Ay ma
I just don't get it
Always about them ma
They ain't never asked you huh,
Never asked you ma,
Never cared to see
What you had to tell us
About this white mans world
How we are afraid
They **** us ma,
They don't believe us,
Or they probably don't care
I saw my man get beat ma,
Right down the street
By the corner store
Had his hands up ma,
He was crying, afraid of dying
Ma, he was so scared
And if they don't **** us
Then they lock us ma,
For nothing, just like dad.
But they don't care ma,
Same old story.
They ain't never asked
They ain't never cared to see
Whats its been like for you and me.

Police killings,
Guns in classrooms,
Black lives matter,
Gendered bathrooms.
Terrorism, marriage law,
Protests, riots,
Presidential election,
American crisis.

Red, white and blue
We’re kneeling, burning.
Children watching,
Hearing, learning.

Moving backward
But seeking change,
Demanding love
But spreading hate.
Tearing down,
Demanding growth,
Impossible
To have both.

We scream so we’re heard
But do we seek change,
Or do we seek volume?
Is it passion or rage?

There's quite a difference
Between taking a stand
And demanding peace
With knives in our hands.

We are the power,
And we are the knowledge.

But we are the battle,
And we are the challenge.

It was the day the toilet broke,
the day the bank was robbed
when my wife walked out,
suitcase in hand. Her head
blown off on the pavement
in the gunfire between bank robbers
and police. It was that kind of day.
That evening I had the toilet repaired.

A duck can drink and walk
but can he catch a fish and fly
we're about to find out

after getting drunk that night
he stumbled inside
a police station full of cops

the duck started slurring his words
blacked out with his **** in the air
he was so drunk the fish was in the other end

the police are puzzled what to do
so they stuck him in a zoo
until the duck starts acting like a duck

We don’t get to pick our family
Or the country in which we’re born
Most families are quite imperfect
High praise will seldom adorn

Our country acts as, in absence of,
A national family
We’ve come together as mighty fist
To overcome tragedy

Just as you have complained about;
The faults of sister and brother;
The arbitrary dad’s imperfect justice;
The imperfectly care-worn mother

So it is with the family national
Not every behavior good
Complaints and suggestions are rational
Don’t banish before understood

One’s right to protest what isn’t good
For the national family
A founding right that’s understood
Wherever that protest be

Some family members are not all good
Most not prone to riot
Some bring dirt to the nation’s house
While others stay, clean, and quiet

If you demand “protestors leave”
You fail to understand
There’s no place to go but home
And clean the dirt that demands

National attention not just blind scorn
Your so self-righteous display
You can help with hearts reborn
To clean or get out of the way

police
brutality
breeds
mob
mentality.

how
do
we
fix
the
world
before
the
next
fatality?

It was almost 10 oclock, their eyes heavy as rocks, Erik and Jamal headed home
The fork in the road that they've always known to mean they tread on all alone
They made their embrace and started their pace and Erik did not hasten much
Jamal however was quick to endeavor, because mama had told him to rush
They walked their separate ways, reflected on their days, and coveted what tomorrow would bring
At that very moment, their train of thought stolen, by the bellow of sirens they sing
A large police van rolled upon each young man, and flashed a light on each of their face
They told Erik hurry, his mom needn't worry, yet they questioned young Jamal's pace
They told him get down, he got on the ground and struggled in his discomfort
Erik heard a bang in the night, that had gave him a fright, and thought to himself where'd it come from?

Fading asleep
Three blurry forks in the road
three of everything
Until i blink.
I crawled up out my passenger side door like a submarine hatch
lifted the heavy weight with my back
Didn't think to roll down the window

I called the band to laugh at the irony
we just wrote a song on falling asleep
crashing our car, dreaming in autumn.
In the song, I dreamed of a girl I'll never have.
But when it happened
I was dreaming of the leftover sheppards pie at home.

Swerved into a rock wall,
Kick flipped my mercury on it's side.
I wore my seat belt
woke up drivers door to the ground.

An old man stopped to warm me.
my grandmothers ghost
in his passenger seat.
offered I sit in their car
out of the cold
Until the firemen arrived.

I saw my mother's blue SUV coming
And waved for the elderly couple to part.
tears in my mothers eyes,
she hugged me tight.
The police showed
To Check out the scene.
as I was alive,
They mostly watched me.
laughing hysterically
At how prophetic poetry can be
and how lucky I have been
And how my shoulder angels are my grandmother, and a gambler named risk.

When My partner arrived she expected me crumpled bleeding.
Smiling false safety through the phone
as I bled out
But I was fine.
she stormed towards me.
her friends stepping outside the car.
her girlfriend in the passenger seat
in the fetal position.
Throwing a tantrum, because she wouldn't get to sleep with my security blanket tonight.

she held me greiving.
I felt like this was an alternate universe.
where I survived
and this wasn't the real story.

The tow truck arrived as the cops collected my Lisence,
the medical professional
okay'd me to sleep tonight.

The firemen flipped my car onto the rockwall from being sideways.
The tow truck grinded my car across the wall into metally pulp.
They collected the bits and dropped it off on my driveway a mile down the road.
my partner drove her friends home
to return to my bed later.
check i was breathing throughout the night.

My car, crumpled. Missing an eye. Looked like a corpse.
like a reminder of what should have happened.
you could feel all sorts of spirits
when I opened the trunk.
contents compacted against the left side.
when i woke up, all i saw was laughter.
At the irony.
the shock.
how many more times
I would need to die
before I perform a magic trick.
if i turned my car into powder
turned my story to a falacy.
how long before their panic attacks become a suicide?
And I'll stop seeing three of everything.