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!
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