Marvin X and Dr. Lonnie Smith

How many poems must I write about Hammond B3 and Me?

There is no me without Hammond B3

7th Street sacred music

For me anyway

Don’t care bout nobody else

B3 stole my  soul

No matter jazz blues gospel rock n roll

B3 my  West Oakland chil

dhood

West Oakland Blues B3

For me

West Oakland Jazz

B3 for me

Restaurant B3

Pool Hall Juke Box B3

Barber shop

Shoeshine stand B3

but I never heard Lower Bottom name for Pine Street

Everybody knew Pine Street was end on 7th Street

End of West Oakland

End of Amtrack Train line, 16th Street Station,

Ho’ Stroll too

Ho Hotel by hour

Cross from Amtrack Station

Pine Street Ho' stroll

after Pine was Army Base, Navy Supply Center

Used to sell Jet Ebony Magazines up and down 7th

Past John Singers

Pullman Porters Union Hall upstairs

Past the Barn eatery

Easter's Orbit Room

Way past Slim Jenkins Club

Josephine Baker was there for months/years it seemed

parents talked of Josephine Josephine

I could only see her pic outside Slim Jenkins Restaurant

Used to see ad for Earl Father Hines too

wondered who he was

nobody told me how great he was

but parents praised Josephine Baker

I loved her before I knew her

West Oakland

Harlem of West Ceoast

Lived 7th and Campbell

Across street Lincoln Theatre

Mr. Freeman managed

black films advertised

scared to see black films

childhood white supremacy mind dead

wondered in my ignut negro mind

what these f'ilms bout

ain't tarzan jane

ain't Lone Ranger Tonto

I wanna see white man kill Indians

didn't know I was part Native American

Granny from Oklahoma Territory

Granny wasn't religious

She was spiritual

told me and my brother don't shoot birds on Sunday with beebee gun

Granny used to feed anyone white black stop at her door in projects

say they hungry

spiritual not religious

didn't go to church spiritual

told my brother boy you go end up in pen

Granny right

brother spent whole life in pen

deprived me of older brother love

til his last days

lived round corner from me

Lake Merritt

got to know him a little in last days

we put his remains in Lake Merritt

Put mine there too with my brother

A real nigga

just don't cross him

then you got a problem

killer man loan shark killer

shot his boss in back of head

boss owed him money wouldn't pay

love my brother

he was better human being than I until crossed

before he joined ancestors

he was family ATM

after no more drinking gambling poker except on internet

in the end he was brother I always wanted him to be

In the end I think he appreciated me

even if he didn't understand me

and who understands me

I don't even understand myself

Like everybody he tolerated me though overwhelmed

around the corner from me

but I gave him his space

private cell

wanted him to be at peace with himself

no stress from me

family stress took him down into the dungeon for the last time

came to Oakland from Seattle

picked him up at bus station

told him I wanted to show him love

said he didn't know love

wanted to live in SRO hotel

I said no brother

ain't dropping you at SRO hotel

I took him home with me til he found a place with his Section 8

God blessed me and him to live around the corner from each other in his last days

up from Lake Merritt

did it matter

we never walked the lake together

did it matter

I never went over his apartment to watch games on TV

never went over for small talk

I don't know small talk with men or women

I know he liked privacy as I do

He almost never came to my apartment around the corner

I didn't trip

I honored him as older brother even though only one year older

It was enough joy when he came to 14th and Broadway

to get his medicine cigarettes

he would come sit at my Academy of da Corner

He saw black people bring donations

he thought I was loan shark

but I gave credit for books

he saw people pay me

I never kept tabs like loan sharks

he was amazed at the beauty of black people

most of us don't know the royal beauty of black people

no matter our negrocities

black royalty

kings queens

gods goddesses

parading in persona of rut gut niggas

still royal pushing shopping cart love

rut gut wine love

bipolar love lasting longer than black bourgeoisie fake love

golden handcuff love

kick my ass but I'm staying love

too many perks love

In the end

cancer too him out

Told us to burn him

put ashes in lake

we did

put me there too with my brother

don't care bout Northern Cradle versus Southern Cradle burial customs

throw my ashes in lake with my brother I came to love in our last days

thankful I got to love his brotherly love

if only for a moment

no matter

life is a moment

nothing lasts forever

At least I didn't cross him

showed him my man hand

didn't come like no punk ass bitch nigga

ain't gonna speak on other relatives

me and my brother prison niggas

we know ride yo own beef

no man can bear burdens of another

I knew he was killer

San Quentin Soledad Folsom

McNeil Island

California Youth Authority beginning

We both in Fresno Juvenile Hall

Asked Mama when judge said  my grades saved me from CYA

Grades didn't save brother

Outside  Fresno County Juvenile Hall

asked Mama why she wasn't crying'

Mama said, "Son, I might not be crying on outside but I'm crying inside."

