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Morning Tea

by Blue Scholars

I taste the morning on the tip of a tongue
That's spittin' out the past, the day has begun
I greet the trees that wave to the sun
Lifted by wind they sway to the rhythm of the city
Dwellers who dream in back alleys and the fire escapes turn into makeshift patios
Ghettos and barrios make better scenarios to write
Carry this story in my pocket like a pocketknife
Carving life upon the streets on the city blocks I walk twice past
Once to my destination and once back
I forgot the bus pass, fuck it
Walking with the Walkman up to volume ten
I can still hear the traffic and then
At the end of the bridge
That I bend to cross oceans to homes and to distant lands
Ancestors chant, I'm a listening man
I'm mingling among the living
Greeting people mom used to warn me about, but without rationality
If she could see me now even she'd be convinced
The town folk
Yo, I love to be about the brown, the yellow, the red, black, even the poor whites

Working 'til the bone crack overtime, nights
Overtime lights resurrect, bringing the day back
"Back in the Day" begins to play back saying that "the record ain't over yet"
There's more music, more revolutions than you can dance to it fluidly
Just like a movement should be

I see bullet signs, ghosts, in Maynard Alley
I land past rats as tall as basketballs
Scavenging the terrible waste of man
Makes the man sleepin' by the garbage can
Wake up quick, fast exactly at eight
The old men convene to harness their ch'i
With discipline minimalin' movement
Transcending eyes of white amusement
Charlie comes in droves, driving SUVs
Sippin' on some tapioca tea, mercy me
In search of authentic ethnic cuisine
Charlie gets the finger in the big gasoline face
Seen many fiends make desperate pleas like
"Please do you have a dollar sir,"
Would I feed your hunger or addiction, I'm uncertain so I drop change
And hope change comes soon in the place where rain is rivaled my tears
Manifest Destiny's final frontier
Chinatown, forty square blocks of survival
Living where dreams once died upon arrival
Sometimes I rhyme slow, sometimes I rhyme right

Working 'til the bone crack overtime, nights
Overtime lights resurrect, bringing the day back
"Back in the Day" begins to play back saying that "the record ain't over yet"
There's more music, more revolutions than you can dance to it fluidly
Just like a movement should be
But I won't believe until it's proven to me
And I won't believe until it's proven to me
Said I won't believe until I prove it
Until I prove it, y'all