Poem #1 name: do revolutionaries eat kfc?
Do revolutionaries eat KFC?
What do revolutionaries eat?
Does the smell of chicken done right
Send chills to their stomachs like it does mine?
Are they too busy believing their rhetoric to hear their stomachs?
Growling?
Do revolutionaries eat McDonald’s?
I’d imagine they would know how many pass through those golden arches?
What do revolutionaries eat?
They feed off the knowledge
The knowledge of learning the truth
They survive on the nutrients of learning the theories, ideologies of their oppressors
Watching with a scholar’s wisdom
Their ignorant brothers and sisters crowd Burger King
For their whopper special
Poem #2 name: for james
For James
My brother went off to fight the war
But there isn’t a war
Not yet anyhow
Just skirmishes and the like
I figured he’d probably sit in New Jersey or Washington State
In some semi-activated unit
Now he tells me he’s training for artillery something
Which means
He’ll be on the front lines somewhere in a tank
Trying not to be the victim of friendly fire
The Kuwait thing taught me that
Why do they need kids anyway?
Why aren’t they man enough to push the buttons themselves?
Poem # 3 name: how jesus became a crackhead (or how to become a saint for a cause)
HOW JESUS BECAME A CRACKHEAD
(OR HOW TO BECOME A SAINT FOR A CAUSE)
Be a black man in AMERIKKA, have a criminal record, or better yet,
Be on parole probation or gay
Have a drug or alcohol problem
Have a public school education
Father children since you were 15 or 16 years old
Hang out with your boys
You’re down for the cause
MY BROTHER, MY BOYS
Hanging 4 to 5 deep in a car, in the middle of the night
With no driver’s license, drinking and liquor all up in the car
Violating my probation status
Hanging out with the fellas
But hey, FUCK the MAN
We’ve been hanging since early this afternoon
After we all got up after hanging out the night before
Living with my moms
‘cause me and my old lady ain’t together
She didn’t appreciate me hanging out with my girl
And her having that baby
So she and I ain’t dealing
I ain’t dealing with my baby’s momma either
So I’m going solo, hanging with the fellas
My record ain’t that long
Just half my arm
The dope house and the streets are our country clubs
My caddie is the policeman
He tells me when I’m fucking up
Let’s me pick the weapon
He beats my ass with
Depending on the jurisdiction
It doesn’t matter whether or not I was in the wrong
History will never believe I wasn’t speeding or selling dope
When the officer and I got into it
Everybody won’t say too much
They’ll pull me out to show my healing properties
I’ll be the new modern male ROSA PARKS
But when I die,
And they got pictures of my skull split open
My family crying on TV
Admitting I was a crack head
But a productive one
(Whatever that is)
My sister’s father’s nieces, nephew’s cousin
Standing in line
24 hours after my death for his claim
When word gets out on how they can pimp my dead body
And the neighbors can sit back and get on TV
Talking about how nice I was
When the week before,
“That dumb nigga needs to get off that pipe and get a job”
As they put up a steel door to keep me and my partners from breaking in
But we know when they go to work anyhow
Let the head of the middle class,
The politicians
And everybody else
With a cause,
Bone to pick,
Ax to grind
Use him as a shield of power
Make him a shrine,
A most holy of places in an urban ghetto
Like the eternal flame
Where he died
For the hopeless, helpless individuals will worship me
Among there honored head
Martyr among men
Who spend their lives searching for a purpose?
And not a crack pipe