One time Daddy came to jail and cried to see me in handcuffs for juvenile delinquency behavior.

Burglary, car thief, stealing gas, gang fighting, yes, honor student, the reason judge didn't send me to CYA with my brother.

Meanwhile back in West Oakland

niggas couldn't visit Lake Merritt

except on 4th of July and other Holidays

my brother said even then we could only occupy special sections of the lake

We called Lincoln Theatre  flea house rat house

sometimes couldn't put feet on floor for rats

hated going there

didn't want to go home fleas biting me

Niggas could go to the Lux

less fleas

couldn't go to the Paramount Fox

Mama said me and my brother had to go together

I had to suffer fleas rats at Lincoln

Granny covered me with Eucalyptus leafs from Daddy's shop

we lived in back of  parent's florist shop

Seventh and Campbell

Chinese grocery across the street north

Dangott's Loan across the street east

Loraines's greasy spoon next to Lincoln

hamburgers and fries  tswimming in grease

soulfood grease

good heart attack grease

fries good heart attack soul food too

Love's Loraine's

leaving the Lincolm

or going in

10/12/18

Marvin X poem: A real nigga ain't eatin' greens without cornbread

Maestro Marvin X and the Black Arts Movement Poets Choir and Arkestra, Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, Oakland, 2015
photo collage Adam Turner

A REAL NIGGA AIN'T EATIN' GREENS WITHOUT CORNBREAD

I don't care bout these new age niggas
vegan niggas
die like hog eatin' niggas
different diseases
death is death
he was vegan
yogi rasta kemite vodun
cancer got his ass too
stroke
high blood pressure
didn't want white man's meds
herbal tea death
Back to Eden didn't help
Baraka say you read white man's Back to Eden
won't study Marxism Leninism
fuck all isms schisms
my student say Beligion
just be
real
no fake ass nigga pseudo spiritual rat
vegan rat still rat

Beligion be real
Go with the Kemit Negative Confession


I want cornbread wit ma collard greens
rice is nice
rice ain't cornbread
I'm a rice nigga
Daddy from Kentucky rice land
never ain't no grits in my house
rice fa breakfast rice fa dinner
nigga friends called me
rice eatin Chinaman nigga

Kale is nice
Spinach too
flavored spicy
not like Mama's Spinach
I threw under table
no spice plain Cali girl food
no Louisiana Texas style
Mama born in Cali
South for me was from Oakland to Central Valley Fresno

love spinach now
spicy
Cayenne
Tumeric
Oregano
Garlic onions
Used to love Granny's greens
Oklahoma Arkansas greens
loved to devour cornbread sopped in pot liquor
Begged Granny let me sop cornbread in pot liquor
don't sop all dat pot liquor boy
Loved Granny's hands
Granny had that one book in her trunk I read every time we came to Granny's house
Up from Slavery Booker T
First Black book I read again again at Granny's house
Granny told me stop progin (probin') through her stuff
I proged that trunk til I found Up from Slavery

Today these kids don't know or care about Granny's and Grandpa's hands
feel sorry for 'em
computer addicts
drunk on white supremacy computer
murder games
grown nigga think they NBA coaches
woman said she hit her hip hop man in head with remote control
loved games not her
kicked her in stomach
don't interrupt his games
she left him playing his computer games night and day when off work
security guard

But cornbread
cold water cornbread
African style less grease
collard greens ready now
no matter that weak ass Kale
Collard greens thick like meat
smoked turkey no pork
Wife played game on me
said she bought ham
ready to beat her ass
til she showed me it was turkey ham
spared her ass beating
in my nigga insanity
negrocities (Amiri Baraka term, he told me don't steal his words, give him credit. Elliott Bey asked Baraka why Marvin X don't write about him? Baraka say cause Marvin know I will write about his ass! Love you AB, a brother like no other. AB hep a nigga. )

I expanded his definition Negrocities: inflammation of the Negroid gland at the base of the brain
causing a disruption of normal cognitive function due to
toxic substances in the synapse preventing  messages from one cell to the next
brain dead cell phone addict zombi don't know it's time to eat
wash yo ass
make love to your woman
love your children
Child abuse is don't call your children
but reconciliation is possible
not easy but not impossible
hard work but possible.

