2021 BAMBDFEST, PART ONE, DR. CORNEL WEST AND MARVIN X IN CONVERSATION

Poet Jan Mirikitani Joins Ancestors at 80

 

San Francisco Emeritus Poet Laureate Jan Mirikitani 

Joins Ancestors at 80

Left to Right: Rev. Cecil Williams, wife Jan Mirikitani, Marvin X and Dr. Nathan Hare

photo Adam Turner

The transition of poet Jan Mirikitani has rocked San Francisco's literary and spiritual community. As she was someone dear to me, I am totally devastated. She was not only a fellow poet but when I entered drug recovery at Glide Church, Jan and Cecil literally saved my life as they did the plethora of drug addicts in San Francisco's Tenderloin. When I entered Glide's Facts on Crack, Jan and Cecil did everything to help me. Rev. Cecil Williams showed me so much love, Jan told her husband, "Cecil, we're just being Marvin's co-dependent!" And Jan was right because whatever dope fiend lie I told Cecil to get money for Crack, he acquiesced. But when Cecil was to be honored, he invited me and his assistant, J.B. Sanders RIP, to be guests at his table at Bimbo's 365 Club in North Beach. I told him a dope fiend lie that I needed money to get my clothes out the cleaners, instead we got loaded on Crack and didn't show. We had crossed the red line of Jan's patience. We had indeed disrespected her husband. When J.B. and I came to Glide the next day, Jan put her husband out of his office, closed the door and gave us a poetic ass whupping! She said we hurt her husband and she didn't like it. "If my husband didn't love you guys so much, I wouldn't do shit for you!" It took a long time for Jan and Cecil to heal from our failure to show. Still, Jan told people, "Marvin X woke me up to my ethnicity, but he's been a thorn in my side ever since!" We love you Jan! Thank you for the agape love you gave me and everyone who came to Glide Church!

--Marvin X

7/30/21

MARVIN X AND FRIENDS AT THE JUNKYARD, DEEP EAST OAKLAND, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, 6-10PM

"When you listen to Tupac Shakur, E-40, Too Short, Master P or any other rappers out of the Bay Area of Cali, think of Marvin X. He laid the foundation and gave us the language to express Black male urban experiences in a lyrical way."

--James G. Spady, Philadelphia New Observer RIP

Percussionist Tacuma King will accompany Marvin X's reading at The Junkyard, Deep East Oakland, December 4th, 6-10PM,  Advance tickets $25.00, at the door $50.00. Limited seating. Marvin's last public appearance with Dr. Cornel West sold out so advance tickets advised. Cornel West says, "Marvin X is the African Socrates in the hood. "

Ishmael Reed says, "He's Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland. " Amiri Baraka said, "Marvin X has always been in the forefront of Pan African writing. Indeed he is one of the founders and innovators of the revolutionary school of African writing. "

The event is a benefit for the Black Vendor’s Association. Call 510-575-7148 for more information. 

Just Confirmed: Dr. Ayodele Nzinga, The City of Oakland's First Poet Laureate will join her indefatigable, peripatetic, irascible Teacher at the Junkyard. 

Marvin X and Dr. Ayodele Nzinga

photo Adam Turner

Marvin X speaking at Third Baptist Church, San Francisco

photo Adam Turner

Maestro Marvin X and the Black Arts Movement Poets Choir and Arkestra, Malcolm X Jazz/Arts Festival, 2015

college Adam Turner

MILES DAVIS - Time After Time

Marvin X planning the Black Vendors Association and Notes on visit to Saturn, Mars, Venus

 I present to you my 

Special Assistant

Angelo Jackson, Young Master Vendor

Holding down West Oakland 

Don't hate Angelo 

Learn from Angelo

Brothers and Sisters in the hood honor and respect him

He has caught the baton of black entrepreneurship  and is running for a touchdown with his "general store" model and knowledge of the proper handling of people, i.e., treating his customers with respect and dignity!

