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.