lazy-z-boy

lay-z-boy

welcum 2 the comfort
zone a place where
things are good life is
easy care free comfortable
there are very few worries
in the comfort zone
u don't have 2 stretch
u don't have 2 reach
unless it's 4 a little more
of that leather easy chair
gimmie a vodka
a jagged fucking rock
i don't think i want
2 be comfortable
i don't wanna be
a fudge packer with
a wife and three kids
just gimme the dick
i don't wanna
tell some lily white ass he's the
shit 2 get a fucking job
or act like a tack head
wit my niggas on the "low"
just 2be down
i just wanna be me
and 2 do that
life ain't gonna be
c-o-m-f-o-r-t-a-b-l-e
so from now on i'm
gonna try 2 be as
uncomfortable as i can
do things make dissuasions
that are what i want
where i want and 2 not
necessarily do the right or
comfortable thing

part of my trip to dc

.... My plan at the moment after letting the Earlham DC grew that i was cumming to town and asking what they were all up 2. i got a hold Katherine Maria Sophia Lord a dear friend and we planned to watch the inaugural on tv either at her house or in a little cafe and then go to watch the parade.

Nine am the next morning Paul and his daughter drop me off at the metro station and the day began. as i waited the hour or so to broad the train, the love fest began. hundreds of people from around the country waiting in the morning cold 2 see and hear Barrack Obama be sworn in as our 44 president . there was singing and chanting and some frustration as 2 why the trains were not moving. seems as though people downtown had clogged the system delaying trains from getting out side of the city to the ends of the metro lines in the burbs. and being at the end of the line we were kind of shit outta luck. so there we were with the beginning of grumbling, but as long as i made it up 2 Katherine's in time to watch the speech and swearing in on tv i felt i was in good shape. till i get a call (one of the only calls i made or received that day)seems Katherine finagled a last minute ticket onto the mall. so dang no plans. i try to call shawn no answer and no response 2 my texts. i'm on my own.

as myself and the rest of the crowd around me gets into the metro station. we filled the train to the bursting point. there was a warmth and love from people giving up and sharing seats holding open doors helping to brace people so they wouldn't fall. it was the loaves and fishes happening before my very eyes. and i had to share that feeling with someone anyone so i sent a simple three word text to everyone in my phone "i love u". i should have thought twice or thought at all. i had neglected to tell most people that i was going to DC that day, and when most saw my text they thought something was wrong. when people started texting back "are u ok" "wat's wrong" and the like and they get no response back from me (cell service was crap that day) people thought the worst. almost everyone i know,best knew i was not in the best of mental states and those simple words could cause a bit of an uproar. i was too lost in the love fest i was surrounded by that i could not understand why anyone would thing something was wrong. there was so much joy and happiness in the the streets on the train on the mall that there was no way i could not share that with the people who mean the most to me. and i like Renee Zelwiger continued to fallow the people.

i got off the metro with a large crowd and just began 2 walk. listen as the cops and national guards' men directed us to open streets and intersections. the streets were filled and filling up. i pressed on and finally hit the mall, geese swimming in a pond beside the the world war II monument and if i would have had that time i would have stopped and wondered around. but they were introducing former presidents in cumming cabinet members and honored heads of state. 4 a brief moment i stopped and gathered a glance of our newly elected on a trio of jumbo-trons at the back slope of the washington monument. but there was more room up the hill and i wanted to be as close as i could be. so without knowing if there were anymore screens and not caring if there weren't. as long as i heard Barrack sworn in heard him speak and give us words to live by i would be ok fell this journey was worth while. as a portion of the crowd moved its way up the hill witch was already filled groups found little pockets and stopped. the few of us on our own climbed higher and higher winding in and out of families school and church groups and friends gather for the event. when i truly could move no closer an d the ceremony was about 2begin. i stopped a mere twenty or so feet from the foot of the washington monument. with the capital in full view and the white house off in the near distance. i watched as the sea of people filed in every inch of the national mall. on all four sides there were people as far as the eye could see. and i stood there alone taking in awe-inspiring magnitude of it all. here i am among's millions all gathered 4 the greatest feet of our lives that the son of an African exchanged student and a white girl from the mid-west has elected president and in a few short moments will be sworn in. a man who no more then fifty years ago would have been able 2 do little more then clean the building that he he now presides over. i stood there seeing the legacy of many many generations black white brown tan and red who have and continue 2 fight 4 social religious and economic equality. the many who have died not being able 2 see one of there dreams cum true. the two whom i thought of mostly my grandfather and my lover. both men looked 2 see a world where lives of all especially 4 the less fortunate were made better

my grandfather Eugene Caldwell grew of the one youngest of over ten children who mother died during child birth or soon there after and a father who abandoned them. he grew up hard but strong and by the time my brother and i came along he was shadow of his former self. broken by years of racism and just utter frustration he died homeless and an alcoholic. but as my mother and grandmother cleaned out the room they rented for him they found hundreds and hundreds of neatly clipped underlined and highlighted magazines and news paper articles as well as books on every African american man and woman with rising political socioeconomic power. Martin Malcolm Jesse Gates Walker Chisim Marshal. she ask what were 2 happen if he would have lived to see this day see what the dream was alive and becoming even more a reality. because i highly doubt my grandfather thought that in 25 years after he past his grandson would be living and in love with a skinny convert jew from upstate new york who was considered one of the best soul food chefs in dayton OH.

