I am, I am searching
I am searching for faith, beauty and hip-hop
I am searching for all those who died between hip hop and heaven
And all souls set adrift and free from bedlam
With headstrong lyrics that rise like smoke from silver incense burners
I wonder who stole the thunder with the rasping edge
And who begged for baptisms with butterflies
Serpentine roads and sunsets broken by cicadas
Have we really lost our century in an hour?
Are we devoured by blind faith in the powers that be?
Are these words as tense as drawn bow strings?
Shall we rebuild the tears like sap from rubber trees?
Answer me
Answer me you T.S. Elliots in goose down jackets
With your felt tip urban hieroglyphs, spliff smoke, and spray paint
Answer me you soliloquists with clenched fists 'round the mike
Answer me all you angels in adidas
Tell me, do M.C.'s still howl rhymes into the purple black of midnight?
Do they still fight to make arrangements with deities
Courting them with a jangle of gold and silver bangles on their wrist?

I need yearning voices of mangled passion
I need rehearsed prayer words those style of faith and fashion
I'm searching for hip-hop beats, stomping feet
To implore the ?? ringing across the seagulls to muffle the sun
I'm searching for perfumed cherry blossoms and ?
You see there will be no toast to the future at the banquet table of fools

No golden petals weaving a carpet of light
No hint of arrogance on puckered lips
No windswept islands and dreams of sunlit silence
No riot of flowers and beauty magnified through utmost attention
And no free-style incantations to save the souls of man
I'm peeling off your straitjackets so you feel the sun my friend
I want wings, a feather, and booms
So we can fly like birds to better lands
I'm wondering, I'm wondering how temples are now smokestacks
I'm up all night in silvery moonlight with palms of damp tears
Who stole my afro-pick?
Who licked my fingertips to sooth scratches from the vinyl groove?

Has anybody seen faith, beauty and hip hop?
I have to find faith, beauty and, hip hop