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Circumlocution Vol II

by Bomani Armah

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    Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.

    In addition, the book Circumlocution Vol II will be mailed to you! A collection of poems, editorials and lyrics from Bomani's writings in the last 3 years!
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  • Get the first book from "Mr. Read a Book". Circumlocution Vol II is a collection of poems, essays and song lyrics compiled from the last 3 years of Bomani's writing. Covering everything from love, fatherhood and the Sandusky scandal to blacks and homophobia and the bible, this book is definitely the circumlocutions of an irreverent mind.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Circumlocution Vol II via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $10 USD or more 

     

1.
2.
Dedicate this one to everybody going through it, trying to find the other side...especially myself Chorus: Uphill battle Take my time On my saddle and I'm riding, I'm riding down hill climb Verse 1: Sometimes I think my life is boring Take moments to silently cry for poor me Not know what the future has for -me Till I sit back and take inventory While I feel that I'm always warring I must review each chapter fo' I end this story I see not only trials but blessings pouring As I recount them my spirits soaring the closer i get to the sun Appreciate life from a distance i only get but one accomplishments feel lightweight, failures weigh a ton came to war with a knife tahe devil brought a gun when I look at this losing story that I've spun I'm not counting the battles I've won How far in this marathon I've run Leaving my haters stunned Moments of pure fun and great things that I've done. Chorus Verse 2: I can be so critical Counting my accomplishments only in the physical Not counting everything I've earned that's invisible my life is a miracle my blessings are spiritual. each failure has a positive spin cant appreciate the yang if you only see the yin I've proved I have a soft heart and strong chin Throw your darts they'll never get under my skin. a tsunami behind I feel the tide rising long way to go, destiny is the horizon now I'm planning no more fantasizing Now more hustlin, now I'm enterprising When prayers come back marked return to sender It separates the real from the pretender I still shine so bright that everyone remember. No Retreat no surrender. Chorus Yeah. Dedicating this to the friends and family who remind me that I'm getting done, even when I'm beating myself for not doing it. Sometimes you gotta remind yourself that it's a marathon and not a sprint. Let's keep moving y'all. Chorus
3.
The Journal 03:44
I walk into the venue, and saw this book on the floor. As distinctive as it was, no one noticed it I wait for someone to reunite with it No one does, so I walk close enough to read the cover “JOURNAL” I’m curious about autobiographies, but intrigued by journals the untouched snapshot of a five sense one mind one spirit emotion who’s journal would you read if you could read but one? I’d read Jesus’ journal a Nazarene carpenter would be a 1/10 as literate as waka flocka claims to be, but his pops coulda just flipped a switch like Morpheus downloading god’s version of Word Perfect to Neo imagine the ease of editing Jesus’ autobiography NO fact check, or spell check. It would be blinding to read after a while, every word would be in red. I pick up the book Hand bound cover a visionary artisan had salvaged the ruins of something grand and left parts of their life inside of it The temptation grows to read it At least to see the signature. The signing of your name creates a historical ripple Especially when it adorns arduous, rhetorical legal type bonding agreements between men, their government and their god words canonized by song and annual days off words that form a Rorschach formation compiled of scriptures passed down from nomadic tribes of the middle east Each add their biographical moment A 5 sense 1 spirit 1 mind emotion Ideas float around Philosophies blow in the wind Nothing adds gravity like saying “it is written” we know this, jesus did not have the time, the motivation, or understand of its importance to write his own story a miracle birth and a crucifix death, the crux of your very existence passed orally through whisper then in exclamation then under the cruelest of tortures before being written down four generations later giving it the creditability of a community poem the book is pulsating like the tell tale heart mad at myself, for being mad at myself for wanting to know what I should not know but there are things I need to know mere accounts of jesus disappear between his ages of 12-30 you know how many questions I have for 13 ear old jesus? when did he realize his divinity? How did he interact with his friends? Did his body ever fail him? Did he have acne or diarrhea? …how did 13 year old jesus handle morning wood? No matter how he handled it, it was perfect. Did he toss and turn, try to think about baseball or his grand parents? Did he just say “peace be still”? I feel betrayed by being held back from the power he could have imparted this word starved world with just a few journal entries bronze age tweets on tablets by now I have determined to read it What up Bomani! You are now reading God’s journal. Not jesus. His father. God (flip the page) don’t be shocked but every single page you turn to will take you to exactly the part of my journal I want you to read (flip the page) I know you only have a minute and 5 seconds left so I’m going to skip around to the good parts. Day 1: I’m bored. Day 100 million: I went to see the people of Jericho today. They have a new god now, he ain’t even cute. I wish they where dead!... ooops Day 3billion 85million 211thousand 32: I was chillin with Beelzebub today, just shooting the breeze. He dared me to mess up job’s life, I dare you, I double dog dare you!” What else was I suppose to do? Now: I am talking to you, I am always talking to you. Don’t ever trust a book that was supposedly written by me, if it has an ending.
