The Mission of Academy of da Corner, Street Ministry of First Poet's Church of the Latter Day Egyptian Revisionists

Attorney Walter Riley, Gregory Fields, Blues living legend Sugar Pie De Santo and Dr. M at Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland.

Dr. M, Senior Advisor Gregory Fields at Academy of da Corner.

photo Walter Riley, Esq.

The Academy of da Corner is a multi-purpose project, embracing literacy, literature, mental health, including grief and trauma counseling; a micro loan bank, and essentially a free speech and sacred space zone.

We are all student/teachers. Anyone of us can be simultaneously teacher and student.Usually we are the teacher, but most often we simply listen, letting people vent who otherwise have no one to talk with.

We are their ears, their mirror, so we must be humble, kind and gracious as much as possible, though we will be tried on occasion. But as per the mentally ill, they most especially need a kind word, a smile, and we have made their day. The poor may need a quarter or a dollar for a hamburger.

This is not asking too much, is it? We must be security minded at all times as my life has been threatened several times, but it must be crystal clear we are at Academy of da Corner to educate, assist and help heal the people, not kill the people or beat them down. Thus we must de-escalate any negative encounter. A person may accept a leaflet but throw in down in our face, so let it go. We don't know what state of mind the person may be in, for sure, many are mentally ill (severe, moderate, mild), and more then likely many persons are mind altered, weed, alcohol, Crack, meth, E pills and other.

Some persons are dual diagnosed, suffering drug abuse and mental illness. Most of the time we can look the person in the eyes to determine their state of mind. Eyes are the mirror to the soul!

Professor Lumukanda, the Only Intellectual in Oakland

Professor Lumukanda at the NW Campus of Academy of da Corner.

He's standing with the hat.

photo Walter Riley, Esq.

Professor Lumukanda, aka "Aristotle Negro"
Academy of da Corner, NW Campus,

14th and Broadway.

We now have two campuses of Academy of da Corner, one on the NE corner of 14th and Broadway. Another campus on the NW corner near City Hall, facilitated by the Honorable Brother Lumukanda, aka Aristotle Negro, a very erudite gentleman, former owner of several bookstores in downtown Oakland. Oakland Post Publisher Paul Cobb says, "Lumukanda is the only intellectual in Oakland!" We welcome the brother to Academy of da Corner.

Academy of da Corner is also a mental health center for youth and adults, along with the educational mission. We provide a space for people to vent their frustrations, grief and trauma from living in a hostile environment.

Academy of da Corner is Marvin X's Street Ministry, associated with the First Poet's Church of the Latter Day Egyptian Revisionists.

"If you want to learn about motivation and inspiration, don't spend all that money going to workshops and seminars, just go stand at 14th and Broadway and watch Marvin X at work.

--Ishmael Reed

Plato Negro and Aristotle Negro at the Academy of da Corner

Academy of da Corner, Marvin X's Street Ministry, 14th and Broadway


Oakland CA











Plato Negro, Jackson, Aristotle Negro


photo Walter Riley, esq.


4/26/11

Marvin X is Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland.

--Ishmael Reed

Comments from da corner





Fuck you, Marvin X, a Negro





I might come by here and throw a molotov cocktail at you!


--a journalist





No writer writes about the street like you.


--Walter Riley





Some people don't like you. I tell them to look at the good you are doing.


--a brother





Fuck the peckerwood, fuck the peckerwood, fuck the peckerwood!


--a brother whispered in MX's ear and kept going





Can you talk to my daughter. She needs help. She's cute, got two babies, but goes out with men and come home with no money for Pampers. What's wrong with that girl?