my partner Rob Fabia champion of the little guy. he wanted everyone 2 have a chance and was willing 2 do what ever he could 2 make sure of that. by opening restaurants not 4 his own fame and fortune but so people could have a job away 2 provide 4 themselves and families. he truly saw people as individuals each with desttions 2 make a path for themselves. and saw that if the country were 2 elect Obama it would not just be a monumental step 4 Americans of color but all Americans. rob saw this as a chance 4 people 2 finally cum together and let their inhabits and prepossess go. i consider him one of the last murders for the cause. he was kilt in a fire that was set just hours after the obama volunteers finished a night campaigning at the privet supper club we were running.

an here i stood at the foot of the washington monument with the sound of two million plus people jeering an out going regime and cheering 4 a president and government that as least as this junction seem 2 be looking 2 make this country not only great 4 a few but 4 all. standing alone overwhelmed with pride sadness joy pain fear delight excitement and anticipation 2 even begin 2 cry. i stood there alone knowing that crowd somewhere there were many of these whom i knew and loved. i stood there by myself sounded by those toking up, popping bottles of champagne flasks of brandy cans of MGD. husbands kissing wives, wives kissing wives , children kissed parents love was everywhere i looked around. and there i stood among it all alone euphoric in crowd of millions. anomous in a sea full of love piece and hair-grease. during the whole of the inaugural ceremony i felt at piece, something i hadn't felt in a long long time. and i was ever so glad 4 it 2 wash over me.

four hours of solitude and i was getting hungry

make sure ur child knows how to call home

there was the time my mother and Millie got into a fight. really there were many times where they got into or almost got into a fight. this time i remember is imprinted 2 memory. Millie and my mother grew up in the same town and have been very good friends since they were five years old. so in turn Millie's son and i grew pretty close ( didn't help that we are 3 days apart in birth). we went summer camps together had joint birthday parties. and the one thing we did the most Saturday morning art classes at the newark museum.

almost though high-school every Saturday morning we took classes in pottery, calligraphy, paper making, photography, eastern european egg decoration. afterward we'd all go out. shopping though downtown newark, elizabeth, the mall, or just head into NYC, spending the day running from here to there. in all of the running about we'd often stop at connivence store. this is what happened on one such stop.

so we're all in a connivence store, me niles mom millie and bryan. we found our goodies and millie is on line to pay 4 them. as she approaches the counter and is in the process of asking for her Benson and Hedges light one hundreds, a man reaches over her head and places his on the counter in front of her. this guy is like 7'8" huge arm the size of a boa and just reaches over her head and puts his stuff on the counter. millie (i should have mention that millie and my mom are 5'2" and 5'3")snaps around looks him dead in the eye " what the hell do u fucking think ur doing can't u see i'm next and my stuff is on the counter, i suggest u move ur crap and get back in line", putting the mans belongings back in into his hand. he responds by putting his things back down and looking down at Millie," u should be happy ur a lady because if u weren't....." i don't see no lady here so let's go".

while all this is going on Niles and i are sitting next 2 the door in the window sill oblivious 2 what is going on. until my mother, who as been paying the upmost attention, hands me my baby brother bryan and says. " Mark u do know ur phone number incase u have to call ur dad at home right." "yes mom 6231684", as she proceeds 2 join in the verbal ass whooping the giant man received.

uplifting

my mother sent me this story that she wrote about my grandfather. she wrote it a few months ago but felt it pointient to send it out to friends and family today as we cast our votes to help change our country and our world
mark

My father was an alcoholic. He lost everything but the love of his family. His last remaining sister refused to believe his illness was alcoholism – it’s dementia she would argue. Somehow I think she knew better but just found it too difficult to face the truth - her favorite brother had succumbed to our family disease, alcoholism. Of my father’s nine siblings, six suffered from extreme alcoholism.

My father lost his identity. He lost his love of self and resorted to living outdoors. This was his choice. He refused to live with any family member or me. My Mother and I rented a room for him stocked with non-perishable foods and set up barely used accounts for him in eating establishments. In severe weather he came indoors. When hungry, he would eat. When approached about living outdoors, he would reprimand me for being wasteful with money. When questioned about his thinness he would explain that for medicinal purposes he was on a liquid diet.

My mother left their 38-year marriage because she realized my father’s drinking was killing her. She told me when I was a wife and mother that she simply could not believe the proud and hard workingman she loved disappeared into some other world. She believed he would return. Her own health failing, she came to the conclusion that if she stayed around much longer she would not be alive to witness his return.

Both orphans of a sort, my parents married during the depression. Elementary school dropouts, they were proud, and smart people. They were knock out dressers and considered “the” progressive couple in their small African American community. My father worked for years as a master machinist. He led a Boy Scout troop for nearly fifteen years and mentored many a young man to adulthood. His sister, his defender, often bragged that my father was the first black man she had every known to have a checking account.

