Soul and the city a column by Marlon Saunders

It is during this time of holiday cheer
That we tend to look back upon the last year
Trying to recall all the plans that we made
But they seem to rush by like Harlem's uptown A Train

While moving, I'm grooving in and out of busy stores
And through all the chitter chatter I try to avoid
The hustle and bustle, A shopper's delight!
So I pull out my pen and these words I do write…

Amidst the bitter cold of winter's sky
Jazzhole flows and drops it one more time
Circle of the Sun
this one
bringing light and sounds from distant lands
and now I do indeed understand
the need to create
in a vybe that's free
kind of like when I heard Julie's
Dexterity
for the first time…
Just before the cloud Nine brutha
took center stage
turned back the page
and asked us to remember a time
When we were Black and counscious.
Down for the struggle, leading me to my
Peace beyond passion
Folks keep a askin'
bout the state of the soul… slowly dying
keeps on cryin'
Why don't ya play
N'dambi's
Tunin' Up and Cosignin'
Then come and ask me why
I'm so tired
of the networks
and corporate gangstas
trying to buy my brain
with heavy rotation
no explanation
for this modern plantation…
Look a here, look a there!
For this is a premonition
and the season's bout to change
Cuz fertile ground produces sound
That gets
Horns ta swingin'
Folks a singin'
About the heart again.
How beautiful you are my friend…
All ya gotta do is say yes
To this bare naked truth
I've heard brutha Dwele croon.
It's as ancient as the
River Niger
Standing tall she declares
To be a Soulsinger
Whose mind is free
to wail, moan, scat
Even long tone
if she wants to…
For it is in the surrender
that we knowledge control
and it is in the soul
that we embrace
passion
happiness
sorrow
joy
and pain
Never again to be the same
But that much closer
to those who give their
soulful offering.