Saul Williams

Inner breathlessness, outer restlessness. By the time I caught up to freedom I was out of breath. Grandma asked me what I'm running for. I guess I'm out for the same thing the sun is sunning for, what mothers birth their youngens for, and some say Jesus coming for. For all I know the earth is spinning slow, suns at half mast 'cause masses ain't aglow. On bended knee, prostrate before an altered tree. I've made the forest suit me. Tables and chairs. Papers and prayers. Matter vs. spirit. A metal ladder. A wooden cross. A plastic bottle of water. A mandala encased in glass. A spirit encased in flesh. Sound from shaped hollows. The thickest of mucus released from heightened passion. A man that cries in his sleep. A truth that has gone out of fashion. A mode of expression. A paint splattered wall. A carton of cigarettes. A bouquet of corpses. A dying forest. A nurtured garden. A privatized prison. A candle with a broken wick. A puddle that reflects the sun. A piece of paper with my name on it. I'm surrounded. I surrender. All. All that I'm I have been. All I've been has been a long time coming. I'm becoming all that I am. The spittle that surrounds the mouth-piece of the flute. Unheard, yet felt. A gathered wetness. A quiet moisture. Sound trapped in a bubble. Released into wind. Wind fellows and land merchants. We're history's detergent. Water soluble, light particles, articles of cleansing breath. Articles amending death. These words are not tools of communication. They're shards of metal. Dropped from eight story windows. They're waterfalls and gas leaks. Aged thoughts rolled in tobacco leaf. The tools of a trade. Barbers barred, barred of barters. Catch phrases and misunderstandings. But they are not what I feel when I'm alone. Surrounded by everything and nothing. And there isn't a word or phrase to be caught. A verse to be recited. A man to de-fill my being in those moments. I'm blankness, the contained center of an "O". The pyramidic containment of an "A". I stand in the middle of all that I've learned. All that I've memorized. All that I've known by heart. Unable to reach any of it. There's no sadness. There's no bliss. It's a forgotten memory. A memorable escape route that only is found by not looking. There, in the spine of the dictionary the words are worthless. They're a mere weight pressing against my thoughtlessness. But then, who else can speak of thoughtlessness with such confidence. Who else has learned to sling these ancient ideas like dead rats held by their tails so as not to infect this newly oiled skin. I can think of nothing heavier than an airplane. I can think of no greater conglomerate of steel and metal. I can think of nothing less likely to fly. There are no wings more weighted. I too have felt a heaviness. The stare of man guessing at my being. Yes I'm homeless. A homeless man making offerings to the after-future. Sculpting rubber tree forests out of worn tires and shoe soles. A nation unified in exhale. A cloud of smoke. A native pipe ceremony. All the gathered cigarette butts piled in heaps. Snow covered mountains. Lipsticks smeared and shriveled. Offerings to an afterworld. Tattoo guns and plastic wrappers. Broken zippers and dead eyed dolls. It's all overwhelming me, oak and elming me. I have seeded a forest of myself. Little books from tall trees. It matters not what this paper be made of. Give me notebooks made of human flesh. Dried on steel hooks and nooses. Make uses of use, uses of us. It's all overwhelming me, oak and elming me. I have seeded a forest of myself. Little books from tall trees. On bended knee. Prostrate before an altered tree. I've made the forest suit me. Tables and chairs. Papers and prayers. Matter vs. spirit, through meditation I program my heart to beat breakbeats and hum basslines on exhalation.