Although short, squat, and dark skinned with a wondering left eye, his impeccable wardrobe, near perfect diction and carriage compensated for physical flaws. Tall, erect, and beautiful, my mother was the antithesis of my father. He said he married my mother, four inches taller than he in flats that she never wore, because he did not want short children. The children came 15 years into the marriage. By then the descent had started.

My father was what they used to call a “race man”. A “race man” consistently strives to promote positive images of black people, carries himself with dignity and strives to bring positive change to the black community. It was the failure of one attempt after another to become the “quintessential race man” that led to his breakdown.

With only a third grade education, he would often tutor our next-door neighbor in high school chemistry and physics. A voracious reader, he could enter any conversation on just about any subject and have you convinced he was an expert on that topic. He successfully installed a central heating system in our home and hand crafted my bedroom set. Everyone thought he could do anything but, though a man of immense talent and ambition; he started one business after another, only to see each one of them fail.

His street life caused me much angst. After a sleepless and stormy night of thinking about him sleeping on hard wet ground I went looking for him. Once again I tried to convince him to make use of his room. With a five year old grasping my hand and a newborn strapped to my chest I begged him to go indoors. We argued and attracted the attention of the police. They came to rescue me only to be the brunt of several expletives by my father telling them to arrest me for harassing him. At the age of 70 he was still incorrigible.

One day I received a call from his landlord. He warned me that my father was in bad shape and I had better come to see about him. I found a very weak man, glad to see me and anxious to follow my every directive. His days of living outdoors were over. He died six months later from esophageal cancer.

When I went to empty his room, I found magazine articles and newspaper clippings on Jesse Jackson, Martin Luther King, Sharp James, Al Sharpton, and many other African American leaders of the second half of the 20th century neatly stacked. Passages were underlined. Notes were written in the margins. Notebooks of graph paper with calculations and mechanical drawings and a worn Spanish primer were there as well. These were not the possessions of a man suffering from dementia. What happens to a dream deferred?

He has been dead for nearly 25 years. On the occasion of his death, my aunt gave me a beautifully framed print of Henry Ossawa Tanner’s The Banjo Lesson. She wanted my family to be ever mindful of my father’s role as mentor and teacher of young men. My father would be so proud of his grandsons. They’ve confidently seized the opportunities for success denied him.

As I follow closely the ascent of Barak Obama I often think of my father. Even after Iowa, he would have argued vehemently about the impossibility of a black man become a presidential candidate. He would be so happy to be proven wrong.
linda epps

giant white light stick

giant white light stick

skinny what u doing
what time u cummen home
and what is 4 dinner
baby do u want 2 go out
see a movie a show or
just karoke and dinner
rob what time so u need me
in the morning
what all has 2 be done
how u feelen to day
and did u eat
milton needs some dry food
and can u walk him
i love u and ill see in a bit
i have 2 go 2 work
ill try it ifs alright
im not sure what else it needs
i don't care just make something
don't ever cook around me
ill find something 2 eat
i just need u
roll over babe hold me
ur my little boy
i love u
goodnight

thought i was ready

k i thought i was ready today to talk about someone whom i love with all my life but im not um it is kied of cribbling at the moment to go home to wake up to do anything that i have to do alone or with womekind of wating involved i know most think im putting up a good front and not letting anyghint hit me but belive me it is and im not sure what to do how to do it and where or when to begin

addict

addict

ok i'm kinda straight edge
i almost never drink
i smoke just a little
and almost never do illegal stuff
but i hang with a wild crowd
or at least im aquatinted with
some heavy users of all sorts
from the recreational 2 the
way 2 much
i wonder why i wonder
why they like mr. clean cut
and i like the addicted
we relate and understand
without being sappy or shit
here something that
i can't put my finger on

what up now

there are things in the works and it may work out 4 the best i hope. one being i may no longer have to work daily in the resturant business something that i would lope to happen seeing as int he last few years it has caused me great stress and uneasy. no tto mention unneeded and wanted stress with the old man that lseeps in my bed with me. and all i want is 4 life to go back to the way it was and and live like we once did. HAPPY and it wasnt the money but the lack of stress and the abundance of sex oops:} but i mean it just get to a point where we can just be again and not always be worried about how the next day will turn out. now all i'm thinking about is what pic i am going to put this and what poem i will follow this post up with ill make sure its sumething fun and mayne something i have to typ in.

the way

say say say
what u want
do do do
as u feel
make up ur
u mind and
stop wasting time
about the black or white
or annie cause she's
ok don't stop
till u've got
enough of what u
want need deserve
and don't make
an ass fuck of urself
cause i''m looken
though the window 2
see who u keep
ur corner of the sky
see if u bet on the
looken horse

rant

i need something to shake up my world.... well soemthing good im in a rut all the way around work sux sex well there is no sux life is just kinda boreing and dull and i need something to spice it up. soemthing to just get things back to life. so if anyone has an idiea let me know. i just hope my old man is really getbetter then i think we'll get outta here or at least i'll no longer have nurse duities and can get a real job and that i like and can make money at i miss thoose days lol