Thursday, January 17, 2019

Marvin X poem: I saw Toby today


Marvin X at Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland. 
photo Pendarvis Harshaw

 Marvin X established his Academy of da Corner at 14th and Broadway, also on Lakeshore Ave. and the Berkeley Flea Market.
photo Adam Turner

After 400 years
I saw Toby today
down from Kunta Kinti
royal robes of Maa't
today funky
stinkin'
Toby
came in Peet's Coffee
Lakeshore Oakland
sat down at black woman table
she don't know what to say
Terrified Toby at her table
sippin' her Latte
tried to sit cool
Toby fool sick
Kinti mind dead
way backin' time
1619
was it Kinti's crime
Toby Villain victim
African army of Tobys
disabled veterans of US war on Toby
call Toby drugs crime in the street
deranged disoriented
I love the Whispers line
Lost and Turned out
on way to Grandmother's house
Toby
Elijah say lost-found socalled Negro
I call him North American Africa
Elijah say he Aboriginal Asiatic Black Man
Maker Owner Planet Earth
Really
This Toby in Peet's Coffee
If he own it will he claim it
too sick to claim own mind
Young dread lock brother ask Toby to leave
dread brother know Toby
know Toby sick
he kind to Toby
Young dread brother know Elijah lesson The Proper Handling of People
Tony pull up pants
Black woman sign relief
And this is my king
this Toby thang
no thanks
Where is Kunta
rise Kunta
Rise and take me home
yes
through door of no return
Malcolm X said we left our minds in Africa
rise Kunta
don royal robes
let us depart as we came in the water
submerged
we sail path Baraka told
"In the Atlantic Ocean
railroad of human bones....
King sold farmer to ghost
King sold farmer to ghost...."

Take me Kunta
no more Toby please
kill Toby hang him please
Toby no good nobody
Recycle Toby
let Kunta speak
speak Kunta
spit your royal rap
spit Hebrew Christian Muslim Yoruba Ma'at Sufi Sunni Democratic Socialist Communist Troskyist
Vudun Santeria Candomble' Holy Ghost Five Per Cent Noble Drew Ali Democrat Negro Republican Negro spit
gender sex gods
ocean gods rivers
mountain gods money gods
kill mama daddy money gods
speak
King Kunta speak
no silencia por favor
digame digame digame
stand Toby as Kunta
once again
at the crossroads of Legba Eshu Ptah Peter
Can Toby wash in river ocean stream
wash baptism of return
wash
drum ancestor rhythms
bata
djembe
conga
listen Toby listen good
let drum heal heart.
listen Toby listen good
God hears those who praise Him
Our Lord to Thee is due all praise.
Sami Allahu liman al hamida
Rabbana na laki al hamd.
---marvin x
1/17/19

Marvin X Speaks and Reads 
coast to coast. 
Now booking.
jmarvinx@yahoo.com




Marvin X  Tour  2019

February 16, Sat
Alameda CA
Reading/ book signing
Back 2 Nature Wellness Salon
and Barber Shop
475 Central Avenue
3-6pm

February 22, Friday
Reading book signing
Hunters Point, San Francisco
5:30-7:30
901 Fairfax Avenue

February 23, Saturday
Oakland 
Reading/book signing
BAMFEST


Marvin X reading at Charles Wright Museum, Detroit MI, December 15, 2018. He has been invited back at another venue for Black History Month
photo Leona McElevene 

February 28, Thursday
Detroit, MI
TBA


March 2, Saturday
Reading/book signing
Philadelphia PA
Brothers Network
TBA

May
Reading/book signing
Seattle WA
Host Hakeem Trotter
TBA

August 
National Black Theatre Festival
Winston-Saleem, North Carolina
TBA

October
Austin, Texas
How We Got Ova 1619-2019
A poetic myth/ritual dance drama 
by El Muhajir, aka Marvin X


Train in da Water
poem by Marvin X
"In the Atlantic ocean is a railroad of human bones...."--Amiri Baraka

Train came to ocean
we riding in da water
Riding waves bout to go under
How sweet da waves
train went under
Passing da many fish
As we submerged
How pleasant da train
Going down slowly
another space for peace
Let da ocean wash us with love
We connect the bones of Baraka's railroad
train rides down into darkness
where no light is needed.
we  black ocean same.

