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