Poetry

we wuz celebratin
40 years of Hip Hop
at 5 Pointz


dashing tags
reclaiming the
lost land


speaking for a
community of peeps
routed from their
last stand


making statements
about remembering


tellin stories
about ourselves


giving the drab
dead industrial
sarcophagi a
a face lift


freeing the
entombed
mummies
to let em
walk with
the living
again


seein things
in a new light


reciting our
biographies


writing an epic
autobiography


splashed across
3D murals


spoken in the
lexicon of
gobsmack
multicolored
neon graffiti


testifying to
the ages with
our urban
hieroglyphs


the symbols of
life in the hood
may history be our
witness to aromas
rising from cracked
pavements teaming
with bodegas,
public projects and
store front fantasies
played out in all its
grueling detail
on the corner of
walk don’t walk


them snaps
real down home
expressions
of real people


until some
capitalist
douchebag


his pockets filled
with low interest
money


whitewashed
it away


he thinks he
owns the
5 Pointz


he thinks
he can
erase our
memories
with a gallon of
Sherwin Williams


he thinks
he owns our
perdido
graffito


and is well
in his rights
to launder our  
epiphanies over
with the bland
tag of privilege
he thinks his
dollar bills
can buy


we raised this
place from
the dead


that old warehouse
where men and women
once earned a paycheck
was murdered by
Michael Milken
and his posse of well
heeled predators
busy leveraging
livelihoods by
offshoring them
to Third World
plantations
transforming
the natives into
wage slaves
tagging this
strange alchemy
progress


now this
latest incarnation of
Morley’s Ghost stalking
Bloomberg’s Metropolis
haunts the neighborhoods
with a wrecking ball
of entitlement


razing our hood
to build soulless
high rises where
they'll warehouse
dead people
ginned up
on pilates,
chai tea and
elevating
themselves
through life
scoring the
latest fab
yoga gear
on the
urban outfitters
website


the frackers
are gobbling
the land


strip miners are
gnashing away
at the mountains


now the predators
are eating our art


always famished
never satiated
the beast gnaws
away at its
kill scattering
the bones of
of the living


but this
half assed
midnight
whitewash
will never stand


already images
of the holy ghosts
scrawled onto
the Wailing Walls
of 5 Pointz are
bleeding through
the veneer of a
landlords greed


and as the
future tenants
of the proposed
highrise columbarium
snooze away the night
dreaming of leading roles
in star studded schemes


we’ll be taggin
the streets
reciting our
righteous presence
until our last dying
aerosol breath
escapes our
paint stained
hands


Public Enemy:
Fight the Power


Oakland
11/20/13
jbm

http://nypost.com/2013/11/20/5-pointz-fans-try-to-retag-legendary-graffiti-building/