Imperious Entertainment

Inspired by ‘Boys of Baraka’ ‘High Road’ & other truths plaguing my soul...

The birthing of these words aren’t for fame
Or critical acclaim
Rather my mind being shaken from mental orgasms arising from reality relationing my brain
In the middle of morning
And right now I’m in the middle of mourning truth confronting me
A newfound peripheral actuality
When I examine our communities
I see slave ships moving down the street
Except they look like you…and me
I’m just a truth-seeking rational being

Bleeding black representative of the need to go back not only to examine the past but analyze the present and force a burial of unequivocal jargon that some
of us have “arrived”
I have no PhD yet but I’ll assert that 23 years ought to qualify my perspective affirming that regardless of how many advanced degree-getting gated community living colored folk out there, if we still have public school systems graduating fewer than 50% our young men then one of our wings are broken therefore none of us can fly
“Can I jump out the window...Get off me you stupid Bitch...”
These are the phrases that echo my daily sanctuary
While his fist effortlessly pounds another compelling me to envision his future
in prison or a mortuary
Little brother
Son of a mother who doesn’t care
Conceived of a sperm who ain’t there
While last night’s dinner and body wash was elsewhere
Because he came to school hungry with unclean fingernails
Didn’t physically smell
Yet from the look in his eyes I knew his home life was dirty
For change he was thirsty
But the only water I had to offer were the dried up tears I cried last night as
I pondered the fate of his classmates
The one with the fresh Jordan’s who could barely read
The one who uses woman and bitch interchangeably
The one who has the potential to be a genius unable to focus because of his past
The one who hasn’t turned in completed homework since he’s stepped foot in the class
Then I think to myself…what percentage of these boys have never used the word
“DAD”

Some days I try not to care so much…unable to focus, losing sleep
But, I can't overlook the reality looking back @ me
While aspiring bourgeois wannabes are having tea parties and networking socials
I sit here immobile, emotion filled with tears because I lack solutions
Wishing it was just an illusion
Yet the conclusion to which I have come is that it'll be a miracle if one of these boys graduates from college
I don't see him in juvenile detention because Jena's America sentences 28 yrs for fighting
Some look at me like my vision is skewed for not accepting this version of normality
It'll never be normal to me because its not supposed to be
Habitually I cry the entire way home
And I live 35 minutes away
Apathetic to your pain
Terrorizing my life
When I leave...I still care
Even after I close my eyes you’re still there
YES I understand you just may encounter more crack heads than you do college graduates
Still…I’m angry because you can't read and
HELP ME HELP YOU…directly, indirectly, subconsciously, spiritually pleading
I wonder if King ever got tired of dreaming
Or illiterate slaves hungry for knowledge got tired of reading
I’m tired of writing but my journey and work has just begun
I’m experiencing feeling reflective of needing an emotional gas station
BET needs to air my 9-5
Monday through Friday intertwined
Harsh realities
Crisis in the community
Yet how many of us are prepared to dedicate our lives to lending minds…dollars…hearts…hands
Revolutionizing to give a damn
Longer than two-minute tears
Inactive fears
Complacency for future years
Of witnessing historical cycles remain unbroken

Comments (1)

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written by Simple Man , December 03, 2007

Wow...this is great. Three Dr. King quotes:
1) “Man's inhumanity to man is not only perpetrated by the vitriolic actions of those who are bad. It is also perpetrated by the vitiating inaction of those who are good.”
2) “In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
3) “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

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