--a Mother

Deniece Williams: Black Butterfly

Remembering Dad

	Good afternoon, As the father of two young daughters, I know that being a father is one of the most important jobs any man can have. My own father left my family when I was two years old. I was raised by a heroic mother and wonderful grandparents who provided the support, discipline and love that helped me get to where I am today, but I still felt the weight of that absence throughout my childhood. It's something that leaves a hole no government can fill. Studies show that children who grow up without their fathers around are more likely to drop out of high school, go to jail, or become teen fathers themselves. And while no government program can fill the role that fathers play for our children, what we can do is try to support fathers who are willing to step up and fulfill their responsibilities as parents, partners and providers. That's why last year I started a nationwide dialogue on fatherhood to tackle the challenge of father absence head on. In Chicago, the Department of Health and Human Services held a forum with community leaders, fatherhood experts and everyday dads to discuss the importance of responsible fatherhood support programs. In New Hampshire, Secretary of Education Duncan explored the linkages between father absence and educational attainment in children. In Atlanta, Attorney General Holder spoke with fathers in the criminal justice system about ways local reentry organizations, domestic violence groups and fatherhood programs can join together to support ex-offenders and incarcerated individuals who want to be closer to their families and children. Now we're taking this to the next level. Tomorrow, I'll make an announcement about the next phase of our efforts to help fathers fulfill their responsibilities as parents -- The President's Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative. You can learn more at www.fatherhood.gov. This Father's Day -- I'm thankful for the opportunity to be a dad to two wonderful daughters. And I'm thankful for all the wonderful fathers, grandfathers, uncles, brothers and friends who are doing their best to make a difference in the lives of a child. Happy Father's Day. Sincerely, President Barack Obama

Remembering Dad

for Paul Cobb and Henry Winston

Classic black man
Race man
How can people know more about him than I?
should I be mad at him or myself
the men tell me how great he was
he was dad to me
the man who whupped my ass unmercifully
who argued with mom til she packed us and left
the man who gambled at the Elk's lodge
while I listened to Elijah Muhammad on the radio upstairs
went to Lowell Jr. High
bloods beat down poor white boy when they killed Emmit Til

Dad used to make me go with him to funeral parlors
deliver flowers to dead Negroes
cold and gray
terrifying me
maybe he wanted to teach me not to fear death

Dad was known over the Bay
known in the clubs where he danced even in his 80s
the people have stories about him I've never heard
making me sad I didn't know him like this
public man
social man
political man
only as father man
distant
old fashioned
from World War I
dressed sharp every day
starched shirt
suit, tie, carnation in lapel
shoes shined at Perry's on 7th
Ollie and I went with him on Sundays
then to church
any and every church to promote his florist bizness
holy ghost
baptist
methodist
we made the rounds
ecumenical for bizness
age came to dad
starched shirts dirty
suits piss stained
never saw him sick
until those cigars caught up with him in his late 80s
in the hospital for a week or two and he was gone
the man I didn't know yet knew too well
the man I became yet couldn't wear his clothes
stand in his shoes
no matter what I become I cannot be him
only myself
what a shame
Does prince ever become king, really?

--Marvin X
6/20/10

from Sweet Tea/Dirty Rice, poems, Marvin X, Black Bird Press, late 2010.

Deniece Williams: Black Butterfly

"Ai du" live by Vieux Farka Toure @ Joe's Pub

Misty

Misty

for Verdia Pope, in memoriam

and what about all the forgotten women and men in our lives
the one night stands
the lies we told in the bar, then the hotel suite
remembering nothing the next morning
by next year the face is forgotten
a one night stand
on the road to...
it was a moment to forget
or remember fondly
if the lover had a pleasant attitude and didn't suffer sex guilt
because it was what it was
but it was over in an instant,
a good nut and good night
please don't call
I have a husband and/or wife
there are children
you cannot visit
let it be what it was
a moment in the sun
the illusion of joy
don't get serious at the pleasures of life when they come
enjoy the good times
and when the bad times come
roll with the punches.
--Marvin X

from Sweet Tea/Dirty Rice, poems, by Marvin X, Black Bird Press, late 2010.