--1/13/19


The X Men: Marvin X, son Marvin K, grandsons Jordan and Jahmeel

Dear Black Folks,

Stay out of white folks bizness. They stay out of our bizness in the hood, even though they supply the guns, dope, sick religion, . mis-education, toxic food, water, air; death music rap beats, perverted psycho-sexuality of  do yo thang, be what ya wanna be; totally insane political policies  that violate their own laws at the drop of a hat, e.g., sanctuary cities and states. Imagine what white folks would do if we declared the hood a sanctuary space that excluded Europe American entrance and jurisdiction and banned them from arresting North American African criminals for any reason without our consent. We establish and adjudicate all violations in our space. Imagine this!

Stay out of white folks bizness. They suffer a malady far worse than white Supremacy. Our ancestors and elders called their condition white lunacy.

Let them fight among themselves. Let them have their second Civil War. That's their bizness not ours. Our  business is to establish a sovereign, independent nation. The master and slave do not have the same agenda.
--Marvin X
1/14/19

Poet/Essayist/Educator/Activist Marvin X after his lecture/discussion in Davey D's Hip Hop class at
San Francisco State University, Marvin X's alma mater. He was a founding member of the Black Students Union.
photo Davey D

Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X 
Now Available
Order your copy from
Black Bird Press
requested donation
$29.95
call 510-575-7148
credit cards accepted


Marvin X
Poet, playwright, essayist, educator, activist
speaking/reading
University of Chicago, 2015

photo Burrell Sunrise


Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Parable of the Patriarch and Misanthrope

Parable of the Patriarch and Misanthrope




No misogynist
homophobic
sexist pig
no racist
hater white nationalist
hater
Democratic Socialist
Communist
Marxist
Troskyist
Maoist 
been there did that
just don't like humans
fake phony fraud motherfuckas
all up in yo face
fake love rapper say
I say
low information vibration 
humankind
world of make believe
material girls and boys
ignut of spiritual world
parents/ children on animal plane
no seekers of truth
lovers of lies
lie to me lie to me
my lover said
you lie so good
lie nigga lie
but I told truth
my over  said goodbye
low information vibration
Qur'an say
animal plane
human plane
divine plane
are you animal human divine?
you fine fine fine
but what's on yo mind?
Girl T shirt said
Cute but Psycho!
you fine
big behind
what's on yo mind?
treat ya like a ho'
ya love me so
treat ya like a queen
ya hate me mean
children same
abandon neglect
you love me
give you everything
ya hate me
ungrateful bastards
we call them
how you smarter'n yo daddy
did you suffer exile jail prison
black listed white listed
house arrest
hated by friends and foe
traveled wit baddest niggas to and fro'
what do you know
goin' to and fro'
square nigga in round world
what did you do
went to school where yo daddy put his life ona line to teach
made things better fada whole town
but you got a frown
ain't never went down
funky town
you daddy's twin
you say where similarities end
you fool
school can't help a fool
material things can't help a fool
monkey in tuxedo still monkey

I say call me
you say fa what?
cause I'm yo daddy motherfucka
call yo daddy motherfucka
think you got forever
they say child abuse when parent don't call child
What about elderly abuse when you won't call mama daddy
I love what Tupac told his Mama
"You might be a Crack fiend Mama
But you still a Black Queen Mama!"
Call me fa what? Cause I love you.
Is this enough
you got my DNA
in deep structure of mental spiritual

I don't hate you
love you beyond love
if you knew
fool
school can't help a fool
don't know a good deck
four Ace of Spades
But I love you still
stop fakin' ya doin' God's will
you and your Father are one
fool
How can you hate Father
Are you not Father's number one son
Shall your children hate you
for all good you have done 
under the sun
what goes around comes around
did they teach you dat in school
fool?
For my abuse of women
I lost eye
I understand why
what goes round comes round
low information vibration
My barber say mis-information
bless his heart
moved his shop from mis-information colleagues
barber said he needed to be round more mature personalities
don't wanna kill a nigga owe him fifty dollars
just know there are fifty dollar fools in da world

Again, why I hate human beings?
They pitiful
Chris Rock say to women
"Everything bout you is a lie!"
I say of men and women
Everything bout you is a lie!
truth ain't in ya.

