Best Ghettos Poems
We learn
right from wrong by
the zenith of our youth
but do we learn moral lessons
in the exact way, and
do some learn them
at all?
We show
distaste toward
those whose definitions
of morality might very
well differ from what we
figure to be
correct.
We need
to look beyond
our own realities.
There are children who lack guidance
and some who know only
cruel stings of
abuse.
There are
children who lack
even basic values,
for they witness horrendous acts,
yet harshly we would judge
those kids when they
go bad.
Children
of the streets and
some in the ghettos too;
also priviledged ones who have
no one to look up to -
wild and crazy
they run.
Wicked
they seem. We judge
them by our own standards
of right and wrong. What can be done?
Can we not all agree
at least on one
good rule?
Golden
is the rule which
we must teach today’s youth.
Until we ensure all children
feel love and protected,
society
will fail.
June 1, 2021
NA in the Heptastich Poetry Contest
For the 'ALL YOURS (Jun 25)' Poetry Contest of Brian Strand
My favorite President is yet to be
He may well not go down in history
For he'll do what really needs to be done
Antagonizing almost everyone under the sun
First he'll fix Social Security; it's running short of cash
Upping retirement age to 68, a move the 'swamp' will call rash
Then he'll crack down on Medicare/Medicaid fraud and crime
Infuriating the clout-heavy cheaters in America's medicinal slime
Next he'll free up school choice for the poor, not just the rich
More vouchers and charter schools: teachers unions will yell and beech
He'll clean up the ghettos, bust up the gangs, and load up the jails
Violent felons and their Park Avenue backers will want him impaled
He'll break the stranglehold on free speech and inquiry in universities
Big-tech CEO's will squirm, when he ends their totalitarian strip-tease
He'll repair the military, building the strongest defense ever
Daring China and Russia to come get us -- They won't; they're too clever
He'll veto delusionary pork projects which taxpayers can't afford
Boosting old-fashioned 'capitalism' -- for that he will not be adored
As for climate change, he'll pressure China, India and the other slackers
To reign in their CO2 abuse, while the world calls him a bully and hacker
Truth is, my favorite President-to-be will probably never get elected
And if somehow he does, I hope from angry mobs he'll be protected
~ Inspired by, but not an entry in L. Milton Hankins'
'Your Favorite President Contest' ~
Arise! Oh Heart, from the catacombs of the dead
Shake off the dust, for Life beckons you like a buddy
Peel off the weariness that wraps you like a shroud
And walk to the open to perceive the light.
Arise! Oh Heart, from the dungeons of gloom
The dawn is at your door step, waiting to break
Sing with the lark, merrily warbling in the woods
Dance with the billows, wildly prancing on the deep.
Arise! Oh Heart, from the ghettos of bondage
Break loose the ropes that moor you to the past
Dart through the panorama of the cerulean blue
And fly high into regions, uncharted and new.
Arise! Oh Heart, from the citadels of hate
Listen not to the shrieking and howling behind
Drink from the goblet of conciliating love
And rejoice at the birth of a dawn with promises galore!
What’s the color of forced migration pain?
Ask a black person in America,
and you’ll get fifty different slave answers
What’s the silent sound of invisible chains?
Fifty killahurts of black ...
Aryan brotherhood iron swastikas uniting
What’s the latest “pull the trigger” hate spin?
Fifty states of fascist terror —
Goshen ghettos under daily thought policing
Who got their Klan thumbs
pressing heavy on the justice scales?
Increasing the widow population of the cemetery cells
Who got their hooded hands
casino slot turning the roulette wheel?
