CIO: Saul Williams's "Coded Language": A Call To Act

I have watched Saul Williams's spoken word performance, "Coded Language," many times. And many times I have been left wondering, "what does he want from his audience?"  It is an astounding, passionate piece of work; however, it is also a statement that challenges winds and bends and, at times, stubbornly defies easy understanding.  

Here is what I think I understand: Williams demands that we wake up and embrace our   lives. He wants "Every person as beings of sound to acknowledge their responsibility to uplift the consciousness of the entire fucking world." It is past time for people to dedicate themselves to living meaningful lives.  Like Henry David Thoreau, he instructs us to "awake" and not "go to our graves with our song still inside" (Walden).  Like Whitman,   whom he mentions in his list of names, he admonishes us to "contribute our verse" to the"play" taking place all around us.  

Here is what I also think I understand: Williams riffs like a jazz musician.  There are moments when his use of language becomes more of a rhythmic instrument to be heard instead of words to be decoded: "Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face Of the unchanging the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth Equate rhyme with reason, sun with season."  In other words, I understand that I will not comprehend everything he says. Is this by design? I think so. Does it make me less accepting of the piece? Not at all.