Poem: If You're Still The Same Afterwards

POEM: IF YOU'RE STILL THE SAME AFTERWARDS

Click to view large

Download this gallery (ZIP, undefined KB)

Download full size (837 KB)

photo by Alex Lear

IF YOU'RE STILL THE SAME AFTERWARDS

IT WASN'T LOVE

(to nia, thanx for making me better)

to say

"i am touched

by you"

is to be

changed

/ into

a person neither of us

was before

entering the other

more open, a sun of sensitivity

emotionally nude, erupting joy

& willing to kiss life open mouthed

emoting the vibrancy of glow

endemic to souls in the flow

in fact, it's even unscientific

not to evol

ve/not to love, not to

grow & give back

the only humans who actually evolve

are lovers

all others

just simply fuck and reproduce

the transformation

of touch

that's all

love is

—kalamu ya salaam

Kalamu ya salaam is one of the founders of the Southern Black Arts Movement.

And then there are Angels

And then there are angels

And then there are angels
who come in the form of devils
advocating for Allah,
yet they speak in the voice of Satan
thou Allah is in their heart
they test the believer for Allah
is he true to the cause
does he truly believe
let us test him
challenge his faith
will he submit to me or Allah
Ah, he is a believer
His life and death are all for Allah!
We tell him to construct buildings for Allah
he rejects us
We tell him to kill in the name of Allah
he rejects us
The man of faith says Allah is a state of mind
not buildings, institutions, shrines, mosques
What is a building when there is nothing in the heart
it is a shell, the man a corpse of living matter
how shall a building benefit him
how shall fellowship keep his faith
he is a dead man walking
following the green line to the chamber.
--m
6/4/10

from Sweet Tea/Dirty Rice, poems, by Marvin X, Black Bird Press, Berkeley, late 2010.
$19.95, pre-publication price $15.00 (includes priority mailing).

X’s poems vibrate, whip, love in the most meta- and physical ways imaginable and un-. He’s got the humor of Pietri, the politics of Baraka, and the spiritual Muslim grounding that is totally new in English –- the ecstasy of Hafiz, the wisdom of Saadi. It’s not unusual for him to have a sequence of shortish lines followed by a culminating line that stretches a quarter page –- it is the dance of the dervishes, the rhythms of a Qasida.
--Bob Holman, Bowery Poetry Club, New York City

The Dead in Cyberspace

Are there really people in cyberspace--
they not ghosts from the past?
ancestors who speak without lips?
The silence is deafening.
Why are they brain dead yet hearts beating.
--m

Palestine

PALESTINE

by Marvin X

(El Muhajir)

I am not an Arab, I am not a Jew

Abraham is not my father, Palestine is not my home

But I would fight any man

Who kicked me out of my house

To dwell in a tent

I would fight

To the ends of the earth

Someone who said to me

I want your house

Because my father lived here

Two thousand years ago

I want your land

Because my father lived here

Two thousand years ago.

Jets would not stop me

From returning to my home

Uncle toms would not stop me

Cluster bombs would not stop me

Bullets I would defy.

No man can take the house of another

And expect to live in peace

There is no peace for thieves

There is no peace for those who murder

For myths and ancient rituals

Wail at the wall

Settle in "Judea" and "Samaria"

But fate awaits you

You will never sleep with peace

You will never walk without listening.

I shall cross the River Jordan

With Justice in my hand

I shall return to Jerusalem

And establish my house of peace,

Thus said the Lord.

© 1976 by Marvin X ( El Muhajir)

Marvin X is an Oakland (CA) based African-American poet/playwright/activist, one of the
founders of the Black Arts Movement. According to Dr. Mohja Kahf, he
is the father of Muslim American Literature. Bob Holman calls him “The
USA’s Rumi." Ishmael Reed calls him “Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland.
Marvin X has Academy of Da Corner, downtown Oakland at 14^th and Broadway,
outside. He also tours and speaks nationwide at universities and colleges, most
recently at Howard University, Morehouse College, Spelman College, University of Virginia, University of Houston, University of Penn, Temple University, Medgar Evers College, University of Arkansas and elsewhere. He has taught at San Francisco State University, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, San Diego, Fresno State University, Mills College, University of Nevada, Reno. He has received writing fellowships from Columbia University and the National Endowment

for the Arts and planning grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. His website link is http://www.parablesandfablesofmarvinx.blogspot.com .His recent book is The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables/fables, Black Bird Press, Berkeley, 2010. His archives were acquired by the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Round Midnight

Monk's gone
but I ain't blue
Monk's gone
but I ain't blue
where he's going
I'm going too.