Decreasing the charitable portion of the orphan meals
America’s moral debts are in the red
Haughty heifer blame your mounting troubles
on the poor black scapegoats instead
Fifty shades of dark overcast gloom
hanging over the branches of the oak tree
Liberty got locked in a buried room
waiting for captivity’s end to be set free
Fifty shades of rejection in vessels of doom
Thirteen colonies
of spotted lepers will be coming home soon
Fifty shades of black ...
let the moon eclipse the sun
Fifty shades of stars ...
let the striped prisoners run
Gunshots be leavin 'em children alone
they gotta find a way all on they own
kids screamin out sets for hope
then run around with a crew slangin dope
can't forget that they saw they fathers go
witness to earth the bloodiest show
to young to truly understand
despite what ya heard God won't hold your hand
It seems to me that we've been forlorn
destined death after death to mourn
lookin at the future of us all
death to brothas come at a sudden call
little children begin to see the light
keep on killin knowin that it ain't right
but desperation sets in hopin for death
because it's to painful to take another breath
How many of my brotha's died last week
an an answer given not for the weak
life like this shoulda made us sick
creepin in streets tryin not to get licked
time again are numbers start to dwindle
hopein for knew life in this race to be kindled
but all we ever do is disappear
it's funny that are lives are consumed by fear
and are youngstas reproduce fast
more brothas get shot lives endin in head casts
why do we gotta die at such a rate
a brotha feel cold heat as if it's fate
and as my brothas always seem to die
my race got another reason to cry
little niggas is our only men
no more elders in my dearest black kin
Now we got kids runnin da street
that means, the judge and jury da heat
the boys in blue pilein up da dead
crackas in th oval office shakein da head
the ghettos so lost can we find a way
it seem's that the only hope we got is to pray
and children already learn how god do
give to those who take so we take with a 22
now we gotta cope, sippin' on brew
gettin faded thinkin bout the dirt we do
and that just make a brotha think
why we be born livin on da brink
seein bodies fallin fast in packs
cause it be like we forced to fire back
so thelast thing is to put bodies in bags
at da funeral drapin our brothas with rags
Broken Dolls
Broken dolls within crumbling walls
Winds through ghettos whimper with decaying echoes
A little girl mourns…
"Mommy! Mommy! Can I have a baby dolly?"
"My precious one. Money, we have none."
A little girl mourns…
Her cries are heard by the mimicking mockingbird
Scattering sorrows throughout the morrows
A little girl mourns…
"Search the skies my little one, until the day is done,
for in the clouds you will see a new baby dolly."
A little girl mourns…
Her tears eventually dry after searching the mourning sky
Holding her mother's hands, she finally understands.
A little girl mourns…
"Mommy, I don’t need a dolly any more."
"Why is that my little Angel?"
"I would like to help my friend who has no mommy,
little food and sleeps on the floor.
...and Mommy, her name is Rachel."
Two little girls…
Music by Paloma Faith - 'Broken Doll'
Sept.28.2018
A Poem of Reaction Poetry
Sponsored by: Julia Ward
N/A for contest
Once lit by flickering torch light
with animal tallow mixed with ocher
daubed on subterranean rock walls
now lit by streetlights or LED headlamp
slashes of spray paint and magic markers
splattered on concrete bridge abutments,
boxcars, or walls of tenement ghettos,
but the message is the same
we were here.
I am the voice of your conscience
You would bury my memory
Erase me from your history books
But I refuse to go away, I refuse to die
Here I am today, thousands of years after
you would have buried me in Modi’in…
in Jerusalem… at the tip of Mohammed’s sword…
in Torquemada’s Spain… in Luther's ‘Reformation’
In your swarming Eastern and Western European ghettos
in Czarist Russia, in Stalin’s USSR, in Hitler’s Third Reich
in Poland, Lithuania, Egypt, Syria Lebanon, in ‘Palestine’ too…
Yet I, the Jew, voice of your conscience, stand my ground
To remind you that my unshakeable love of God and my People Israel
is stronger than your visceral hatred of my redoubtable faith...
For 'Mother Russia,’ 'Nationalist China,’ 'America the Free’ will go the way
of Ancient Greece and Babylon ~ but I shall still be around…
you like history here you go, a list of their history in short
740. BC The Assyrians cursed them.
579. BC The Babylonians fell asleep and remained for about 60 years.
70. The Romans suppressed their rebellion and destroyed their temple.
135. The Romans suppressed their rebellion and expelled them once and for
all.