I want cornbread in my greens.
I hate that Jiffy shit
but Jiffy do when all else fails
Ain't nothin' like real cornbread
Southern style
melt in mouth
make a nigga shout Jesus! Allah Jah Jehovah Marx Lenin
--Marvin X
10/14/18

SF-Oakland Bay Area honors Black radical renaissance man Wilfred T. Ussery's 90th b day

Today, Sunday, October 14, 2018

 The Honorable Wilfred T. Ussery celebrated his 90th b day at Oakland's Geoffrey's Inner Circle

The Bay Area's Black renaissance man, Wilfred T. Ussery, was honored on his 90th birthday at Geoffery's Inner Circle, chief venue in Oakland's Black Arts Movement Business District along the 14th corridor, downtown. In his remarks, he said it was the first birthday celebration he remembers. Celebrants included his wife, Maxine, son, Wilfred, Jr., Paul Cobb, publisher of the Oakland Post, and his wife, Gay; Dezzie Woods Jones, founder of BAWOPA, Black women organized for political action; retired judge Horace Wheatly, Bill T. Jones and his wife Belva Davis, black media diva; Charlie Walker, businessman and godfather of Hunters Point, SF; Rt. Air force Col. Conway B. Jones, Civil Rights activist,Norman Brown, poet-activist Marvin X, et al.

Ussery was trained as an architect but as social activist combined his skills to become the leader of CORE, Congress of Racial Equality, San Francisco Anti-Poverty Program; organizer and designer of Oakland's Acorn housing projects, member of the Bay Area Rapid Transit BART.

Will was a key organizer of two early 60s Black Power Conferences in San Francisco and Los Angeles.



We are honored to have known Wilfred T. Ussery since the 1960s. The consensus of speakers praised his forward thinking. In his remarks, he said he still has many projects in mind but is scaling down, although he recently presented the BART Board with a 150 page proposal and has drafted a 15 page proposal for The Black Agenda in the Age of Trump, basically a do-for-self agenda.

The event was documented by three of the Bay Area's master Black photographers: Ken Johnson, Adam Turner and Gene Hazzard.. Photos to follow.
--Marvin X
10/14/18

Marvin X new poem: The Moment between light and darkness

Comments on Marvin X poem

Not merely a spell-binding work but a spell-weaving one. Superb, Bro. Marvin!

--John Woodford, Editor emeritus, Michigan Today Newspaper, University of Michigan

*****

Dear Marvin,

This is such a beautiful and very spiritually meaningful poem. 

I remember sitting in that class so proud of Askia for saying his truth.  I think of the work that I did, teaching young people mostly Latin nd Asian about African American theatre.  They eat it up like candy, relating it to  stories of watching their parents being taken away or beaten by the police for nothing.  They were so thankful for your work, for Askia's work, for Amiri's work, for Ntozake's work, for Sonia's work, and for countless people of color that saw their pain.  Each time you spoke to my class, I had students wanting to know more about your life and quoting your words.  They told me they called their parents after reading, "Flower for the Trashman."  They finally understood how important it is to say, "I love you" before that person is gone.  I had a young South Asian woman cry when she read Nellie Wong's poem on Colorism because she had tried to pretend she was white, until she understood the beauty in being brown.  You all left a body of work that is healing so many young people.  I see the difference.  You have brought meaning to the lives of so many people that you will never know.  

There are different ways of winning wars or removing oppression.  One of the most powerful is through the spoken word.

Keep on writing, keep on showing love.

Peace,

Kim McMillan, PhD

University of California, Merced

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2018

Marvin X new poem: The Moment between light and darkness

Marvin X reading with his Black Arts Movement Poets Choir and Arkestra, featuring David Murray, Tacuma King and Val, et al. Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, Oakland, 2015
photos by photographers Kamau Amen Ra (RIP), Adam Turner and Gene Hazzard

As I am half blind in the fourth quarter of my life
I notice as I travel from light into darkness
micro second of total darkness
I do not try to see in this space
just adjust 

light into darkness
then I see darkness
thankful
navigate darkness
Dr. Nathan Hare say I have seen enough
flow wit da flow

one day at a time

Dr. Hare say praise Sankofa bird

just don't stay in past

otherworldism

forward motion

Afrofuturism

Sun Ra style 

Space is the Place

Your world is not my world

your world is history

my world is mystery

Space is the Pace

You so evil

devil don't want you in hell!

