100 Donors, 100 Dollars (Support the 100 Poems For 100 Days Project)

Posted on 18. Jun, 2009 by kahlilalmustafa.

Thank you to everyone who has supported the 100 Poems For 100 Days Project.

To make a donation via PayPal, click here:

If you are unable to give a $100 dollar donation, there are many other ways you can support this project:

• Host a Living Room Reading in your home or community space
• Pre-order a copy of 100 Poems For 100 Days for only $15.00
• Forward this letter to someone who may be interested in supporting this project.

With your support, I believe this project will go far and wide. Thank you for your continued support.

In partnership,

kahlil almustafa

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100 Poems For 100 Days (Days 15-24)

Posted on 21. Apr, 2009 by kahlilalmustafa.

Day 15: February 4^th 2009 – 10^th anniversary of the death of Amadou Diallo, shot at 41 times by the NYPD

Amadou
if only you had been from Kenya
and not from Guinea

if only you had sold hope on tv screens
instead of socks, gloves and videotapes
on New York City streets

if only those four cops
could see your commitment to change
instead of a gun

the world might see your name
and think of hope

Day 16: February 5^th 2009

A group of Brooklyn boys rap
about pulling their pants up.
i cannot help but smile.
What would Mr. Cosby say now?

Day 17: February 6^th 2009

i find myself
looking at Black men
with different eyes

thinking things like
Act right fool, don’t you know
we got a Black president!

i take Barack’s
success & failure
personally

somehow
i feel as if

i represent him
as much as
he does me

Day 18: February 7^th 2009

This one brotha’ told me
Barack Obama is the first person
he heard speak who inspired him
to want to make a difference.

I guess ME telling him about
Racism,
Imperialism,
Neo-Imperialism,
the-impending-and-eventual-collapse
of-the-planet’s-environment-because
of-the-threat-of-global-climate-change

& how fucked up the world is
didn’t get him inspired.

Day 19: February 8^th 2009

Barack Obama is
a comfy fireside armchair
neoslave narrative

proving
bootstrap/pants
pulling up
from slavery
theories

once and for ALL

Day 20: February 9^th 2009

My father’s funeral was
one year ago today
not that i remembered
the calendar on my phone told me.

It reads 10:30am Funeral
no more description
not father, not dad, not Henry –
no address, no directions.

i have questions for him
which he only answers
in his absence.

Would you be excited
or full of a bitter resentment
each time Barack’s
smile flashed across the tv screen?

Would this Black-man-moment
give us a language to speak?

Day 21: February 10^th 2009

Barack
you know
you is
a Magic Negro

with your coooool calm demeanor
and your smooth-ass walk

but only we can call you that
and still never in public

and only from the mouth
of the late Richard Pryor himself

Day 22: February 11^th 2009

i walk down boulevards

of broken black men

a hall of mirrors
which haunts me

Day 23: February 12^th 2009

look Colin

i don’t think the guy at the pearly gates
is going to say

“Hey you with the pants hanging down,

you’re going thirty flight down.

You, the man who helped the son of satan
rape and pillage a sovereign nation,
you go to the upper room.”

the pants-down kid
might get a pass on that God-looks-
after-fools-and-babies clause
or
he might be damned to an eternity of
pants-pulling up wandering through time
not much unlike his life now

but you, they got special places for you son.

Day 24: February 13^th 2009

i can’t help but wonder
will young black boys

one day
be gunned down
on

Barack Obama Blvd.

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100 Poems For 100 Days (Days 8-14)

Posted on 13. Apr, 2009 by kahlilalmustafa.

Day 8: January 28th 2009

Today
i got
a brand
new flat-
screen television.

If the world
is going to
end

i want
to watch it
in High Definition.

Day 9: January 29th 2009

WE dare not say the word
what if they

if they took you
where would WE
place our possibilities

who would keep
our secret hopes
for a better world

please
stay
safe

beautiful
young
warrior

Day 10: January 30th 2009

this one sista’
introduces herself with
is your girl white
and is you down with
this post-racial shit?

i say YES she is
and NO we are not

in fact we deal
with race
intimately
every single day.

Day 11: January 31st 2009

whether
Barack Obama
or
ME

this is all about
responsibility

who will
step up
breathe it in
own it
be honored by it
be humbled by it
claim it

you
ME
them
WE

who

Day 12: February 1st 2009

On the television
i watch politicians
scurry to water
plants they did not seed.

They try to sell
weeds
as fruit and flower.

Day 13: February 2nd 2009

There is government cheese in my stomach
which I am still trying to digest.

This makes it difficult to stomach
the news I see on the television each day.

Day 14: February 3rd 2009

with the value of
the dollar declining

maybe

the value of people
will be on the rise

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100 Poems For 100 Days (Days 1-7)

Posted on 31. Mar, 2009 by kahlilalmustafa.

Inauguration Day: January 20, 2009

Before the voters spoke
the people spoke
we marched
we begged
we petitioned
we demanded.

Before the people spoke the earth spoke.
The shift is ahead.     This is a beginning.

Listen closely
to your body
to the children
to the wisdom in the wind.
Fast any way possible:
food alcohol complaining tv.

The true battles wait.

Day 1: January 21, 2009

Along with millions
of other hope-

filled Americans
i tune into

America’s latest reality
television show: Black Prez –

From Auction
Block to Oval Office

Day 2: January 22, 2009

Martin
would celebrate this victory
and in the same breath
speak out against injustice.

I can hear
his voice trembling
comparing the bombing
of children in the West Bank
to Four Little Girls in an Alabama church.

From the pulpit
he would say, “keep marching”
and
WE
would listen.

Day 3: January 23, 2009

the dolls are coming,
The Obamas, collect
the whole set:
Michelle, Barack,

the kids, the dog.
Limited time
offer you could purchase your first
family today.

Day 4: January 24, 2009

I hope Barack Obama’s presidency
will help my family accept my wife

Maybe they will be able to imagine
the possibility
of a genuine
Black/White love relationship.

Day 5: January 25, 2009

There is no memory
of firehoses in Barack
Obama’s DNA

no memory
of women moaning
at the bottom

of slave ships, in
the crowds of millions
gathered. There is

no evidence of my parents
ever being here. I am
a survivor who dares to be
a witness.

Day 6: January 26, 2009

Today I woke up with that
Barack Obama swagger

I kissed my wife
scanned the day’s news
hit my desk without missing a beat

greeted everyone by their first names
flashed smiles, shook hands
and dished out low fives when appropriate.

I negotiated every encounter with
YES-but-how-‘bout-this
and got my way.

At the end of the day

I came around Secret Service picks
and shot jumpshots left-handed

came home
played with my kids

and made sure my lady
went to bed with a smile.

Day 7: January 27, 2009

This was no election

This was
a pep-rally

for imperialism

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Kahlil Almustafa EPK

Posted on 30. Mar, 2009 by kahlilalmustafa.

http://www.vimeo.com/3534229

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