Face value isn’t valuable.
J Dilla loved the Doughnut cos they’re CD’s you can eat.
A hug is a heart fight.
A real badman is that urge to spark the lighter while it’s in your pocket.
Read the small print – Gang signs cause arthritis.
Earthquakes just want to be called groundbreaking.
Pole dancers are really auditioning to be flags.
Treat your RIPs like VIPs. Make jokes silly as the idea of them being dead. 
The laugh is a miracle – Stone turned to water. 
This family and separation go together so well I don’t know why they don’t hurry up and get married.
Nan Nan says the tongue is pink when we’re born
because it’s uncooked, but if it’s still pink when we’re grey 
it is because we didn’t speak with enough fire. 
Home will be that haircut you didn’t ask for – that one you’re told to grow into. 
Brown family have a habit of staying in places where we’re told we’re needed but not that we’re wanted. We need to learn to move,
to live like death – When it’s time to go it’s time to go. 
His mum and him live under flight paths so the airplanes make the sky sound like a hungry stomach. The trees with plastic bags caught in their hair wave TV static. 
You write a list of people you have to live for and your name doesn’t make the list. 
People will stab you in the back until your torso is a cheese grater
then come back to your door knocking remorse code – you will feel so ugly you could crease light. Trying to sleep, vexed, shaking violently in bed until the springs turn to slinkies. 
Never apologise for being a threat. It’s their fault they can’t traffic light your roads – You told me you don’t feel part of this family – the caesarian wasn’t the first time you were cut from somewhere you belong  ––  And for once this whole family has something in common  because Dad and Dead feel the same in the mouth.
You snapped both Achilles tendons dancing for God.
I think you’ve given up, Mum. Nowadays your sighs are 
the strongest thing about you. 
You exhale as if you’re trying to shut the body down.
And it’s as if you’ve training your inhales 
so they’ll soon be strong enough
to suck heaven out the sky like a lost balloon. 


Brown PinkGrey

7 & 3000 were written a year after Brown PinkGrey and every day I find new links between them.

3000

My girl and I been together a year now rah

When the soul is pregnant and the water breaks she drives herself to the hospital
They ask where’s the father is she says there is no space for no man here — 
 Some reason she didnt wanna tell em I was going crazy in the waiting room,
Throwing the TV remote at windows trying to convert them into TV screens 

On the other side of the window are the worshippers of Cold Pizza have seen me throwing remotes and they have seen me throwing remotes at them and think I am out to get them. The worshippers of cold pizza have no trouble converting others – cos everyone knows cold pizza is awesome, they’re never given the time to realise: this is called microwave evangelism. On Other side of the road that is on the other side of the window on the other are the Jehovahs witnesses they hand out brochures about God like theyre leaflets for somebody who’s gone missing.
The witnesses are outside of a B&Q that only sells tables you can sit and laugh with your friends at. We used to sneak in and stuff enough gum under the tables that they grew teeth.
She comes out with our baby says she’s ready to go – 
The physical manifestion of my soul is a mouth so labour was easy as a cough - 
Within 10 minutes our baby’s grown into a toddler screaming for champagne 
We leave the hospital and pass the B&Q - the baby sees the Witnesses and hands me its champers - asks why there’s no refund policy on prayers and how has their holy book gone from being architect of the whole city to a tourist that needs directions? 
The Cold Pizzarians don’t want no beef, they gather in an 18-inch circle, look to the sky, yell “PIZZA GOGO” and disappear.

I know this baby will be hard work - 
How will I explain That one time I wrote a list of things that make me interesting
And it looked like a list of symptoms for depression,
That daddy was known for directing light until he started to cast shadows 
The heart and the brain will argue all day - 
they need somewhere to meet so the voice lives halfway 

—  We take the baby to our house that has a chimney that smokes like an old man
A house so big if we ever lose our keys we are better off looking for a new house
I have a view of a beach with no water: all you see is fish flapping on sand, like humans trying to remember dreams outside of sleep
You die and become plaque on a park bench or the air traffic conductor for all the thoughts that pass through a living brain. 
I was standing at the beach imagining the tide:
I clocked the voice in my head didn’t sound like mine –
When I said I wanted a spaceship it said “No, get a time machine”
I consult the imaginary friends in my notepad 
we know we can't choose how we die but we can choose how we go mad 
Same day my Mum tells me her dreams are dead and makes it sound like i should be paying for the funeral, 
Life is priceless but the world is an oxygen auction 

I ask God can He get me an interview with whoever operates the camera in my dreams
He said he can get me in a 3-way-call and let the camera operator decide if they wanna do it or not. 
I know you are a hard worker so I don’t mind it too much when you take nights off unexpectedly. I suspect this is when you go location scouting.
When I daydream - does that count as overtime? Or is this your new purpose in the Afterlife? 
I’d love to write scripts for the voices in people’s heads if that’s a job maybe you could put a word in for me. 
Do you know the voices in my head too? Do you all bump into each other on nights out? Do you know that don who says the stuff I am scared to write about, would you be able to introduce us some time? I dunno why but I picture them as someone who’s always in a suit and tie but never ever at a job, he’s got a pencil moustache and he’s always 5 minutes away from wherever I am–  
And do you know who it is that talks all that shit for me during sex? Can you tell ‘em I said thank you yeah? Cheers” 
Stays on my lips like the word why, if God wont do something, why the El Shaddai?

Kareem

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