STATEMENTS - Nia (Purpose)

' There is a method to my madness. '

He told me this one day.

Stayed in my mind for what seemed like eternity.

The way he said it.

It took root.

And it grew into something

Large.

Blocking the sun.

Taking up space before me

As it reached toward the sky.

But I am a person who enjoys aerial views.

So I climbed.

' I rose to the occasion. '

My statement of choice.

To see this madness

And the method for which it worked by.

Walking the walk

With the wind to my back,

Witnessing all that is truly good in us all,

I became crazed.

Much like he.

So now we practice this method of madness

Together.

Committed for all the duration.

Crazed for life.

Talking the talk

Of words.

Work is the sole property of Shazza Nakim and is published with written permission by the artist.

 (c) Copyright 2013 

I Remember the Day I Died

I remembered when I had died.

That’s right I had died.

Not in the figurative sense.

Literally.

Dead.

No heart beat.

No pulse.

Stopped breathing.

Cold.

In the cradle of Dead.

Let me describe the experience.

It was like a weakening.

From all over.

My breaths had grown shallow.

My eyes began excepting a quickly approaching sleep.

My legs and hands grew heavy.

Then a shadow like cold,

slow but transitioning crept over me.

Then my words began to slur.

And in my fight to stay alive my eyes tried to capture the last images of a living world.

Sparks of blurred light danced around my body.

Later I was told that this experience was my body going into shock.

But it was more than shock.

Now I can call it beautiful

But then, it was consumingly bright.

And as the people who were present on the street gathered around me

I heard everything.

I saw everything.

And that’s when I knew I was dying.

You just know.

Like when the elderly say they’re going to sleep and it’s like different the last time.

Or when you walk out of your house and you know that it’s going to be one of those days.

It was almost like that but much more.

You see, my heart gently started to fade into the background noise of the world.

And finally I was cold.

Ice cold.

The blood that poured from my body no longer mattered.

Part of me thought that it felt good.

The sensation.

It was like singing the gospel before a pulpit of angles

When that shiver hits giving you those chills that run down the back of your spine.

And at the one exacting moment

My body felt warm.

In that moment, it wasn’t the sensation of my life flowing from my body that I sensed,

It wasn’t my pure essence flowing from me.

It was something else.

And all the while that I was dying in the streets of Harlem

I was living again in heaven.

And while part of me was calling for GOD to keep me safe,

Me bellowing to God to take care of my spirit,

To stop the physical pain,

There was a calming.

Like a second consciousness telling me to, “Shhhhhhhhh.”

And that’s when I closed my eyes one last time.

I closed my eyes.

And I was warm.

Warm like I was when I was in my mother’s womb.

Because at that point, I remembered what it was like.

Nurturing.

Healing.

Complete.

I heard everything.

The people on the street,

the crying of women,

radio and cell phones,

the police asking questions about what happened,

the ambulance coming,

the doctors testing my blood type,

hurried feet squeaking floors,

the metal and wheels banging,

the machines beeping,

the nurses clapping when they heard a heart beat.

But there was one thing that I remember more so than any other sound.

One voice.

My voice.

I asked,

“Can I go back?”

In my “No light at the end of the tunnel” state I asked GOD,

Can I go back?

And then I woke up.

Alive.

In my stay at the hospital I was numb.

Not from the drugs given to me to hide the physical pain

But from the fact that I was sent back to this simply by asking.

Why I asked to stay?

I still don’t know.

Why I was allowed to come back?

I don’t know.

But since my arrival I have noticed

every religious and spiritual person has been telling me what God has told them.

What they have heard from God.

Everything  according to God.

What I am suppose to do. According to GOD.

To Be.

To say.

To see.

What God had ordained for me and all of mankind.

But the words don’t sound like what I heard.

They don’t feel like what I felt.

The voice is different.

What I hear is like asking for directions and giving a recipe for Stir Fried Rice.

You know its wrong from the first word.

Preachers, and Popes, Ministers, and Muslims

They all sound empty.

They sound wrong.

Try as they might, they fall short of the voice I heard in my death.

It’s somewhat sad and comical

Cause none of these Motherfuckers have a clue.

No clue.

Not one fucking clue.

I walk along streets and see rows of dapperly dressed men and women

Noble men in black and white collars

Men draped in silk and embroidered gold

Staffs of reflective substance

Statues and Stained Glass images haunting and still

Halls filled with shouts , and hymns, the Negro spiritual ringing to the roof of  heaven

and I sense in it all great emptiness.

Oh my God, why is it so empty to me?

Why is it so hollow?

Absorbing?

Enveloping?