4.
Love is a language of laughter and tears But the most telling moments are ones of silence We have built this house Where love reverberates off walls And this isn’t sound The squek of the door The creaks in the floor The pitch. The mood We’ve tuned each other out every story has been told once melodic yarn spun across bedroom floors like sunsets on desert horizons like red wine on breath like new velvet yielding to my fingers now we just drone on at one time the tenor in my voice held you Now you wish I would hold my tongue Sucked Teeth Tapping fingers The drum major in a war of words the frustration is audible, so we change the play Lost in translation Not worth the frustration There are no words for what I’m saying to you Hush now Not what but how In my silence I have no choice but to be true Your laugh brings color to white noise Your accent flavors my morning Your silhouette leaves me dumbstruck Heart valves as metronome Our minor disagreements show the beauty in dissonance Our bedsheets soak in the echo of last nights love making As you say my name in your own time signature Struck a major chord When the cacophony of life perforates ear drums Leaving sky lines bleak the air blanketed in rotted dreams like raw knuckles on granite the rhythm of your words is the percussion that gets me back on beat the perspective that brings my world back to scale the conflict that resolves into harmony in this duet, we pluck heart strings until we hear nothing Lost in translation Not worth the frustration There are no words for what I’m saying to you Hush now Not what but how In my silence I have no choice but to be true
5.
The simplest statement, spoken from the heart, is more profound than scripture I fixed a four year olds favorite toy With little more then the flick of a button He looked me in my eyes And smiled like he was opening a birthday present postmarked from heaven saying "wow daddy, u r superman batman!". This little vessel with limited life lived And an inkling of a vocabulary Wanted me to know I was greater then any super hero he could fathom I walked a step or two away before it hit me, and I almost teared up. That is to this day the most profound compliment I've ever received. Not only was it a compliment, but an expectation When it comes down to it, this is all there is This is my only love, this is my only bizz I don't event think about it, and I never mind When I'm gone, this is all I leave behind Despite that i feel so inadequate He thinks I'm a godlike I think I'm bad at it He appreciate every word and every touch Makes me remember that I love my dad that much the most amazing man the world has ever found Could reach the top of the fridge without a single bound with laser beam vision that makes the world melt handle any situation with his utility belt An American hero, the man of steel his minivan was cooler then the batmobile could jump from anywhere straight into his open arms I had a superhero, no need for lucky charms remember when I first became a teen Before I knew what being a grown man means Went thru that phase to define myself Stop looking in his eyes to find myself Stop listening, stopped calling But knew he'd be there to stop me from fallin didn't appreciate the time and effort spent so he changed from superman, to Clark Kent his biggest investment, his biggest drain no longer needed batman, i needed bruce wayne you took it with a smile, like "i'll be that" knowing when i need super powers i'd be back because he made it look so easy The big things to raise me, the little things to please me he's home, i don't have to be brave my fortress of solitude his garage is batcave The things he'd do without asking twice Before I understood the meaning of sacrifice raised three kids, we knew he where proud of us played the background, perferred to be anonymous as i sit here in awe of all his abilities super human strength, cat like agility X-ray vision reveals lifes mysteries like superman and batman his strength is his humility
6.
PG Plaza 03:12
Ah, the perfectly processed PG Plaza purchasing experience wish I was to revolutionary for Old Navy, but co-op’s don’t sell boot cut jeans for $19.95 Me and my man are pimpin through incense, pleather bag, and picture t’s median two grown ass men, comfortably silent uninspired, un-amused then we see them, sashaying the wrong way my upper lip curls like plastic in the microwave. my nose flares til kids scampering around toy booths see what I am thinking. THESE-GUYS-ARE-FLAMING Sending not so smoky signals a too tiny tee-shirt, and a perm better than my mo… …is that a mufuckin’ Louie Vitton bag?! Damn bruh I’m just about to let it go when… soft enough to be silent but loud enough to be felt comes the thinly veiled patwa lyrics “Boom Bye-Bye to a botty Boya!” Ssssssp! “I can’t believe he said that out loud” I caught the sing songy death threat being thrown any louder and the prissy couple proudly strolling toward us would too. You don’t get limp wrists without a