I have stood watching Angelo do his thing. He knows the proper handing of people the Muslims tried to teach us in the NOI but many didn't the master the lesson. Go stand and watch Angelo engage the people with his beautiful bass voice. If I was still in theatre I would recruit him as an actor. Ayodele better find a role for him in her Lower Bottom Playaz. Angelo's voice is enough to make me return to theatre in the fourth quarter of my life. But no matter his voice, Angelo is a businessman and focused on all it takes to be successful. I have observed him serving the poorest of the poor, the white, black, hustler, rapper, pimp, ho, alas, who doesn't need soap, deodorant, toilet paper, incense, oils, men's drawers, etc? 

But above all is his humble demeanor yet totally serious as a businessman. Somewhere between the time he used to visit my Academy of Da Corner at 14th and Broadway and when he opened his stand, he appeared to grow up and adopted his current serious persona. I am not sure if he went away for a "vacation" but all I know he is a most serious young businessman and clocks his dollars in an area where you get respect when you demand and demonstrate respect, otherwise one will have a serious problem in this hood, yes, where I grew up on Seventh Street and hustled Jet, Ebony, Chicago Defender and Pittsburg Courier and Detroit Black Dispatch. As per the black media, every Saturday I used to hear Oakland NAACP President Tarea Hall Pittman broadcasting her "Negroes in the News".

Angelo, I pass the baton to you! I shall put my resources to support you as the model of how to do for self, to transcend seeking a job that our beloved Dr. Yusef Bey said, "A job is nothing but an indirect welfare handout!" He was not a saint, but even with his "negrocites" or darkside, Dr. Bey provided us with healthy products, including bread, pies, cookies, fish and tofu burgers. 

Angelo Jackson, Special Assistant to Marvin X, Planner and Organizer of the Black Vendors Association. 

His "General Store" is located across from the West Oakland BART Station. A generous 

grant from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation will enable Marvin X to plan the 

organization and training of young people to be entrepreneurs and advocates of policy 

changes to address economic inequities. Marvin plans to work with James Copes, organizer

of vendors at Lake Merritt. The Berkeley Juneteenth Foundation, Inc., under the direction of 

Delores Nochi Cooper, is the fiscal sponsor of the Black Vendors Association. The BVA is also 

associated with the Black Arts Movement Business District, CDC, founded by Dr. Ayodele 

Nzinga, recently appointed Oakland's first Poet Laureate. She is the producer of BAMBDFEST, 

Black August 2021. The official Bambdfest program will appear in Black Bird Press News and Review Magazine, published and edited by Marvin X. Dr. Nzinga is the Guest Editor of the BAMBDFEST 2021

edition devoted to the works of Bay Area poets.

 

For many years, Marvin X maintained his Academy of Da Corner at 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland. Despite perennial police harassment, the poet, playwright, essayist, continued teaching and educating the community at his Academy of Da Corner. Ishmael Reed said, "If you want motivation and inspiration, don't spend all that money going to workshops and seminars, just go stand at 14th and Broadway and watch Marvin X at work! He's Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland!" Harvard Professor Dr. Cornel West says, "He's Socrates teaching in the African hood!"

On January 19,2016, the Black Arts Movement Business District was established by the Oakland City Council. Community persons who forced the City Council to approve the BAMBD included Paul Cobb, Rt. Col. Conway Jones, Jr., Margaret Gordon, Aries Jordan, Menuhaim Adele, Marvin X, et al. The BAMBD begins at the lower bottom of 14th Street and ends at Lake Merritt and is part of the City of Oakland's Downtown Plan for the next 25 to 50 Years. Below is map of BAMBD. 

Since 2016, the Black Arts Movement Business District has been working without a budget, maintained and sustained by the BAMBD, Community Development Corporation, established by Dr. Ayodele Nzinga.

In Oakland's budget just passed, $250,000 is allocated for the BAMBD, but it should be directed to the BAMBD, CDC. 