Death is always around

trying to steal life

death is always around
trying to steal life
If it don't get the husband
It'll get the wife.

Monk's gone
but I ain't blue
Monk's gone
but I ain't blue.
--Marvin X
from Poems for North American Africans, Marvin X, Al Kitab Sudan Press, 1983.

Meomorial Day,

Memorial Day


I am a veteran
Not of foreign battlefields
Like my father in world war one
My uncles in world war two
And Korea
my friends from Vietnam
And Congo “police action”
But veteran none the less
Exiled and jailed because I refused
To visit Vietnam as a running dog for imperialism
I visited Canada, Chicago, Harlem, Mexico and Belize
Federal prison for a minute
But veteran I am
of the war in the hood
war of domestic colonialism
neo-colonialism
White supremacy in black face war
Fighting for black power that turned white
Or was always white
as in the other white people
war it was and is
Every day without end
no RR no respite just war
For colors like kindergarten children war
For turf warriors don’t own and run when popo comes
War for drugs and guns and women
War for hatred jealousy envy
Dante got a scholarship
but couldn’t get on the plane fast enough
The boyz in the hood met him on the block and jacked him
Relieved him of his gear
shot him in the head because he could read
Play basketball
had all the pretty girls
a square
The boyz wanted him dead like themselves
Wanted him to have a shrine with liquor bottles and teddy bears
candles
Wanted his mama and daddy to weep and mourn at the funeral
Like all the other moms and dads, uncle aunts cousins
Why should he make it out the war zone
The blood and broken bones of war in the hood
No veterans day no benefits no mental health sessions
No conversation
who cares who wants to know about the dead
In the hood
warriors gone down in the ghetto night
We heard the Uzi at 3am and saw the body on the steps til 3 pm
When the coroner finally arrived as children passed from school

I am the veteran of ghetto wars of liberation aborted
morphed into wars of self destruction
drugs supplied from police vans
Guns diverted from the army base
sold 24/7 behind the Arab store.

Junior is 14 but the main arms merchant in the hood
sells guns from his backpack
His daddy wants to know how he get all them guns
Junior don’t tell cause he warrior
He’s lost more friends than daddy
What can daddy tell him about war
death and blood and bones

He says he will get rich or die trying
But life is for love not money
And if he lives he will learn.
If he makes it out the war zone to another world
Where they murder in suits and suites
golf courses and yachts
if he makes it even beyond this world
He will learn that love is better than money
For he was once on the auction block
sold as a thing property
For money, yes,
for the love of money but not for love

his memory short and absent of truth
blunted
The war in the hood has tricked him into the slave past
Like a programmed monkey
he acts out the slave auction
The sale of himself on the corner with his homeys
Trying to pose cool in the war zone

I will tell him the truth
maybe one day it will hit him like a bullet
In the head
It will hit him multiple times in the brain until he awakens to the real battle
In the turf of his mind.
And he will stand tall and deliver himself to the altar of truth to be a witness
Along with his homeys
They will take charge of their posts
They will claim their turf and it will be theirs forever
Not for a moment in the night
But in the day and in the tomorrows
And the war will be over
No more sorrow no more blood and bones
No more shrines on the corner with liquor bottles teddy bears and candles.

