Project Windows
Asalaamu’Alaykum I am Shavon Latrice Dean
Soon a freshman at Corliss, a decapitated dream
The wind in this windy city’s ghettoes blows bullets
The manufacturer of system, not trigger or who pulled it
Is to blame; single parent homes, CDC, and orphans
A simple list, sick statistic of sadistic proportions
It rains bullets, upon this concrete rain forest
Instead of birds singing its sirens and funeral chorus
Grandma Jones, end days, terrible things will happen
T-shirt says Boss, young Sandifer is packin’
Fatalism, innocent bystanders, blame the Shitstem
Incarcerate the fathers, young mothers crack victims
The crack incites souls, and instead of blasting idols
The pipe becomes a rifle, pointed at those suicidal
Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth is the Bible
I float above as apparition and I become a Black Disciple
***
Project windows—shattered, often broken and boarded
Burnt toast crumbs, which sickly pigeons have hoarded
Devastated by life drama, scribbled signs, chalk outlines
Concrete pathways into ghetto, lay cracked open wide
Within the jungle, this is an antelope carcass, forbidden zone
Contained by confines of habitat; wild beasts, freely roam
Inside ones’ dome, creativity, no spark, like man tied to the dark
A Prometheus tied to the rock, liver eaten by Eagle, each day, restocked
***
‘Disciple of Death?’ I ponder, soul separated from vessel
I float above Sandifer, the murderer, liminal at threshold
I subsume his form, taking over the senses of my killer
I see through his eyes and search his form for the thrill
The ecstasy of holding the gun, pulling the trigger, spray
The adrenalin rush of predatory instincts upon prey
I search, every nerve, follow every impulse to brain
There is no excitement; instead I am overwhelmed by pain
Pain! More painful than the bullets that tore my shell
Excruciating, like deep in marrow, burnt by hell
More pain then I’ve ever known in my life–combined
A never ending pain that is a infused in his spine
I am he; I feel the hate of the world that dismisses me
I know with certainty that no one on this earth will miss me
The legacy of Mississippi in Windy City, Daddy’s missing
Two generations of single teenage mothers and penal system
***
From darkness into light, from oppression towards freedom
Why would you value intelligence when you are always called dumb?
Sisters stalk the streets, though daughters of old earths,
Within their wombs lay evidence of numerous unwanted births
The holy grail of the ghetto is finding the baby’s daddy
Since finding a father alive is nearly an impossibility
To earn respect in this climate, a rep requires a stretch
Manhood constructed after close encounters with death
***
I am Robert Sandifer, sweet tooth for cookies and snickers
Grew up in same streets that venerated ‘Huey in wicker’
I run, relax finger on trigger, and escape into shadow embrace
Fingered by onlookers, now Chicago PD on chase
Hidden by their preconceptions of my innocent face
As I run through alleyways, I remember my first case
Taken to hospital, department children family services
Cigarette burns, electric cord deep wounds, scratches
I was 22 months old. Hadn’t seen my second birthday
This wasn’t even close to what I consider my life’s worst day
Public school declared me illiterate, but I knew mathematics
6 brothers and sisters, teenage mother and no prophylactics
41 arrests on my Momma for Street Prostitution
4 year bid for my teenage father on felony gun violation
1 Tattoo on my right arm, BDN, Black Disciple Nation
49 scars upon my body for surviving life, no hesitation
1 copper coated .25 caliber lodged in cranium, hard arteries
8 years old arrested, at 9 tried for multiple robberies
2 cases of theft and arson, adding inches to rap sheet
How far can one travel in this world with two black feet?
2 years’ probation at 10, Youth Services, abused, neglected
Probation violation, for attempted auto theft; alleged,
Living live upon the ledge outside a project window
Looking down like a gargoyle on shattered asphalt below
***
The distance to ones’ demise is only 9 millimeters
Genocide, putting shops upon corners that sell heaters
Next to shops that sell fevers, in bottles that hold ether
40 ounces of liquor, helps translates Iblis’s whispers
Cultural homicide the pet project of City Planners
Chatter, overwhelming din on local police scanners
Long gone is the opacity of white cloaks and hoods
Instead of crosses, earths burn crack pipes in the hood
History orbits seeds upon the third planet, they hunting men
Slavery seems illegal except when it’s a form of punishment
See constitution, Evidence certain, $40k per state, per person
That’s money earned, instead of $40 a day, to pay for education
Where is the cheddar produced that laces these politricks–
That keeps bullets in guns of pigs, and ship funds to Zionists?
Where do all street signs come from, and all the school desks?
Who works behind bars, for no pay, like slaves without rest?