workout of dodging sticks and stones but this cliché comes to life through this song, From a culture where gay bashing is literal the gasp succeeded to puff up my chest with a self-righteous satisfaction I am enlightened progressive raised in a blue house of a blue county of a blue state But didn’t I just see red when I feared I might accidentally lock eyes with the queens sauntering toward me? What does that say about me? Am I a humanitarian hypocrite? I mean, I would have missed the grand opening of the American Indian Museum, if it had fallen on the same Sunday as a redskins game. The polling booth is now “Custards last stand”. the Union now wed to civil war I ain’t ready to see hard legs with handle bar mustaches, hand in hand singing “We Shall Over Come” same time, I’d be the first to call you out for dat Bull Connor listen to lil’ youngins You’ll here down low lingo about lesbians. now I’m the old head, like the “Greatest Generation” losing the sexual revolution to the Baby Boom Generation Y wave rainbow belts around swaying hips. Ahh, the rainbow, Gods promise not to never again drown us IT’LL BE FIRE NEXT echoes off church’s brimstone a sexual sanctuary for the frustrated and confused Paul and I have long parted ways long his sons still scream at sodomites that I see simply as a symptom. oprah successfully put black men in a sinister line up we’re all usual suspects, Kaiser Sose of a seedy sexual under world sewing seductive lies, lisp-fully spreading soiled semen to sisters. But… see… that can’t be right… I’m a sexy muthafucka, and I don’t ever get hit on. Not that I want to! I’m starkly heterosexual! When my sisters ask “does he look good” I can answer without missing a beat, but the slightest thought of being spooned by a guy is disrupted by vision so knifing this duded in the neck. What disturbs me more? My violent response Or the questioning glares formulating in the audience. All I know is I am now uneasy, in the middle PG Plaza, asking myself pivotal questions And all they where concerned about, was what’s in the window at Claire’s
7.
Chorus She want it rough, she want it physical she want a roughneck a badboy a criminal She wanna know you in a manner truly biblical She want it rough ha she want it mmmm Verse 1 She got a big house, big car, big lips, like a big star she got a big ol ass like a flick star and big makeup over big scars on her neck and chest, face and back hair messed up so she wears a cap most days she be sharp as a tack but lately she been careless black I asked her how she doin, she warmed up to me quickly I said they call me Cuda she said hi my name is Nicky I asked her if she'd like to get a cup of coffee with me she happily accepted now we sippin in the city she told me that her clients put those scratches on her titties thats when I realized what looked like scars were really hickeys she said I really like you come to my place for a quicky this chick was freaky deaky froky doky fricky dicky she said I know you love music so come and make some with me I will be your new guitar and you come and pick me come on and get country on it superman and dougie on it Ugly on it Yes I could but fronted on it cuz she want it... Chorus Bridge She want it rough she want it physical she got a ring in her nose tounge and genitals and for a fee she'll abandon all her principles because she thinks that the money is so critical She want it rough she want it physical and so she wake up every mornin feelin miserable cuz for a fee she'll abandon all her principles because she thinks that the money is so critical Verse 2 5'6", real thick, cute chick with a dimple He was slick and talk quick in-a-86 continental He worked the trap like it paid medical and dental She wants it rough he don't know how to be gentle Took her to his house that he run like a kennel She remind him of his car but he treats her like rental when they crash and burn it won't be accidental she aint thinking while her ass is bouncing like this instrumental While I'm a genuine gentleman She so sweet and feminine she's chocolate and she's cinnamon She tasty wanna get entamens Like pastry put my whole chin in it need attention I'm her ridalyn im stuck being her friend again While he treat her like old school eminem I aint superman but shes Gyna Lynn knock her out wake her up and she fein again Like "Give it to me rough and mean again Get nasty and obscene again" She goes real hard cause life is tough She's a wrecking ball not a powder puff When it comes to pain never get enough Cause she want it, she want it, want it rough Chorus

about

Get the first book from "Mr. Read a Book". Circumlocution Vol II is a collection of poems, essays and song lyrics compiled from the last 3 years of Bomani's writing. Covering everything from love, fatherhood and the Sandusky scandal to blacks and homophobia and the bible, this book is definitely the circumlocutions of an irreverent mind. With the purchase of the book you get a download of the 7 track album featuring appearances by Juno Brown, Lady Pcoq, Baracuda Black and Multiple Man. Warning, I make iPod albums. Not everything on here is family friendly.

credits

released January 27, 2012

Produced by Bomani Armah
Engineered by Bomani Armah
Mastered by William Vaughan IV
Executive Produced by Bomani Armah & William Vaughan IV
featuring Mark "The Professor" Hatcher, Juno Brown, Lisa "Lady Pcoq" Pegram, Baracuda Black, Multiple Man, Olu Armah, Dela Armah

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Bomani Armah Washington, D.C.

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