626. The start of their expulsion from the Arabian Peninsula.
1080. Expulsion from France.
1098. Expulsion from Czech Republic.
1113. Expulsion from Kievan Rus (Vladimir Monomakh).
Since.. Hoarseness of them in Kiev in 1113.
1147. Expulsion from France (second time)
Expulsion from Italy.
1188. Expulsion from England.
1198. Expulsion from England (Second Time).
1290. Expulsion from England (Third Time).
1298. Expulsion from Switzerland (extermination of 100 of them by hanging).
1306. Expulsion from France (third time, hot. s 3000 of them alive)
Expulsion from Hungary 1360.
1391. Expulsion from Spain.
1394. Expulsion from France (Fourth Time).
1407. Expulsion from Poland.
1492. Expulsion from Spain (second time and passage of a law banning them
from entering the country forever).
1492. Expulsion from Sicily.
Expulsion from Lithuania and Kiev.
Expulsion from Portugal.
1510. Expulsion from England (Fourth Time).
Expulsion from Portugal (second time).
1516. A law in Sicily allows them to live in their own neighborhoods only.
1541. Expulsion from Austria.
Expulsion from Portugal (third time).
A law in Rome allows them to live in ghettos only.
Expulsion from Italy.
Expulsion from Germany (Brandenburg).
Expulsion from Novgorod (Ivan the Terrible).
1592. Expulsion from France (Fifth Time).
Expulsion from Switzerland (second time).
Expulsion from Spain and Portugal (Philip IV) (Fourth time).
1660 . Expulsion from Kiev (second time).
1701. Complete expulsion from Switzerland (decree of Philip V).(Third time).
1806. Napoleonic Alert. Padarja.
1828. Expulsion from Kiev (third time).
1933. Expulsion from Germany.
Young G’s sporting tattooed gunz, on rolling black streets,fishing without water, amphibians of the dark ghettos,with names like Ricochet Rob, because he once dreamt of shooting straight.Mumbles, who’s mom was a midnight walker. He was not named for that, butbecause he was hit in the head to much, as a tike and stays drunk, on liquid crack.Then there is Bboss, just because he says so and their ship goes wayback. Riding in circles, on the wavy vinyl streets.They roll up on their port, this side of an intersection, they cannot pass, for the other side its just to deepThey hop out of the grey primered lowrider and begin clubbing, off the hip.Clubing their wares, slingin caps, dumping on anything, that is hauling ass.The stray paint hits, an innocent ankle-biter, across the sea.The truth is black lives matter, unless you are a pirate, with a carbineand are colored blinded, by dead presidents.
4/30/2017
Diaspora that cant go home
Mum and Dad came on boats not grand
They left the sun behind
To the old country to lend a hand
replacing uncertainty and find
Prosperity, erase the poverty of native land
And we’ll send money back home.
They were met with sticks and stones
Were broken, not just their bones
Wogs and minstrels they were called
In Harsh winters and damp ghettos hauled,
unfamiliar foods and hapless children
Tears flowed inside and years out,
From broken ribs phlegm does spout
Husband’s and fathers ruled with fists
Paraffin fires took lives of kids
Benefits to small to feed and clothe
Necessitate a hustle to cope
And depression became the reward
Misery slapped hard onto every face
No pubs to ail our weary souls
This old country is a hard hard place
Welfare killed all dreams and hopes
Drugs and anecdotes became our lot
Newer immigrants got the jackpot
Penniless and broke, Too ashamed to go home
No riches to share, not welcomed, disowned.