Feed a nigga
dope a nigga
Hennessy a nigga
pay a nigga
nigga hate ya guts
nigga jealous envious

Sun Ra say
What kind of people are these
ain't people I used to know
Birmingham Alabama people
They say brother
What kinna brother
Sunny say to me
What kinna brother
brother man
brother beast
brother girl

I say long ago
what kinna people are these
really make ya wonder
Hurry Allah
wit da fire water!

you sacrifice fada people
will da people sacrifice
fada people?

Black Panthers say
Power to the people
US Constitution say
power to consent of the governed
do you consent to the present order of terror
economic terror
military religious terror
slave wage terror
90% don't have $1,000.00 in bank
99% survive from check to check

Elijah said it best
trick trick out  trick!
Reverse Tricknology 
bring nigga back from dead
deaf dumb blind

Granddaughter Naima say
Can deaf dumb blind
see
no
hear
no
speak
no
I say Stevie Wonder can see
Ray Charles could see
better'n you and me
Ray told bout Danger Zone
Ray say
Look round
you will see
what's troublin' me
Danger Zone everywhere
Read yo papers
you will see
Danger Zone Everywhere.

I ain't no hater
I'm a lover
like no other
just don't come at me wit willie foo foo bullshit
been wit coldest niggas in da world
I know shit from Shinola
Know Ginger Ale
from Coca-Cola

I love my chidren
a thousand times than they shall ever know
love their mothers
my siblings too

I only have a minute more wit you
So I shall be true true true
Love the family God bequest to you
love them for their negrocities (Amiri Baraka term--he told me don't steal his term!)
love them beyond similarities of the physical
love them for the DNA  the metaphysical.
--Marvin X
1/15/19

Monday, January 14, 2019

BAMBFEST FEB.2019 presents Marvin X, BAMBD/BAM co-founder Marvin X




Marvin X  Tour  2019

February 16, Sat
Alameda CA
Reading/ book signing
Back 2 Nature Wellness Salon
and Barber Shop
475 Central Avenue
3-6pm

February 22, Friday
Reading book signing
Hunters Point, San Francisco
5:30-7:30
901 Fairfax Avenue

February 23, Saturday
Oakland 
Reading/book signing
BAMFEST


Marvin X reading at Charles Wright Museum, Detroit MI, December 15, 2018. He has been invited back at another venue for Black History Month
photo Leona McElevene

February 28, Thursday
Detroit, MI
TBA


March 2, Saturday
Reading/book signing
Philadelphia PA
Brothers Network
TBA

May
Reading/book signing
Seattle WA
Host Hakeem Trotter
TBA

August 
National Black Theatre Festival
Winston-Saleem, North Carolina
TBA

October
Austin, Texas
How We Got Ova 1619-2019
A poetic myth/ritual dance drama 
by El Muhajir, aka Marvin X



Train in da Water
poem by Marvin X
"In the Atlantic ocean is a railroad of human bones...."--Amiri Baraka


Train came to ocean
we riding in da water
Riding waves bout to go under
How sweet da waves
train went under
Passing da many fish
As we submerged
How pleasant da train
Going down slowly
another space for peace
Let da ocean wash us with love
We connect the bones of Baraka's railroad
train rides down into darkness
where no light is needed.
we  black ocean same.

--1/13/19


The X Men: Marvin X, son Marvin K, grandsons Jordan and Jahmeel

Dear Black Folks,

Stay out of white folks bizness. They stay out of our bizness in the hood, even though they supply the guns, dope, sick religion, . mis-education, toxic food, water, air; death music rap beats, perverted psycho-sexuality of  do yo thang, be what ya wanna be; totally insane political policies  that violate their own laws at the drop of a hat, e.g., sanctuary cities and states. Imagine what white folks would do if we declared the hood a sanctuary space that excluded Europe American entrance and jurisdiction and banned them from arresting North American African criminals for any reason without our consent. We establish and adjudicate all violations in our space. Imagine this!

Stay out of white folks bizness. They suffer a malady far worse than white Supremacy. Our ancestors and elders called their condition white lunacy.

Let them fight among themselves. Let them have their second Civil War. That's their bizness not ours. Our  business is to establish a sovereign, independent nation. The master and slave do not have the same agenda.
--Marvin X
1/14/19

Poet/Essayist/Educator/Activist Marvin X after his lecture/discussion in Davey D's Hip Hop class at
San Francisco State University, Marvin X's alma mater. He was a founding member of the Black Students Union.
photo Davey D

Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X 
Now Available
Order your copy from
Black Bird Press
requested donation
$29.95
call 510-575-7148
credit cards accepted


Marvin X
Poet, playwright, essayist, educator, activist
speaking/reading
University of Chicago, 2015

photo Burrell Sunrise

Saturday, January 5, 2019

The Wall Hypocrites

The Wall hypocrites





Mending Wall


Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."


