reinvent myself

How do you “pick up the pieces and move on?” How do you get off those dirty knees where you been hungry diggin’ poatatoes, and say through your angry tears, never never never again, will you go that hungry?
What makes my clock tick?
What makes my heart jump?

I can’t answer that question for you, friend; but what I can do is tell you what is going on with me here, with Johnny Pistolas, “Chicago” a.k.a Tarik Black Jack Walker.

What makes my clock tick? My clock ticks on god love, on raw love, on music and honey and chocolate and holy spirit.

My clock does not tick on jive talk or money, on bullshit or frontin’ (by that I mean, I don’t operate on falseness or hypocrisy).

What makes my heart jump? My heart jumps with joy, for joy, for love and light and beauty. My heart jumps to pump to come up to bring up the blood the fizz the sizzle to keep the steak hot, to jump that jive, to jump that joint, to rock the casbah, to move and groove and hover in loving tenderness while the full moon floats over a lonely oak grove.

My heart jumps at what she said, what he did, what we wanted to dream, what you thought you could do, what you didn’t know was on, what they couldn’t touch.

What do I have to be bitter about? I could say I am bitter because she dissed me, because that other one didn’t miss me, cause that third one won’t kiss me, but that is a lie, because it don’t matter if I don’t mind, and I got my mind over matter, and the Spirit over Mind.

I was blind but now can see, was asleep under the baobab tree, was being eaten by ants while I slept dreamless sleep of a dunk, no thought I hadn’t thunk, no drop I wouldn’t ‘av drunk if I only could taste of the essence of life, when things go wrong it hurts me true, and that bitterness from missing, from missing, from being so lost in the sauce I couldn’t taste it.

I was bitter but then I woke up and washed my mouth out. I was bitter but then I walked outside and remembered how nice it was to breathe. Just breathe. Forget fresh air. If you can breathe, if you can walk, then you can walk your fine self over to a place where the air is fresh. Ya feel me?

I hope I ain’t comin’ off wrong. I hope this ain’t the same old song. I hope that I, that you, that we belong to life as it can be, not as it is.

See poem, “In chrysalis, midstream”