Saul Williams Read online

  “, said the shotgun to the head, is an invitation to live and die in the moment, a confrontation of the politics of empire, a dare to transform oneself in the face of fear and a post 9-11 love song all in one.”

  —Zack de la Rocha

  the greatest americans

  have not been born yet

  they are waiting patiently

  for the past to die

  please give blood

  Here is the account of a man so ravished by a kiss that it distorts his highest and lowest frequencies of understanding into an incongruent mean of babble and brilliance….

  “An astonishing… poet. The internal rhyme, metrics, and imagery are so fleet… that they’re humbling.”

  —The Washington Post

  visit us on the world wide web.

  http://www.SimonandSchuster.com

  http://www.mtv.com

  “[Saul Williams is] a mighty talent. He takes readers on epic voyages into frontiers that offer a refreshing awakening of the mind and a roller coaster ride into an abyss of demons, deities, occult symbols, and more.”

  —Amsterdam News

  Saul Williams is the author of two previous books of poetry, S/he (MTV/Pocket Books) and The Seventh Octave (Moore Black Press). His debut album, Amethyst Rock Star, earned him great critical acclaim, as did his starring role in Slam. Williams also co-wrote Slam, which garnered the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Caméra d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Visit his website at www.saulwilliams.com.

  photo: katina parker

  , said the shotgun to the head.

  Also by Saul Williams

  S/he

  The Seventh Octave

  Thank you for purchasing this Pocket Books eBook.

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  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Page vi: Paul Robeson, from Paul Robeson Speaks, Kensington Publishing Corporation. First published by Citadel Press/Carol Publishing/Carol Communications, Copyright 1978 Bruner Mazel, Inc. “The Night/1,” from The Book of Embraces by Eduardo Galeano, translated by Cedric Belfrage with Mark Schafer. Copyright © 1989 by Eduardo Galeano. English translation copyright © 1991 by Cedric Belfrage. Used by permission of the author and W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

  Page 3: “All Those Ships That Never Sailed,” from a poem by Bob Kaufman in The Ancient Rain: Poems 1956-1978, copyright 1958, New Directions Publishing Corporation.

  Copyright © 2003 by Saul Williams

  MTV Music Television and all related titles, logos, and characters are trademarks of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 0-7434-7079-6

  ISBN: 978-1-4391-8456-1 (eBook)

  First MTV Books/Pocket Books trade paperback edition September 2003

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Art Direction: Jeffrey Keyton and Deklah Polansky

  Design: Christopher Truch and Paul Raphaelson

  Project Management: Sarah James

  PUBLISHER'S NOTE

  This eBook is best viewed at smaller font settings on your device.

  To my mother

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 0

  Chapter 1

  Acknowledgments

  The man who accepts Western values absolutely, finds his creative faculties becoming so warped and stunted that he is almost completely dependent on external satisfactions, and the moment he becomes frustrated in his search for these, he begins to develop neurotic symptoms, to feel that life is not worth living, and, in chronic cases, to take his own life.

  PAUL ROBESON

  I can’t sleep. There is a woman stuck between my eyelids. I would tell her to get out if I could. But there is a woman stuck in my throat.

  EDUARDO GALEANO

  INTRODUCTION

  Have you ever been kissed by God? Passionately (tongue, lips, etc.)? Or are you one who simply condemns God to the realm of the invisible? When do you feel most comfortable? When do you feel most loved? Perhaps it is in the warm embrace of your lover or in the assuring touch of your mother. Perhaps, like me, you have likened this person to God in your life and realized that God was loving you through them. Or maybe you don’t believe in God. Cool. Here’s a simpler question: Have you ever lost yourself in a kiss? I mean pure psychedelic inebriation. Not just lustful petting but transcendental metamorphosis when you became aware that the greatness of this being was breathing into you. Licking the sides and corners of your mouth, like sealing a thousand fleshy envelopes filled with the essence of your passionate being and then opened by the same mouth and delivered back to you, over and over again—the first kiss of the rest of your life. A kiss that confirms that the universe is aligned, that the world’s greatest resource is love, and maybe even that God is a woman. With or without a belief in God, all kisses are metaphors decipherable by allocations of time, circumstance, and understanding.

