I am

I am searching

I am searching for faith, beauty and hip-hop

I am searching for all those who died between hip hop and heaven

And all souls set adrift and free from bedlam

With headstrong lyrics that rise like smoke from silver incense burners

I wonder who stole the thunder with the rasping edge

And who banged for baptisms with butterflies, serpentine roads and sunsets broken by cicadas

Have we really lost our century in an hour?

Are we devoured by blind faith in the powers that be?

Are these words as tense as drawn bow strings?

Shall we rebuild the tears like sap from rubber trees?

Answer me!

Answer me you T.S. Elliots in goose down jackets with your felt tip urban hieroglyphs, spliff smoke, and spray paint

Answer me you soliloquists with clenched fists 'round the mike

Answer me you angels in adidas

Tell me

Do M.C.'s still howl rhymes into the purple black of midnight?

Do they still fight to make arrangements with deities courting them with a jangle of gold and silver bangles on their wrist?

I need yearning voices of mangled passion

I need rehearsed create those style of faith and fashion

I'm searching for hip-hop beats, stomping feet to implore the ? ? ringing across the seagulls to muffle the sun

I'm searching for perfumed cherry blossoms and ? 

You see there will be no toast to the future in the banquet table of ?

No golden petals weaving a carpet of light

No hint of arrogance on puckered lips

No wind-swept islands and dreams of sun-lit silence

No riot of flowers and beauty magnified through outmost attention

And no free-style incantations to save the souls of man

I'm peeling off your straitjacket so you feel the sun my friend

I want wings, a feather, and booms so we can fly like birds to better lands

I'm wondering

I'm wondering how temples are now smokestacks

I'm up all night in silvery moonlight with palms of ??

Who stole my afro-pick?

Who licked my fingertips to sooth scratches from the vinyl groove?

Has anybody seen faith, beauty and hip hop?

I have to find faith, beauty and 

Hip hop