From East to west enslaved in chains
To work the fields, make tracks for trains
They sang their song antiphonally
To dull their day, hide misery
Those blues notes hit in wailing tone
And words about the heavenly home
Their doleful sounds had paved the way
To blues and jazz in later day
Rhythms and chords became complex
Joplin’s ragtime was a great success
For well practiced piano on old upright
Those old time rags are still a delight
New Orleans was where it began
In ghettos for blacks with time on their hands
From morning to night they developed their skills
On trumpets, sax, it staved off their ills
Mastering their instruments with deft virtuosity
Jazzy riffs marked by smart improvisatory
The Mississipi paddle boats chugged their way
Aboard, the sounds of jazz in full sway
Entertaining, with a sense of pride
Scat singing, cross rhythms, boogie and stride
And took their art to far off places
Strutting their stuff, no airs and graces
White bands were now beginning to swing
Inclusion slowly becoming the thing
With time to go, but heading that way
In church, brilliant gospel helped them to pray
Spirituals continued to highlight their plight
Fair treatment becoming within their sight
Jazz continues to wow one and all
In different forms to really enthrall
Miles Davis and Matt Dennis both just the same
With jazz in mind, they played the same game
Blues and jazz have impacted new sounds
As popular as ever its music abounds
Down and Out in Saigon
Southeast Asia, and Mexico
has always attracted
A certain type of westerner
The down and out
On a down word spiral
Why?
Relatively cheap to live
Lots of part-time gigs
Teaching English
Or other things
Cheap Booze, drugs, sex
Readily available
Places to stay
Dirt cheap
And no one needs
To sleep outdoors
Easy to disappear
Into the foreigner's backpackers ghettos
And escape
From whatever you are running from
The locals are somewhat tolerant
The police usually look the other way
And there are lots of people
In your shoes
I was surprised to find
That Saigon has become
The latest place
For the down and outer crowd
In Bangkok, one sees them a lot
In Cambodia as well
In the Philippines
In Nepal
And south of the border
In Mexico as well
and Eastern Europe
and Latin America
In India not so much
In Japan and Korea
Just too damn expensive
And too cold to be outdoors
Back in the day
I used to work
The citizen services gig
And saw lots of the down and outer set
The old blues song
comes to mind
No one remembers you
When you are down and out
And in the States
Being down and out
Means living
on the mean streets
As it is very difficult
To live with almost no money
And the various side hustles
Don’t give you much money
Unless you are dealing drugs
And teaching ESL
Is not an option
other hustles are difficult
and begging gets one arrested
Food is expensive
Transportation is expensive
Booze and drugs expensive
Rent is prohibitive
Commercial sex is expensive
And no one loves you
If you are down and out
No one knows your name
You are just another
homeless bum
Invisible to all
As you try to make do
Much better to be down and out
In Southeast Asia
Than on the mean streets
Of the USA
Step by step, I steadily aged with time and wisdom.
I appreciatively obliged old bones to bow before kindred, king and kingdom.
Thank you mama for cleaning my snotty scum,
thank you for caring when childish tears like rivers run,
thank you for the sweet dukunu, the roasted breadfruit and the curried coconut rundung.
Thank you mama for reading Hans Anderson, and for repeating the giant’s fee fi foe fum;
thank you for the loud years of laughter and the many more to come.
Thank you Big Dee for your bald-faced lying tongue;
thank you for being the reason I fled the gruesome ghettos of Kingston.
Thank you creator for the many astounding things you’ve done:
thank you for the death of pride, this bona fide self martyrdom;
thank you Lord for my faithful consort, my daughters and my sons.
Through these streets my mind roams like fields of wild Sweet Alyssum;
these streets like colleges spiraled from the sun stirred asylum.
Dukunu is a cake made from banana and/or corn meal, coconut milk, raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg,
brown sugar, vanilla, and eggs. The dough is wrapped in steamed banana leaves and then
boiled.
Breadfruit is a large fruit that can be boiled or baked/roasted like a potato; it taste like bread
when baked/roasted.
Rundung is a sauce made from coconut and Jamaican herbs and spices.
a. Perspective of Malcolm X
in the ghettos
like the reservations
white man builds
a separation of skins
hearts and minds
b. My Perspective
Malcolm Little born
to roll uphill
against all odds
a boy transmogrifies
into variable X