A Ghetto Conversation
Hey bruh,
haven’t you heard,
ain’t you read the news?
The White House is gonna eradicate
the fear infested inner city blues
That Trump fella says,
he’s got his poison pen ready to use
He says black folks got nothing going for ‘em,
so what have they got to lose
He’s gonna give us Booker T. promises with every tool
He said he’s gonna make America great again,
just like it was in the history books you read back in school
Now, bruh, ain’t that patriotic cool!
Yeah, if you say so
Then why do you have such a sad face,
like your best friend just died
Well, I hate to tell you, bro ...
those broken arrow words ain’t nothing but a lie
How so, bruh?
Every time white folks get to talking ‘bout
making America great again,
The only thing I wanna know,
is what time do they wanna put us back in?
Do they wanna go back to the time
when crack cocaine first came
and flooded every inner city neighborhood
Never in my life have I seen such addictive pain
As far as I know,
poor people don’t own no boats, trains or planes
So how all them drugs got into the ghetto in the first place sure is strange
The White House wasn’t too concerned about the borders back then,
all those cracks in the levee split opening
No sir, they let all that CONTRAband come flowing in
If America was great back then,
I might as well load up on some cancer sticks and start party puffing
Although, them sho’ was some good times for dying
Yeah bruh, I see your point-of-view,
and I’ll raise you ...
Me will turn the clock back another notch or two
Legal segregation
was the law of the land,
America was a great Grand Canyon nation
Such a wide divide,
yet everybody color’s the same
coming out the backside
Jim Crow strange fruit growing on the weeping willows,
it seems though, America was selling a lot of Model T vehicles
Them times were great for us blacks,
if you looked the other way to ignore,
terrorizing Klu Klux Klan mobs busting down our doors
Pillaging and stealing everything we got,
but you know how Rosewood criminal we be us blacks
You’re on point, bro, I must agree
We the kinda people that always want something for free
Which reminds me of the real good old times —
How in the world can we ever forget about slavery
Honorable Gen. Robert E. Lee,
he was willing to fight and die for us,
to make sure we never go beggarly free
Man, America was so great back then,
makes a brotha and sista wanna shuck and grin
And sing some milk and honey ***** spirituals,
'bout how good that pie in the sky taste
Although pig guts was all we ever ate ...
man, pass that plate
Somebody’s out of their cotton-picking mind,
if they try to tell you our masters wasn’t treating us great
Make America great again ...
lots of plenty good fun times
But, ain’t gluttony a sin?
Excellent verbal volley for sure, bruh
But let’s skip right to the very end
Why ain’t America great no more, I’m wondering
Let’s do a rewind to the time back when
the country needed many more citizens
Y’know, when America was welcoming everybody in
She said this liberty party was gonna be great
Restock the barrels of rum in the ship’s galley,
unload the packed black sardines in the cargo hold below
The paid merchant sailors all looked so happy,
coming to America was much good news to toast,
well, at least for most
Touche, bro ...
Who wouldn’t wanna relive them good times,
America being great again
But us sons and daughters of slaves,
we got a different feeling
I still believe somebody’s lying,
just trying to trick us once more, my friend
Terminate the inner city blues,
ain’t that liberal bleeding heart news?
Amen, bruh ... it almost had me teary-eyed crying,
but ain’t no White House spokesperson doing any denying
Didn’t hear no right-wing conservatives doing any whining
So maybe they know something we don’t know
that ain’t so great
Maybe they know what’s the switch behind the bait,
I would like to believe the news I heard wasn’t fake
True, true, bro ...
But erasing the inner city blues is just a feel-good fairytale,
it’s a bedtime story that you like to tell
little children to ease their innocent mind
Unfortunately, I gotta go to the nuclear plant right now,
and work some more double shift overtime
Copyright © Freddie Robinson Jr. | Year Posted 2017
Post Comments
Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.
Please
Login
to post a comment