Since most of us elders will be ancestors, the Black Vendors Association's focus is on the youth if they will step to the front of the line and accept the baton. "I said long ago if youth can sell dope, they can sell anything and it takes the same energy to sell legal goods as it does to sell illegal goods. If they can cut the dope, weigh the dope, package the dope, promote the dope, secure the dope, keep the money straight on pain of death, they can do the same with legal goods. As per jobs, many youth suffer post traumatic slave syndrome and will never be able to hold a job, so entrepreneurship is their way of survival and success. FYI, America discovered veterans returning home from Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and numerous wars to maintain white supremacy, also suffer post traumatic stress and will never be able to hold study jobs, so America is sending veterans to schools and colleges to learn entrepreneurship. Vending may be the only way of survival for many of our youth in the hood.  FYI, in the 80s when I was a Crack addict, I used to hustle the Homeless Newspaper in San Francisco, making often $400.00 per day to support my Crack habit. During the 1984 Democratic Convention in San Francisco, I sold political buttons at Market and Powell and made $2,000.00 per day. The San Francisco Chronicle called me the Button King! The old men standing around Market and Powell watching me hustle buttons, estimated I made $300.00 per hour.

Then the white boys wanted to work under my non-profit papers so they could sell their cashmere scarves 

in Union Square. They paid me to work under my papers to the disgust of the San Francisco police, who turned beet red when the white boys showed them my papers. Soon the Krishna white boys came to use my papers and when they fought over Union Square turf, I had to mediate and draw a map to stop their turf war. This is not hyperbole but the San Francisco police said the same thing about me that the New York police said about Malcolm X in Harlem, "He got too much power for a nigga!" You have no idea what it feels like to be harassed under the color of law daily by the police. No lawyer would take my case so I did the research to write a lawsuit but was too drugged out to file it. Meanwhile, the Chief Attorney for the San Francisco police told me and my partner, Hurriyah Asar, who sold at Market and Montgomery in the financial district. And she upset the SFPD with her Afrikan University Library stand of African goods, especially when the SFPD cited her and the judge dismissed the charges. The SFPD Chief Attorney, Lawrence Wilson, told us during a court recess, "If you beat us in court, I will go to the Board of Supervisors and change the rules!" And he did, but James Brown told us about the Big Payback. The payback is a mother...... FYI, Lawrence Wilson, Chief Attorney for the SFPD, was arrested for selling drugs out of his house and went to prison and when he came out died of AIDS. Better Ax somebody."

In conclusion, The Black Vendors Association is being established for the young people so they need not rob, steal and kill. When they can make $400 to $2000 per day legally, they will feel real good about themselves. Look above at my Special Assistant Angelo Jackson, look at his smile of success. He used to come by my stand at 14th and Broadway with his podnas selling CDs so they could buy weed and alcohol. I used to give them my newspaper to sell, didn't matter if they never came back with any money for me. I was happy they sold their CDs. In truth I never bothered to listen to what was on them. But look again at the plethora of goods on his table in the pic above, well stacked and I've observed him execute the proper handling of people as the Black Muslims used to teach. And he's posted up in what could be a very dangerous area. The boyz in the hood gather at the liquor store across the street from him. But he's so cool, humble and diplomatic which is probably why he is still alive. 

One day I came by to distribute my newspaper and my grandchildren were with me. I had told them we were going to give out papers to killers in West Oakland where I grew up. When we arrived to Angelo's stand, the brothers were a few feet from him smoking weed. I told my grandson to get out and give them some newspapers. He said, "Grandfather, didn't you say there are killers?" "Grandson, get out and give them some papers. This is my turf, where I grew up, I know every motherfuckin' street in West Oakland and I ain't scared of no motherfucka on my turf. Get yo ass out and give them the newspapers." My grandson got out and gave the brothers the newspaper and returned to my car. We drove off."

