Short Ghettos Poems

Why these woman strutting in stilettos?
            While children are still starving in the ghettos?...

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In peace love sows the farmers’ seed
In war he lets the brave heroes bleed
In balls and dances a flamboyance seen
In ghettos and cities a happy dancing serene
For love rules the rich the city and the poor 
For love is hope and hope is heaven...

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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...

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I’m a poet devoid
of Cliff Notes
dissection
not my thing

Don’t ask me 
to explain my words 
I’d rather hum 
and sing

Explication 
penniless
in ghettos
of the word

Where vagrants
pull and tear apart
what only should
— be heard

(Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania: January, 2024)
...

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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....

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Do you need to be born in Africa or Haiti
to be saved
What about the single mother in the ghettos
of Detroit
Will an actor or politician or philanthropist
deem you worthy
Of a rescue from a situation that as assuredly
kills
Cable TV asks for your money for the starving
third world
While lost souls in your shadow are homeless, crying
—in plain sight

(Norristown Pennsylvania: January, 2021)...

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Listen to poem:

 "Fragments and crumbs of life, all the little pieces"
                                           John Ruskin, 1853


beyond poverty of drab ghettos
a child's playful imagination
breaks free of urban confines
tearing down walls of oppression
to soar higher and higher
gathering momentum 
to conquer bright blue skies                 



AP: Honorable Mention 2022

Posted on September 29, 2020...

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As hard as you try to hide 
reality
The truth is told
The truth is lived
Don't look amazed
Don't make up excuses
We are divided
Unity is professed 
But you killed
You have killed
No punishment 
Bringing drugs into our 
communities 
But it is us that reap the 
consequences
We cry out because we are 
poor
Fighting for more
Separated by railroad tracks
Living in ghettos 
The veil is torn
Truth will be told...

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MY NEPHEW HAS A PROBLEM,
THAT REALLY TAKES ME BACK.
HE HATES PEOPLE FOR THEIR COLOUR,
ESPECIALLY IF THERE BLACK. 

HE'S TOLD ME TIME AND TIME AGAIN,
ABOUT HIS SLANTED VIEWS. 
HE HATES PEOPLE IN THE GHETTOS,
NiIGGERS, CHINKS AND JEWS. 

THIS ATTITUDE HE HAS,
REALLY HAS TO STOP.
BECAUSE THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IS,
MY NEPHEW IS A COP.

Cal Bambi "The word artist" ©riginal - 1987
       I paint pictures with words.

           calbambi@gmail.com...

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If I was Santa up in the North Pole, many republican stockings would be brimming with coal. President Trump could be gifted a lie detector test, so thousands of rumors could finally rest. I'd arrange for the Italian American Lawyer Association to have Rudy Giuliani apologize to the nation. Mitch McConnell and Mr. Mark Meadows would be sentenced to community service in the ghettos. For Jarred Kushner and Ms. Ivank, I'd gift them a voided check to a Deutch bank....

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