  This book is the result of a kiss. A kiss that brings symbols to life and fear-based shortcomings to their symbolic death. To be kissed by a deity is nothing short of a miracle. The mind altering/altaring effects can last more than a lifetime. Here is the account of a man so ravished by a kiss that it distorts his highest and lowest frequencies of understanding into an incongruent mean of babble and brilliance. He wanders the streets disheveled and tormented by all that he sees that does not reflect her love. He is a wandering man, sort of like a modern day John the Baptist, telling of the coming of a female messiah that he has known intimately. He is the babbling man you cross the street to avoid. He is the unavoidable end before the new beginning. He is a lover in search of greater love. SHE is One and many: Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction and creation; Oya, the Yoruba orisha of death and rebirth; the Holy Ghost, which is to say, the woman restored to her rightful place in the Holy Trinity. No longer ghost, no longer virgin, SHE is mother of us all.

  saul williams,

  Los Angeles, 2003

  CITIZENS,

  children of the night,

  bearers of the day torch:

  scorched and burned.

  BURN NOT.

  the dam is broken.

  the curse is fled.

  once muddied and still,

  the river runs

  RED!

  “ALL

  those ships that never sailed

  the ones with their seacocks open

  that were scuttled in their stalls

  TODAY

  i bring them back

  HUGE AND INTRANSITORY

  and let them sail

  FOREVER!”*

  if ever

  there were currents

  uncurrent
<
br />   the wind

  could not serve as

  truth’s currency

  CURRENTLY

  MOON MARKED

  AND

  SUN SPARKED

  UNMARKED BILLS

  i AM

  CERTAIN

  i SPEAK A NEW LANGUAGE

  as is ALWAYS

  THE FIRST SIGN

  of a

  NEW AGE

  i had begun to believe my blackened toenails

  were on path to decay when, in truth,

  they had begun the gradual process of

  CRYSTALLIZATION.

  i am he who walks on wind scorned feet with toenails of

  AMETHYST AND ROSE QUARTZ.

  my path now crystal clear.

  i AM COME TO TELL YOU

  SHE IS HERE.

  it is not written

  NO pen MAN ship

  was ever CARGOED

  with her character

  NOTE:

  BOOKS ARE CAREFULLY FOLDED FORESTS

  void of autumn

  BOUND FROM THE

  SUN

  Likewise, she made her residence

  ON THE OUTSKIRTS

  OF A SHADOWING HISTORY

  ON THE DARKSIDE OF THE MOON

  where the searchlight of the sun

  COULD NOT SPOT HER

  nor rot her

  the seed of forbidden fruit

  every tree

  HAS A HIDDEN ROOT

  YET, SHE HAS

  COME TO LIGHT

  THE SWELLING PATCHWORK

  OF VIBRANT DREAMS

  YES, THERE IS A SCIENCE

  TO THE AROMA

  OF SLEEPING WOMEN

  (AND TO THINK OF THE GIRLFRIEND i WAS TEMPTED TO BREAK UP WITH BECAUSE SHE SLEPT TOO MUCH)

  i now know, they NURTURED her there:

  they slept in packs

  dreamt in cycles

  NURSED HER IN SHIFTS

  and became her

  ON ROTATION

  unnamed her

  everytime she was named

  so she would not be known to anyone

  (even unto herself)

  undressed her

  everytime she was dressed

  so she would not be

  recognized

  as anyone other than

  herself

  they blindfolded her

  and spun her

  in circles

  so she would

  find her way here

  by no other means

  than her intuition

  and

  she

  is

  come

  i am a simple disoriented man

  in her presence

  i wear my loincloth

  over my eyes

  and ejaculate

  too soon

  forgive me father

  for i have sinned

  i prayed to you

  and cupped

  the wind

  and in doing so

  barred her entry

  into a century:

