From the winds and rain

of winter’s sleeves,

from the endless freeze,

and December’s clutch,

springtime came calling.

She rode the mist

with birth and resurrection,

with gospel grain,

with flowers and hummingbirds in her mouth,

she proclaimed your name,

 lit your love light

and sent lightning into your beating heart.

I was here, waiting to see,

not knowing

our glow would become one.

 I was only a lonely boy with brown eyes,

you, a girl with a diamond face.

We were let loose to drink up

all the glory and laughter 

our bellies could hold.

Time with her jealous ticking,

the fire of steadfast souls,

the golden mantra

and the twisting 

Pain

brought rain,

brought doubt

and shook the earth beneath our heavy feet.

The decades have tested us,

strengthened our minds and

Poured love into every part of us.

You have set me free

And let me shine

The way you first shined on me.

My Monster kid

carries a hotel bar of soap

when I see her.

She thinks she’s gonna catch me

catching her cussing.

My Monster kid

clips Sunday coupons

when I see her.

She hold her scissors with one hand

and begs from the yellow kitchen.

My Monster kid

lies on the floor

when I see her.

She lies to all of us about mathematics

Then screams into the bathroom mirror.

My monster kid

only sees herself

only hears her words

when she talks to herself,

holding a hotel bar of soap.

Knocking Water

on the water

webbed walls

calls the morning

to the sea.

Wooly clouds,

strung out on mist

and hung over from heaven’s.

unending

celebrations,

slide

under the Golden Gate

looking

to shape shift

for the Winter

And we sit around orange tulips

with our feet

in the cool grass

and talk about everything

D.A. Medina

The future has no formula baby…

It’s all Jazz.

It’s the ultimate improvisation.

No script,

No plot

Except the one that the Big Man got.

It’s not in your 401k

or retirement plot

and it’s most assuredly

not in the hole that your

head is buried in.

You thought you

thought it

Through

Quite thoroughly but in

real time

it’s just a giant knot

that they got you tangled up in,

They star spangled you up again

(Singing D’Angelo style) “And they laughin in yo face once again, got yo mouth up on they hook…one mo gin’”

It’s just the same old lies

strewn from the snake’s green eyes

In the Garden of Eden

with Eve and them

And after all that,

the wars and the bullshit reasons for war

after all the millions and millions

of innocent simple folks

Uncle Sam murdered by the bushel…

the smoke cleared

we all got in gear

behind television fear,

We forgot about the lies and believed again.

Amnesia is the state

that we ALL are licensed and insured in.

The Rat race marathon

where Nobody keeps winning

The Worldwide Web

That we are all happy to be stuck in.

The reason we all keep

running

in circles

trying to eat, drink,

sleep and watch the watch-box.

It’s all Jazz baby,

It’s the worst note

sung and hung on the wall

with the Karaoke speakers

And the speakers

aren’t speaking anymore

they are screaming

“Die you fucking shaved monkeys!”

“But die slow so we can get our flow…”

Drink your miller’s light

wear your team’s colors.

Swallow the pills

they give you

and wash it down with

sips from your diamond-laden cups

and try to find the time.

Have you ever seen Miles Davis tap his feet to find the beat?

Never my man,

Hey Man!

He was the master of improvisation

he rode that wind without a scowl or grin,

He is the reason

they stopped calling us boys

And reason we call each other men.

You all cannot bob your head to anything but a four-four,

What will you do with a 6/8 or a 12/8?

Five time?

What if it swings from Staccato’s branches?

Or hangs from Legato’s leggings?

It’s the new bowl of gumbo;

slung around the corner

on the first day that your pension plan kicks in odd meter (Somebody spent it)

The future is improvisation

my sissy boy nation!

Jazz is improvisation

And it’s the truth

And it never sounds the same anymore

the Truth wears no make up and has no agenda.

It’s everything that you think will last,

everything you thought would last.

You sweat up your shoes

pulled out your hair for the future!

You planned without the plans my man!

Does the architect build his dream house with dreams that he drummed up while dreaming?

I don’t know about you …but me? But I’m always scheming…

Never hoping or believing

I’m just banging

on my drums to whatever

Beat I choose in the

late

watered

down

evening.

