i'm all and none of what they say...

she told me she could no longer endure my company. i cried within.

i've been away from my own soul for so long, so late-sleeping... that dove's crying woke me and made me cry. she said that my life-style was not for her.

"Drink all your passion and be a disgrace."

Sweetheart, close both eyes to see with the other eye. Open your hands, if you want to be held. can't you see that their actions and words mean nothing, the sex and the war they do. i will not deny that thirst drove me down to the lake of your tears where I drank the moon's reflection. i found you though. that's what's important. hear blessings dropping their blossoms around us? G.d. Please forgive me. your smile was the sky my spirit circled in. maybe i created you in my mind. i try to let these words be a window, be an ear. I layed there, while you were asleep, listening to your silence. i learned so much more about you. you knew my 2 cents on the situation were counterfeit, but you accepted them anyway. both my imprudence and my pretending. whatever i was always looking for was you. it's misleading, i know. a sunset can sometimes look like a sunrise. i'm not sure which we just had. it's midnight, and the son is shining clear. the whole neighborhood is up and out in the street talking. you kiss a beautiful mouth, and a key turns in the lock of your fear. i'm walking away... can you hear my footsteps? i'm barefoot, walking over shard pieces of broken promises... Lord forgive me for my sins, I know it's last minute.

a tongue has one customer, the ear. a pen has one destination - the heart. i hope these words i've written find their way to yours. i don't want learning or dignity, or respectability. I want this music, and this dawn, and the warmth of your cheek against mine. The grief-armies assemble, but I'm not going with them. This is how it always is when I finish writing. don't wash a wound with blood - if it's their concern you're concerned with. i could explain this, but it would break the glass cover on your heart, and there's no fixing that. just remember to think of me when it rains both inside and out. that scratching at your door you hear in the morning - that's me.

"He wears his heart
safety pinned to his backpack
His backpack is all that he knows
Shot down by strangers
whose glances can cripple
the heart and devour the soul

All alone he turns to stone
while holding his breath half to death
Terrified of whats inside
to save his life he crawls
like a worm from a bird..."

i write to right - that's what makes me writeous.

i remember a writer named Lori, i'm not of her last name, commenting that "as a writer, we can only hope for 1 or 2 people to endure our company, and take something positive from it." she urged me, almost made me promise that if given the chance, that i would keep my writing honest, and spoken from within. writing, poetry, prose, enlightenment, escatic love, soul, or the truth (whatever one calls it) - in the end, names don't matter. my words are written, not in packets and batches of art, or 16 bar verses of banter, but as part of a constant, practical, and mysterious discourse I am having with both myself, and with the universe. it is no easy task trying to turn the everyday into esoteric. the growth is my second journey towards home. this is the anticipation after depression, expanding after contraction. the sun comes out, and that light is what we give. i hope that my words act almost as an inheritance to my spiritual descendants.

some go first, and others come long afterward. G.d blesses both, and all in line, and replaces what has been consumed.

"This poetry, I never know what I'm going to say. I don't plan it. When I am outside of saying it, I get very quiet and rarely speak at all."

Mentally, why do we stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Let us all move outside the tangle of fear-thinking and hatred. Live in silence. Let the art speak.

I need a mouth as wide as the sky to say what it is my heart. The tongue has one customer - the ear. But I cannot tell - Are these words or tears?

Sincerely,

Anthony J. Shears

A Man In His Life...

Dear Self,

A man in his life has only one goal he need accomplish before his time is up - to touch the truth (even if just once). My experience has shown me that liars await for us around every corner. They come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Peddling deceit, twisting truth, and dodging what truth demands - to be heard. These people cling to ego's shadow, hiding under layer upon layer of lies, self-righteousness, and SELF-PERPETUATED EXPERTISE. Though they appear to be praying for light, the cast their shadows upon us to keep us in the dark. The liar jeopardizes our art's integrity by creating an unrealistic reality. The liar jeopardizes our dignity by befalling our character, attempting to rub out our goodness, and ultimately trying to destroy what we have built. A man doesn't have time in his life to have time for everything. There are not enough hours in the day, days in a week, weeeks in a year to have a season for every purpose. The old philosophers were wrong about that.


