absent without leave* A U.S. military term used to describe my Dad's termination with the Marine Core in 1972 after he had served 4 years of active duty in Okinawa, Japan. He returned to Philadelphia for his Mother's funeral rites. She was not yet old but had passed away suddenly. There was trouble in the family. His Father had been sexually assaulting two of the younger daughters. The heartbreak of it all may have killed her. Pop was devastated to discover that the war was right at home. The place he ran away from to become a Marine. Now back at ground zero, the trenches deeper than he could remember. The strange land was him.
I am living out my father's dreams & have lived some of his nightmares. Being his child, they became my own. Especially because we lived through crack together. Us Black folk emerge in apocalyptic conditions. While the world remains oblivious & systems incline us to collapse. Our quiet deaths & survivals are a wonder. It is a wonder that i am alive. It is a wonder that any of us survive the consecutive wars being waged against our kind. Indigene. Rooted everywhere. From foreign occupation. Public humiliation. Under duress and without prejudice, i will tell no lies.
Tracing the pathways of Philadelphia kinfolk, I promise you unlimited style. We are the non biologicals of Africa & the Americas. Presente! We are the non biologicals of the Black of the Republic of Philadelphia. From the journey road. Same as any gypsy anywhere. I come from them who aim to be just as we are. Per se- not your middle class.. not your upper class.. not your working class. Classless. The goat. Just great Blacks.
As Zora Neale Hurston gives it “I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.” ― Dust Tracks on a Road
Before crack there was Black Power. Before the war on drugs[Reagan] & the wars on crime[Bush, Clinton] there was Black Power. Afros. Soul. My parents in teenage love. The Black Panthers. Bro Reed at the Organization of Black Infinity in North Philadelphia, Francisville. Loretta in short mini skirts donning her dead mother's beautiful eyes. The Black Arts Movement, Newark. The Great Black Migration. The Divine Lorraine Hotel where many up south migrants stayed, including my maternal grandparents. I am the island in between. After crack there was hip hop. Def. I aim to be the best Black there will ever be. Evolving. Anti social. Unapologetic. Ungovernable. Savage. Devoted. Critical culture [Hortense Spillers]. I owe it to them
AWOL
I am living out my father's dreams & have lived some of his nightmares. Being his child, they became my own. Especially because we lived through crack together. Us Black folk emerge in apocalyptic conditions. While the world remains oblivious & systems incline us to collapse. Our quiet deaths & survivals are a wonder. It is a wonder that i am alive. It is a wonder that any of us survive the consecutive wars being waged against our kind. Indigene. Rooted everywhere. From foreign occupation. Public humiliation. Under duress and without prejudice, i will tell no lies.
Tracing the pathways of Philadelphia kinfolk, I promise you unlimited style. We are the non biologicals of Africa & the Americas. Presente! We are the non biologicals of the Black of the Republic of Philadelphia. From the journey road. Same as any gypsy anywhere. I come from them who aim to be just as we are. Per se- not your middle class.. not your upper class.. not your working class. Classless. The goat. Just great Blacks.
As Zora Neale Hurston gives it “I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.” ― Dust Tracks on a Road
Before crack there was Black Power. Before the war on drugs[Reagan] & the wars on crime[Bush, Clinton] there was Black Power. Afros. Soul. My parents in teenage love. The Black Panthers. Bro Reed at the Organization of Black Infinity in North Philadelphia, Francisville. Loretta in short mini skirts donning her dead mother's beautiful eyes. The Black Arts Movement, Newark. The Great Black Migration. The Divine Lorraine Hotel where many up south migrants stayed, including my maternal grandparents. I am the island in between. After crack there was hip hop. Def. I aim to be the best Black there will ever be. Evolving. Anti social. Unapologetic. Ungovernable. Savage. Devoted. Critical culture [Hortense Spillers]. I owe it to them
AWOL