In the above narrative, I've given you a lesson on selling and vending. You can do this all over the world. I left San Francisco after the death and memorial of a partner, flew to Seattle WA where they have a homeless paper. Got the paper and went to Pike's Market with their flying fish. Made $400.00 per day at Pike's Market. FYI, from San Francisco to Seattle I sold the homeless paper for $20.00 per copy. Better ax somebody. When I ran out of the homeless paper I'd sell any paper I found, including toilet paper! In San Francisco people called the homeless paper office to inform them a nigga was demanding $20.00 per paper. San Francisco wrote a law against "aggressive panhandling." That law was for me, not the brothers begging for quarters with a styrofoam cup. I have no memory of holding a styrofoam cup to beg for quarters. In fact, when people gave me quarters as they passed by, I threw it at them and hit them in the back.

When I sold at Pike's Market in Seattle and demanded $20.00 per copy, people called the paper office the paper manager told me about the snitches but was happy I was his top salesman as he recorded sales on his computer. I made enough money in Seattle to send my daughter Nefertiti money for her wedding. And you know the black pimps and hustlers are treated like gods by the white women in Seattle, even those Timberline, butch haircut mountain climbing lesbians. Sometimes I sold poster poems of my poems in the downtown area and when they read my For The Women poem, they cried real tears. Their tears humbled me and revealed the power of spoken words, even written words. 

I will end with the day I was selling down town Seattle and the black mayor passed by with his entourage 

and I told him to "get off my turf!" Some brothers eased up beside me to say, "Yo, Bro, that's the Mayor Bro!"

I didn't give a fuck. Reminded me the night I was hustling in San Francisco's North Beach where hustler's went after Fisherman's Wharf closed, around 9 or 10. Nightlife moved to North Beach so I was on the corner of Columbus and Broadway when Gov. Jerry Brown came by with his entourage on their way to City Lights Bookstore across the street. When I saw the Governor, my Crack/rut gut Night Train or Old English mind said to him, "Jerry Brown, you a motherfucka!" The Governor continued to City Lights with his entourage. But since I was hustling in the same spot when they came back, the Governor asked me, "Why you call me a motherfucka?'

"Jerry Brown, you know you a motherfucka!" The Governor and his entourage continued on into the North Beach night.

Contact information:

Marvin X

Black Vendors Association

510-575-7148

jmarvinx@yahoo.com

www.blackbirdpress.blogspot.com

BAM Fest 2021 2 into 1

Parable of Terry Collins, A Memorial of Revolutionary Love

 Parable of Terry Collins, A Memorial of Revolutionary Love

On today (I borrow the linguistics of Black Christians, alas, I have journeyed among the white Christians and they not use the phrase On today, fact check it), in the Bay Area of San Francisco/Oakland, the black and multi-cultural community came together for the last rites of one of the very best of us, Terry Collins, a strike leader for Black and Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University, the first major university in American academia that succumbed to Black Power in one anchor of the US military, industrial, university complex. As was pointed out in his memorial today at San Francisco's Afro-American Cultural Center in the Fillmore (once Harlem of the West, now suffering the last vestiges of gentrification), Terry Collins was the most radical of the radicals with his dogmatic Marxism, although somehow Terry escaped the dogmatism of most of his comrades. As was noted by many at today's memorial, Terry was the most diplomatic personas in the radical politics, thus he was able to unite a variety of groups with divergent and diametrically opposed ideologies. As the BSU/Third World Strike leaders have told me, without the unity of Third World groups, the strike for Black and Ethnic Studies would have not be victorious. Of course, and it was repeatedly noted today, the victory to establish Black and Ethnic Studies led directly to the call and implementation of a multiplicity of studies by marginalized communities, including woman, gays, lesbians, Arabs, Native Americans, Asians, Chicano and Latinx, et al.

I repeat, Terry was the most radical of the radicals and he implemented the Communist Central Committee model into the Black Student's Union. Bernard Stringer has told this writer that without the Central Committee model, the strike would have not been successful. Today's speakers from the SFSU strike, i.e., Benny Stewart, Nesbit Crutchfield  acknowledged Terry's Marxism gave structure to the BSU that evolved from the Negro Students Association of which I became a member when arriving at SFSU in 1964, after graduating from Oakland's Merritt College and enjoying the camaraderie of Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton, et al. 