--Marvin X
25 May 2007
Brooklyn NY
revised 5/31/10

Dream Time 2

We are beautiful
like the first beauty
of the world
beauty and truth
swimming soaring reaching
to higher truths
infinite possibilities
defying laws
transcending
like the hawk
gliding silently
above all
champion warrior
a lover in flight
to his beloved.
--Marvin X
5/4/10

In the Temple of X

In the Temple of X

In the temple of X
no pimping
except MX pimping himself
everybody rich in temple
everybody in Mercedes
no poor once you get the light
Supreme Wisdom
don't get it but don't get it
you got it or ain't got it!
get real
you rich in the name of the Divine within yourself
You within God, God within you
no spook gods, no mysteries, no hoke as poke as rituals
heaven after you die
heaven while you live
death is hell
Sun Ra said to die is the only sin!

just plain truth
in the temple of X
no tithes, no slavery
take time for wife and family
no preacher get all the money
members starve
let's have burial plan, health plan
do for self plan
for everybody
use the mind God gave you plan
as Mama taught
showed with her do for self life
no welfare
no food stamps
just her country girl brain
common sense woman
raise eleven of us
including two grands
what manner of woman (rip)
I her special child
didn't know til siblings told me
later in life.
but she wouldn't have me for no man.
too lost in them books.
wouldn't do nothing on her mini farm.
irrigate crops, feed chickens, nothing
lost in them books
no good for wife
Mama said I needed maid, secretary, mistress
no wife.
Mama deep in her spirituality:
know the truth, truth will set you free.
No medicine cabinet in house, no pills, no doctor visit
know the truth, truth will set you free of dis-ease.

In the temple of X
all truth represented
will you hide truth while you know?

Nat Turner's in the temple of X
Harriet and Sojourner
Ida B. Wells
Booker T.
DuBois and Garvey
Noble Drew and Master Fard
Elijah and Malcolm
Martin too!
Nkrumah and Kwame Toure
Mandela and Winnie too.
in the temple of X.
How bout you?
Amiri, Askia, Sonia, Nikki
Haki, Ngugi wa Thi'ango
Wole Soyinka.
all member of the temple of X.
--Marvin X
5/1//10

Bay Area folks can join Marvin X for a celebration of his latest book The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables and Fables, Black Bird Press, Berkeley, 309 pages, $100.00. The celebration, read-in/teach-in will be at the African American Museum Library, 14th and Martin Luther King, Jr, downtown Oakland, Saturday, May 15, 2pm, donations accepted, but the book is $100.00.
The black liberation army soldiers will read to you free of charge. Advance the cultural revolution. Long Live the Black Arts Movement. Long Live Hip Hop!
www.parablesandfablesofmarvinx.blogspot.com

Poems for CD

Real Love, song, poem, Dreamtime

Dreamtime

Enough enough enough
of rain and pain sand and shore
enough bloody rivers flowing to sea
enough of you and me
moving breathing but going nowhere
enough living
yet not loving
standing still in the light
yet darkness all around
enough enough of ignorance
beating down wisdom of ages
sun in wind
stars at window
fear of the mothership enough
mothership the mind of men and women who think as one
move beyond space to better place
sun and time a dance moving the world
enough
talk to me right
no control no boss
no whip no pain
no demands that never work
I am me and you are you
we are one in the mothership of life
enough
your hair and mine
things don't matter
they are things
beyond time and space enough
to go beyond the moment called life
to a place called love
we spend the day and the life
trying not to go there
because we are already there
cannot escape love
even in death I will love you
cherish praise you
think of you honor you
squeeze you in my dreams
enough
will you be there when they crucify my Lord
will you stand or run in your fear and trembling
enough
run into the black hole and disappear
no movement like death in the morning
all is still and you walk because life is love
and love is life enough
to be alive yet not living
even speaking
because of yesterday morning pain
we hold even when today and tomorrow have come and gone
yet we hold pain
because it is better than loving
a kind of masturbation
to avoid the joy of sex in the morning
because we fear to speak the words I love you
silence becomes eternal
yet life is to be lived
not promised
not a thought
but lived in all its glory
for the pitiful moment we walk upon the sand and shore
knowing
the sand will slip into the tide
disappear somewhere
beyond sunset
enough
6/19/04
revised 2/14/10


