Your living was a gift.
Your life taken shows us
All how we're not being.
Taking our own lives,
In effect, by not doing
All we can.
You may be dead, yet,
Still, you give us insight,
That we're not fully alive.
May your memory be
A constant reminder of
What we lose when
We fail to be,
That being everything.

Cops asked an African man,
In N.Y.C., "show us I.D."?
He reaches for his wallet,
Before he can even pull it out
His body's riddled with 20 bullets,
The cops reload, shoot him with 20 more,
Making sure he couldn't live to tell.

Black on black on black on black
Wood tar pitched and shackled back
Back to back to back to back
Paid in full no matter man fact
priceless pain packed pickings to rack
crack the back of blacks to stack
paper to pay to paper for play and man
Who's black backs crack and snap
Crack sha clack to crack to Sha clack

Blood and labor and words no savior
On roads and rails and rocks on street blocks
Laws to wrap the black lack in locks
dread locks and cops and knocks and knots
Locks and laws and loops from logs
backlogged black laws closed jaws and halls
freedom is someone who knows the walls
You live you learn you see no turn
so learn to know no way to earn
lose your job your home your wife
A way of life is guns and strife
knot in back no friend but lack
black on black on black on black

Run from hoods in hoods and hide
when the moon is full in a land of lies
Sun by day means mad men by night
Free from chains but not from spite
for them deny and then deny
deny deny deny deny
Washed away with whittle white sight
We musta been wrong when white is right

Cops on blocks in shops and hops
Watch for the Man on beat on stops
Crack on corners and broke back moms
peddle from job to job then sob
Mom and Dad Divorced by workforce
Paid pennies *** many "Too dim of Course!"
Get back, You black, No Slack, Take That
can't pay em the same they'll ruin our aim
For Good and Power and money to reign
From hungry to dummy to nummy and slain
held down by Presidents Planters and Pain
The Pain so well ingrained in brain
  
So train a child the way to grow
Get Money, Get Power, Get Good to Go
Get Smart was said, but a hard road to ***
Some Rattle some Crackle
some Dream some Battle
Moving the movement by Marching the Capital
But capital got capped and Anger got tapped
burning the bridges extended tween US
When Fed help medicate minds but menial
The gun clap on black when black on back
burn the bridge we all worked to track
but silent echoes sha clack sha clack
Attack is back so black react

We gamble on gravity with coin of Change
knowing the game ain't geared for gain
ignore the lack of footing in rain
For certain it's curtains yet playing the same
blinders on, triggers on, surprise when maimed
Forgotten the root so strange fruit ain't strange
Aged in grief raged in street
surprise when lame, inflamed, in heat
We old in defeat deranged and weak
should have been focused on governing seats
Youth forgot when work was sought
In a world wide web the mind was bought
Trapped in chains unseen yet wrought
To dream is deemed an impure thought
Wonder why kids abandoned the plot
A dream deferred is a dream forgot
When truth repeats the gears don't stop
When voting is bought the truth gets locked
in cycles, in history, in catch phrase, then plop!
Black and White in Chains Distraught
Distraught no thought with teeth dry rot
the lot has rot and lost its hot
Slavery Antiquity and Dreaming De' mode'
Truth is Questioned and Fiction la Mode'
Truth is Fact too black for show
So Back too Black to Act just mold
Anger and fear our coal to hold
remember regret, let go, too bold
So revolt loose canary for gold
too late to leap the mind will fold
the future looks cold so cold so cold
but the dice we roll and roll and roll...

But Why?
When Blacks in Stacks in Fear; The Facts.