Dear you

Dear you….
peeping out life in my rearview

may have distorted the real view

Excuse Me Miss

Our eyes perceive what others do

still I see the true you

And I agree with Tupac words

just to stay true

Yes you’re my definition of perfection

True beauty is truly Skin Deep

that’s really all I see in you

A flawless work of art

I call you WO-MAN

and see God must’ve had a sense of humor

cause when he made you

“I’m sure he was like whoa-man”

she is fine as can be

And in my city we called them pound cakes

yes we like them thick and sweet

I know plenty of guys constantly try to run game

Just to get your name

How can I blame them?

See none of that matters when I’m speaking on matters of the heart

Cause if everything happens for a reason

then I am merely playing my cards right

I just wish to be near you

and in the end even if we’re just friends

I know by knowing you

you’ve made me a better man

And truly a really good friend

So yes it’s in we I can trust

and truly Trust

that someday dear you

Will someday become

sincerely us

by Darryl Burnside

Da Woman

I seen the sunrise the other day, and it was incredible.
But not as incredible as you, when I first laid my eyes on you.
Then my soul had a quivah, my core a tightening.
My eyes a blinking (cause I had to look twice).
What was before my eyes to see was quite, quite, the woman.

by
Cn

MR. WARDEN

They call me Mr.Warden
and in my mansion
there are many rooms
Rooms of despair
where nobody cares
If you live or die
Where nobody cares
if you scream or cry
So addicts beware
the high you receive today
Will be the low
I’ll give tomorrow

By
Donald “C-Note” Hooker
©2017 C-Note

STRANGE FRUIT

California
is the place to be
Fun living
is the life for me
Spacious places
far and wide
Except at C.I.W.
home to women suicides

About the Paintoem
Poem by: C-Note
Painting by: C-Note

We create monsters
of ugliness
but we’re scared
to look at
our own creations.
—-C-Note

Strange Fruit, is an original work of wax on paper; made in the form of a collage. Done by Donald “C-Note” Hooker in 2017. “When I had to do an expedited visual work for the Paintoem, Life Without the Possibility of Parole, I used an image from a magazine, but drew the background,” says C-Note. “I have a push, or thirst to bring attention to women issues. That’s what Life Without the Possibility of Parole is about. Strange Fruit, is to draw attention to a report that I read in the October 2016, edition of the San Quentin News. It stated, ‘During an 18-month period in 2014-15, the suicide rate at the California Institution for Women (C.I.W.) was eight times the national average for women prisoners and five times the rate for the entire California prison system.’ When I did Life Without, there was an aesthetic there. This was from a fashion magazine. This was of a white woman, a young white woman, on a very serious subject. I say to myself, ‘Hey, much support in the prisoner rights movement comes from older white women in the Catholic Church. This is an image of them. They see their younger selves in her. Promote the $#@! out of this work.’ I could have used that same racial device in Strange Fruit. With Life Without, it was about the aesthetics. It was about the shape of that image in the magazine. Later on, I realized how I could use race to my benefit. That device really did not go unnoticed to me when doing a work on women suicide. But I couldn’t play on white populism; I had to speak the truth. So a black woman had to be used. Blacks out number all the other races combined in incarceration. There are lots of ways of committing suicide, but I think the hanging is the most salient in our human conscious. That being the case, that brings in Strange Fruit. Strange Fruit is the title to a song, sung by Billie Holiday. The tener of the song is about all this strange fruit hanging from these trees in the South. What was this strange fruit? Nooses around the necks of dead African-Americans. That’s why the piece is entitled ‘Strange Fruit.’ That’s why there’s a noose around her neck. Why a collage? Because I had discovered with Life Without, collages create a certain depth perception. The poem, is a play on the CBS television show Beverly Hillbillies. ‘California/is the place to be/Fun living/is the life for me…’ In Black intelligentsia, and its grass roots also, they have really latched onto Michelle Alexander’s seminal work, The New Jim Crow (Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. So here is her thesis, that 21st Century mass incarceration, and post incarceration reentry, looks very similar to 20th Century Jim Crow laws in the deep South. People generally agree with her thesis, and actively use the siren call end the New Jim Crow. Incarcerated blacks even started the Neo Jim Crow Art movement, to which this piece is a part of. I hold up Sandra Bland as our 21st Century’s Emmett Till. Emmett Till, like Sandra Bland was a fellow Chicagoan who went down South. Emmett allegedly in 1955 made a whistling sound in the general area of a white woman. He was only 14 years of age. He was bludgeon to death. His mother, from the North (Chicago), wanted an open casket burial to which a Jet Magazine photographer snapped a picture of his gruesome remains. It was the shot (photo shoot), heard around the world. Well, I’ve been holding up Sandra Bland to go with the theme of this work. She is our 21st Century version of Emmett Till. What was her offense that caused her to lose her life? It started with a traffic stop; whose legitimacy is dubious at best. But an officer who physically feels the need to pull a motorist out of their car for smoking a cigarette? An activity that is associated with a high degree of stress, to which this encounter with this law enforcement obviously was. But I think anytime a person comes in contact with law enforcement, and especially an African-American with a white officer, it is very harrowing; because an African-American never knows where this thing is going. And Ms.Bland allegedly or apparently committed suicide while in a jail holding cell for a nonsensical lane change violation. To which the officer was fired as a result of this incident. In certain activist circles, it’s common to hear women say, ‘Prisons were not designed or intended for women.'”

