Portrait of a Black Man

His granite form against blue skies Rippling on the bulging eye, wild waves Of muscles the netting cloud defies Reason in concrete, his pride raves In self glory of athleticism, what a gem Hard and shadowed without a diadem. I know that man, I lived inside him Long ago, slurping applause like a child Incomplete in potrait, morally dim About the treasures I often defiled. That man is just a screen of muscled skin A pampered fear that won't give in. He will not cry, because he was taught It's wrong for boys to show emotions His destiny by a web of lies once caught Leaves him lonely, old aspirations Become wrinkled raisins in the callous sun Manhood and wood subterfuge the pun. Tired of being told he cannot become From school to dull signs of no vacancy I hears the sirens penning his freedom He looked for himself, found no legacy In history or family achievement that will Stand up to the praise of gatekeepers ill. He feeds his hungry urges into children Fatherless because his woman must think She cannot balance her budget with heaven And for welfare cheque he's o'er the brink Thrown, used, demonized, discarded, weak Now, no virile glory left in love to seek. He turns to her helpless in his helplessness Angry with the impotence of history Mute before her need to have forgiveness The saddled statue slouches into misery. You know him too, the black man, proned Against pale paperbag of evening, stoned. In Africa he was redeemed by mother, queen When things fall apart, in America his old Structures uprooted, he cannot be weaned Of the nurture that never existed. The mold Upon his life is history, and only the lover Carrying the cross can be another redeemer. Look at him like a child asleep after his spawn Of delapidated family and garrots of dream Only ego keeps muscle bulging under the brawn The heart is mute, and pride wil not scream For pain though like a white cataract it drowns Him. How still the victim 'fore the victor frowns!