I’ve always hated side effects. 

I never understood them.

I’ll never forget this commercial for Chronic Baldness.

Grow hair now!  And look natural! 

Even swim in water!

Side effects include,

drowsiness, bloating, constipation, headaches,

Acute Mild Depression, AIDS, Cancer

and sometimes death.

Sometimes death?

My mom has more side effects than illnesses.

How can you call it a cure

if it makes another part of you sick?

How can the FDA approve something that cost a gazillion, batrillion dollars,

when they know good and well that once taken

your liver will give out?

You expect me to believe that there isn’t a medicine that has no effects on the side?

We can build planes that fly

and rockets that jet to the moon.

We can invent cell phones that double as

your best friend, camera, alarm clock, calendar, address book, TV, Ipod and internet.

Wait, a minute, we can invent the internet,

but we can’t discover medicine that has no side effect?

I don’t second guess why Food and Drugs are combined into one administration.

So they can keep tabs and approve the poisons allowed in our food,

all the while developing the million dollar cure for the sickness that we get eating it.

And, of course, throw in a little something, something on the side

to keep us guessing and depending on the marvels of modern medicine.

Man, gangstas come with a CEO badge nowadays.

They dress in suits and spit fairy tales about the American Dream.

And we sit at Burger King

and believe the chemical lies,

eat all the fast foods with hormones and pesticides.

Get addicted until we can’t think of another way.

Have it your way at Micky Dee’s

brainwashed into our heads,

so much we actually think that their low-fat sandwiches are good for us.

We feed our children Similac and sugar crack,

thinking, yea, but with baby food,

they wouldn’t do that.

They grow up with diabetes in one hand and the other a Big Mac.

And then you come to my wife. 

She is like my last straw.

Diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis,

we figured it was the luck of the draw.

She took the medicine prescribed

cause your doctors know best, right?

Wrong!  What about vitamins?  We ask early on.

Doctors don’t approve vitamins

cause they are not approved by the FDA.

How can something so natural as a vitamin NOT be approved?

The food and drug administration don’t want you to find out the secret,

that they are killing us…and making us pay to stay alive. 

The only thing I knew about Mercury

was that it was a planet.

I never figured another world

would be in my wife’s teeth.

Of all the dangerous metals,

Mercury is number two behind Plutonium.

Are dentists crazy?

Why would you put this in her mouth again?

Might as well shoot her with some lethal gas,

while you are at it.

Going the doctor’s way no more, I’ve had it.

Mercury is in several things such as sprayed on the foods that we devour.

So they saturate your mind every hour on the hour with extra thin

fables and approved pills to take off those pounds!

Yet, mercury poison doubles as such diseases as MS, Alzheimer’s and Lupus.

But, if the they admit that it is bad for your teeth,

then they have to admit

it is bad for your food that you eat.

And if they admit that it is bad

for the food that you eat,

then they have to admit it is bad

in the medicines that we take.

So, instead my wife’s happiness remains at stake.

And she must pay the price of

weak muscles and joints.

to keep money in rich folks pockets.

But, we have nothing to lose.

It’s been 4 years and her walking hasn’t improved.

It’s time to get the mercury

out as well as any other chemical,

fill our refridgerator and hearts with nothing but vitamins and minerals.

We going the full organic route!!!

Yet, I am still addicted to the sweetness of fried chicken in my mouth.

So, if you see me at your local chicken shack,

know that I am still a work in progress…

a man in food rehab,

getting high on French fries,

wanting so bad to believe the lies.

It’s too good to give up.

But, if I am talking about being around for

Genesis and Journey then I must.

As long as I keep passing fast food joints and calling them poison,

It will stick in my head one day…one day I will be completely free

from side effects of the lies and the foods that bind me. 

Every so often, or more like everyday, i get that question that every poet that has been on DEF POETRY gets!  "How do I get on Def Poetry Jam?"  Well, finally I got smart.  I used to type this big ole loooong email to them explaining them how or, at least my explanation on how OR I would say that I would type this big ole email to them and never getting around to typing this big ole email.  Now, I typed the last one to this aspiring poet in Florida or somewhere and decided to save it.  Now, I can re-post and send out the same reply everyday.  See, how smart I have become?

HOW CAN I BECOME A DEF POET?

or

HOW CAN I BECOME SUCCESSFUL IN POETRY?

I want to answer them in a way that they would like to hear.  I want to say.  Step number one do this...then step number two...do this...then finally step number three...do this and BAM you will become a def poet...and BAM you will be successful.  I want to make them happy.  I like making people happy.  That is part of my problem in life is that I am always trying to make folks happy.  So much to the extent that it has made me unhappy a lot of times.  But that is another story.  On these particular situations, I can't just give the happy answer.  One reason, cause I don't know the happy answer that way.  I know another happy answer, but it is not the happy answer that is popular.  But it is definitely GOOD NEWS.

When those first poets got on DEF POETRY we were all awestruck.  We were all so surprised.  None of us had any idea how this show was gonna turn out.  We weren't writing to get on TV.  We were writing because it healed us and other people.  I didn't write to become a famous poet.  I wrote cause it kept me from going insane and running into a bank and shooting everyone and ending up on DATELINE.  I wrote cause it kept me from being lonely at night.  I had company when I was with my pen and paper.  Oh, don't get it twisted,  I wanted to be famous.  But not for writing.  I wanted to be...and I still want to be famous for my acting...oh yes, one day soon.  So, when people ask me what did I do to get to where I got...the answer is nothing.  I didn't do anything...GOD just placed me there.

How many people know that we can think we are doing what GOD wants us to do and then turn around and something completely different will fall into our laps that other folks have been working years to accomplish?  That is what happened to me.  And I will venture out to say a lot of the poets on that first season.  GOD placed us there.  So, the only answer I can say to you is to keep writing.  Be honest with yourself.  Pray.  Worship.  Ask GOD is this what HE wants you to do.  And if the answer is yes, by golly, HE will place you there.  I am a living witness.  

There are no steps.  Poetry is not big enough on TV like acting or nothing where I can tell you to get an agent, your headshot, a manager and take some acting classes...no, there is not too many avenues for poetry like that.  You can, however, take my POETRI'S POETRY WORKSHOP CLASS and that might get you closer because we teach writing from your heart, but that is just a plug for my class!  Really all you can do is perform everywhere, write constantly, trust GOD and believe what HE says.  And everything will be all to the good.

Halleluyah.

But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.       

Keep it Natural.