Por favor, permit me to cut to the chase to say the critical consensus of today's speakers was that Terry Collins was one of the most beautiful revolutionary souls to walk this earth. Indeed when the Bishop of the St. John Coltrane Church of the Divine shared his brief message, he said that Terry's life modeled the life of Jesus Christ. I bear witness to the Bishop's words as did all the speakers. 

As we know, too often a person who has lived a life of debauchery is declared a holy saint in the celebration of their last rites, thus expressing a false narrative. Terry never declared himself nothing other than a revolutionary, and he engaged the multiplicity of persons steeped in narrow minded dogmatic ideology  and sectarian religiosity with a civilized decorum.

Thus the community consensus was Terry lived an exemplary life, minus falsehoods and fakery. When I ended the memorial with my Elegy, I told the audience they speakers had said the beauty and truth of my poem and I had no need to be repetitious except his daughter's asked me to read the poem so I did so, knowing it was for the most part a summary in poetic form of the speaker's before me. 

No matter, I was honored to put the poetic license on the cake of Terry's wonderful revolutionary life, including his work with the Arab and Palestinian community. Alas, after I read my Elegy and my assistant passed out my 1970 poster poem Palestine, Dr. Rabab Ibrahim Addulhadi, Associate Professor, Ethnic Studies/Race and Resistance Studies, Arab and Muslim Ethnicities, SFSU, honored me with a flag of Palestine and invited me to speak on an upcoming program on Palestine. In her remarks she noted that Terry Collins shall be honored in Palestine for his support for their liberation. I noted to her that I had been scheduled to speak on George Jackson in Palestine at Duke University but I didn't need to explain to her why the event was canceled. FYI, Duke has also invited Dr. Cornel West and myself to participate in a panel discussion on Palestine and Black Americans but after we agreed, Duke has not sent contracts for this event. We don't need to ask why. 

Again, I say again, speakers quoted Che Guevera who told us revolution is an act of love. Alas, we revolutionaries of the 60s did what we did in the name love. Only the opportunists sought money and fame, tenure and job opportunities. Many if not most of us were black listed, i.e., white listed, denied job opportunities that would have allowed us to support our families, who often rejected our liberation stance as my son did while I fought to teach Black Studies at Fresno State University, 1969. He said I should have focused on taking care of my family, yet could it be from my struggle to lecture in Black Studies that my son and daughter Nefertiti graduated from Fresno State University. And Black Fresno Police Sargent Jack Kelly RIP, said, "When Marvin X fought to teach at FSU, he made it better for everybody, not only students. Before he came to FSU, Black police officers could not police the white side of town!" As per Marvin X at FSU, Governor Ronald Reagan, upon entering the State College Board of Trustees meeting as President of the Board, was quoted in the Fresno Bee Newspaper as saying, "I want Marvin X off campus by any means necessary." FYI, this same year he had Angela Davis removed from teaching at UCLA because she was a Black Communist. Reagan wanted Marvin X removed because he was a Black Muslim who believed in racial separation and refused to fight in Vietnam. FYI, FSU had a plethora of Mormons teaching who denied blacks the priesthood.

