Long ago and oh so far away? Not. |
DELAYED REACTION Is it ancient history to you? I’m not ancient And I just turned 52. It was just *yesterday when all my troubles seemed so far away* But not really-troubles were all around me. When minimum wage was $1.35 And gasoline was only pennies for a ride And Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was still alive. Is it ancient history to you? I just got here And I just turned 52. My generation took for granted A legacy But I didn’t And I’m not yet 53. Not me Denigrating Hating Castigating And all sucked up in the chest Because they choose better over best. Like some certain lost Hebrews in the Desert of Sin Looking back to Egypt when the Promised Land was just ahead Two things an old(er) bitch can’t stand Racist Krakkas and Trifling Niggaz, too. I’m just in time and I just turned Five-Two. Let me take you on a ride through my mind It’s perfect Because I’m one of a kind. Picture me A little black girl sitting on the back of a bus With the rest of us. I can’t complain, see…it was MY shame. Riots broke out The world seemed like a zoo I’m a neophyte to God And I just turned 52. Is it ancient history, really? I’m ashamed and yet proud of my history I grew up with the best people And the lay of the land was about to change Yet when it was time for the watch To change hands We … shall I say, they Dropped the ball on the Movement Threw the baby out with the bath water, they did My peeps took a lot for granted That we were free But not me. Not really. It was a newborn baby That still had to be raised; but Like America does… It has a word for nursing home Because it throws away it’s old people It has a word for orphanage Because it ditches its unwanted and unloved to the curb And goes to the Humane Society to take in a dog in The child’s place The child still needed to raise up a standard against the burgeoning tide Rather than being taken on a ride. Instead of charging the hatred, lingering still We just went smoooooooth…out….and…..let it ride. *I just wanna thank you for lettin’ me be myself.* Again. Everybody get high. Learn to defy the status quo Even if it means beating up on your mothers and fathers, too. Colored/White signs swayed in a moonlitten breeze Pointing us to the back of the train station Where colored cabs were waiting To escort black in the red not the yellow Couldn’t walk in a front door While black folks was hatin’ on themselves And each other, too. Grew up in a black school with red brick veneer We couldn’t even walk to the white side of the street Let alone drive up there. And even after federal-mandated Integration There was no celebration On either side of the street Because they didn’t want it And neither did we. I’m looking down the road Where I get to meet 53. This is the first time there’s been a sitting President In the Oval Office who is younger than me. Does that seem like ancient history to you? I was nine when King was killed And not yet 10 when Kennedy was killed, too. And I just turned 52. There is still a lot of hard work to do Because I don’t want to hear this shit Is still going on When I turn 102. |