA

  I love America,

  It is the country

  Where my mother and father were born

  I love your blue sky.

  I love your sport;

  I root for the home team.

  It is the land under my feet,

  It is the government inspected meat,

  It is the opportunity to have (opportunity),

  It is the community in my community!

  It is my village!

  I love America

  Because it will carry me on its back

  And because I can pay you back!

  You own me and I own you.

  In the end,

  We will know this is true.

  I will one day respect you too!

  And you will one day respect me!

  And you will have to love me true!

  I love America!

  GLADIO

  (Part One)

  I never understood why-

  He never seemed to care

  About what his life had become,

  That he was just a simple man.

  He never seemed to try

  Just had a little joke for everything,

  Like most us black folk!

  Can you define, describe, or

  Understand why?

  It is so that we are Children of God?

  Gladio could be everybody

  And no one at the same time

  He taught me to not to care

  Just dare them to be beautiful,

  To be smart

  To fall off that wagon, (of the world)

  Just because

  Damn! God said he could

  (Or nobody else could say any different!)

  So Gladio could tumble

  Down the long road

  To nowhere,

  Being no body

  (Hey God still loves you!)

  So be it the poet

  Famous or not,

  A poet he is.

  GLADIO

  (Part Two)

  He was my grandfathe
r.

  He is my lesson learned

  My tumbles and falls-

  My emotions

  (That is all it is!)

  Poetry is just the true

  Emotion

  Purer than pure,

  Unreachable because

  It is here, there, even everywhere!

  But I need not pay a price

  I need not cry or hunger

  For his name sake

  We are not stupid.

  No my lesson is everything

  You do I can do better

  Your servant is your master!

  Listen!

  Was not the Kings court jester- the fool?

  Entertainment for the day!

  Today arent entertainers richer

  Than, the leaders?

  So who are the fools now?

  I do not need the story

  To write a poem

  Because you do not listen anyway

  -Waste not the pen that is mightier than the sword!-

  (SWORD is fighting words)

  Even the poem that I never

  Wrote is saying more

  Since you can not see it!

  Understood!

  THE IMPOSSIBLE

  We no longer debate,

  We talk.

  We do not plan anymore

  We carry it out.

  We do not move by faith

  We have direction.

  A man is not the lead

  A people have the spirit

  The dream is not deferred,

  But it was impossible.

  We first had to dream.

  It will only be half the people

  That starts a war

  And the other half joins in.

  Half the fight

  Is to be at war -

  Half a right,

  Does make it wrong!

  HONESTLY

  And remember that honesty

  Has no end.

  Do not speak with a forked-tongue

  Because he can never say a word

  That is true.

  Honesty has always been

  Our ability not to lie

  To ourselves

  And make a liar out of

  Others,

  It is not wrong to tell a lie

  But it is wrong to be a liar.

  Honesty has many dimensions

  Points of view!

  If we can tell a lie

  We can also UN-tell it,

  Right a wrong.

  But a liar never gets to tell the truth

  And becomes dishonest

  There is no honor among thieves,

  Except the bond of friendship

  (That we steal together)

  Is a team effort!

  So! Be careful who you do lie with.

  ODE TO WILL