Song, Do Not Be Afraid
We're In Love, But You Don't Know Me

You don't know me
you had a chance to know me
before we made love
you had a chance to know my mind
understand my fears
learn about issues
help me heal some things
but you wanted to make love
so you don't know me
we made love
but you don't know me
don't have a clue
think I'm a good d
or some good tight p
but you don't know me
and never will now
because you wanted to make love
you wanted to get a nut
we didn't even talk much
a little bit leading up to sex
I went along
I was horny too
but you don't know me
and I don't know you
now we never will
we blew it forever
because we made love
too fast too quick too soon
now you think you own me
I can't breathe
can't talk on the phone to friends
because we made love
because I gave you some d
you gave me some p
now I'm no longer human
I'm your love slave you my slave
we're in love
but you don't know me
we gonna get married
but you don't know me
we're gonna have children
but you don't know me
you're gonna beat my ass
but you don't know me
you're going to jail
but you don't know me
we're getting a divorce
but you don't know me
now we're friends
"Just Friends" Charlie Parker tune
But you don't know me
and never will.


Song, the Best Thing That Happened to Me
What is Love?

What is love

only kisses hugswhat is love

only meetings of the minds

what about times when minds do not meet


is love not present in the air in the blood of loving souls

too ignorant to know the test of love


the many ways it strives to be and not be

yet is always

and forever

not always tender

sometimes rough and sharp

like a razor cutting to the heart

love is pain

we take to grow

be strong again

tears in the night
alone again
we find ourselves
wondering
if love was even real
yet it was
if we see
if we look
beyond romantic notions of everything is cool always with love
but we know the blues of love
when we miss the wrords from lips so tender in truth
but we miss them
in haste
to be the authority on love
yet love
has beeen around since eternity and will stay
when lovers have gone away
it will stay
in spite of all the tears
the fights
the verbal bouts
even the put outs
and come backs
and gimme my keys
and why don't you call
and don't you still care
and why did you go
and do you reallly lover her or really love him
after all the time we shared
how could you do this to me
after all I did for you in the night
what is love
sometimes we must enjoy the hurt the pain
to grow
be wise again
this time
with God
in the center of things
but try
for love is precious
time is short
life must be lived with joy
somehow
through it all
let joy arise
take control of love.
--Marvin X
from Land of My Daughters, poems, 2005,
Black Bird Press, Berkeley


Early Morning Love Song

Love is for the Beloved


Love is for the beloved
Selfless totally
Agent of joy
At one’s pleasure
Desire
Transcending self
Love is all there is
Like a good deal at the Flea Market
You can’t pass.
Gotta squeeze ya real tight.
Reasons.
self to divine self
Get real with love
Up from animal
monkey mind
Illusions
Listen to the whirlwind of Garvey
Motherplane is here for you
Better ax somebody,
Houston TX
Denial of self
Sweet submission
What is beyond giving all
We feed you for Allah’s pleasure only
We desire from you neither reward nor thanks.
Al Qur’an.

Madness & Poets
(For Marvin X)

All poets are mad Baba.
It’s in the saying of unsayables
the seeing the unseen
mad from murals of mundaneness
masquerading as meaning
we tag truth in acid
with lethal pens we
carve epiphany on the
heaving breast of humanity
hear me: I am
Godz voice,
you see?
Mad.

Crazed with grief
lack of sleep
poems keep knocking
screaming
howling accusations
insisting on justice
or blood
and the terrible knowledge
they may be the same.
Knowing its ill to be well
in insanity
we are religiously mad
listening to the jokes Godz tell
about the planz men make
we invoke open eyes
amongst the blind
literate itinerants
healing wounds
stapled with the gutz of prophetz
whose spines have been
broken open so poems
can be stitched to their
cleaved carcasses.

Poets grow in
the recesses of society's
bowels deep in the
world's shit we
spin beauty in the beast
to soothe the savage
someone should dance now
like poets spin
daring poems to be dervishes.