Let us honor Terry by noting that after the SFSU strike for Black and Ethnic Studies that spread nationwide with Columbia University as the East coast model, the University arm of the Military Industrial Complex instituted their fake narrative that Blacks did not initiate the American academic revolution, they gave credit to other ethnicities to dilute Black Power in the deep structure of the US academic revolution. This false narrative has been repeated in the fake news of the New York Times and other monkey mind media down to the present, especially on the 50th anniversary of the Black and Ethnic Studies revolution. But, por favor, after the BSUs that Terry Collins led to establish Black, Ethnic Studies, and other departments of marginalized persons, American Academia instituted its program of de-radicalization of Black Studies. Soon after Black and Ethnic Studies was accepted, the radical founding instructors were eliminated and replaced with tenure-track Negroes, mostly of the pliant variety as opportunists seeking jobs for life. The original mission of Black studies as community education was implemented but was ephemeral, especially when college funds were cut. This occurred at SFSU and elsewhere and the community model of Black studies was declared ancient, replaced with such "other world studies" (Dr. Nathan Hare) as Pan African Studies, Africana Studies, Diaspora Studies, any other world term to escape the original model of community mass education to transcend the mis-education of Blacks as Dr. Carter G. Wilson directed us in his class book by the same name.

Thus Black Studies morphed into the Colonial Education model used in Africa to establish a colonial elite to continuation of Black mis-education. The irony is that when the black radical black studies professors were removed and replace by the tenured negroes, they soon found themselves yet suffering institutional and personal trauma and an ephemeral existence, perennially suffering department funding as per equity with traditional white supremacist departments, i.e., relegated to de facto second class status. At San Francisco State University, a Black Studies and Ethnic Studies Chair declared, "At least we have an out house!" Por favor, did Terry Collins and the SFSU students fight to establish an out house to represent equity? I am so thankful for my relationship with essayist and Black Panther Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver, yes, I introduced him to Bobby Seale, immediately after he joined the BPP. But upon his return from exile, he hired me to organize his Christian ministry, which I did. But he ordered me to make arrangements for traveling, lodging and speaking on first class basis only. So the Black Studies "out house model'' is not acceptable to revolutionaries, only the colonial elite educators, and sadly this is true for the Black Negro colleges like Morehouse, Spelman, et al. I will not put Howard in this category even though they dismissed my mentor, Sociologist Dr. Nathan Hare. I must give Howard a gold star for retaining my favorite Black Professor, Dr. Greg Carr. I call him the James Brown of Black Studies as he gives his heart body and soul into every lecture.

But let's conclude with the treatment American Academia delivers to those who dare seek employment in its white supremacist institutions. As I noted above, as per Black Studies, the founding radicals were removed, especially those lacking tenure track qualifications. Upon removing the radicals, the administrations made deals with the negroes with tenure track qualifications. Yet, one tenured professor at SFSU wanted me to understand that tenured Negroes suffer the same toxic issues such as high blood pressure experienced in the black community generally.  I agree and I have noted elsewhere that case of three female professors (not that toxicity is a gender issue) and UC Berkeley, who did succeed the radical Black Studies Department removed by the Chancellor that ushered in the pliant regime of Black Studies Chair Bill Banks, yet the employment of three of our greatest female minds, i.e., Dr. Barbara Christian, VeVe Clark and June Jordan, did not prevent them from escaping the deadly toxicity of academic white supremacy. They died of cancer at early ages. Their colleague at UC San Diego, Sherley Ann Williams, poet, novelist, critic, tenured without the PhD., perennially bemoaned her isolation and marginalization from her white (mostly female) colleagues at UCD. She used to tell me she hadn't spoken to them in years. Upon her death from asthma and cancer at 51 years old, Dr. William H. Grier, co-author of the 60s classic Black Rage, told his son, Geoffrey, "Tell Marvin, Sherley didn't die from asthma and cancer, she died from white supremacy at UC San Diego."

We love you Terry, but as per Black Studies, we yet suffer the quagmire of mis-education in this toxic environment. Didn't David Walker in his 1829 classic David Walker's Appeal, discuss our wretchedness in consequence of education. 

Oh, Terry Revolutionary, may you enjoy peace in revolutionary paradise.

We thank all those who enjoyed this last rite of a true trooper. Ache'.

