Parable of should I go into the valley of the loveless
Why should I go into the valley of the loveless
with everything but love
together decades
overflowing retirements
real estate
loveless
40 years love
talking past each other
no conversation
pure meeting of minds
dutiful ugliness
sadness silent madness
golden handcuffs tolerate contradictions
She love Jesus
He love Allah
no unity here
dead god vs living god
no good
mansion fine
antique furniture
cruses everywhere
no where else to go
Russia too old
China ok
walk the wall be happy
come home to niggas deaf dumb and blind
can't tell niggas bout world tour
nigga know west deep east oakland
richmond
tenderloin sf hunters point
where is Spain Jamaica Grenada Trinidad Brazil Cuba
Nigga know West Oakland back streets
Adline Pine Magnolia Center Peralta
7th and Campbell in the night
love ain't love at all
mess of pottage
think they being true
both lying
she do and he do
both dodo
where is love constipation
he say you want another nigga
She say no
another entry level nigga like you no
At the club man say to friend
Man, don't you want that woman hittin on you?
hell naw, I got a woman at home I been wit 30 years I don't want
Let that woman hittin on me go somewhere else
terrorize another nigga
I got one terrorizing me.
Married friends so happy got everything
material things ain't love
swimming pool stocks bonds real estate
no matter
he likes casino
gambles all night
$200,000 gone so what
tomorrow another day
stop following me around casino bitch
play yo one-arm bandit
leave me lone
I'm doing ma thang
go your room to sleep
I b there directly
let me gamble all night long
what else a nigga do
kill pain of nigga life
everything and nothin
nigga life ain't shit
no friends
woman hate ya guts
jealous envious
can't wait till ya die
Buddy say when he get in his casket he gonna spit in his wife's when she view him
He go say bitch I hate you I hate you I hate you
nigga love a motherfucker
you got everything.
and nothing
Niggas scared of revolution, Last Poets said
Fanon said liberation is only road to sanity for oppressed
friends say they tired of me talkin that black shit
they can't take it
just wanna watch football baseball basketball
anything but listening to me rap that black shit all night long
can't take it
stop trying to turn me and my wife out with that black panther shit
Let me gamble lose $200,000 so what I slaved for it
white man pimped my drawers off
fuck that black shit
let me go groom my garden
Part II
Lovers did not appreciate my poem
don't write about them again they said
they missed my poetic cry for love
Display hugs kisses
talk is good
talk as friends not lovers
yet she is all he has
he is all she has
he is not happy too much pain from nigga life
even petti' bourgeoisie life
Frazier's world of make believe
she is not happy
watching him self-destruct
no steel sharpens steel
2 become 1
1 plus 1 =1 in the name of love math
Stallion donkey don't mix
donkey can't win derby
Donkey love disappears
blistering sumner heat
Too hot for love
In summers of my youth
Hot valley girls
mumu dresses
Loose fitting accessible to da hot valley girl funk
Too hot for panties
Hot dripping love
115 degrees midnight love
Roadside cotton patch love
Walnut Ave
Fig Ave
Church
Roading Park car fog love
Police flashlight on nigga ass love
Drive-in theater love
How many Drive-in theater babies?
Grapevine love babies
Cut raisins in the land of Sun Maid
Born in the land Sun Maid
Fowler CA
Mama too
"What happens to a raisin in the sun?"
Raisins dry in sun
paper tray labor in the sun
7 cents tray
100 trays day min
for school clothes
else go school naked
Girls cut grapes too
Hot grapevine love in the vines
Mexican shout vamanos
Day is done
Vamanos
back in da hood
Come here Gulfriend in yo mumu
Stop car across from Hunt's grocery
cotton field love
Rainer Ale green death love
Gul gimme some sweet hot pussy
Rainer Ale make her pee side cotton patch
pee gul
Let's go Roading park
Steam up car window hot summer love
Black love lives
Black love matters
God is Love
4th quarter love dead
Lovers tired too ignut to love
old sick crazy love
My friends,
You think I come in hate
I hate the love I don't see
love is my mission
I speak in the name of love
You say you love
You stay for love
let love live
don't hide love
Let people see love
Let people see the love of God in your eyes
time is precious
yesterday is gone
today almost done
what will tomorrow bring
Better ax somebody.
Bakersfield pitching watermelon love
No watermelon pitching after noon
Bakersfield sun blazing
Sun burn nigga ass
Vamanos Vamanos
Love is mean these days
Covid19 love
mask love
stay in house love
I don't know you wife
I don't know you husband
"We had a chance to know each other
before we made love
before I gave you some pussy
before you gave me some dick....."