And people; week after week continue to feel good.

They feel rejuvenated.

But when I walk into those halls of holy healing

I feel sick.

I feel the opposite.

At home God talks to me.

No musical scales and screams

No preacher prattle

No reminders of Satan and his fall from grace.

No plates filled with the evils called money to be counted behind closed

doors by accountants.

Accountants dressed in Armani and Alligator shoes.

No overlapping calls of Amen.

No great book of by James or psalms upon psalms.

It’s the sun that rises in the morning to greet my opening eyes.

My breath that allows me to say, “Thank You” for another day.

The water that washes away a past life of guilt and sins

and refreshes me for a day of saintly thoughts, deeds and sanity.

It’s the wind that touches my face

And the earth underneath my feet that tells me what is right.

I may not have traveled a heaven

I may not have traveled 10 feet above the streets of Harlem.

But I see the stars more clearly now.

Angles held both my hands and my head on that night

And God had awaken me gently into a World that is still sleeping.

And  I know I am blessed.

Everyday. 

Why am I here?

I still don’t know

But I am here everyday of my new life.

Work is the sole property of Shazza Nakim and is published with written permission by the artist.

 (c) Copyright 2001 

THE DRINK (Ujamaa - Co-operative Economics)

Draped in black she walks across desert sands
Sun hanging high
The air rippling from the heat.
She trails footprints that disappear in time
As the winds push Saharan grains
That carpet the far and beyond.
Searching for water she taps and stabs
ground with her spear of hoary worth.
Deep until the Earth bleeds
Clear,
Giving up its blood to the woman in shadow.
And she drinks.
Quenching the thirst of a throat dried and cracked
crawling towards the cut in the ground
the decayed,
the emaciated,
the carcasses of the land
struggled and strained to the oasis of life.
As the shadow stands and watched
thirsty no more.
She waits until they all approach for a drink.
And as skeletal remains part lips burned and blistered
for a drink,
to taste the nectar of nature's cool essence,
the woman withdraws her spear
licking its tip of its last drop.
Tauntingly swallowing life's most precious elixir.
And it is all gone.
Washed away into the vastness of the desert.
Only to become a mirage of happiness,
a silhouette of life
which gathered the scorched remains of the land

in a perfect circle.

This I write with scroll and pen.


The Drink by Shazza Nakim
Copyright © by Peace of Mind Publishings and with permission by Shazza Nakim

STRENGTH OF SPIRIT (Ujima - Collective Work and Responsibility)

Rock of Gibraltar
heart of diamond
like the blades of Zuar,
it’s the center of passion.
The speed of swing
and a Zulu's call,
cherish the stare hollow but true.
In the end
it’s OK.

It’s the song that causes tears to move.
A hand, which wipes them away,
clearing them for insight.
It uncovers the memory of futures past
and rises to stand in magnificence.
It’s the cost of being the boss
when masks reveal the identity of the spirit
King.

Setting internal rules
-the reality that we live in,
bodies austerely hacked and cut away in all the important parts.
And it heals,
it does grow back in places.
Sometimes fast, sometimes strong.
But in the end, it becomes the salt of the Earth
and the breath of a windless sky,
on a starless night,
a hand, on a timeless clock kept for forgotten heroes,
lost in battle since their closing bid for freedom.


Sold! Dis heron Buck fo 300 dollas!!

Strength of Spirit by Shazza Nakim
Copyright © by Peace of Mind Publishings and with permission by Shazza Nakim

NATURE OR NURTURE (Kujichagulia - Self-Determination)

Stroke me
and touch me more.
Look at me hard
and hold on.

What do you say?

Experience and taste me
lick and swallow me whole.
What flavor am I?
Sweet or sour?

Mixing the ingredients.

Open seasons
of Change
from hot to cold.
Dressed and Undressed.

In fashion statements of the World.

Singles and doubles.
Matching me up.
Taking me down
on my back and on my side.

Spread them and check me out.

Outgrowing your ideals.
Stepping beyond social shackles.
A hungry soldier no more.
I have turned my own pages.

Reading stories from right to left.

Blame me not.
I blame you little.
I am deep into You more
as much as you are into Me.

Rolling head over heels.

Save my life
saving more of your soul.
Allowing me to die in your arms.
Dully by cutting off the lights.

The sun will still rise after blemished days.

Hear Trumpets
calling from the East
with human insight.
Listen to the sound.


