Tell me Maya Lou How to be brave like you Tell me Maya Lou Have you seen the news Because I tell you Maya Lou It frightens me, this word this life That shadow on the wall Just shot a man in the back With hands up down the hall It frightens me, the noise the hanmer made the life the bullet took away The big man barks and bares his bullet teeth The man laying on the ground Watching his skin turn red Now a ghost on a big cloud It frightens me, to see a life slip away without warrant or reason Nothing has changed for Mother Goose Throw another noose around the lions driving cars It looks too new It must not belong to you It frightens me, wasn't he suppose to protect what he just destroyed turning a home into a house of joyless stone and wood What magic or what charm can keep their lives safe from harm There's a broken heart on my sleeve For every life lost For every tear shed It's an ocean of grief and I can no longer breath Tell me Maya Lou I can hear you crying too Tell me Maya Lou What would you say What would King dream To keep the peace To calm the storm To stop the bullets flying back and forth forth and back Tell me Maya Lou where did we go wrong why is the world tearing itself open at the seams It frightens me, the growing flames of hate burning both life and love Tell me Maya Lou How to be brave like you I tell you Maya Lou Life frightens me... to tears to tears Life frightens me... to tears
"One day this book will be a relic chronicling a period of insanity and inhumanity, I hope..." Michael Warr From the book "Of Poetry and Protest, from Emmet Till to Trayvon Martin"