Reflections: Fred L. Price

Samana & Beyond

We deserve to be

Where We Stand,

Where we started The Planting.

Antigua, Barbados, Cuba, Haiti, Honduras,

México, Dominican Republic, Belize

Jamaica, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela,

Colombia, Grenada, St. Vincent, Virgin Islands, Guyana

Trinidad, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Ecuador.

Kenya, Angola, Ethiopia, Niger, Nigeria, Cameros.

Water, sand, rocks, sky, moon, sun, air.

Seeds planted from the First

to step on Shores.

Planted to blossom in Millenniums

and Epochs approaching for Reclamation

And Jubilation.

Seeds flowering into Return

throughout

Our United Sites,

all over the world.

Massa-adchu-es-et roots,

Wampanoag earth,

Forever.

Cell Phone Rap: I Don’t Need to Know

I don’t need to know

On the street, on the bus on the train, on the go

I don’t need to know

Your business, your woes, or your pedicured toes

You’re on your cell phone…Loud

Enough-to make a bi-polar person proud

Your dress, your makeup, your hair, your style

Right! I need to know –your wild?

Polluting the air

With overdose environment climate change

Acting like a howling/ hollering hurricane

On your cell phone, deafening tone

 Bravado-Swag, verbose- dragging everybody down with your

No class mad, no etiquette, profanity, long winded, posturing sass

YO girl, Lady I don’t need to know

Your man’s been bad

And you tried to knock your girlfriend down the stairs

Right!  I don’t want or need to know

That’s what the cell phone is for?

You don’t have to talk to yourself anymore?

You can let everybody near and around know

That you’re crazy and your best friend is lazy

And you can make your rival flip

Get it right girl!  I don’t need to know

And I don’t need to know my man

How bad you are

That you can punch a brother down

With your grit and your angry fit

That you hustled all the money

On a tip, even as you trip

On some sweetie that you hit

I don’t need to know, all your business

I can go home…work…and whip all of it

If I could put you in a cell phone bully app

Forget the code and keep you trapped

What I need to know -how to shut you down

And take …

my nap.

• Mr. Fred L. Price, author, Journeys