(Art by Karen Seneferu in honor of Kemba “Walking Tree” Shakur at the Joyce Gordon Gallery in Oakland CA)
landless
gentrified
ghetto children in the inner city
got grand parents from the country
grandparents moved to the city for
a better life for your parents
somehow missed the mark
or the mark moved maybe
marked to wander
we
going back to the country
cause there
aint no jobs in the city just cops
coffins drugs and guns
no milk no honey believe that
hon
& see how we run
so its back to the country back down south
back away jack sold grandma’s house and go
back to the land we no longer own great grandfather
sold it to go to the city for the jobs that went
to indonesia taiwan pakistan just gone man
like us from the country from the city
from the continent
where we gonna end up at
13th tribe of Judah born to wander
in the sorrowlands of North
America for over 400 years
treated like Haiti
waiting to explode
somebody forgot to say go
but we gone
real gone man
gave up jazz
lost in blues
popped by pop culture
singing in murder inc
with no limits
cuz we underneath plymouth rock
& fellas still don’t git it
we wit it
sic with it
up all night
drowning in poison
thick in the country
and running down city sidewalks
we lost
weldon’s congo
can’t go home again
cosmopolitan
transatlantic
wicked of culture
burning and remixed
to sell us back to us
spaded and neutered
birthing madness & confusion
city kids move to the country
country kids move to the city
no resting restless
can’t breathe
wont invest
forgot how they got here
& where they come from
watch em run
watch em run
treated like haiti
waiting to explode
Chills! Thank you so much! You honor the Ancestors!
So true, we are lost in a sea of victimization. Time to look up from the mire and see daylight with our own eyes; work for relief with our own hands; pray for our own salvation; realize it is by the few the many are saved–like the ancestors it was one with eleven others that continue to change the minds of the world through peace and action. It will take a few, committed, sencere and without motives for self grandizement to make the way for us all. Who will come off the roof top when the call is made? Hopefully not the rogues that came before and did only for themselves, afraid not to become us but them.
Peace I love your thoughts and research it gives me pause and hope for the future.
Karen