Stone Soup Servings is a regular series for Oddball Magazine that features upcoming performers at Stone Soup Poetry, the long-running spoken word venue in the Boston area that has partnered with Oddball Magazine. Stone Soup Poetry now meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery’s new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. The open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m.

On March 23, Stone Soup welcomes for the first time Vernon C. Robinson (VCR). We’re excited to share his work with you today and hope you will be in the audience this Monday.

 

April Cool’s Day
an ode to Gil Scott-Heron

Born in Chi-Town with a third eye sound
Moved with his mama in the boogie-down Bronx
Haven’t you heard this, spoken wordsmith
Representing afros instead of conks
Catch his street lyrics if you can really hear it
Iller than patients at your local health clinic
Spittin’ classic tunes like “Whitey On The Moon”
Just a sample of small talk at 125th and Lenox
Who’ll pay reparations for his soul and creation?
That open up ears and widen up eyes
Understand if you can several pieces of this man
Informing that the revolution will not be televised
Inspired me still at my own free will
To write and recite in order to save the children
He speaks louder with action, collab with Brian Jackson
Compositions that’ll shatter red bricks off a building
Calling on the names of Lady Day and Coltrane
With influences like Havens, Redding and Langston Hughes
One can go far when you are who you are
With the “Get Out The Ghetto” and “H2O-Gate” blues
Ain’t no new thing when whites labeled Elvis “the King”
Proof there’s winter in America
Home is where the hatred is and never sacred
Though we gotta move on and on like Erykah
See that Black boy over there, running scared
His heart’s in full throttle
But this poet’s been here many years without fear
Send conscious messages in bottles
Chase gray clouds away in the middle of your day
Thanks to this brother, I think I’ll call it morning
It’s his world as the truth unfurls
Illustrated onstage every time he’s performing
The needle’s eye with a thread, did you hear what they said
He sings the blues of the Bicentennial
Smacking Agnew and Tricky Dick too
With modern day slavery that seems identical
At home I thought I felt the sting of apartheid
From South Africa to South Carolina
And yes in South Boston with racial exhaustion
His words keep you focused as a daily reminder
What an icon so let’s turn his mic on
He’s a moving target for those who oppose
So realize the real lies, visualized from his real eyes
With electric piano and flute that bless shows
In 2011 a new year, he’s new here
He do care for Hip-Hop heads and all others
Even after his passing, his work remains everlasting
In closing I say, “peace go with you, brother!”