Sonny say

What you doing negro

Sonny say

Negro say I ain't doin' nothin'

Sonny say you wanna job Negro

Negro say doin what?

Sonny say doin' nothin!

Negro say how much you gonna pay me?

Sonny say I ain't gonna pay ya nothin!

I am thankful to see  light in darkness
Oh, world,  forgive my sins
I try to forgive world for low information vibration

Bible say people destroyed for lack of knowledge not money women men children

What Qur'an say

If your wealth wives children

are dearer to you than Allah

then wait til His command comes

Be ye not of the unjust unmerciful

be of those who praise Him

and He hears those who praise Him

Rabbanaka al Hamd

Our Lord to Thee is due all praise!

In the low information vibration we are

anesthetized to the world of make believe conspicuous consumption
my favorite line from Dr. E. Franklin Frazier's Black Bourgeoisie

Today is Askia Toure's b day
When he apologized to students at UC Merced for leaving them this unfinished legacy of uncompleted revolution
I objected because I know our revolution was aborted by the overwhelming power of the State
military intelligence cointelpro fbi snitches agent provocateurs
how could we overcome the awesome power of the state apparatus?
After all, we were young and invincible thinking we knew it all
refusing the wisdom of elders and ancestors
in our ignut joy to reinvent the wheel
so we did stupid shit
sex drugs  rock n roll can make revolution but not complete it
Dr. John Henry Clarke said only high morals will save us
Sun Ra said only discipline
Teach discipline to your actors Marvin X
forget that freedom justice equality talk
don't you see how wild and crazy they act?
Teach discipline
This is what I teach my Arkestra
Sonny was right
look at our freedom babies
wild crazy savage
no discipline
no manners
no etiquette
common sense
from Crack hand to cell phone hand
addicted like the man/woman Crack addicts
they/we used to run through the hood with Crack in hand
Cell phone junkies walk into the streets into cars  cell phone in hand

killing themselves
talking loud saying nothing (James Brown)
JB said, "If it was left up to me I would cut yo hand off
talkin loud sayin nothin
talkin black but livin all the negro you can!"
We love you JB
You taught us the Big Payback is a motherfucka
I'm Black n Proud
It's a man's world
but ain't nothin without a woman

there is darkness in the world and there is light
between the two think about the good times
enjoy the good times
when bad times come
roll wit da punches
sister in law told me

smiling faces tell lies
fake news
fake blues
fake jazz
blue eyed blues singer was you in the cotton cane fields Earle Davis asked
cotton/cane fields from can't see ta can't see?
was you on the cross and  lynching tree
was you in the big house
or house nigga/field nigga no matter
master came to yo hut
you thought to fuck yo woman
no
master came to fuck you
Mandingo ass nigga
Did master fuck you
fusion jazz ass motherfucka
fk yo woman children
his children too
then sold them New Year's Day Auction block
blues jazz white boy/girl
did jim crow suck yo blood
did yo ancestors eat food in the shit hole door of no return
before Middle Passage through Door of No Return
Did you go there
hear the ancestors wailing in the walls
crying through centuries of pain trauma genocide
400 years without a food stamp
400 years capital accumulation
400 years building white wealth
yes reparations yes
reparations til Fort Knox is drained
Drain Federal Reserve
drain white privilege wealth
depart ghetto gentrifiers
depart
fuck yo high tech jobs
fuck yo hipster fake ofay bullshit
depart with dogs in hand
clean dog shit and yo shit
depart
leave yo keys
South Africa style
leave yo keys
flee to Australia Russia flee
space moon mars saturn
leave keys
no earth lessons learned
go
leave yo keys
white man heaven black man's hell
white man heaven black man's hell
Farrakhan sing

how you sing blues jazz
how you sing anything
where Beatles steal
Elvis
Rolling Stones steal
we love everything about you but you
Poet Paradise say
truly
we love Dolly Parton's coal miner blues
South told me ova n ova poor white trash treated worse than niggas
so we love you trailer house trash white folks
only you can sing the blues
you understand jazz, i.e., black classical music
not Martin Luther King, Jr.'s pseudo white liberals
multi-cultural leave niggas on bottom motherfuckas
Farrakhan say wherever he went over the world
black man woman on bottom
Communist Socialist Capitalist Muslim Christian Jewish
black man woman on bottom
ancestors say
bottom rail top
bottom rail top
JB say the Big Payback is a mother....

poor white man ask me fa a dollar
I said white man would you rather have $500.00 or one dollar?
White man said $500.00
I said, "White man, come back tomorrow faya $500.00
he walked away in silence.