Strange Fruit is still retained by C-Note until he can find a party interested in the work. However, you can still buy prints of this piece, and other related products, at Fine Art America

[Editor’s Note ]: This Paintoem, like all Paintoems, are given to the public, to have free use rights, so long as acknowledgement is given to the artist(s).

Links to other Paintoems:
Mprisond
My Dilemma
Tears of the Mothers
Black August-Los Angeles
More Paintoems

Strange Fruit (Paintoem) available in prints.

Mprisond

Rapunzel could let down her hair
because someone cared
Letting down my hair
I wouldn’t dare
So all I do is stare
at the bliss
of all things I miss
Mother Nature’s wonders
Cause Father Time
wants his due
and the world ain’t got a clue
Here I stare alone
in my room
cell block
Twenty-two

About the Paintoem
Poem by: C-Note
Painting by: C-Note

Mprisond is an original work of wax, ink, and graphite on paper. Done by Donald “C-Note” Hooker in 2014. It is the sequel, to another piece, My Dilemma, done in 2009. C-Note was asked to create poetry, around some of his artwork being exhibited at the Escaping Time, Prisoner Art Exhibit, on Governors Island, New York City, July 26, 2016-October 2, 2016. Both the poet and we agree, that the image and poem, may be used in conjunction for publication, exhibition, and/or performance, without our expressed permission, so long as the artist-poet, is acknowledged/mentioned, as the creator of these works, e.g., by C-Note. This is the genesis of the Paintoem. Mprisond was sold in 2016, at the” Through the Wall,” Prisoner Art Exhibit, at the CB1-Guest Gallery, in downtown Los Angeles. However, you can still buy prints of this piece, and other related products, at Fine Art America

[Editor’s Note ]: This Paintoem, like all Paintoems, are given to the public, to have free use rights, so long as acknowledgement is given to the artist(s).

Links to other Paintoems:
My Dilemma
Tears of the Mothers
Black August-Los Angeles
Life Without the Possibility of Parole
More Paintoems
Related Article:
Help Break Prisoner Art Exhibition Record

More poetry by Cn: THE CRIMINALIZATION OF OUR AMERICAN CIVILIZATION (This Is Not A Manifesto)
It Must End! (BLACK FEMALE BOYCOTTS AGAINST BLACK MEN IN THE PEN)
More paintings by Cn:
Diana
Colored Girl Highlighted

MORE THAN HUMAN, BUT ONLY A MAN

Brought into this whimsical world, by a powerful force unknown
Skillfully crafted from mud and a miracle, came to be flesh and bone….
And into my breath was given, along with a heart and a soul
A one-of-a-kind creation so eloquent, that is surely broke the mold….
And though not the first of many, is still unique in every possible way
So that even after my inevitable death, a legacy would undoubtedly remain….
Alas at war with love, or at war for love seems to be the purpose in question
With an answer only to be found at the end of my journey, is the very reason I’m still guessing….
Do I follow the path, or manifest my own and accept what should ever come to be
And if not then what good is the life I lead, if it wasn’t to be led by me….
It’s no secret I’ve made my mistakes, much like an angel stripped of his wings and that has fallen from grace
His penalty, tossed back to earth or in my case a steel cage counting down the rest of our days where are judgement awaits….
Humbled but not defeated, is exactly then that I’ve discovered just Who I am
In spirit I’m more than human But in your eyes….
I’m Only A Man