A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment, to laugh and cry with the same eyes, with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them, to make love in war and war in love. And to hate and forgive and remember and forget, to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest what history takes years and years to do. If possible, I wish I could fit the entire spectrum of truth into one work of art. It seems as though that has been the challenge of the ages artistically. Many have tried, but I cannot think of one who ahs achieved this task.

A man doesn't have time.
When he loses he seeks, when he finds
he forgets, when he forgets he loves, when he loves
he begins to forget.

And his soul is seasoned, his soul
is very professional.
Only his body remains forever
an amateur. It tries and it misses,
gets muddled, doesn't learn a thing,
drunk and blind in its pleasures
and its pains.

My honesty artistically, aside from my ridiculously self-important, self-perpetuated, Ja-Rule pain-is-love shirt doffing, is what I hope sets me apart. A man in his life only has so much time to do what he has been put here to do. My self-destructive, self-sabatoging tendancies are largely what have defined me as a person. I will continue to, as long as my pen permits me, to take these recycled, reduced, and reused ideas, and try to breath fresh life into them. I once read somewhere that "there is nothing new under the sun." Vanity is like drinking salt-water to cure hydration.

Attempting to convince the world that somehow these thoughts I write down are totally organic and original would not only be vain, but also an utter and complete lie. These thoughts I write down voice not only my personal frustration, pain, joy, love, ect., but also the pain and suffering of a group of people who because of how they look, dress, talk, where they live, go to school, work, and how they relate to the world, are too often forgotten about or disregarded.

Like alot of us, Anthony Shears is a cat with the odds stacked against him. But unlike a lot us, Anthony Shears has the balls to not only talk about it, but to do something about it. The voice of the Have-nots. When asked about a fellow politician he did not care too much for, Abraham Lincoln responded, "I do not like that man. I must get to know him better."

A man in his life only has so much time to do what he has been put here to do. A man in his life has only one goal he need accomplish before his time is up - to touch the truth (even if just once). I write to right - that is what makes me Writeous.

NEVER ASSUME

This blog might not get you laid, but it will help you understand why you never feel quite comfortable with the opposite sex. Living biblically didn’t enhance my creativity (or so I thought), so I went the exact opposite direction. I drank alcohol, isolated myself, and was really mean to everyone. I have to admit, I felt very creative during this time (though I do not know if these things were related). Honesty can be a very destructive force. If people knew how hard we as artist really worked to affect them, they would call it poetic and praise us. I stood next to this woman in an elevator today, and I could smell her insecurity (and I loved it). I wanted to tap her on the shoulder and tell her that I was just as insecure as her, and suggest that we get do something arbitrary to superficially get to know her better. I hate being identified as a “rapper” and I tell myself I don’t need acceptance, but the truth is, without some title to justify my petty theatrical need to appear in control, I would be reduced to a teary-eyed poet begging for recognition/approval. While this may not get you laid, it should help shed some light on the pressure we place on women. Sweetheart, I only lie to you when I have to. It’s not you, it’s me. Right?

From Milestones to Millstones

It's not the talkers, but the walkers in His word - My Nana told me that those will be the only people forgiven and saved from damnation. Lord forgive me for my sins, I know it's last minute...

The songs I sing... The sins I sing... The sins that sing I.... The song I sing of sin...

For awhile, I felt as though I had fallen. That G.d had given up on me. It was a very scary time for me. From milestones to millstones. A fall from grace. My fall from grace. From gracing the covers of the newspapers and magazines to disgrace. Dis-grace. I had my will tested. I wrote my will. I willed it. I kept my promise.

A millstone is figuratively a sense of burden. I borrowed the idea from Matt. xviii.6 in the Bible. A millstone is something that hinders or handicaps - almost like an albatross. It's any load that's difficult to carry. There's a certain society that, when someone disgraced themselves, their families, or the village, would make the offender wear a millstone around his or her neck.