Dog Days Down

In

The hole

With all my kinfolk,

we plot,

We scheme; more money,

less money,

sweat up your shoelaces until the big bell rings

Calling all us sinners

Back to the copper altar

Inside the brown church house.

Dog Days bleed

into

the apocalyptic sunset

Leaving us blue in the anxious evening tide.

Trying to pay the bills

piled on the dinner table

And

Not

Drink

Up

All the junk

They keep pouring

Down

The

Hole

We are all stuck in.

Dog Days leave me

Alone

With my messy thoughts;

Webbed in Fear’s Holy chalice,

Shaking

The dream dust from my tiny kingdom of hope.

My Dog Days dive deep

Inside summer’s sweaty

Sunburned skin,

Looking,

Always searching

For

Some

Way

To show that the finest diamonds

Inside

My Lion-Heart

Are

Worth more than this wide wasted world will ever know.

Amorcita ~

Big fat besos

Slide all over your face

While the sun

Lights up the world

And shoots diamonds

Out of your eyeball sockets,

They dance around

For a spell

Then spill

All

Over

My

Heart

Reminding my mind

Of the first time

You shined on me.

~D

TOPR the giant lived in a deep bootblack cave in the middle of the Santa Cruz Mountains. For breakfast each day he would eat an emcee and flush down their blood, bones and phony rhymes with an ice cream carton filled to the sticky brim with cheap warm beer.

The filthy giant had no heart, but indeed had a ghastly mind filled with foul thoughts that swam in and out of his molded mind like eels in a debaucherous pride parade.

Top Ramen knew that he must find a heart to balance his wild brain and bridle his foul flesh.

One day, while Topr was swimming in the river, face-fishing for his lunch, a golden catfish appeared to him. Topr the giant smiled a black toothed smile, licked the remains of his second breakfast from his beard and proceeded to grab the golden catfish by the tail.

“Please have mercy on me you strange-faced Giant! I know where you can find your heart!” screamed the fish, pleading for his life.

TOPR never cared what anyone said and he had never lent his ear to his prospective lunch, however, on this strange day the giant paused to listen, wiping the drool from his front tooth.

“Your heart is in Carolina Mr. Giant…you must travel far and wide, many miles must you roam”

“Your heart is in a field filled with exotic melons of all shapes and sizes, within one of these melons lies the golden Keliyawn seed!”

“You must find this Keliyawn seed and grow it into your heart”.

The giant wanted a heart but Carolina was many miles away. He sat by his fire thinking and chewing on a leftover fibula bone, “I must leave tomorrow to Carolina to find my heart!” declared the giant. He packed all he needed; 10 gallons of warm beer, some teriyaki emcee beef jerky, his “I Hate Amerikkka” T shirt, his radio and a few mixtapes. TOPR was off to find his heart.

After burning through two dozen D batteries he had come to the field of exotic melons. Since TOPR had eaten all the jerky on his voyage and was terribly famished, the giant began to viciously eat all the melons without regard for the rare Keliyawn seed. Luckily for our hero the golden seed fell into his pocket.

Since the foul giant had collected so much dirt and so many rocks in his pockets, the seed had found a fertile home. The beer that drained through his beard dripped upon the seed each night and within a few nights the seed blossomed into a golden heart.

Topr reached into his pocket and pulled out the heart.

“What is this?” He cried.

“I am Keliyawn, your golden heart, you must swallow all of me now TOPR and I will be part of you for the rest of your life!”

The giant swallowed the heart and smiled from the start of it’s beating, His heart was Keliyawn and they lived together from then til’ infinity.

The End.

D.A. Medina

aka R. Longfellow

Ramon, Pablo and the Take Away Close
The Nighttime took a long stroll around Ramon’s home, wearing His deep blues and banging down the block in His heavy boots soaked in the evening tide. The Fog came in Her grey gowns pulling taffy and cotton candy strokes across the skyline. The darkness lingered around the conversations and observations holding flash light batteries and buckets of new leaves ready for the turning.
Two friends stand under the moon-glow smoking a joint of Chocolate Thai.
Ramon: That man that holds up the stars must be happy tonight.

