Some are proud to be illegal
For power, for wealth, for fame
Some are afraid to be illegal
For life, for safety, for shame.
The word 'Illegal' laughs in a corner
No one knows the reality
But they all try to become the owner
Calls it the business of cruelty.
Illegal! Illegal! Illegal!
Are you, are you illegal!
Illegal! Illegal! Illegal!
Tell me, are you illegal!
Afraid because of the terror
Proud because of the swag
And this is the prime error
They set here a wrong tag.
Not the drugs, not the guns
They all are out of the race
Beyond all, something runs
Easy to know, hard to face.
Illegal! Illegal! Illegal!
Are you, are you illegal!
Illegal! Illegal! Illegal!
Tell me, are you illegal!
Read the book of human society
The book of their constitution
Truth, the most illegal, their anxiety
Can't be found in any institution.
Read the life of all the rebels
The fighters, the thinkers, the inventors
They raised the truth in the jails
Unknown, insulted, someone wanders.
Illegal! Illegal! Illegal!
Are you, are you illegal!
Illegal! Illegal! Illegal!
Tell me, are you illegal!
OLD SKOOL FOREVER
Needle drops/
dust rises from the ghost in the turntable groove/
Intro hits hard/ then the bassline thumps on your chest/
The move is old skool ’n’ raw with lo-fi beats that will jack your jaw/
Drums cracked like thunder/
Popin' drum machine is mixed under/
Rare underground jewels pulled up from crates of old skool wonder/
Boom bap soul beat, truth in the snare/
Street-corner poetry hanging in the air/
From Dre and Snoop to Pun and Fat Joe, Legends lit the path, where rare 90's hip-hop mixtapes go/
Obscure tracks spin in underground pop-up hip hop shows/
Mainstream kings, underground lords/
Sharp-cut samples and lyrical swords/
No plastic shine/just rhythm and soul/ that brings back the essence of real underground Hip Hop blow/
Classic beats making broken nights whole/
DJ Smokin' Joe Keep ’em coming/pure heat to their dancin' feet/
No disguise, trends may fade and die/
but the culture survives. Hands to the sky, let the whole world know—Real hip-hop and old skool never dies/
Tokyo Jazz Club
You played a solo on the bandstand but didn’t dig the sound your tenor was searching for/ something new, a note big enough to blow the whole town down/
Between sets, you caught a laugh rising from the bar/
a woman’s laugh, curling like smoke through blue light, full-bodied, bright, sweet with danger/
You heard Giant Steps inside it, each burst of joy a door swinging open/
You stole no melody—only the freedom of it/ transposing her wild laughter into a sound unheard/
raw and pure, free jazz for sure, a midnight breeze running loose through New York streets/
Now your music was hip to the score, a fusion of brass and laughter, a solo shaped for her alone/
At the end of the night, my horn held her close/
or was it you beneath those stars, where Jelly Roll Morton rolled through carnival lights glowing like flowers in the dark?
Man, What’s the Rush?
Music swirls like a summer storm, each note becoming a new form/
The horn speaks free in smoky jazz club rooms/
where jazz shadows sway and silence drinks in Monk's play/
Syncopated verses leap/
Sonic abstract jazz finds new life in innovative, revolutionary organic jazz, steppin' out into a new cookin' funk orchestration/
Guitarist John McLaughlin Grooves awaken in the mind, and meditation settles there/
a quiet home within the soul that is reelin' in the feelin'/
Man, that's something' else/
You bein' a cosmic swing jazz philosopher sing speaking' the hip dialogue of Ken Nordine/
In the clutter of a jazz-lit life/
art becomes a quiet riot rebellion/ and the work of our political jazz masters hang deep in our horn playin' activism of truth/ ya dig?
Here, in this sound stage of life
The day keeps shouting/
It has to be done/
But the horn bends time and asks, Man, what’s the rush?