I've had mine around my neck for the last few months. Worn it, and never tried to hide it. I've been all but convicted, and sentenced to death in the media. But I never ran. Never made excuses. I refused then, and I refuse now. I find it hard to say, but what I've realized is that it is something that does not need to be said. It's freedom time.

THE RETURN OF SAMO...

Our first instinct is to always trust appearances. I’ve heard the phrase “Hip Hop is Dead” many times over the last year or so. I do not believe hip hop is dead, or even dying. I think it has more to do with false sincerity. We as artist are afraid of being sincere, of being ourselves for fear of rejection. This fear of rejection motivates statements like “I’m the King of _____” or “Human Crack” ect. The focus lies less on the integrity of the music and artistry involved in creating it, and more on portraying a marketable image. This is no different than any other art form that becomes massively popular, and extremely lucrative. Money has generally changed what its come in contact with - from movies to theater, to Jazz, and rock - and now Hip Hop. Trying to recreate an era that has already passed is almost as stifling though. Rap was hot in the 90s. I loved it too. But its 2007. And honestly, I don’t want to go back. As much as I loved that era of urban black music, I’m ready to move on. I’m ready for the next innovation in music. With that said, we should move away from saying that Hip Hop is dead, and closer towards saying “Hip Hop is waiting.” Hip Hop is a living, breathing thing only because we make it so. We are the blood in its veins, and thereby, it’s life line. To say hip hop is dead is to day that we are dead. And I am not ready to die. Not now.

I’m not sure what box to place my music in. I’m not sure if I want to put it in a box yet though. I like the freedom of being able to say what I want. I don’t answer to anyone musically. Not the block, the backpackers, the institution, the parent label, the Man, ect. I make honest music. And as listeners, you honestly love it or hate it, but the underlying message remains the same. My next tasks are to record my “I Create Music” mixtape, and then “Redemption.” The “I Create Music” project is going to be that, music. A break for the norm. Experimentation at its best (or worse). “Redemption” is going to be the next full-length project release under Shears Music Group. Those of you who know me know that I’ve been through some pretty serious shit in the last year. I haven’t been able to respond. Until now. Thank you for vibing with me.

SAMO as an end to to mindwash religion, nowhere politics and bogus philosophy.

Musically,

AJS

My Heart's Homesick

I always knew it, but the bottom hurts when you hit it. A few months ago I was at my lowest. It wasn't even about the rumors, ect. It hurt a bit, because I pride myself on being a man of integrity. I know who I am, and nobody but me can change that. But these last few months have been my toughest test. I'm still here. Winning, but fighting like I'm losing.

I hold it true. Whate'er befall. I feel it, when I sorrow most. I miss you. It's fading though. I broke your heart. You broke your promise. We're even. I know it was my fault. You can have Seattle. I hope you think of me everytime it rains.

Sincerely,
AJS

I CREATE MUSIC

Today, Shoreline Community College published an article on me and my music. But what I realized today is that I’ve never had an interviewer ask me about the music. Clarifying questions maybe, but never about the music itself. I create music. Everything else is secondary.
It’s a task in and of itself to stay Brand New. The devil and G.d are raging inside me. On one hand, I absolutely love the artistry of it all. I love the art. If I could, I’d read all day and write. Record when I caught a good vibe, and release it if I felt like it. On the other hand, I stepped in my father’s size 12s at age 12. It’s been a process of guess-and-check, bell-curve learning, mistakes, successes, wins, and losses since then. I’ve had to be about my business since then. And yes, it absolutely jeopardizes the integrity of the music. Once it becomes something you rate on a scale of 1-10, something you have to sell, something they have to buy, it changes the essence of it a bit. I create music. That’s it.
SAMO as an end to playing art.

I write to right.

I start writing and I finish it. I don't think about art while I write. I try to think about life.
Every line means something.