speach tree

was so fun. i just got back after SM-H & i took some of the high school interns to the open mic there, hosted by Bomani (D'mite) Armah. It was fun although not as packed and not as high-energy as Mocha Hut on U St on thurs nights. i read "August" because i kind of forced the high school students to share their poems, and because i wanted a chance to get in front of a big group of people and shout out both Free Minds Collective and the anniversary of the Aug 9 atom bomb on japan. i also learned that the haitian revolution happened in august. and a bunch of other things happened in august that i can't remember. a lot of FMC staff showed up and showed love too, so that was nice. besides FMC people, though, it was a hard audience. Bomani shared this song at the end of the set, it's set to a beatbox/remix of beethoven's 5th and it's called "read a book": READ A BOOK READ A BOOK READ A MAAFUCKIN' BOOK (2X) R-E-A-D-A-B-O-O-K! (chorus 2X) YOUR BO

in response to "Lineage for Mika" look up i say: look in the dirt my eyes are as diamonds in a deep cave with no light and i am my best and only friend. will you be there for me? when i dis-integrate, will you be laughing at the law of entropy. can this room grow to fit many rooms? all rooms? because as deep as i dig no ancestral mouths emerge to fill my blood with music that only happens when i step onto the streets of Kochi in late summer, the through-ways of the old arcade shaking with the rattle of naruko (clapping like fleshless hands) and jumping with the stomp of sole-based beats. my mouth fills with the wind of this island moving me to the ocean where i turtle up and down the beach, dragging me and my long shadows along the shores because i yosakoi - only come around at night. I’ve never been to Hiroshima, but I am Nagasaki on a white hot august day. i am comfortable blinking stars away but it kills me to drag my body, growing heavier and more worried, back into the w