A Night Stroll in Hip Hop Minor

This poem took me a minute, but I just manage to finish it. Enjoy!

A Night Stroll in Hip Hop Minor

I wear my hoodie like an extension of my hair, stretching cotton dreads across the shadow of my back.

My iPod pulsates rhythms, forcing me to a Negro march with slave looping rhythmic ciphers of freestyles and black men fantasies.

My chucks dig with my feet, reaching deep into America, unearthing the liquefied ashes of slaves and masters.  

My shades watch as they torture and redefine each other across generations, melting in the crucible of America’s dream.

My jeans sag into my insecurities, weighing like demons, creeping and anchoring, in the shallow of righteous creativity.

The Rain splashes neatly on my shoulders and streaks in my path so that if I close my eyes it feels like I am walking on water.

The Wind raises goose bumps on my skin in a row, forcing my hands deep within my pockets, and my mind back into skull.

And I hum in the tune of Hip Hop minor, and I find comfort in that.

©Copyright Julian Elijah Martinez, All rights reserved 9/14/2010

Amen to the DJ

Amen to the DJ
The divine Party goer
Who spins the hip hop heart
Beat, and connects lyrical
Brain synapse that electrify
Our bodies and minds.
Whose beat spurs hips to turn
And shake off old African spirits
Inviting new American succubuses
To posses, turning us into
Zombified b-boys/girls connected
At the pelvis gyrating in an effort
To stay young and hopeful.
Whose scratches scream like a slave
At a auction
Clawing at cultural chains
Attempting to break
From the limits of any musical slavery.
Who races from funk to acid
Jazz, and soulful Motown
To Ethiopian Punk and Gnarls
Barkley’s uncharacteristic muses on sanity.
Whose Engine Number nine beats
Intergalactiacally and “never knew a lovah”
Or love in California, filling the air
With just a little of that Stankonia.
Maybe the DJ is the last
Unmolested priest,
Spewing a funkified jargon
To the jack and coke baptized masses,
Spreading weed and mirth
While filling our heads with bass and propaganda
And delusions of swagger.

Sure is making me think I can dance anyway.

Amen to the DJ.