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Prabhu Iyer  Oct 2014
Olmec
Prabhu Iyer Oct 2014
Carved in stone, lost in time,
freezing my parted smile,

Peering down into the unknown,
I sit next to you, toting my arms:

Where is the world
that breathed you to life?

On this lonely peak, tires
upon tires of hopes and dreams
retreat into the the terraced
spirals of mists; Every mystical
dawn dissolves into the lakes.

Gnomes bear the burden of
mysterious gates to the beyond,
as whispers tiptoe to strains
of the Quijongo.

Here epochs and worlds end.
And counts begin all over again.
Creepy Halloween blues!
I grew up knowing we are a broken race,
A race that changes smiles to frowns on everyone's face,
A race of pity, a race of self destruction,
A race of slaves, a race of savages.
I grew up knowing that we are the poison to the sea,
Acid to the earth
And pollution to the air.
I grew up embarassed of my colour,
Embarassed of my Nation,
Embarassed of my Continent...

I guess I didn't know better
That one day I will discover of our Greatness.
I discovered that our forefathers walked all four corners of the Earth.

Let me rephrase that...

Our forefathers were acknowledged in all corners of the Earth.
I discovered we were once tutors of the world,
We were once Astronomers of the stars,
Travellers of Mother Earth,
Doctors to the sick
And Founders of great kingdoms like Cambodia, parts of Egypt, America etc...
We were founders of some of the world's oldest civilisations,
The olmec vivilization.

African child, how far have you fallen?

I get so much joy and pride when I look back,
Back beyond the slave's era,
Further before the missionaries,
The beauty I see.
I am overwhelmed by the greatness of our Africanism.

Where did it all go wrong?

We have such great history
But it all sounds like a myth or a mystery
Especially when I say that we once walked tall and high in the foreign lands of America,
Not as slaves but as residents and rulers.
Our history shouts of our greatness,
It tells us that the first man to be saluted as Emperor of China
Was the son of the soil, the son of Africa.
Our history tells a story of our existence in India,
Our great kingdoms in Cambodia and Scotland.
Our history even goes back further to the ancient times of the Bible.
It speaks of ******, a great man in the eyes of the Lord,
The father of Cush, the founder of Cushite, a black nation.

It saddens me to see us disrespect our elders like this
For they hold our rich history.
They hold the bridges we have forgotten,
They hold the secrets of our Nation.
They were there when mama Africa gave birth to us
And we will weep when mama Africa swallows them up.
We will not cry for they have gone
But we will cry for the knowledge we have buried.

If you don't believe me ask the sage Ntate Credo Mutwa.

Wake up Africa. Wake up and Rise...
Rise African Child!
Poetry In Motion
IG: rapnapoleon_za
#DearSelf
#Bang4Lifé
Coop Lee Oct 2014
meet me in the morning.
tell me this is real,
old friend.

ruins.
fallen old bricks just like people.
like the reincarnation of a dead boy
into a living boy.
zombie johnny.
bought and paid for,
brujería.

naked son &
jungle stone heads.
in the olmec valley
is the lizard and the spirit and the pupae.
particle cellular fabrication/ or retrogenesis from within
a million points of light.
skeleton witch.

& with eclipse
he is the night.
he is the city skull and steel.
an electro-flesh apparition, bloodletting the living for fun
&/or nostalgia.

some ghosts desire vengeance.
some ghosts luminate from the dark,
& emerge as a needle of near perfect retribution.

the riches and gems and towering
years later.
the families of men who buried johnny moon alive
in a box in mexico.
death to them.
like retro-teen laughs in the horror movie exploratorium.
rituals.
jiminy-littly  May 2020
Quits
jiminy-littly May 2020
"I bequeath unto me
an impartial you"

Happy, alone,
Depressed
Again

How
Many mind-numb-fullnesses
Do I have
Left?

Looking out the window
gazing vacantly
At
Vacant lots
Tripping over
white lies
To tell
Her
I am lost

While my stomach
Works on its bends

A final punture
Of its fabric
of hope, peace and kindness
Leaks out

We, once strong in tolerance

Were the ones
That
kept you afloat

We,
the one ounce olmec
Cabezas.

Has there ever been a time
I have been so wrong

When feeling something
for this long?

Quits.
Ed. 6/4/23
In too many temple courts where gods like Baal were fed,
Mothers in droves with their infants
and no tears shed.
Naked, they sang as flames took innocent skin from tiny bone,
For righteousness, as always, wears that priestly tone.

The same as now
the bass drums are loud so the cries get masked,
And their gold still flows
from our every task.
Our forefathers’ hands did not resist,
For “what is right” has always been taught better with a clenched, bloodied fist.

And they were sure . Oh yes, like Falwell they knew,
That Moloch’s hunger was just and true.
That fire, not kindness, was virtue's kiss.
Then as is now, righteous suffering and pain is the gate to that holy abyss.

Unchanged, they sleep well under grey smoking skies,
Hearts black as their oil—greasy, justified lies.
Olmec or OPEC, no one questions the wise.

Now, we
sons of shortcuts, copying homework, heirs to the cheat,
Born in the light of air-conditioned laziness and comforting fluorescent deceit,
We who mocked the irreplaceable, wizened, long, slow way,
Traded sweat for clickbait and threw all skill away.