Dock of the Cosmic Bay
Did Sun Ra think in holographic time/
past and future turning on one wheel/ Saturn ringing like a cymbal beneath Marshall Allen’s horn and its cosmic cry/
The Arkestra boarded freight trains of sound/ smoking rails through midnight skies/
robes bright with Egyptian constellations/ saxophones splitting the dark into day gigs of wonderment/
Then Otis rose from the Georgia gospel/
His voice is rough as rope/ warm as bread/
singing from the Dock of the Bay where silence waits/ and every wave remembers the dead/
One built a vessel out of thunder and space time/
One made heartbreak a soulful testimony/
Both knew Earth was only a classroom/
Space is the place/ Soul time music was the reason why/
When time has officially ended/the stars lean close to hear what/
Sun Ra's Arkestra drifting across the water, a cosmic chord dissolving fear/
Space is the place/
Otis Redding's Soul music is the way/
And love/ the oldest spacecraft/
carries us beyond today.
Their masquerade
By Dustin Branum
9/21/26
The things they say that is
They ain't
The things they say that was
They wasn't
The things they say is up
Is down
The things they say is right
Is wrong
The things they say was then
Is now
The things they say is now
Was then
The things they say we can't
We can
The things they say will end
Has just begun
Bird, Miles, Max forever jazz pride
In the realm where jazz and beats collide,
Bebop's swift notes and hip-hop's pride,
Rhymes like melodies, flows that ignite,
Improv and rhythm, taking flight.
Bird’s soaring solos, Miles’ cosmic sound,
Max on the sticks, where legends are found,
From chromatic whispers to lyrical bars,
Their spirits echo through city stars.
DJ Quik on the West, a storyteller’s grace,
Blending jazz’s soul with a street’s embrace,
A tapestry woven of history and style,
A global language, uniting mile after mile.
Inspiration sparks in every note and phrase,
A voyage of discovery, a timeless maze,
From the heights of avant-garde to the everyday street,
Music’s heartbeat makes us whole and complete.
Bebop and hip-hop, a cosmic dance,
Rhymes and rhythms in a shared trance,
Fly high, groove deep, let the music be your guide,
Bird, Miles, Max — forever in the jazz pride
/Boom Bap Reverie
Crates cracked open in dusk-lit basements/
Needles tracing dust on grooves of gold, Soul samples looped—forgotten statements resurrected from wax, stories retold/
Basslines thump like city heartbeats, Hi-hats flicker, snare drums snap, old school wisdom in concrete streets, Cyphers ignite in a boom bap trap/
Chopped horns echo in subway tunnels, Scratch of vinyl, a DJ’s prayer, Freestyle poets, words like funnels pouring truth in the midnight air/
Apollo Brown dreams in sepia tones, Soul-worn records, crate diggers’ pride, Underground kingdom, built on bones of legends who never died/
So, spin that hour of rare instrumental. Let nostalgia ride the groove in every sample/ Hip Hop's past is still on fire/, and hip hop’s spirit finds its truth/
We ride the shimmer, stardust spun/
Between the birth of dying suns/
A groove of galaxies unwinds/
The pulse of silence, vast, sublime/
Nebulae breathe, in violet streams/
We waltz on waves of astral dreams/
Comet tails curl, a cosmic tune/
Our shadows cast by fractured moons/
Through veils of gas and drifting light,
We pass from day into the night/
Where gravity’s embrace is loose
We dance, unanchored, star-induced/
Electric hearts, in sync, align
With every ancient, pulsing sign/
We cross the nebula, become
A groove eternal, endless drum/
And when the universe exhales
Its secrets, stardust, cosmic tales/
We’ll still be moving, you and I,
Across the nebula-lit sky/
THE STAGE IS MY PAGE
I don’t write poems—
I live them/
Jazz is my heartbeat/
poetry my voice/
truth my purpose/
I don’t sing the words/
I paint them/
in sound, soul/
and hip-spoken stories/
Man, that’s the vibe/
I speak the music/
all day, every day/
words, beats, people, power/
Real voices change the world.