The trajectory of a poem
spit with accuracy
resembles lyrical alchemy
turning impossible into
the color blue.

I am a poet
long past caring about
disposed scholars who
lie in standard English
we break tense like fences
that separate us from them:
flow oceanic
if you ain’t up on it
long tongue ju ju poets
say soothes
somber inelegant truths
salvaged from graveyards
laureates go hard,
sharp spiters are split
at the larynx hurling
neologisms like clever hexes-
some like sharks
eat the open mic
& spit back
silk stitched caresses.

In words we are invested
& you said
the devil is in the language
so sometimes it be ebonics
we stay hooked on phonics
& known to slam in spanglish
poets float but don’t drift
past tipping points
blaze in smokin joints
bent on makin points
angels dance on pointed tongues
bleeding metaphors
& poetry ain’t the whore
its poets who crush lyric
on temple floors
its poets who commit
commissioned sins
in the name of the mortgage.

Loosely intercoursing textually
he said:
the poems have left
the building
stop texting me,
but I can’t
because words are
like sex to me
I’m mesmerized
by poetry’s ejaculation
I trick without hesitation
love it passionately
ain’t no reservations
even when it dogs me
I’m stuck in the relationship
It’s good
I don’t trip
without poetry’s caress
my wig would slip
I’d blow up not a little
but a lot of shit
poetry is my drug of choice
& my weapon
I keep a full clip
I’m poetry’s bitch
& I’m good with this.

Baba all poets are mad.
On this we can agree
Grand Baba Amiri & you
& like fruit & trees
I guess I be mad too.

Prayer is better than sleep.

Old Warriors

Old warriors
go home to sun
each day news
no shocking
wipe eyes
the daily round
lonely at top
who can we visit
call
drink at bar
rap on corner
smoke a joint
even women friends
join sun
no escape
only the line
to the sun.
--Marvin X
10-20-09

There Was An Island

There was an island called Jerusalem

it disappeared into the Arabian Sea

call it climate warming

island no more

people can fish now

in the sea

where island used to be

fish sweet tasty

sea peaceful now

waves gentle

tide comes to shore like old times

before Abraham

when Canaan and Mizraim were brothers.

--Marvin X

3/23/10

Poem for Marvin X, by J. V. Cromartie

Street Spirits

(For Marvin X)

under a red sky
you have roamed
the streets of San Francisco
rapping about homeless blues
in your poetry
in your life
in your spirit

under a red sky
i saw you
once selling the Poetry Flash
to rich tourists and wondered
whether you would become
the next Bob Kaufman

under a red sky
you have roamed the beaches
of the Golden State
praying here and there
remembering your sweet Sherley
confessing your sins and mistakes

under a red sky
you have remembered
that a poet is full
of great feelings
of love
for God
for self
for others
whether the poet
is homeless
or not

under a red sky
you have helped me
to embrace
the street spirits
and the rays
of a red sun
with your poetry
with your life
with your spirit.

--J. Vern Cromartie
© 2005

Another One for Marvin X

start out in Fowler
go to Fresno
and fall in love forever
with a deep chocolate woman
who loves you and your poetry

you know she loves you
forever like the waves
rolling in the dock of the bay

she loved you

this woman loved you
when she breathed
her last breath

sometimes you see her
in your sleep
and you wonder
about what could have been
about what should have been
about what was your flight
to love forever

the power of love
is holy

Jimi Hendix
knew this holiness
in his dreams
when he sang
deep into the night
about the
power of love

if you want to follow
on the mantle of Jeremiah
let the power of love
drench your soul
forever.

--J. Vern Cromartie
© 2006

Dr. J. Vern Cromartie is a poet and chair of the Sociology Department at
Contra Costa College. He is a former student of Marvin X when he taught
drama at Laney College. Dr. Cromartie recently delivered a research
paper on Marvin X's brief tenure at UC Berkeley. Read his paper on

www.marvinxoneducation.blogspot.com