Parable of Don't Help a Nigga

 Parable of Don't Help a Nigga

Can't help a nigga

nigga hate you helping him

in darkest hour

down deep in black hole

throw him rope pull up

back to life

nigga hate ya guts

police kill nigga friend's brother

friend say help me rally community

OK

put 5,000 people in Oakland Auditorium

Invited Farrakhan Angela Davis Eldridge Cleaver

Paul Cobb Dezzie Woods Jones 

Attorney John Burris launched his career with 15 year old Melvin Black murder by OPD, 1979

We demanded police review board

2021 no review board with teeth yet

Miller Lite board

Melvin Black family enjoyed million dollars from death of son by OPD

didn't give me chicken bone

Didn't say thank you Marvin X for doing what we asked you

two media campaigns

first PR demanded five million

NAACP lawyer Nathaniel Colley demanded two million

But he close friend of Mayor Lionel Wilson

First Oakland neo-colonial white mayor in black face

Attorney Colley changed venue to Sacramento

buried case 'til statue of limitations almost ran out

Family said Marvin X help us again

Please do another media campaign

OK

White lawyer saved case, won almost a million

Family said fuck you Marvin X

can you believe family hated me for helping them

at their request

jealous envious ungrateful ignut bastards

I didn't stress

Before they called for my help

I was doing all right

Teaching English at the University of Nevada, Reno

Teaching Creative and Technical Writing at

Nevada Community College

Received two planning grants from the

National Endowment of the Humanities

After helping ungrateful ignut nigga family

Allah blessed me with my own scrilla

Didn't need nothing from ungrateful ignut niggas

Praise be to Allah.

Mama told me begged me

leave them nigga alone

Boy, you don't need them niggas

Them niggas need you

leave 'em 'lone

They just usin' your mind

Boy, when will you use the mind God gave you

and leave them niggas alone?

Mama never did

She loved niggas too

Her real estate business served 99% niggas

Gave them spiritual counseling too

Sometime she had no choice

especially in bitter divorce when husband or wife

refused to sign escrow papers so she could get her commission

and feed her nine children and two grands who thought she they mama

Poor mama RIP, all eleven of us ungrateful bastards too

When mama came up from projects moved to 2 acres in black petit' bourgeoisie neighborhood

doctors lawyers judges next door

my young siblings road Bentley's to parties

Mama spoiled us in the country

She Fowler Ca country girl we didn't understand

Mama picked cotton cut grapes loved land

Couldn't get me out my maple wood studio writing and screwing girlfriends

Mama could hear their love screams in the night from her bedroom window

Marvin, please tell those girls not to scream so loud

And why do you come home from being with them starving to death

Mama we just didn't eat 

too busy making love

Boy will you please got turn on the water to irrigate the grapevines, orange lemon trees please

More water the better oranges will be

Tommy, go get eggs out chicken coup

Tommy say no, ain't walkin' in that chicken shit

Mama, let me go get eggs from Safeway!

Mama tried til she died

she tried I swear mama tried

to give us the game of life but she spoiled us rotten 

like the cotton our children's hands have never touched

central valley cotton more abundant than mississippi cotton

No matter her ungrateful bastard children 

and grandchildren who thought our mama they mama and we they siblings

When mama died the grandchildren told me they hated my mama

the only mama they knew

Can you believe the nerve an ungrateful nigga

How can you hate the only mama you ever knew

mama forced to play mama and daddy

and you hate her

Should bust you in yo mouth

ungrateful bastard bitch

how did the love of God escape your heart

How can you hate the woman who gave you all her love

agape unconditional

are you human or beast

at least my niece slept in mama's bed

she has different energy than my sister's

her sister/nieces 

thank God my niece absorbed my mother's spirituality

On FB recently

she spouted wisdom sounding like my mother

I asked her who she be

channelling my mama tenderly.

Mama love for niggas was agape

She knew they were perfect in God's Love

She never gave up on her children or community

And never will I

I got children strange as can be

Of course I wonder did they get such strangeness from me?

We know the apple don't fall far from the tree!

How can I hate my children and they just like me

How can I hate community

Cause they blind like me

What did God say

Find me the righteous man perfect man

I will save the whole town

Didn't God destroy the town.

