Carlos Ray Garcia was born June 19, 1984 in a small farmhouse in West Potsdam, NY. He is the second born of four, with one older sister and a younger brother and sister. His fulltime profession is that of a financial analyst with General Electric as well as a soldier in the NY Army National Guard.
Carlos was introduced to spoken word during his undergrad tenure at Northeastern University in Boston, MA. After helping to organize a spoken word/poetry show called Beatless, Carlos fell in love with the art of spoken word and befriended a young poet named Sofia Snow, who through the Critical Breakdown program, immersed Carlos into the world of spoken word.
It was in the fall of 2010 after returning back to upstate NY and performing at a couple of random shows that Carlos was introduced to Urban Guerilla Theater by Darian “Poetyc Visionz” Gooden and his life was changed. Since his first performance and induction into the group Carlos has been a constant face on the UGT stage as well as stages at colleges and coffee shops all over NY.
Carlos’s poetry deals mainly with the human internal condition. Touching on internal struggles and providing inspiration, wisdom, spirituality and practicality to help the audience continually challenge themselves to improve. He feels like that is his reason for writing and reciting and consistently pushes
the edges of his style and material to find creative ways to bring a message across.
POEMS
RECENT ARTICLES
I WOULD WAIT
A Response to “Waiting” by Alysia Harris, Jennah Bell, and Jasmine Mans
I would wait for you
I have sent you love letters since the day that God saw me in eternity
But time has been a very slow mailman
Because until now you haven’t been able to open the envelopes of my soul
I know this
Because if you did, you’d know that there was a life of gold
Waiting for you on the other side of precious stone rainbows
And you’d look past the heaven that you knew I came from
And see my address written down for you to find me where I am
I’m not prone to emotional discourse
But here I am
And I will wait for you
Arms outstretched like angel wings
To keep you from the cold of being outside my cover
Whispering warm healing
Into your world with my heartbeats
We would be holding hands like I was time and you were space
And together we’d make reality, call miracles the mundane
And kiss until we’d make love Himself wipe His eyes
Overcome by what we became
I would wait for you
Through cold December nights
Standing naked behind this microphone
No listen, I am standing naked behind this microphone
As Frostbitten passersby
Judgment cold like hypothermia in their eyes
See me smiling
With the thought of your hugs bringing color to my cheeks
It protects me
From the winds of my worries
Chilling fears of horror story heartbreaks
My love…you are the hero of my heart
And I would wait for your arrival
As the earth opened up underneath me
To swallow me whole
Knowing that your presence is my safety net
Cradled in your breasts
But nursed by your voice
Like the Lord hummed for me salvation
And harmonized them with your vocal
Chords binding us like velvet ropes
Because this is all about pleasure, and not pain
I would wait for you
To stretch out your hand to me in marriage,
And then pay you in heartbeats
Because that’s the only thing I can promise to give you for the rest of my life
Yes, I would wait for you
To stretch out your hand to me in marriage,
And then pay you with my heartbeats
Because that’s the only thing I can promise to give you for the rest of my life
FOR UNHEARD VOICES
This is for the voices that never get to rock the mic
Whose words are just as important, potent
Essence essential to the elixir of poets
Gently gentrifying our minds
By pushing out the ghettos of oppressed visions and heartbreaks
And restoring the truths that have come before our forefathers
This is for those,
Whose words are jotted into steno pads, and notebooks,
Backs of envelopes and scrap pieces of loose leaf paper
Who never wished for an audience to hear their words
But just hoped that their ink would be carried
On the winds to the four corners of the galaxies
So that some unknown peoples would get a glimpse of the universe that lives inside them
This is for all of you
Who live for dreams
That last far after the sleep has left
For those who write and recite
To voice opinions hidden inside shells of shyness,
To tell stories of pain and suffering overcome
By the healing balms of time and true love,
To activate the activist in all of us who would dare
Break and kick against those shrinking boxes named status quo
And society’s norm
To remind us of our responsibility while here on this planet
To make our lives better
By improving those around us
Yes, this is the purpose of humanity
And to bring us closer to God
By ascending into His throne room
To hear the stories and Wisdom of ages that passed long ago
And bring them back down to earth and share with the rest of
Us here who can’t imagine ourselves living past
That which we can see and feel
To encourage us seek the intangible
This is for you,
I have so much to say but no words in my inventory
To express my thoughts and gratitude
You see for your expressions
Have left footprints on the beaches of my life
And although the waves of the world will eventually
Wash away the memory of the words
The impact of your steps will be felt all the way
Down to the core of who I will be
Shifting the fault lines of my visions and perspectives
Shaking my ideologies
And destroying what I’ve built on wrong foundations
Building the truth within me
And redefining the mental landscape of my life
You are all memorials like Rushmore for me
And your faces are forever etched in the stone
Of my destiny, so this is for you
This is for us,
To encourage you
Shape the world with your whispers
Let your heart speak
From its caverns
So that the water
That we drink remains clean, pure
Hidden and untainted
By a life filled with “You shoulds” or “I woulds”
Freely flowing
With “I dids” because “I coulds”
That come from the part of you that you’ve yet to meet
This is deep calling unto deep
This is for us
This is for we
Calling to he’s and she’s
And Me’s
To continue to do what we do
Whether as poets, slam artists,
Songwriters, MCs or just wise friends
Keep using your pens as paintbrushes
Because we all need to see
The portraits and landscapes
That your words give color to
Stand on your soapboxes
And preach the good news
Of your heart.
That gospel that says
There are still people out there who care
About the simple things
Scream your poetry
From rooftops of your actions
And declare the words
Of life, peace, love, desire, and of hope
For you my friends
Make up the essence
Essential to the elixir of my poems
So to me your words are important, potent
And just in case your voices never get to rock the mic
I want you to know that
This is for you…
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