O's birthday

Seven years have died

since the call o'er the wires

of the phone in my room.

Even the promised two have died

like he is dead, I'm sure

as dead as bullets box a life

bringing dreams to a halt

and promises left as memory

An ear from the past waits

the voice that stoked a fire

of worth and hate and fruited nights

when doubts ruled the imagined heart

He was and more than son

"Lovers" too trite a word to write

though joy with tears and agony

ran wild by the river's side

along banks tramps occupied.

It was sure mixture of 

sin and grace, as God knows

the core of creatures of his shaping

of mortals fleeing him for

other arms, for a while-till death

O's birthday pressed the bar

opening the vault where treasures rest

from past exploits and ways to be

of hoping's for the next, "Good-bye!"

*What bothers me about the rhetoric of victimization is that it implies that we can belong to only one side of history, whereas the moment you participate in history, you participate in impurities.

-Richard Rodriguez

*The notion that somehow I can claim victimization implies too easily that the lines connecting us to the past are innocent lines.

-Richard Rodriguez

*Just a Breath of Freedom

                                                             4 Nelson Mandela 

Held captive 4 your politics

They wanted 2 break your soul

They ordered the extermination

of all minds they couldn't control

4 u the fate was far worse

than just a brutal homicide

They caged u like an animal

and watched u slowly die inside

As u Breathe your first air of freedom

on the day u become a free man

Raise your Regal Brow in Pride

4 now you R in God's Hands

The life of many were given

so that the day would one day come

That the devils in Power at Pretoria

would pay for the evil crimes they've done

-Tupac Shakur