Please note than an audio version is now available below the text.
I have a friend who says the “N”:
A Whiteboy who’s crazy as sin.
“What up my ‘N’!?” when my call
Reaches him. “Nothing much, Homey,”
I reply with a subtle stall
In my mind: “Sticks and stones is all
It would take to break his bony
Ass.
Maybe I should bounce his head
On rubber cement ’til foamy
Suds bubble. Homey don’t know me—
Must not—but who am I to dread
As the noose-knotty wood burned cross,
From which our forefathers were led,
Shines bright in the room the “N”‘s said?
Yet, still my friend ventures to toss
Those five or six letters around
Recklessly with no thought of cost,
Or how much of his soul is lost—
Spent—spending time digging old ground
For new rhetoric expression:
A nasty note with a sweet sound;
A hateful song where love resounds,
“Is it progression or regression?”
A question I ask the sinner,
“Is it intent and inflection?”
Retorts my guilty reflection.
wow thats a tough one. people like that are either lost and have no idea what they are saying or they know EXACTLY what they are saying. either way thats just ignant. Yes ignant. Cant ignore that.
He swallows hard
-Choke-hold reflex-
Digesting the information,
The casual condemnation
Of a friend.
With subtle silohettes
The demons of the past
Arise. Disguised as jest,
They attack,
With new vengence
Against the innocent,
The oppressed in a contest
Of racial superiority.
What’s the deal?!
Why don’t we heal
The hurts of the past;
We let them last and last.
It’s exhausting to bring
The dead to life,
But like any true sinner,
I’m a winner at
Destruction. That’s my function!
Now
Head covered with
Shame, bloodied by ignorance
And arrogance
And foolishness
And that ugly word.
No need to bring my head down
To the rubbery ground
For the sound of your tears
Bottled up these past years
Will resound in my ears
Til I die.
Forgive me