Nature of Nurture by Shazza Nakim
Copyright © by Peace of Mind Publishings and with permission by Shazza Nakim

DIAMONDS (Umoja - Unity)

heat it
stir it
place it on top of the burner.
put the lid on tight.
pressure cook the Hell out of it.
watch it boil,
bubble,
and bounce around
falling one over the other
over and over
until
a big wooden spoon splits and
whirls it to the sides of
a big black cauldron as it
fights the final meltdown
from an intense flame underneath.
baked,
boiled,
and burned.
broken up,
broken down
to its basic elements.
transformed
from heat
coal into diamonds
in the rough
cut so fine
so we all can shine.


Diamonds by Shazza Nakim
Copyright © by Peace of Mind Publishings and with permission by Shazza Nakim

PEACE OF MIND TO HEAR - Imani (Faith) Kwanzaa 2008

I want you to HEAR my voice as well as take the time to get to know my presence while I speak with you on the last day of Kwanzaa which happens to be on the first day to the Christian New Year 2008. Often when you open up to people, you not only get a sense of a person's strengths but deeply, you sense their weaknesses and insecurities. That might be our way of helping, the nurturing part of our being. Equally, it is our strength to measure our position for dominance and control over people as well. Regardless of the reasons, we use our connection with people to bring them into our fold to build upon our comforts and associations in our communities.

In my past I was brought up to be a strong and self-reliant man. Brought into the world by parents of the 60's where weakness and ignorance of the world was not a prerequisite for survival. I was to be part of a new generation of Black Men to lead a nation in and out of our Civil unrest within America. So with all of my academic achievements, athletic accomplishments, oratory and written skill, creativity and political acquaintances I did not, at one time consider that I would have a flaw in my character. It would be years later that that flaw would be something that would be at the core of my reality. Like the kryptonite to a Superman's weakness my weakness of character would be my Faith.

I found that it wasn't the lack of devotion that I possessed which would be my weaknesses; it would be the blindness within it that would house the possibility to do the most harm to myself and others. I use to covet religion like holy texts locked within the Vatican Libraries for only private eyes to see. You couldn't even speculate about my faith without my cutting you off at the past or to block you from even challenging my beliefs. As I matured, and wisdom blanketed me, I found comfort in the fact that it was this blind faith that caused my energy to block the world from seeing how weak I was. Through my blind faith, I existed as if I was better than all others who did not believe as I did. And that “greater than thou” energy was perceived as supreme strength and not a bullish stubbornness for understanding and or expanding my knowledge of other religions. I also realized that in doing that, I was putting out an energy that was alienating me from the rest of humankind. A world that exist because it’s suppose to.

Where it came from, the knowledge of Self, did not come from a book, Church pew, Rabbi or in deep prayer facing East, It came from a simple act of kindness. I had a stranger who simply bought me a gift and said, "I got you this because you were kind to me." To this day I recall that moment for whatever I said, did or did not do, I realized that my actions for being a Black Man, has the spiritual stuff to heal those I walk in the presence of.

Whenever I talk about this, I find that the Religious All-Rights (The Muslims, The Christians, The Jews, The Buddhist etc.) are quick to claim that it’s though their faith/vision or religious doctrine that you have experienced this “come help us preach the message of (FILL IN THE BLANK)” so that everyone can come over to "our" side of the team. To be honest, it was through my love of Peace; physical, mental and spiritual peace, that I came to this place I am in. It was in heart that I live as I live without a pre-describe blueprint for life and living. In my direct line to a Higher Power I have now come to realize that I live my personal philosophy as a guide for "me", giving me sight beyond common peoples' sight. It’s my personal connection with that Higher Power that I am connected to me, not a “team” or religious tenets. It is when I found out I had open invitations and across the table one-on-one conversation with GOD.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't reject the notion of religion and a Higher Power; the Creator, GOD, I just reject the notion that it is founded here in America and for what matters, in most of the World and reserved through individuals. When your spiritual energy is misdirected here in America, be it mentally, socially, personal or sexually, it would seem that your mind expands to a place of self-seeking and self-serving gratification. How I am today, allows me enough clarity to hear and see manipulation from the top of mountains, seeing from many venues including within my own communities where I finally realized that the energy, my energy, wards off all those looking to possess my weaknesses and turn them into fears, insecurities and possibly hate.

I now see the religious arrogant as nothing more than background static, White Noise that quickly fades into silence. This is my Peace of Mind, in a quiet where I can hear my faith speaking clear and loud and as so, my mind is open for more possibilities and growth.

"Imani (Faith) - To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle."

