Off-Key
Francis Scott Key ...
a song provocateur, who spoke
most ungentlemanly
Scott “Don’t set ‘em Free”
had to be
the most rabid racist
you never wanted to meet
Francis the Talking Mule
wrote a rousing anthem of war
Liberty for poor black souls like me,
wasn’t what it was written for
That patriotic song is so off-key,
sung with puff prideful bigotry
And wavy flag folks
want me
to un-spangle my hand,
and bray
star-struck dreamily
What kind of a Francis fool,
oh do you think I am
Got promised a scam:
forty green acres and a mule
But was only given
Jim Crow promissory rope hope
Was bandit banner handed
free penitentiary space,
and plenty foreign soil uncut dope
The Star Spangled words
said the “gloom of the grave”
was the foul refuge for the slave,
who chose bad British liberty
over good American slavery
Now they want me to stand,
and place my heart under my hand
Open my mouth
to sing aloud
off-key,
about liberty
that wasn’t originally
intended for colored skin
people like me
That tomb song is so dead off-key ...
sung with ignorant, dogmatic glee
Francis “Skeleton” Scott Key,
turned a man-stealing lie
into a flag truth on the sly ...
hybrid lyrical rapist of liberty
Now, them bones rest uneasily
in the wavy, bottomless deep
As that blotted out, blood-wrong song
is forever sung silently off-key
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