BEN NOLA

Lights dim, and a single spotlight illuminates the stage/Ben Nola has sumptin 2 say/ a page/ a stage/ two worlds were born from the seed of thought/ One, etched in ink, a monument meticulously wrought/ the other, breath-given word jumpin’ form/ Be-bop talkin’ jazz flo cuttin’ up the airways/ a voice defying silence, an organ riff in the air/jazz bottom holding up the spoken word/ Brother from another planet has spoken here/ Written poetry… the whisper of the quill, crumpled paper, a waste basket, writer's block is the silent partner you fear/ Symphony of words, the highest mountain that you climb/ becomes the hill of understanding, crafted slowly, deliberately, and refined/ a graphic landscape painted deep within the reader’s mind/ But listen and dig the sound… can you hear it? It's Mo Fo It jackin’ up the word poetry with an underground backing drum sound/ The spoken word erupts, man, you are in 2it/ Gil Scott-Heron, preacher of the truth, the revolution will not be televised/His voice a weapon, aimed at you and you/ whites turned their backs on the truth/ Driving beats beneath the words, a call to rise and see the hypocrisy that shackles you and me/ The Watts Prophets are the origin of rap music/ Fusing music with jazz and funk roots, and rapid-fire, spoken-word poetry, Watts Prophets and the Watts Writers Workshop/ Wake up, Wake up, L.A The Last Poets, revolutionaries armed with verse, fighting for equality, a future to rehearse/ Kgositsile’s warning echoes, a chilling, somber tone, "The last era of poetry… before the guns have grown."/ Babs Gonzales, spokesman for the whole hipster world/ a bebop beatnik, strange and free, found rhythm in the chaos, and spoke it for jazz, free to be/ From slam to cypher, the lineage is clear/ Spoken word, the ancestor, banishing all fear/ Hip-hop’s child, inheriting the fire, transforming pain and struggle into something higher/ Guru, the Gang Starr guru, nods to Langston Hughes, recognizing the foundation, the poetic ruse to captivate and educate/ to lift and to inspire, a lineage unbroken, fueled by the burning fire of the abstract truth in storytelling, rhythm, rhyme/ The tools of the trade, in both the poem written and the verse so bravely made/ The beat is the soul to the heartbeat, the voice the guiding hand/ blurring the lines between two forms across the land/ so dig what I’m bout to say? and feel the power in the voice sound, whether written on the page or spoken at a roadside picnic/ For poetry, in any form, is the language of the soul, like butterflies and monsters and myths yet to be heard and seen/ Man, write it down, speak it out/ Poetry and spoken word are a weapon against silence, making us whole. (Lights fade.)