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For
My Nephews
This world will haunt
Your dreams,
And then turn around and
Condemn you for not dreaming.
Being born Black
Is like a secret no one will tell you.
Don’t play too close to churches
If your mind can’t comprehend
The misery of this world and you can
Think of no one to blame but God.
Don’t sit in the back of the class
Unless you can keep up with the lessons,
Because the teacher will feel you don’t want to learn
And that assumption will relieve her
Of a duty to teach you.
Never be afraid to question people’s motives,
Especially when they’re offering
Something for free.
And don’t be too hard on your mother
When you don’t understand her discipline.
She’s trying to get you ready for the world
And prepared for things you may not understand,
Things she doesn’t understand.
This life aint no crystal stair
And nine times out of ten
When you find one,
It’ll be going down.
Saving Grace
Life's song,
floats on a tempest
caught between a frog's bellow
and a rooster's alarm;
and all the while, the charm
of being imprisoned is caught
between a spider's web and a
warden's arbitrary justice.
Reaching for rehabilitation
without remembering which sock
I put this key in has become a
wasted effort, like a moth
flying incessantly to the light,
singing his wing to feel closer
to the sun.
My weapons have become
my pen and my voice,
with indignation as my ink.
I look out into the world
with ink blots decorating my pupils
and am resigned to do what is within
my power to make the condition
of my people worthy of grace.
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A
Single Mother
A single
mother stares out her
Project window watching the youth
Disregard their dreams like crumbs shaken off
A dirty apron.
Her
dreams scattered and blown in the streets
Like torn pages falling from heaven.
She doesn’t have faith in tomorrow
Because she used what she had
Walking through yesterday.
A single mother
Strung out on yesterdays dreams,
Because she wants to smile like the women on T.V.
Still praying the same prayer that she
Started as a teen.
As if she and God were embraced in a chest match.
She figures if she doesn’t finish (Amen)
God will continue to give her his undivided attention
Waiting for her next move.
A single mother staring at her child
Filled with guilt and anxiety.
Haunted by the uncertainty of whether or not
She’ll raise a somebody in this world?
Because the only thing she can pass down
Is a bottle of pennies, a crumbled dollar,
And an unfinished prayer she inherited from
Her mothers before her.
She understands the pain in the small
Hungry eyes staring up at her.
As she kisses those small hands
Praying they weren’t created to expect a hand out.
How can she explain the truth of the world –
(In an ear so small)
Without crushing embryo dreams
She vowed to keep?
(Even if through broken promises)
A single mother striving to keep her child
From creating his own truths about the world.
We The People
We raise beautiful manchilds
obliged to plow mental fields
eroded by acid rain.
We test time
with our indignant prayers,
hoping to cast a better vision
than the one offered by
America's silver lining.
We seduce memories
of hope from the nightmarish
realities of an active getto,
so that our children can play
in a field of goals.
We pour out our faults
to God in prayers
that drip syrupy from our finger-tips,
while trying to keep
angels from yearning to lick our
humanity from our cuticles.
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