Do those who protest the white nationalist Wall on the US border, also protest the Zionist wall in occupied Palestine? Do the Democratic Socialist pseudo progressives and their left wing sycophants protest the weekly slaughter of those who approach the border fence separating the Zionists from the Gaza concentration camp?
For the most part, all we  hear is the song of Silent Night on the Zionist wall, but wailing and crocodile tears about  the wall on the US/Mexican border. I don't understand why there isn't total agreement between America's left and right wing Zionist Zealots that the Zionist wall should be the model for the US/Mexican border wall. Furthermore, did not America's greatest poet Robert Frost tell us fences make good neighbors? 
As a matter of national security, how can America justify spending nearly a trillion dollars on its defense budget but squabble over five billion requested by the Trump administration for the security of the USA. 
The truth, supreme irony and contradiction  is that the globalist democratic socialists and many Republicans in league with the Globalists, believe in open borders while many of them live behind walled compounds! Even upper and middle class Mexicans and other Latinos throughout the Indigenous Americas live behind walled compounds and villas, including some of my Communists friends in the Americas.
Growing up in the agricultural valley of California, my family never locked our doors. There were too many siblings in my Mother's house to issue keys to all. And Granny would never turn away a hungry stranger from her door when we lived with her in the projects. Of course this is in harmony with the African tradition delineated by Cheikh Anta Diop in his classic Cultural Unity of Africa as per his theory of the Northern and Southern Cradle. The Northern Cradle custom would kill the stranger, the Southern Cradle welcomed the stranger. I remember hungry white men stopping by Granny's house in the projects and she did not hesitate to feed them whatever food she had available. 

Of course in his Destruction of African Civilization, Chancellor Williams taught this attitude and tradition lead to our downfall and the Black Panther Wakanda Kingdom's xenophobia eclipsed the Diopian Southern Cradle model.  I have observed the Wakandan zenophobia from San Francisco's Hunters Point to South Carolina's Gullahland, i.e., "If you ain't from here don't come here!" Of course gentrification is smashing this xenophobic notion. Whites are invading Hunters Point and Gullahland, especially since the Hip Hop generation of Gullah Africans care nothing about their paradise islands. They rather die in the streets of Savannah and Atlanta!
Perhaps the Democratic Socialists should continue their call for open borders and sanctuary cities and states. Perhaps the USA should forget about fencing and walling the border and allow the USA to continue being the haven for every hateful unclean bird. If so, why continue funding the trillion dollar annual military budget for the national security of the USA? For sure, the budget did not prevent 9/11. So America should continue being the haven for every filthy unclean bird. After all, they can join the USA's filthy unclean birds. We heard filthy unclean birds flock together!
While President Trump called a plethora of nations shit-holes, has not America's most beautiful city, my beloved San Francisco, become a shit-hole? But the supreme irony is that while  San Francisco is the epic center of the high tech revolution, its white supremacist and globalist myopia has totally neglected the very least of its citizens. I speak as one who was once drug addicted and homeless, who slept in the Tenderloin doorways, allies in cardboard boxes and often with nothing but my black  ass. 
Finally, from ancient Egypt (Kemit) to the mythical African kingdom of Wakanda to America, national security can be comedic or tragic, but it should and must be addressed for the benefit of  all its citizens, first and foremost! Woe to the hypocrites!
--MARVIN X
1/5/19



Marvin X, poet, philosopher, essayist, playwright, planner, educator, organizer, historian




 Angela Davis, Marvin X and Sonia Sanchez


 West Oakland OGs at Defermery Park, aka Bobby Hutton Grove

 


 Ancestor Amiri Baraka, "My brother like no other!"--Marvin X


 Marvin X in Harlem reception in his honor at home of Rashidah Ishmaili, 2014

 Academy of da Corner, Oakland: left to right: Amiri Baraka, Bobby Seale, Dr. Ayodele Nzinga, Ahi Baraka and Marvin X
photo Gene Hazzard


 Marvin X fan club members
photo Kamau Amen Ra (RIP)

Marvin X in Heaven, i.e., in the presence of revolutionary, intelligent, beautiful African women
photo Ken Johnson