The Truth’s Cafe

04/05/2026

11/14/2025

08/20/2024

The gospel of Eric B/
This is all original no forgery/
In the cracks of eighties Bergen Street, a burger is what I ordered me/
The Truth was born on a spring March day, black is what the creator colored me/
Back when those colored waters cost a quarter B/
I saw the Holy Ghost stand over me as little kid who barely knew Christ/
But Jesus I ran my best race against Doreen, Ester, Shawn and Jimmy/
Getting the Sunday paper for a father who rose with the sun/
A loving mother cooking grits and bacon with old school music playing for fun/
I was raised to hustle with the numbers/
Scared money don’t make none/
If you pull a knife or gun, you better use it/
A fight, you better not lose it/
Didn’t know the fights I would lose would bruise the heart/
I watched Butler cleaners close/
While my hero Uncle June ran with fools who inhaled venom up their nose/
Protected by the Jerry’s and Jermaine’s, I ran wild in the village/
Took, plundered and pillaged/
Stole before Jr boosted/
Blessed with a high IQ but a temper that blinded me/
Watched Tippy’s close and the fireworks explode/
289 and 390 gifted me toughness undeterred/
Thirty years ago blurred/
Sipping a drink while my speech slurred/
Remembering me and Jim sitting on a balcony dreaming of a better day while the gang from sugar hill played/
My mother still slow dances in the darkness with me/
My father still takes a birthday drink with me/
The greyhound bus still stops near 127 Alexander Road/
Watched the p**s run in Albany projects/
While my aunt Debra made the bed/
I still hear the cards slam on Corine’s table/
One more book and your stuck/
One buck on a single number used to get you nine/
The lesson is Eric was forged in crown heights and win or lose; im still going to leave with God said is - MINES!

07/06/2024

Excuse me I’m drowning in my fathers death/
Pen in my hand but the inks empty - nothing left/
I do this til my hernia burst in a hearse/
Battled a curse first with the thirst of revenge in my goblet/
I told them ni**as to pull the trigger that was aimed at my head, Ive been dead/
My sprit left when my mother got a visit from the reaper/
Only 13 but seen more than most/
Toast to the ghost I host/
These lyrics simmer and roast/
I sleep with the poetry crown,
no boast/
On a coast east the statues toast/
Lantern in the sky/
I tried to defy Gods Will/
Still asleep at life’s wheel/
Crashing at the mill/
Heartbroken still, yet the feet move me to a place where I still say my grace at my dinner place/
Still thankful for air/
Still wanting to share lyrics I wrote with care/
In the Shadow of The Truths Heart you will still find me there/
Pen in pad alone in my chair/
Pondering the journey/
Je**ed at the tourney/
Trying to learn me a new Geechie gift to lift my nephews to heights greater than Beaufort/
I let my brother smoke the Newport’s/
I’m still building new forts that even my closest enemy can’t pe*****te/
The hate has been great but the love I received after my father departed has been greater/
And I will probably never make the Forbes list/
I’m just happy to be on the Lords list/
And in the mist of a past Christmas is where the memory of me will reside when my soul and body divide/
If you think I’m depressed, hmm I am/
But the show must go on/
Cause the devil is always working/
And evil is steady lurking/
And my sister is still hurting from her old earths death/
So I’m going to keep pushing for peace and love like Mayfield until there’s no breath for me - LEFT!

05/17/2024

“Cause I don’t think they’d understand, when everything is made to be broken I just want you to understand who I am”
Forged in fires that Carolina air caressed/
Dressed in black for a funeral yet to attend/
Sorry young man there is pain, death, joy and laughter around the bend/
Be hopeful if you get one person whose ear they will lend/
When the tears fall with no end/
When you are in the dark parts of life, where some quit before the glove is bought to fit/
Hope you feel an angels touch before you use alcohol as a crutch/
Before you roll your life up on a Dutch/
Hope you feel Gods hand before the fat lady sings in the band/
The sand is sifting/
The movement slows each year/
The past is lost in the smoke that billows/
New prayers and old dance while your crown lays on pillows/
To the soul they say the eyes are windows/
In these hazel eyes well I danced with the devil until my heart exploded in a mess over a blue dress/
Playing with the keys of life but never A minor/
I watched my people degraded yet dancing under the moon playing a fool/
When those black lives gonna matter to us?/
The love shared is laced with artificial ingredients/
Just like the cancerous food they are feeding us/
When will the blood stop spilling?/
It’s hard when most of us are born, hurt fully never healing/
And loyalty was sold off when the bills were due/
The skies for most ring a ghostly blue/
These verses live in my endocrine system - nothing new/
Each sensation growing and flowing over the facade of my life/
Each step taken carrying a cross most can’t see/
Never trying to paint a fantasy of what life should be/
But I’m a soldier in the army of the Lord/
Rebounding like Oakley/
Shout out to my brothers Cokeley/
I’m trying to be the man my momma hoped I could be/
Among snakes that slither and beautiful flowers that wither then die/
And I walk on for those like my departed friend Godwin who limped through it/
Those roses sprouted around middle school 390 we grew it/
My past like wet clothes back in the day - hung up/
We partied from sun down to sun up/
My mistakes I will never hide from them/
I have uncovered my soul in the books written cause at the end of my journey -“ I JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW WHO I AM”!

