The Money Changers

 

rich men/threading needle eyes

rent dreams of heaven/to the poor

served with a side of by n by/the meek will inherit

dust

& pay a healthyly inheritance tax/ captialism

eats its young/mucho money for weapons/minds

lie fallow/sow want/reap need/

no house/

no food/

no coat/& baby its cold out here

no boot straps to pull up/no boots

/no doctors

/no place to grow/

dreams die/starved

& baby its cold/in a

deficit soul/too poor

to live/but who can afford to die/they took

the land/& those seeds wont reproduce/they took

what was underneath the land/minerals aint got rights/water

aint free/they took

the air over the land/then they

sent my job to indonesia/cant

afford pride/will work for food/will

work/no detroit/good for ford/good for the usa/thats what they used to say/

factories closed/dont need your service/industry moved overseas/

dont lie or sit here/gated communties

/locked churches/

closed schools/

hospitals/soup kitchens/

welfare rolls/closed/bankrupt/closed/

forclosed/fraudulent/money

may be an illusion/but

the need is real/hunger kills

more people than bullets/desperation

loads guns/cant afford to care/ got to survive/buys dog food/

no medicine/lives in a box by the police station/

cant afford justice/could survive but

cant pay for care/distracted by survial/too tired to

resist/no gas money/ no

car/no suit for the interview/no extra/

never enough/need/want/want & need/death

is an exit

/too poor to die/will

work for dignity/no jobs/jobs left/rich got richer

/poor got poorer/too poor to die/we drank the tears/thirsty/

thirsty & hungry/sell em back their own water/hungry

/its hell here/will work/the bank took the house/

furlough days/ furloughs from pay/

rent too damn high/ lay ya ass down and die/ too poor

sell a kidney/a lung/rent your womb/

put tomorrow on lay away

/charge a life/

will work/told us their was milk & honey/will work for either one/

will follow wolves/

will be sheep/

will sin/

to eat/ to pay the mortgage/will work

will kill other sheep/hungry/

the night has farther to fall before day breaks.

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Table of Contents

The Dime

War

Earth

Race

Money*

Polytricks

Men

Women

Children

Elders

Art

to be continued

About Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD

I create; therefore I am.
This entry was posted in Black Arts, Craft, North American African Perspective, Performing Arts, Poetry, work in progress and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

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