ARE WE REALLY SO DIFFERENT - Kuumba Kwanzaa 2007

Conversations for a while during Kwanzaa’s seven-day celebration has encompassed the principles that we all try to live by as we move into the next year (or as we express the next phase of our lives). Kwanzaa, derived from the Kiswahili phrase “matunda ya kwanza”, Kwanzaa means “first fruits of the harvest.” Kwanzaa’s purpose is a reaffirmation of peoples commitment to ourselves, our families, our community, and our fight for equality and justice. 

Those on the outside (and I am including those Black people unaware of or refuse to participate in Kwanzaa as well) see this celebration as a Black Holiday or a protest against Christmas due to its parallel preachings of Self-Determination and the fight for justice. Any mention of those needs will always place fear in the minds of those whom see these actions as anarchist and or challenging the American way of life but Kwanzaa is actually more inline with the spirit of Christmas than it is as practiced today. 

The whole experience of Kwanzaa is a re-booting of the spirit. By energizing the very core of the human condition. The holiday concentrates on; unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. This may sound like a massive laundry list of actions of accomplish within seven days or much more, within a year of one’s life but it can be accomplished and often is. I recently expressed that as people live out their lives with purpose, the forces that block our blessings can and often wear us down thus the seeds of apathy take root. Kwanzaa allows for those things needed to grow the fruits needed to nourish our body, our minds and our soul. It’s a holiday of focus, of thanks, commitment and love. 

So on this day of Kuumba (Creativity) I am going to focus on a creative solution to the disconnection of Blacks in America and Blacks in Africa. Big challenges to say the least since there are cultural tensions that neither side wants to address. I decided to actively work on and concentrate on a formula to address this a little later in the New Year of 2008 but for now I want to tell how I came to this idea of personally looking at this as a creative project. 

Two days ago I watched the National Geographic Channel’s show TABOO. Like all things National Geographic I find what other cultures and countries do a fascinating topic. Now I do not believe that National Geographic to be 100% fair and balanced, but for the most part, the reporting is accurate. On the day I watched there were several topics of taboo discussed; food, self-mutilation and coming of age rituals. The continents covered were Asia, Europe and Africa. When it came to Africa the country of focus was the West African coastal nation of Benin. There are groups of African people who practice a male coming of age ritual when the Men challenge each other by whipping each other to “test” their Manhood. The youth at the age just before adulthood are brought together in a ceremony for all to see and experience are stripped, made-up and displayed for their masculine beauty. At the center of the community its one man versus another man in an, "I whip you and you whip me competition". The whips are made of tree branches (the very same branched our mothers and fathers, grandparents and elders used on us when we were children) and made in such a way that they can cause the most pain and damage. The goal, to make the person inflected with the lash cry, scream or pass out due to the pain. To fail this test would bring shame to the family and not allowed to marry. For the women, it was a chance to see what eligible men would be available for marriage. 

 During the ritual I watched as man after man took turns whipping the other as they tried their best to break the other. They taunted each other, they laughed as the lashes cut deep into their ebon skin of the challenged. The other part of the ritual was to want the cuts to encourage the scarification. Each cut displayed the proof of survival, the journey of Manhood and most of all, the statement of being a Warrior. Ultimately the ritual was more about being both a Man and a Warrior. And as I looked in those faces going through this Mind Over Matter competition with the grand prize being a pick of any woman in the village for gratuitous sex, I could not dismiss that all of those faces looked exactly like mine. 

 National Geographic noted that this ritual had nothing to do with religion for based upon the culture you could assume that this particular group was part of an Islamic society; it did have more to do with the structure of cultural law dating back hundreds of years. Its bases was established for how men and women are to behave in this Benin society. Outside of the whipping, which I believe with that of the American use of the whip, this African practice may have also survived long enough to have influenced my ass beating in my youth, I said to myself, “… that could never be me, after that first strike, I’d scream like a girl, fuck those women.” As funny (or ignorant depending on your point of view) as that sound, I had to acknowledge that I was different than my Benin Brothers when it came to proving my Manhood, but had much more in common in many other ways. 

We "are" different than our African Brothers and Sisters but this difference when you look at the big picture is small. We might think that the differences are as large as the Atlantic Ocean is wide but it really isn’t. When it comes to culture, it is just a matter of language, limits and freedoms and knowledge about community. I see Black men with Omegas and Sigmas branded into their skin, Black men with tattoos that cover their whole arms, chests, necks and backs, I see Black men with piercings in their ears, eye brows, lips, nose and sexual organs, circumcisions, Mohawks, dreds, capped teeth, plastic surgery and I know that in Africa, many of our beatifications or ritualized practices in America would be equally taboo to them. To be honest, these actions are taboo even to our own people here in the United States. Yet, take away all the social stigmas and social differences, when you look at a worldview, family and economics, we have more in common almost identical commonalities which displaces any African ritual that we as Blacks in American are disconnected from. We often find that in our disconnect, it is often based in our lack of understanding of our core being as Black people which is why Kwanzaa is so significant in our healing. At its core unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith is what facilitate that gap. 