Lovers dld sick tired exhausted
with neveknowness
Childhood issues unresolved
love impossible
no rite of passage back from insanity
social angst shattered cultural strivings (Dr. Nathan Hare)
Some lovers drown in drink drugs
some stuck on esoteric mythic tales of supreme wisdom
First Resurrection narratives of God Allah
They got supreme wisdom
but didn't get it
no Nation of Islam no land no sovereignty just talk
Jews got Israel
nigga Muslims talk
Where is the land of Shabazz five states and mules
no wonder imams wife goes to church in fine hat Gucci bag
Sycophant of preacher
Imam husband home in bed
mad cause Mother Ship ain't come
but he see it every morning in the sky
See that morning star moving that's her I swear
wife don't believe imam husband
Believe preacher
What husband know
Preacher knows all
he know Allah God too
Mason
"Will you hide truth while you know?"--Al Qur'an
Preacher won't tell me
give him 10% Sundays
tell me Jesus is God
God need money
God need my W-9
I take God's money from my husband's stash
his money my money
my money my money
my money preacher money
My imam husband old sick silly
Full of anger
at me
world
white devils
black devils
Saudi Arabian devils
Supper Sunni devils
Mexican driver devils
road rage everyday
he don't understand Valley is. Mexico
Negro days are over
White man days are done
Todo es La Raza La Raza
Nada para los negros
lo siento mucho
I can't take his black rage everyday every hour
I can't take it
it's too much
estranged from his children grandchildren
they never call visit
when they do he says fuck you
ungrateful bastards fuck you
don't wish me hapi b day and I never see you
you never bring my grandchildren to hug kiss fuck you
my anxiety attacks confound him
nothing wrong with me he say doctors say too
I know my blues
fuck him and the doctors
fuck the ambulance too paramedics too
he ain't touched me in years
Kissed me
doesn't know sweet smell of my pussy
don't want to know
my mouth turns him off
his dick silly putty
he say it might get hard
If I just shut up
stop saying no at every turn
he might kiss all of me if I shut the fuck up sing Silent Night
I can't shut up
To save my life my love I can't.
Why do I dwell in no zone
first thing out my mouth is no
our love is war eternal
He needs me
I need him
We have everything except two souls united.
why fight when battle won day we met
our love was sealed
Still we fight
Mr. and Mrs. Jackson hollywood style
In fourth quarter of lives
old fools in paradise
Do we need a break?
a minute or two break for RR
come up for air
Before we kill each other in these hot summer nights
He had a gun sold it
he pulled it on me
I pulled it on him
(thankfully, he'd taken out the bullets)
He sold it
Thank you Jesus/Allah
Did Slavery do this
white supremacy type II (Dr. Nathan Hare)
unresolved grief trauma
Too much toxicity systemic white supremacy Type II
I love him so
He's told me go
Million times
Told him go
We stay
Problem stays
No solution but the grave
We love the perks
golden handcuffs
Prisoners of love
together but Distant Lovers (Marvin Gaye)
our love a distant cry
Let us hear the Adhan
let it crawl into our hearts
healing healing
Let the Muezin cry for peace and love at summer dawn
--Marvin X
6/29/21
About the Poet
Some call him the USA's Rumi, Saadi, Hafiz (Bob Holman); some call him Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland (Ishmael Reed); some call him Socrates teaching in the hood, a combination Thelonious Monk and Marianne Williamson (Dr. Cornel West); his love poems will resound as long and as deeply as any love poems ever written by anyone, e.g., Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonia Sanchez, Maya Angelou or any others." (Fahizah Alim); he is Father of the genre known as Muslim American literature (Dr. Mohja Khaf); Marvin X is one of the innovators and founders of the revolutionary school of African writing. (Amiri Baraka, RIP); when you listen to Tupac Shakur, E-40, Too Short, Master P or any other rappers out of the Bay Area of Cali, think of Marvin X. He laid the foundation and gave us the language to express black male urban experiences in a lyrical way (James G. Spady, RIP).
Marvin X reading at the University of Chicago, Sun Ra Conference on Afrofuturism, 2015
photo Burrell Sunrise
For readings/speaking engagements
send letter of invitation to
jmarvinx@yahoo.com
Tentative engagements 2021
Oakland BAMFEST, Black August 2021
Duke University Conversation with Dr. Cornel West and Marvin X on
Palestine and Black America
Opens for Donald Lacy's Color Struck, New York City
Marvin X and Dr. Neal Hall in Concert
Philadelphia TBA