A Rapper's Jeremiad
Mother taught me her proverbs to ring like a bell in the chapel of my brain
Better days are coming – angels filling the sky with joyous refrain
The darkest hour is here before dawn – I am in drought looking for rain
Mother look again – can’t you see how black I am, charcoal until the fire comes
What hour could ever get darker than my vicissitudes? The strain
On my race is too much, my prophecy speaks too from ancient drums
Kindling my skin to be the fire next time
The hunchback makes the bell to chime.
I left my mother’s house long ago – fast on my feet, her dawn is too slow
Rolling stones gather no moss I know, but better to roll than never to go
Among the tent villages, the new gardens where contrary Mary grows
Children with dead dreams, and no stimulus in the plan to pray
Pilate washed his hands, and from the blood drops come our woes
Tommy can sing all he wants, there is no supper on the table today.
A hungry man is an angry man, mother dear
Dark clouds bring rain, lightning brings fear.
Patient man rides jackass – and what then, my behind broken in the pass
Jackass consumes fuel too – can I in the moonshine gather my grass?
No sun is left for hay. Blackness is a glass house, I throw no stones
Can’t keep a still tongue still, so Congress has no wise heads
Robbing the poor to give the rich – and false philosophy sure condones
Capitalist kingdoms void of compassion, robotic, static dreads
Grinding patience like broken glass
Into the workers self effacing ass.
Mother said if she knew my friends she could tell the world who I am
I write my poems in green pastures, but don’t play me for a lamb
Scratch my back and I will scratch yours, what goes around comes around
So nothing fell from Dives table now nothing comes up to him
As long as I am black there is no dawn to come, the fallow ground
Is not just a sluggard’s will – he wants doors of opportunity opened to him
Sitting in the night watching the black sky
Grows blacker before the thunder of his eye.
Copyright © David Smalling | Year Posted 2009
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