Find me the man who won't take a bribe

Find me the man who won't steal

Who won't take another man's wife

Find me the woman who loves a man because he's a man

not because of what he possesses in material things

Well, I'm going to restaurant supply store

buy long handle spoon

deal with niggas from social distance

wear mask too

don't want that nigga virus 

worse than Covid19

Alas, that nigga virus

ain't no vaccine!

--Marvin X

7/23/21

Revised 7/24/21 

Elegy for Terry Collins, Revolutionary

 Black August 2021

ANCESTOR TERRY COLLINS

For more than five decades, Terry was a beacon and mainstay of Bay Area resistance: leader of the SF State Strike (1968-69), Black Panther, Founder and President of KPOO-fm Community Radio, Stalwart defender of political prisoners. 

MARVIN X READING ELEGY FOR TERRY COLLINS

photo Harrison Chastang

Oh, Terry, Revolutionary

Tip of spear

Look of Lion King

Dapper Swagger Classic

Like yr uncle Malcolm X

Yo Mama Ella Collins bad too

Didn’t she run Boston?

Collins family owned land in dirty South

no share-croppers jim crow slaves

black land owners shot back

better ax somebody

Ella Collins bout it bout it

Paid Malcolm’s way to Mecca

You and brother Rodnel

Royal brothers I say

Glad to know you both

Wife Cat Cecelia

daughters too Kiara and Renya

KPOO family royal

We know JJ got the baton

Joe Rudolph taught us all

how to talk on radio

No matter how many takes

One more Joe said

Oh, Terry Revolutionary

You interviewed me so many times

We gotta book in KPOO archives

So many nights so many subjects, local

global events

Africa, Palestine Iran Syria Afghanistan

San Francisco State University Professor Dr. Rabab

I. Abdulhadi gifted the poet with the Palestinian flag

after his reading. Invited him to speak at an upcoming

event on Palestine honoring Terry Collins for his long-time

support of Palestine.

You my draft counselor when I refused to fight in Vietnam

I did exile twice listening to you, fled to Canada, Mexico City, Belize

Terminal Island Federal Prison too

Oh, Terry Revolutionary

Soldier, you relieved of post

Let the new generation soldiers carry your coffin

Let them know weight of revolutionary love action

study your life

revolution beyond color class sex gender

Revolution is seizure of power nada mas

Change is revolution nada mas

Oh, Terry Revolutionary, you made change

Black Studies change

you changed the airways

with black voices, independent liberated

You changed chains off brains

preached til you could say no more

do no more

What shall we do without you

alone exhausted

solitude of our lives

inundated with isolation

terrified in rooms

scared of virus vaccine too

watching elders dancing daily into ancestor land

We must catch and hold high torch of revolution

Oh, Terry Revolutionary, you did 85 years in Babylon

Old Jewish New York Communist Party women told me

Better be a Communist

We Communists live long time

Gus Hall checked out at 90

You did your revolutionary duty

for all to see

freed everybody

wife, children, comrades, community, world

and me!

a friend to the end

true friend

Love you, Terry

heart broken

want to cry

Tears don't come

May come today

I cry for your love

tenacity lessons

for generations to come.

Oh, Terry Revolutionary

remember the Black Arts Movement 50th Celebration

at Laney College

Intergenerational Discussion with your daughter, Phavia's child and my daughter Nefertiti

whose words went viral

"Dad, you say you gonna pass the baton

but you won't pass the baton

we qualified and ready

so pass the baton!"

Oh, daughters Renya and Kiara

Dad passed the baton

Don't you feel it in your hands?

run for your life to finish line of liberation

see him there

If you fall he will catch you

time after time!

We elders will catch you

time after time

feel like you slipping into darkness

give us a call

Oh, Terry Revolutionary, our work is not in vain

Children grandchildren coming strong

Like Garvey said

Look for them in the Whirlwind!

--Marvin X

7/8/21

Revised 7/22/21

DANNY GLOVER AND MARVIN X