Your hands are soft. Our thoughts are thin.
We wear our vices like tanning bed skin
Phone grafted to hand, the true ruler of this accursed land.
It, therefore we, cannot build,
or plant, or sew.
We buy, we scroll, we Photoshop our fake lives and popularity and call that “grow.”

And the roof caves in when the storm gods come,
And your click-fed gospel won't save your filling lungs.
The water's rising and the oil is going dry,
Prices are soaring in cobalt cars and you do not ask why.
And no one remembers how to honestly cry
Without a screen to shape their tears,
Or algorithms to name for us our trending fears...

The "truth" never mattered
never did ,
never does.
What lasts is a story
That outlives what was.

Reap now your harvest of shortcuts
Taste a crop sown in fraud.
What you know of reality
Could fit in a nod.

My father built engines.
You build excuses.
Our mothers sewed clothes.
You tally abuses.
Choking on pills
snow white recluses.

The new, myths wither like weeds on a stone.
Nothing flowers in famine.
while it kneels to the throne.
hum inside like directionless beggars,
pass easy from mouth to child,
Changing shape with every telling,
Going feral and wild.
Till nothing of its core remains
like you ,
living on the sidewalk
passed over like stains.

There has never been a righteous nation.
Only the myth of one.
No pure revolutions.
Only blood in the sun.
remember what you think you need
not what was really done.

In Babylon’s time, they slit their sons
So crops would rise and famine shun.
Their hearts were full of ignorance branded faith,
not shame.
They did what gods and kings proclaimed.
We are not so different now
except we have forgotten the shape of sickle and plow.
Right was never just or good,
It always what the winners say you should.

Our myths need to change
to something deeper and real
that speaks to what we are
and how we feel.
Not to champion a sword, but to free us of chains.
Not in imaginary souls
but in hard working brains
We must write new stories of the crafts we revere
With effort and honor
and things we see clear.

Don't believe in the lie on the wall painted bright
For the lie was law, and the law was might.
The lie is in calling it right or just.
Don't do what you do for their greed or manufactured lust
Do it for the future
not now
and do what we must.
In too many temple courts where gods like Baal were fed,
Mothers in droves with their infants
and no tears shed.
Naked, they sang as flames took innocent skin from tiny bone,
For righteousness, as always, wears that priestly tone.

The same as now
the bass drums are loud so the cries get masked,
And their gold still flows
from our every task.
Our forefathers’ hands did not resist,
For “what is right” has always been taught better with a clenched, bloodied fist.

And they were sure . Oh yes, like Falwell they knew,
That Moloch’s hunger was just and true.
That fire, not kindness, was virtue's kiss.
Then as is now, righteous suffering and pain is the gate to that holy abyss.

Unchanged, they sleep well under grey smoking skies,
Hearts black as their oil—greasy, justified lies.
Olmec or OPEC, no one questions the wise.

Now, we
sons of shortcuts, copying homework, heirs to the cheat,
Born in the light of air-conditioned laziness and comforting fluorescent deceit,
We who mocked the irreplaceable, wizened, long, slow way,
Traded sweat for clickbait and threw all skill away.

Your hands are soft. Our thoughts are thin.
We wear our vices like tanning bed skin
Phone grafted to hand, the true ruler of this accursed land.
It, therefore we, cannot build,
or plant, or sew.
We buy, we scroll, we Photoshop our fake lives and popularity and call that “grow.”

And the roof caves in when the storm gods come,
And your click-fed gospel won't save your filling lungs.
The water's rising and the oil is going dry,
Prices are soaring in cobalt cars and you do not ask why.
And no one remembers how to honestly cry
Without a screen to shape their tears,
Or algorithms to name for us our trending fears...

The "truth" never mattered
never did ,
never does.
What lasts is a story
That outlives what was.

Reap now your harvest of shortcuts
Taste a crop sown in fraud.
What you know of reality
Could fit in a nod.

My fathers built engines.
You build excuses.
Our mothers sewed clothes.
You tally abuses.
Choking on pills
snow white recluses.

The new, myths wither like weeds on a stone.
Nothing flowers in famine.
while it kneels to the throne.
hum inside like directionless beggars,
pass easy from mouth to child,
Changing shape with every telling,
Going feral and wild.
Till nothing of its core remains
like you ,
living on the sidewalk
passed over like stains.

There has never been a righteous nation.
Only the myth of one.
No pure revolutions.
Only blood in the sun.
remember what you think you need
not what was really done.

In Babylon’s time, they slit their sons
So crops would rise and famine shun.
Their hearts were full of ignorance branded faith,
not shame.
They did what gods and kings proclaimed.
We are not so different now
except we have forgotten the shape of sickle and plow.
Right was never just or good,
It always what the winners say you should.

Our myths need to change
to something deeper and real
that speaks to what we are
and how we feel.
Not to champion a sword, but to free us of chains.
Not in imaginary souls
but in hard working brains
We must write new stories of the crafts we revere
With effort and honor
and things we see clear.

Don't believe in the lie on the wall painted bright
For the lie was law, and the law was might.
The lie is in calling it right or just.
Don't do what you do for their greed or manufactured lust
Do it for the future
not now
and do what we must.

— The End —