Pablo: He mmmm mu must be
R: Relax my friend it’s only a way of speaking
P: I know man, fuck
R: Pablo, my good friend, we have had the same night for the last couple of years. We drink, we fight each other for fun and we philosophize about the ins and outs of life or else we go to the Roadium drive in and watch Do the Right Thing. 
That stutter can be easily cured. After all big boy, if you ain’t comfortable around me with that fuckin’ uh-uh ummmm bullshit you ain’t never gonna get a chick to kick it with your bumbling punk ass.

P: Hey Ramonito when I want your advice I’ll p-p-pull my dick out your mouth

R: Funny…some dudes got jokes…but not you fat man.
P: Fuck that I been tryin’ to get at Monica forever and every time I get ready to spit at her I freeze up and start stuttering. You… you know?
R: What? Monica? That’s Big Grumpy’s girl!
P: I don’t give a fuck…we have a uh uh um
R: A connection?
P: Yeah man
R: (pulling hard on the joint) That is someone else’s girl, you know we don’t get down like that in the hood. Shit, (smoke bellowing from his nose and wafting under the streetlight) even if he left that bitch you would be stupid to try to get at her. That’s the rules homey; we don’t do our thing like the white folks, everybody ends up fucking everybody…we got class in our hood.
P: Yeah but she is a tender one though.
R: True, but I think it might be the fact that she is taken.
P: Huh?
R: Yeah you know muthafuckas always want what they know they can’t have. That lust has been around since forever.

Ramon continued.
R: Man has been killing man over things that do not belong to him for years bro and another man’s woman has been the blue plate special of jealousy since the beginning of time.

P: What the fuck? You never talk like that in front of the boys!
R: Like what?
P: L… L… Like that all vocab and poetry and shit.
R: I don’t think they would get it and I have been keepin this poetry and writing thing to myself for so many years and each year it gets harder to talk about it with the homies because of what they might think.
P: Fuck them bruh. How muh muh much ass have you broke down just on that Spanish Poetry?
R: I never kiss and tell Pablo…but your point is made muthafucka. However the homies are simple and rock headed. They would all die for both of us and loyalty is rare in this world. So I keep my homies ignorant to my art.
P: That sounds cool I guess.
R: Yeah man like I was saying, humans want what they can’t have. In the world of sales they call it the “take away” close. The first part and possibly the most integral part of the take away is the desire for the…uh…the uh…desired…uh desire of uh…(clearly stoned)
P: What the dude wants right?
R: Well said Pablo… They have to want it for the take away to be effective, if they don’t want it then they won’t do shit. For example a man wants to buy something, he wants a comic book, lets say, but the price is too high so he begins to negotiate.
Ramon passes the joint to Pablo 