11/13/2023

] Maybe I sought all the love/
- [ ] Walked a thin line with hope from above/
- [ ] I used to look up to the stars cause they were something to admire/
- [ ] I close my eyes to dream only to wake up living in the wire/
- [ ] Sitting on my balcony next to Jim with my rhyme book/
- [ ] Trying to cook a way out/
- [ ] Knowing I wasn’t gonna stand on those corners when the wind blows/
- [ ] I stayed hooked up to Nintendo’s/
- [ ] I watched the death and despair from the ghettoes windows/
- [ ] Touched it on my way to school/
- [ ] I thought I was smarter than every piece on the board/
- [ ] When I was just a piece of the cord - Lord/
- [ ] When I was a pawn disguised as a king/
- [ ] Just another Barkley all talk no ring/
- [ ] Funny thing is the one who is supposed to admire the walk walked amongst temptation looks elsewhere/
- [ ] A lost gift to desire loves touch but walk away/
- [ ] While my souls decay in a pandemic may/
- [ ] Wonder if it’s all a lie/
- [ ] Or is doing the right thing not the right thing?/
- [ ] When all I see is pain and selfishness/
- [ ] And I see my grave and wish I could touch me before death clutched me/
- [ ] Wonder if my own mother loved me and she is only one to hug me when the rain poured heavy/
- [ ] The skies open up and a butterfly begins a majestic flight/
- [ ] A flower blooms in the cracks of the hoods concrete/
- [ ] A baby touches her fathers face for the first time/
- [ ] The drum line is broken/
- [ ] And I’m wild n out with a canon/
- [ ] Strapped to the emancipation of me -me/
- [ ] Even the masked singer could see the flag burning/
- [ ] Honor those brave men who died for freedom to only be buried like a ni**er/
- [ ] The truth will always be bigger than a lie/
People cheat and steal not cause it’s wrong/
- [ ] Because that’s what they wanted to do/
- [ ] There is no in between/
- [ ] What lay in the darkness comes forward to always be seen/
- [ ] All my single ladies no longer plot on a ring/
- [ ] Just twerking the b***y to get the bag/
- [ ] Start up a only fans so your ra**st can see you/
- [ ] No soul left only a dark hole where a human once resided/
- [ ] God provided no hope just pressed reset to see if he could win a bet/
- [ ] We are lost and I wonder, can God trust us to live like we should?/
- [ ] Or is this the prelude to when he turns the power off for - GOOD!

06/28/2023

The angel in my dream told me/
Be courageous in the face of death/
Be the remainder of faith when the world has none left/
Be the clef on the musical sheet when the world has no pitch/
Be the design when the world loses the ability to stitch/
Be humbleness when the world thinks it's too rich/
Be the star that shines in utter darkness/
Be not afraid to walk this path in lonely solitude/
Be the ice in your glass of Hennessy/
Be stronger than Jack Daniels and his brand from Tennessee/
Be the voice of reason when the people stop hearing me/
Be understanding when the complexities of the world overshadow most/
Be knowing that even though we all have a brain most don't know how to use it/
Be in remembrance that knowledge gained can be lost/
Be in awareness that one mistake can cost a life/
Be faithful that God hears all prayers, he just answers them on his time not ours/
Be knowledgeable that all melanated people's are endowed with godly powers/
Beware of the remnants of neantherthals prowling with badges/
Be on notice that life is a precious gift that can be repossessed/
Be the warrior of the oppressed and downtrodden/
Be what makes America great already/
Be the symbol that shows that yes - all lives do matter but black lives matter too/
Be the message of equality in a country built on oppression, genocide and the r**e of a rainbow coalition/
Be the hero of a nation birthed by free inhumane labor/
Be greater than your past thought you would be/
Be the sun like Horus and shine brightly/
Be the moon like Allah and shine nightly/
Be the light and the truth like Jesus/
Be the vengeance of trayvon and succeed wearing a hoodie/
Be in the streets with your pants up over your ass so the hood can see what a man should be/
Be the lyrics when all they can do is mumble intelligible/
Be their penmanship when their hand writing is negligible/
Be like Cake man Raven red velvet edible/
Be yourself youngin and that will be - INCREDIBLE!

05/11/2023

https://youtu.be/pOjpaIO2seY

A sermon given by Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on November 5, 1967. The title, "But if Not", comes from Daniel chapter 3...

05/10/2023

Are they just words?/
When the heart breaks and the tears fall/
Are they just words when the reaper puts your loved one in the eternal sleeper?/
Are they just words when the neo n**i lets the AR spray/
And you can’t identify your mother/
Its just pieces of who they were shattered over pavement/
Are they just words that read rest in piece/
While you are left alone to fight a war with loss/
And while your fighting the devil is biting your ankles/
So it’s hard to hurdle when the bills are overdue/
The love of your life has no clue to the inner fight to just keep moving forward everyday/
Are they just words that read evicted!/
When your dreams become nightmares that nobody predicted/
“This is what it sounds like when doves cry”
And we pray to God for a lullaby to get some rest under all this stress/
We all aim to be the best in this mess I guess called L-I-F-E/
The price for success is hefty/
We battled this thing with one hand behind our back boxing lefty/
There are those who left me,excuse the singular; no - us in a place where the dust settles/
Left to rust like oxidized metals/
My blue bike as a kid had broken pedals/
But the bass and treble of RUN-DMC made us rebels running like UNLV/
We took a selfie on top of the pyramids/
We were the aftermath of The chronic/
Raised with parenting that made us bionic/
While they raised a glass of gin and tonic/
Again are these just words or parables from within?/
Tinged with the sin of mortal men/
Burnt with sweet melanin/
Twisted in a tornado of Brooklyns inferno/
The residue of God hugging me gently in the rain/
Are these just words born from a place that once housed so much - PAIN?