Talking to Ghosts (feat. Bad Dreams)

[1: A.D. Carson]

It’s the anti—everything that you believe you stand for.

Cancer that a man stores in his hands for

Laying ‘em on parishioners wishing for some malignance.

I’m really just saying what I’m writing is sickening.

What I’m writing is vision.

What I’m writing is healing.

What I’m writing is flashes of lightning across the ceiling.

Flames from the floor, flickering, licking your feet to move you,

Fool you into believing that when you move, it’s the true you.

Voodoo dance from dude whose hands expand reality.

Puppeteering, but from what you’re hearing, you do it naturally.

And actually I’m to blame for it all—

I’m the reason, even your breathing—if you rise or you fall.

They said Hip-Hop’s dead. I said it must be a joke,

‘cause if it’s really the truth that means I fuck with the ghost.

And I ain’t—above believing in what people don’t see,

But I can’t—believe in it if don’t believe in me,

So where are you?

“A circus?”

“That is our usual employee.

The company currently in the city of Washington.”

“Circus too constricting a word to describe the talented and merry band with which we travel. It is a spectacle unlike most have ever witnessed.

Creatures from the darkest Africa as yet unseen by civilized man. Acrobats from the Orient able to contort themselves in the most confounding manners.”

[2: Bad Dreams]

It’s that long night, so sleep tight now that you think you woke up

Soaking in your psychosis I’m dosing you with the donuts

You wading into them rivers just wishing for this deliverance

You floating in them oceans and just hoping for your atonement

Cooking up something frozen

Cooling off the commotion

What I quote is drums invoking tongues of the chosen

Black Rhapsodies rap tapestries get woven

Bodies contorted jerking the circle is never broken

Like the slave embracing godliness, embrace the bodiless

Authorship beyond consciousness that’s where the party is

Burn Down the plantation regardless

The ghosts told me never the fear the darkness

That’s where the realest part is

They said the blues is dead I said it must be a joke

Amiri Baraka handed me some smoke and I just took a toke

And I ain’t above believing in what people don’t see

I believe in ya’ll even when ya’ll don’t believe me

So who are you?

“We can give you one dollar for each day’s services and three dollars for every night played at our performances.

In addition we would provide sufficient pay for your return here to Saratoga two weeks from today.”

“That...it’s far more than my wages amount to.”

“It’s been the most profitable week…Cheers!”

“Cheers!”

“Cheers!”

[3: A.D. Carson]

God bless the child that can hold it in.

Believe…enemies bleed when I hold my pen.

Let these words be the first to my unborn seeds

So they hear the voice of God clear—blast for me,

Blast for your you, and those who come after you.

Keep your peace, until they make you have to use it—

Have to lose it—clear choice: after music

Comes the fall. So, really, what I’m doing’s for y’all.

But you’ll never know the truth, never see it for self,

Never believe ‘cause you can’t understand it, or else

Have it chewed and spewed back at you, pick it up and endorse it,

Then you’ll support it, get it to fit. If it don’t, then you’ll force it.

They say my people are dead. I said it must be a joke,

‘cause if that’s really the truth that means I’m talking to ghosts.

And I ain’t—above believing in what people don’t see,

But I can’t—believe in it if don’t believe in me,

So what are you?

“Yah nothing but a…Georgia runaway.

Yah just a…runaway ****…

From Georgia.”

[Chains clank; sounds of pants and cries and sighs.

More chains, more cries, then lashes, then pants]

[Crack!

Cry.]

[Crack!

Cry.]

[Crack!

Cry.]

[Crack!

Cry.]

[Crack!

Cry.]

[Crack!

Cry.]

[Crack!

Cry.]

[Crack!

Cry.]

“Yah a slave!”

[Crack!

Cry.]

[Crack!

Cry.]

“Yah a Georgia slave!”

[Crack!

Cry.]

[Crack!

Cry.]

[Crack!

Cry.]

[More crying, panting, heaving, wheezing]

“Are yah a slave?”

“No.”