R: So, my friend, the buyer begins to negotiate and the buyer never offers more than the asking price, well almost never, in this case let’s say the comic is $45
P: Damn! What comic is that?
R: I don’t fuckin know…it’s just an example…
P: (takes a long drink of his beer) I ain’t never heard of no comic book cost 45$
R: Just shut the fuck up and let me bless you with some of this game. So dude offers $30…and now you see Pablo the take away has begun!
P: What is?
R: The take away!!
P: So he offers 10 bucks less and the t-t-take away has begun?
R: Yeah cuzz $15 less and yes the take away has begun.
P: Wait …what?
R: (Shouting) THE TAKE AWAY CLOSE YOU DUMB SHIT!!
P: Hey man, don’t start that shit! I will f-f-fu-fu fuck you up!
R: F ff fuck! Ha! Yeah Pablo you feel good? Get em up and get tapped up!
Pablo gets up out of his chair and his beer bottle clinks against the concrete.
P: Don’t let me get ahold of you flacoso!
R: Okay okay chill P! chill…chill P lemme finish
P: Yeah…but im f-f-fuckin pissed (sits back down)
R: Ok Listen cuzz… homeboy that runs the comic book shop takes the book off the counter and puts it back in the case!
P: Why the fuck?
R: Like I said (Ramon takes a deep breath and looks up at the sky) just listen my man, I love you bruh…just hush
P: Cool ok ok
R: He TAKES the item away from the potential buyer!! Now the poor bastard wants it even more!!!
P: Got it
R: So the uh….uh (clearly stuck and shaking his head)….umm…shit!
P: Dude that wants the comic…
R: Indeed, sorry my man that Thai has got ahold of me…
P: Cool
R: So the buyer ups his offer to $40!
P: Right! ………What?
R: Now you see Pablo the hook is lodged in the mouth.
P: Hook? What the fuck hook?
Ramon stopped speaking for a spell, and, as his Uncle taught him, began to contemplate the moon.
P: What? Hey man! You ain’t stuck are you?
P: Hey man …Ramon!
P: RAMON!
Ramon shook himself free from the short-lived bliss.
R: Hey..P man OK… Do you want some if this before I sack it up?
P: What?
R: This Thai weed
P: Yeah yeah um So wh what you gonna ? umm whats up you gonna hook me up?
R: 100 a quarter?
P: Awww come on bruh…
R: This is my money my man plus I smoke you out always…
P: Too much!
R: Cool, let me go put this up while I’m still halfway normal.
Ramon disappeared for a few minutes and left Pablo alone in the eye of the moon’s flashlight.
R: Ok yeah man so dude is thinking that he ain’t never gonna get that comic book and the owner hasn’t said a word since he put the book back.
P: Right
R: So whatchu think happens?
P: Dude leaves?
R: Hell NO!! He ends up paying the $45!! Because he wants what he can’t have! Like I said the world has been chasing this lust around for thousands of years man. Just like you think you have a connection with Monica but it’s really because that’s another man’s lady…you fell me right?
P: mmmm…ok so dude really want the book but he don’t like the ticket
R: Yes sir……hey dogg I gots to go!! Fools are blessin the pager!
P: OK holmes..but real talk though let m-m-me get that Thai

R: Its 100 a q!

P: FUCK IT Ramon
R: So you want this or not crip? I got to coast!
P: Yeah f-f-fuck it here you go bruh (hands Ramon 5 20 dollar bills)
R: Cool I gotchu and I’m gonna throw love on that! You know you just proved my point right??
P: Man…I don’t know just get me that good thang we been smoking!!
Ramon: I love you cuzz…

The sky is black now and Ramon walks out into the streetlight smiling counting his money.
R: The take away close is the shit!!!
(Random street cats talking shit and drinking in the background….)
END SCENE

by D Medina for Cold Medina the album….
(Sung to the tune of “Cry me a River” by Justin Timberlake

You’ve been my friend
Since I was ten
You only know all the ways that I’ve loved you.
I’ll be your friend
Until the end
Betcha didn’t know who she be smashing now. Whoa!!

You don’t need to say
What we did
I was there in latex I hid!
Now that bitch done left
You and me
And you can’t see
But damn I feel bad about it

She told me she loved me
But you still beat me, all alone
Now she said she feed me
If you could keep me
On the bone
We should have refused
Now I’m all bruised
From some other dime
That bitch is alive and it’s her time
To die!

I say we kill her
I say you kill her
I say you kill her
Let’s say we kill her 

You know that they some girls are better left undead
You know I’m goin kill you bitch
No matter what they said 
(Don’t act like you don’t know it)
All of this rope that I’m holding
Be wrapped around your head
(Wrapped around your head)
I could have fucked all your friends 
And you would not have known it
(You tramp!)

You don’t need to say
What we did
I was there in latex I hid!
Now that bitch done left
You and me
And you can’t see
Don’t it make you sad about it?

I say we kill her
I say you kill her
I say you kill her
Let’s say we kill her 

I shall not fight the inner loon in my decaying carcass ,

I will not sedate him nor shall I clip his wings.

I will not burn

his freak flag

or silence

his

honking

brass kettle

when its time for tea and good graces.

I shall not sit

with another shaven monkey

trying to talk it through

when the loon wants to do the Hustle

all over the moon dust

that has scattered

along the paved roads of my mind.
If I lose my loon,

if I force him to leave me

and I bend into the world,

whom will I be?