In the moment between light and darkness be still

peace be still.
the storm is ova now
the storm is ova
we rejoice
motion in ocean
Amiri Baraka said
In the middle of the Atlantic ocean
a railroad of human bones
the king sold the farmer to the ghost
in the middle of the Atlantic ocean
railroad of human bones
king sold farmer to the ghost
king sold farmer to the ghost......

rise up North American Africans
rise from low information vibration
no excuse with cell phone
Becky tell you everything
Becky don't lie
Did you mean?
Did you mean?
rise from tricycle to ten speed
rise
In the middle of the Atlantic ocean
railroad of human bones
Amiri Baraka say
don't let them take yo um boom ba boon
if they take yo um boom ba boom
you in deep trouble
take you centuries to get out....
We love you Ancestor AB.
We love Amina too.
We love Baraka family.

--Marvin X

10/13/18

Notes final draft 10/12/18

Vol. I, Rough Draft

Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X 10/11/18

Contents

Introduction by Dr. Nathan Hare, PhD., Sociology, PhD., Clinical Psychology

Note #1 The wild crazy ride of the Marvin X Experience

#2 Review of Protection Shields, A Mythic/Magical Drama in the Yoruba Tradition by Dr. Ayodele Nzinga

#3 Defining Mental Health in America

#4 Hip Hop DJ Davey D’s Manhood Training

#5 Aretha, Angela, Marvin X and the White Farmer

#6 In Honor of the National Prison Strike, 2018: Prison Lyrics of Marvin X, 1970

#7 In Memoriam: Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour

#8 Black August Conference on Incarceration, Oakland CA, 2018

#9 Kidnapped,Deported, Incarcerated

#10 Politics of Sports

#11 Confession of Ex-basketball Player

#12 Dr. Nathan Hare’s Fictive Theory

#13 A Day in the Life at Academy of Da Corner #1, 14th and Broadway, Downtown Oakland

#14 Bar-B-Q Becky and Black Revolution at Oakland’s Lake Merritt

#15 Harvey Weinstein and the Mythology of Pussy and Dick

#16 Is Harvey Everyman?

#17 Is President Donald Trump the Devil in the Book of Job, a fool or damn fool?

#18 Dear White Folks

#19 Racism in America: the Grand Denial

#20 Imagine a Black  Nation!

#21 Black Nationalism, Flower Children and the Summer of Love

#22 Transcend the Low Information Vibration

#23 Talk at San Francisco State University, Davey D’s Hip Hop Class

#24 Talk with students at University of California, Merced, Dr. Kim McMillan’s Radical Theatre Class

#25 UC Merced, continued

#26 Revolution Against Fear

#27 Transcending Romanticism/Idealism

#28 Left/Right Paradigm

#29 Big Man Howard Memorial

#30 Review Black Panther Wakanda

#31 Revolutionary Black Porn?

#32 Don't nobody care about Donald Trump and his ho's

#33 Men who love ho's and multiple wives

#34 Dear Parents

#35 BAMBD Billion Dollar Trust

How it will be allocated

#36 United Front

#37 Hustlers guide

#38 Cross and Lynching Tree, Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

#39 Shakespeare and Chauncey Bailey

#40 I am Marcus Garvey

#41 Black Student Revolution at San Francisco State University

#42 Prez Obama fake speech to Muslims

#43 A fictional speech: Prez Obama on Afghanistan

#44 Amiri Baraka's  Jazz Opera Sisyphus Syndrome

#45 Denzel Washington film Fences

#46 Oakland Symphony Orchestra honors 50th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party

#47 Visioning the BAMBD: Talk with Architect Fred Smith

#48 BAMBD Meets with Carmel Developers; letter to Carmel

#49 Symbiosis of Poet and Politicians

#50 Marvin X Driving Miss Libby

#51 Parable of Woman on Cell Phone

# 52 Love letter to gay and lesbian youth