Delicious, delectable desserts of ignorance, born of damnation
Consumed by innocents, “is it Yummy”; this damned nation
***
Asalaamu’Alaykum I am Yummy
Wander streets, duck in homes, empty tummy
I want to cry out for mom, the one who doesn’t exist
No protection from a father, while I’m on a hitlist
Street level misfit, a student of when the shit hits
Basic sustenance & love, top Christmas wishlist
At least Shavon’s soul experienced past Sakina’s level
Innocence in Damascus tortured by Yazid the devil
A father’s severed head placed on pillow, beaten
His daughter forced to watch, a child of Eden
Yet we are now raised within this Yazidi system,
Our father’s minds severed by the drugs they’re given
We’re raised by shitstem, while their bodies are imprisoned
The same streets they fell victim, now teach us lessons
To survive we become disciples to the unholy message
That’s why I picked up the gun, for the rep-utation
Amidst poverty, it’s the diploma at a street graduation
That’s why I squeezed, I didn’t see individual targets
Blind to innocence playin’ hoop, or on way to market
I didn’t see the half eaten Doritos, Shavon left on stoop
I couldn’t smell the lighter fluid, of her grandma’s cue
Constant sirens, gun blasts, became deaf and obtuse
To common family utterance, the phrase, “I love you”
I love too, see posters of MJ that hang in bed’s view
Gang insignias carved in wood, scream I need rescue
Yummy symbol of loss of both potential and value
Lungs burn, I pass neighborhood, where do I run to?
4 foot 6, a shorty who loved Disney movies
77 hour manhunt, Crooked Jakes trying to do me
Snipers on rooftops, sending children to caskets
Tragic like Magic, or learn shoot guns, not baskets
Continue to run, abandoned shelters, helter-skelter
No blame, grandma played cards that were dealt her
Hang up phone, exhausted, finally relent to Ms. Cooper
Into shadows she disappears, I await upon the stoop for
Suddenly I’m taken into stolen car’s backseat, panicked
Face down; I inhale horrors absorbed by its fabric,
Driven to my execution, but told it’s towards freedom
Fear possessed gang network, and gave them reason
When my lifeless vessel is found, who’d grieve then?
Not the students I bullied, or store owners I robbed
Would I be sent to the hellfire for an inside job?
Innocence on trial, I did not possess the faculty
To think of consequences, I just jacked for the streets
Rather than be attacked and then meet, my maker
Earlier than on a date this week, my soul’s taken
Lifted as two shots enter my skulls brain cavity
Fall face down on broken glass, earth in tune with gravity
Continues to carry me, beyond the tunnel they find me
I see Shavon now, and watch as the autopsy rewinds me
Judgment is binding, I long for the book in my right
The white light is blinding, brighter than the lights
At the funeral upon my casket, the cameras, the mugshot
On display; Songs like ‘Shorty Wanna Be a Thug,” Pac
Inspired; I see Miss Jones; the cancer’s finally defeated
She bakes fresh cookies, for Shavon and me; so sweet
We float away, the veil is lifted… I am finally free
Like the children of Kerbala or like Hurr ibn Riyahi…
***
Hidden plans emerge, analysis of this nation’s demography
Yummy, powered by their gentrification laced geography
Whites commit more crimes than blacks in this country
Yet the black and brown outnumber in every prison, past century
Whites can afford good lawyers, we’re given public pretenders
Whites can kill hundreds of blacks, and call themselves self-defenders
Cocaine is the white poison, crack reserved for blacks
Cocaine costs more, the punishment for its possession lacks…
3 strikes laws, you can go to prison for stealing a pack of gum
Dirty work done on the hood corners by Arabs and Asians
Asians battle Black, Black v. Latino, Divide and Conquer
Gangs complete the equation, with a gavel and your honor
Low intensity warfare borrowed from former British colonies
Dishonored Mothers, rapes, births, and forgotten seeds,
So for the child who stares, through sleepless eyes and smoke?
Beyond confines of cell, dirty glass, smog: a project window
Where is hope? Hopeless soul, where’s my inspiration?
The worst horror stories lurk, alive in my imagination.
***
Asalaamu’Alaykum I am Eric Morse
An elementary age, diverted from course
Pushed from Ida Wells Project window
To the haunted streets of the earth below
Possessed by the spirit of Yummy still
Chicago thirsts for young sacrifices, the kills
Why was I–pushed through the glass?
‘Cuz I refused gangsters & stayed in class?
Refused to play games of the Yazid system
Asked to steal candy, I would not listen
How could I when I heard footsteps on horizon
Of two small boys besieged by devil’s trident
Muhammad and Ibrahim the sons of Muslim
Father murdered in Kufa, when he’s pushed from
A building, towards dusty oppression below…
A dust storm, dry soil from Kerbala now blows
The earth collected to make clay tablets to pray upon
For those who remembered souls who were preyed upon
The sons of Muslim take my hands and lift me
Off the ground my shell remains on earth, wilting
Through my death you will learn of the family’s name
Insha’Allah my blood flows for the blood of Hussain
This is the sound made of many voices—
The downtrodden, oppressed and exploited
Left without choice, save the greatest resistance
Revolution, an ablution from the sweat of persistence
-Professor A.L.I. aka Black Steven