  100 years

  of solitude

  (yes, the wind is the moon’s imagination wandering)

  i will now pray

  with my hands

  outstretched

  with these psalms

  etched

  into my palms

  most beloved,

  i am certain of nothing more

  than your existence

  a thousand ants

  crawling under a log

  may find themselves exposed

  in my childlike search

  for you

  i have spent lifetimes

  in monasteries

  and drum stretched

  villages

  in expectation

  of this:

  our

  ecstatic dance

  my kali flower

  i am eternally destroyed

  by your love

  no longer

  am i eligible

  for any worker’s

  pension

  my friends laugh at me

  and talk behind my back

  they say that you have

  changed me

  and

  i am

  i am like a survivor

  of the flood

  walking through the streets

  drenched with

  God

  surprised that all of the

  drowned victims

  are still walking and talking

  maybe there’s hope

  i rush to each victim’s side

  sucking what i can of you

  out of your various

  incarnations

  pumping their stomachs

  and filling them

  to touch them

  is to touch you

  to kiss them

  is to kiss you

  my friends,

  love is an artform

  slightly removed

  from its element

  one may ask

  well what does this mean?

  i respond

  i’ve made it up

  but it shall be

  from now on

  from now on

  cities

  will be built

  on one side

  of the street

  so that soothsayers

  will have wilderness to wander

  and lovers

  space enough

  to contemplate

  a kiss

  she kissed

  as if she, alone,

  could forge

  the signature

  of the sun

  i closed my eyes

  although

  i never knew

  the difference

  i stood before

  a brighter light

  at lesser

  distance

  and then, a feeling. Almost as if nothing were ever bound to repeat itself again. As if history had been as masterfully created as the great pyramids and any attempt to reconstruct or relive any given moment would have to stem from an understanding of how the pyramids were built from the

  top down.

  and if one could understand such majesty one would also understand that kisses hold codes for unlocking new portals and that pyramids were first made of flesh

  our bonded souls

  shifting through

  hidden corrals

  and passageways

  i will find my way

  to eternity

  within you

  when i can feel you

  breathing into me

  i, like a stone gargoyle

  atop some crumbling building,

  spring to life

  a resuscitated

  angel

  i sweep through city streets

  my wings out-stretched

  making mothers

  clutch their young

  and remember

  and do you remember, dear ones

  or has your history forsaken you?

  there were tales told ’round fires

  mysteries coded in song

  chants and uprisings

  centuries of art

  all incantations

  calling forth this day

  on this day

  the drunks vomit in unison

  ’though last night they drank from different cups

  children laugh and play

  introducing their parents

  to invisible friends

  a country girl smiles

  and two trees blossom

  out of season

  sea sons awaken

  our mother has returned

  to wave us

  from uncertainty

  once tidal

  twice born

  of wooden ships

  thrice formed

  through mother’s hips

  mother ships

  graced tu lips

 
; a poet’s garden

  “2 for 5”

  “they’re going fast”

  the future’s bargain

  “that’s strange”

  “i heard my name”

  the river’s parting

  “hurry up”

  things blurry up

  the sun is darkened

  rivers

  like oceans

  oceans

  like answers

  questions

  in cloud forms

  raindrops

  in stanzas

  to be

  or not to…

  to see

  or not to…

  she had eyes

  like two turntables

  mix(h)er

  in between

  my dreams and reality

  blend in

  ancient themes

  the bass is of isis

  (basis)

  cross-faded to ankh

  the beat drops

  like a cliff

  over-looking

  my heart

  6000 feet

  above

  sea level

  3300 bodies

  disassembled

  the head bone’s

  connected

  to the cock pit

  knee jerk

  ass backwards

  dancing slaves

  in a mosh pit

  punk rock

  of gibraltar

  roll out

  nothing’s new

  mo’ blood dyes

  the mo hawk

  only this time

  it’s you

  and you

  never loved her

  for what she

  possessed

  you powdered

  her face

  and came

  on her

  head-dress

  oil slicked feathers, putrid stenched water-bed

  “mother nature’s a whore,” said the shotgun to the head.

  and it smelled like teen spirit