Saul Williams | excerpt from "Indigo On"

In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet and spoken-word artist, Saul Williams. He has been breaking ground since his debut album, Amethyst Rock Star, was released in 2001 and executive produced by Rick Rubin. Most recently, Williams’ released his latest music works entitled, Encrypted & Vulnerable (July 2019), which acts as the score to his forth-coming directorial debut musical, Neptune Frost. Source 

This episode includes a reading of his poem,  "Indigo On", featured in our 2021 Get Lit Anthology.

"Indigo On"

…and you don’t stop

and you don’t stop

and you don’t…

stop letting cities define you

confine you to that which is cement and brick

we are not a hard peoples

our domes have been crowned

with the likes of steeples

that which is our being soars with the eagles

and the Jonathan Livingston Seagulls

yes, I got wings

you got wings

alas God chillun got wings.

So lets widen the circumference of our nest

And escape this urban incubator

The wind plays the world like an instrument

Blows through trees like flutes

But trees don’t grow in cement

And as heart beats bring percussion

Fallen trees bring repercussions

Cities play upon our souls like broken drums

We drum the essence of creation from city slums

But city slums mute our drums

And our drums become hum drum

‘cause city slums

have never been where our drums are from

just the place where our daughters and sons

become offbeat heartbeats

slaves to city streets

where hearts get broken

when heart beats stop

broken heartbeats become breakbeats

for niggas to rhyme on top

but they rhyme about nothing

they don’t have nothing to rhyme about

‘cause they’ve never seen the moon

your styles can’t be universal

if your not intoned with the wind.