by Square Cuz

WHO AM I

Who am I?
The cool calm and collected kid wit hoop dreams?
The innocent kid wandering through the concrete jungle watching the flashing red and blue lights from police sirens as they give chase to the up and coming Hood stars?
Who am I?
The young boy looking up to Lil Sc60by and holding onto his every word wanting to be just like him?
The kid that traded his hoop dreams to become a R6llin Sixty Crip like Boo Manuel NewHouse Uncle C•Dog Lil Fee Peanut Blacx Mouse Big U Baby Wino and so many more?
Who am I?
The teenager kid that stays fly chasen paper in and out of jail? Becoming a young tiny loc line presser?
Who am I?
The 18 year old kid fresh out of Y.A. from doing 3 years and 6 months feeling like the world owes me?
Who am I?
The 18 year old young nigga that just passed for six figures?
Buying expensive jewlry fly whips in out the club drugged up?
Who am I?
They hot head kid that popped his blower over his chain?
Who am I?
The kid facing murder charges that didn’t stick?
The kid that thought he was untouchable having money?
Who am I?
The kid that had to face them murdered charges that I thought I beat?
Who am I?
The kid that took 17 years in the state pen?
Who am I?
The kid that been gone for 13 years that grew into a man?
Who am I?
The man that looked back and realized I wasted my life?
Who am I?
They constantly ask me time and time again?
The man wishing I could turn back the hands of time so I could tell that cool calm and collective innocent kid to follow his hoop dreams?
Who am I?
The man wishing I could go back.

written by Sauce

ACOUSTIC STORM

I move to the sounds of an acoustic storm

 

Making love to the percussion of every rain drop…

 

In my pin stripe suit, and my wing tipped shoes

 

I jive to the grooves of the melodies tunes…

 

With thunder clap bass drums, and wind like flutes.

 

My heart is torn between the worlds of rhythm and blues….

 

Oh how I love thee, acoustic storm

 

Though you sometimes make me cry….

 

Yet I still don’t run for the comfort of cover

 

I just simply wear your rain as a disguise….

 

Under a shaded sky of darkened gray clouds

 

I proudly shuffle and stamp my feet….

 

Although my fingers are froze, and I’m shivering cold

 

There still no place on Earth I’d rather be….

 

Spectators watch in awe from their window seals

 

Unure if I’m even sane…

 

Puzzled looks trouble their warm blooded faces

 

As they watch me dance out in rain….

 

We have a bond you and I, acoustic storm

 

A bind that could never blemish or fade….

 

Even after April showers, brings fourth it’s many flowers.

 

Our love never washes away….

 

So I’m proud to say “I Love You” acoustic storm

 

As awkward as this all may seem….

 

How a human being as shallow as me

 

Could have love for such a distant and unliving thing….

But for those who still wonder and long to know

Why I dance even though I’m in pain….

If you’ve ever danced to the rhythm of love

Then you know why I dance in the rain….

Love…. The Acoustic Storm

 

by Square Cuz

THAT’S HOW YOU MAKE ME FEEL

How is it that I love you, when we’ve only just met
Yet ever since, you’ve been like a Beautiful nightmare that I’ve been unable to forget….
A constant reoccurance like a broken record, or a merry go round An adorable nonsense to me, like a crying baby boy or a studdering child….
It’s like an incomprehensible attraction, like a moth to a flame Enchanted by its alluring flickr, it’s demise is all the same….
Or like trying to count the falling rain drops, I know it is pointless to even try
As it is to look upward towards the heavens, and not see the beautiful sky….
It’s a breath taking experience, like watching the flight of a hummingbird
Or an indescribable melody, like a song sung without words….
It’s like the last inch to a final yard,or a final step in a foot race
It’s like a 400 meter relay, or like running a marathon at love’s pace….
Simply put.. It’s like bringing in the new year, and waiting for that crystal ball to drop
Or like the rush of a speeding roller  coaster, the moment before it stops…
That’s how you make me feel
by Square Cuz

MY SPANISH GUITAR

From the moment that I first saw you
I longed to hold you close….
Stroking your slender body
Hoping to hear you moan….
And although I had no knowledge of music
You somehow still appealed to me….
When I found that you’d respond
If I plucked a certain string….
The sound so intriguing
Like an angel with a harp….
Racing shivers through my body Sending vibrations straight to my heart….
I knew then that I would love you And to play you I would learn…. Although sometimes I’d grow  impatient
This privilege I would earn….
We could start with simple notes And then eventually a song….
I’d practice every morning
And even sometimes all night long….
I’ll compose lyrics in my head
To compliment your golden skin….Your smooth and sexy voice
And all the moods you put me in…. You could travel to different places with me
We could perform duets in the streets….
With you strapped across my shoulder
People would surely envy me….And with you as my inspiration
The limit is now the stars….
I hope to make music with you soon
Mi corazon…my spanish guitar💜💜💜💜
by Square Cuz