How is that for insight on New Year’s Eve?

"Kuumba (Creativity) To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it."

AFRICAN SEASONS - Ujamaa: Kawanzaa 2007

Deep in tone.
Deep in voice.
He spoke in tongue
telling a quiet world to wake up.
African in nature,
he stepped up to me
and stared into my eyes.
Locked tight,
he focused.
He looked into my soul
and toyed with the idea of remaking me
into the image
of a man.
A man of African seasons.

From out of the tall grass
urged by the wind,
African chants,
rhythm and drums
pushed our bodies into full expression
orally conveying our tales of greatness.
With the blood of the spirit,
the sweat of the land,
and the richness in being,
our story was told for generations to see.
To dance.
To sing.
To know.

We held each others hands.
Held them high and gathered others
in our warm embrace.
The numbers grew,
from youngling to elder
it swelled in quixotic proportions.
We collected the words and wisdom of the ages.
It condensed
and rubbed together
creating heat.
It burned within me.
It burned within us all.
It was hot where we were,
At the center of the room.
The center of the world.
Much like the center of all creation,
where he made me into a man.
A man of African seasons.


African Seasons by Shazza Nakim
Copyright © by Peace of Mind Publishings and with permission by Shazza Nakim


"Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together."

Breaking Niggaism At Its Roots - Ujima Kwanzaa 2007 and Beyond

Corporate executives hire Black people to create and cultivate Niggaism in media. This isn’t a theory or a speculation; it is in deed a fact. The Media not necessarily a Think Tank of individuals around a triangle type table with some King Arthur figure at its point, media in this case being; music, film, television, Internet and news. With many of these sources greatly consolidated into the hands of single individuals, the practice of “Niggaism” perpetuates and compromises the collectivity of quantity as oppose to the actual quality of Black culture. The practice of how many Black people will buy into to this is simple, sweet and a cheap commodity. Niggaism is a formula that people in America into the World has bought into, becoming the norm for which all others see Black people as being. We can see evidence of this in Music Video and Television Shows which centers on Black life, often in the form of comedies, local News reports where a daily dose of horrible crimes concentrate on Black Families and or Black on Black crimes, International News where the continent of Africa is a cesspool of death and disease and genocidal wars, or the traditional political and cultural debates between Black Leaders in America jocking for who shouts the loudest for the African-American cause.

You don't have committed Black adults who are in the position to dictate their images, their profits, or even their value to their communities or the world for that matter. So Blacks become subservient to the controls of an industry’s design without major influence to change or effectively challenge the status quo within the industry of Media. In essence, Blacks become bit players of a large chest board of media and capitalism. It isn't until Blacks have survived the pitfalls of the industry, if even, do they begin to understand the impact that they have globally. Lets refer to this as the Rapper Baby Daddy Effect. That is when a Rapper has children and discovers that he doesn’t want his child influenced by “HIS” art. Like all things generational, youth have no ears for elders and by the time they do, the damage is done. Chalk this up to good old fashion Marketing and Political manipulations.

That is why the old school of leaders, musicians, writers, speakers and politicians are still here and holding on to a psudo-sixties reality of People and community. Why that time period? This would be the official time when the Civil Rights movement slowed to a crawl and veered in a direction that seemed to chase the mythology of an American Dream and not the true reality that the Black presence in America is still in a state of economic slavery and there Masters are the benefactors of their ignorance and generational servitude. Too often you hear Black youth claim that the older generations don't teach and show or lead as examples but it is also equally said that the youth are selective learners and listeners. Especially if the words of what is right means to sacrifice money or fun, or being what is canonized as being the American Way of Life.

If “African-Americans” begin to think in terms of being Black as oppose to being African-American, we can begin to think globally and relate to other Black people around the world as oppose to just being American or just Niggas. That in turns would open up Black minds to see the connection between the individual to those of Africa, the Caribbean, South America and Asia. It will begin opening eyes to see that we have more in common with Latin peoples than Europeans. Latinos will then see that they are not a “race” but part of the evolution of Native Americans with cultural influences from their enslavement by Europe and forced to into servitude with their African Brothers and Sisters. That is where our commonality lies. It will also be the dismantling and break down of what is American and thus doing that, we re-write the very history that has been one-sided since the days of Columbus.

"Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) To build and maintain our community together and make our brother’s and sister’s problems our problems and to solve them together."