Dreams don’t work/
unless you do/
Speak it/
Live it/
Love it/
Every verse is a movement/
a music poster for the mind/
The mic is my pen/
The stage is my page/
The Last Poets
“When the revolution comes,”
Politicians whispered sweet lies,
promising dreams that were never theirs,
while streets echoed with dreams denied,
and voices drowned in blood-stained hope.
Economies built on the backs of the weak,
wealth for the few, while many stayed silent,
coins of gold pooled, but hearts went cold,
hands reached out but never united.
The Last Poets rhymes like Hymns
echoing in alleys,
fingers snap,
feet tap,
words meet the pulse,
the Congo thump lifts hearts,
raw and real,
hip-hop’s roots grow deep—
But what has changed,
in this swirling maze?
Do we still speak the truth,
shout over sirens,
dream beyond the neon flash,
with wide eyes,
still fighting, still asking,
for justice in our sound,
each voice a note,
every story a song?
Breath Without Apology
I stand here,
with a chest full of echoes,
and a tongue heavy with prayers.
I want a life,
not stitched in fear,
but woven in safety,
like a blanket that never tears.
I want a love,
not a riddle,
not a puzzle with missing pieces,
but a flame steady,
burning without question,
a hand that does not tremble
when it reaches for mine.
I want peace,
not the fragile kind,
not the one that vanishes
when silence enters the room,
but peace that lingers,
like incense in the rafters,
like dawn refusing to surrender to night.
I want simplicity,
the kind that feels like home,
like laughter spilling in kitchens,
like children chasing shadows,
like the sound of rain
reminding us we are alive.
And if you ask me again,
what I want,
I will tell you
I want to breathe without apology,
to love without armor,
to rest without ghosts,
to live before dying,
to begin before ending.
© Tr. Elvis Otieno Gikoi
® ArtFromHeart
I am a proud American,
Nothing more, nothing less,
No tags to wear,
No labels to confess.
I am not blind to history,
Nor unaware of our mistakes.
Like nations older than our own,
We've known the risks that failure makes.
Yet through the trials of our past,
We learned, endured, and found a way.
To rise above our broken roads
And build a stronger path each day.
History is not a chain to drag,
Nor a script we must obey.
It is a compass in our hands,
To guide us forward on our way.
I know what this country means to me,
A truth no one can redefine.
Not by titles, not by degrees,
Nor by a different view than mine.
So let me stand where I believe,
Without demands that I conform.
Leave me be, and walk in peace,
No anger, only calm and warmth.
For I am a proud American,
Nothing more, nothing less;
A citizen of hope and freedom,
Without a need for anything else.
I’m just an American, and proud to be!
By James C. Chapman
life that knows death
and nevertheless continues
God is gracious
Grace granted after trial, mercy,
stronger than judgment
divine help that was not earned but
given
Ivo is the one preserved through death by grace
The evergreen life that survives the underworld because God has remembered it.
If my heart ever has trouble dancing on beat
Just put your lips on mine
When the poem won't write itself
Gently hold my hand
Because when your lips interlock
With my emotions
Holding the world feels as if I'm holding you
I’d be lying if I said my forevers
Didn’t send you an invitation
In every possibility
You make my imagination
A calm reality
Dreams become passing thoughts
Breathing obsolete
My soul defies gravity
I didn’t fall, I reached for you
Knowing together we're that much closer to heaven
With your love under my wings
Your safety in my arms
This life has no interrupting alarms
Carry this one request
Allow me to crave you
Not to be too forward
But I've been waiting for you
Since I thought I understood sacrifice
Then I began fasting to grasp what I didn't first comprehend
I been fasting
To experience love at its purest form
I’ve been talking to patience
To get familiar with your voice
A voice that makes the echo home
A voice that rocks me to sleep
A voice I long to see
p.s. I just want to be in your presence…
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