#032 Jessica Care Moore, 1997

 This is not an instrumental 
To real MC's and Poets across the globe

Recorded for Japanese recording artists, Silent Poets, 

"For Nothing" Album. . Toy Factory '98. 

From Japan to Motown

Seven mile to Fulton Street

There is the word unrehearsed - hungry for truth

Not always found in the poetry scene

Without a musical backdrop to make your head get loose

Cause it's the words we speak leaking messages to and - From our youth

Poetry shows how verse is always fundamental

In case you're confused, this is not an instrumental

Thee is an afro ready to bloom and a flower waiting to die

Maybe's killing maybe's and somebody knows why

In slavery we trust complacent with nothing much

Eat your people's humanity over politics at lunch

I gotta hunch your gonna make it the big time

We didn't create it

Yet we think we have the right to desecrate the rhyme

With rights come responsibility

Bring the truth with a prophets humility

You be killing me!

And killing you and those other two that came with you

who thought they knew

A rhyme was about talking about your silly crew

In lieu of all the death they'll soon be nothing left

The because of things will be taught to the blind and the once def

Lyrics are already outlawed on major radio stations

Conversations are a fantasy and there's a chocolate candy named

after the Temptations

Follow me to where the music always plays

The bouncing ball is tripping cause the world cares what you say

Lyrical police are unleashed as we try hard to say the least

Still there is no such thing as silence before the peace

Musical inflation on the rise, watch the voice increase

Keep me out your stores, I'll kick my poetry on the street

In my pants there is no crease

Academically elite please take a seat

Welcome to the reality of the poor and the nameless

To poetic to get famous

Suck in a daily dose of Dean

Sitting on the broken knees of uncle remus*

Blame us, the Hip Hop generation, for taking poetry back to where it

started

Corners of city blocks, rolling dice, on a hill

In the alley, in your aunts basement, at a protest in Harlem

Prepared to be killed

It was about politics and courage and the integrity of being an artist

Sonia, Gil and The Last Poets still talk about it

My name is grace and I'm married to Hip Hop, buried under slow sand

Dirty round my knees I draw with brown hands

choke for air

breathe for no one unless the mic's checked

Turn off the light, raise my head give the sun love

It isn't here yet

Reach in my pocket watch the real clock with my eyes closed

I hear the tick, I grab my bic

Least that's how the story goes 

Traveling with full pockets just trying to find my way home

But all I got is the sun, two pieces of lent and four new poems

On my journey there will be many that I meet

Sniff out the vibe, check the label closely

For the other white meat

I press delete and a new poem begins

It's not a coincidence, since without a princess there is no prince

And cinderella's left shoe has been missing ever since

She went commercial and thought she'd be better off alone

She drove herself to the mall, sold her carriage for tiny stones

Some called them diamonds, she traded them for her blue yes

And now when she blinks truth sounds like lies

When I go home to Detroit I love eating chili fries

And I hope that all this sounds written and rehearsed

When you think of poetry

please listen both ways before crossing the verse

Sign my name in she-brew black girl juice can heal you

It doesn't matter how big your words

If the people can't feel you

written by Jessica Care Moore, The Words Don't Fit in my Mouth, 1997.

*see: Uncle Remus folktales