Rain drops fall, splattering as they hit the ground
Masking the sound of quickly moving feet
A faster moving heart beat,
pulsating, vibrating a small frame body as it presses against an alley wall
Catching a breathe, pausing for a quick rest
Thunder sounds, lightning strikes high, splitting the night sky
Heaven cries, sorrowful tears indeed
Looking at her hands, water rolling from face to cheek meets salty drops
Young black seeds in hard earth soil grow solid like stone
Home grown to be hard like diamond, but many with a soul soft like cotton
Touched by God at conception, and kissed by the devil at birth
Earth is in its last days, and they are in a maze of confusion
Delusions of love are passed over for lust and sex
Regrets are made in the throngs of passion
Passion draped all over the hands of one young woman standing in the rain
Looking at hands that had just come from caressing soft brown skin
But not knowing though his body was within hers
His love was only between her thighs, her eyes regret the day they first saw him
And try as they may, they couldn’t wash away the memory
Flashbacks and visions of all she had seen of and in him
These things proceed and all of a sudden the rain gives way to sunny days of happiness
Picnics, six months of indulgence in a world that was not hers
Lured in by his charm, holding on to his arm everywhere they went
Seemed like a sign outwardly of his inward content
But content is sometimes only contempt in wait
As he played her with Veronica, Suzanne, Lizbeth, Shawna and Grace
From massage to manauge, from discrete circumstance to desecrate indulgence
His fingerprints on their bathroom mirrors punctuated his deeds
Tendencies are ironies in wait
Because as was his practice, as was his fate
She had left in a commotion as Grace came to confront him
Seeds that he had let grow inside her, how could he have lied to her
Her fingers on prints of pictures taken by a camera phone of a friend
When he was showing outward content in the arms of Suzanne
Perhaps one could have been seen as a confrontation of short will versus high heeled determination
But now, prints clutched in her fingers, him inside this young girl
When nightmares hit the real world, you get stab wounds to the tune of 143
The rain fell violently, a relentlessly hard picture caught in a soft small frame

Avid

Enough! You don’t speak for me!
Vulgar and disrespectful Rap
does not make up enough
of a cross-section
to represent
the African-American demographic.
One small, albeit loud, percentage
of rap holding woman in low regard;
referring to other African-Americans as niggers;
while vocalizing little if any respect for others
and their property.
Enough! You don’t speak for me!

How dare you fix your lips to say
“nigger” isn’t disrespectful
as long as a Black man says it;
Hiding behind “freedom of expression;”
no less than the slave tyrants
who formed this nation
under less than equal opportunities.
How could you speak for me?
You’re to ignorant too even know your a plant!
Who do you really represent?
Surely not the Sojourner Truth’s!
Surely not the Benjamin Banneker’s!
Surely not the Martin Luther King’s and Malcolm X’s
who had more respect holding up a middle finger
than you do in your entire monologue.
Surely not the Andrew Beard’s
and George Washington Carver’s
without which the American Industrial Revolution would not have come
and most of us would have starved!

Were the trials and tribulations of our people lost to you?
Did you miss that piece of history
where people fought and died so you and I could share
water fountains and bus seats?!
Or are you so unappreciative and ignorant to think
you earned your “bling, bling” on your own?!
Silly rabbit, tricks are for kids
and you have proven you never grew up
and will probably die 200 pounds foolish
and 60 years mentally enslaved
because that freedom you think is dressed in all that money
ain’t nothin’ but a bigger cage
and you never even left the plantation!

© 2007 John M. Swails

Yes I would like to trade this pair of shoes, for a pair of Timberlands
They were my Grandfather’s marching shoes, he passed them down to me he
told me that they would help me take a stand
He said he marched in those shoes until they open the school doors to
educate the black man
He said he marched in those shoes until he had the right to vote
Democrat or Republican
He said he marched in those shoes until they had grass and mud stain
from all over America’s land
He said he marched in those shoes while being hit with bricks and
bottles because he had some demands
He said he wanted to be able to drink from any water fountain his
thrist commanded
My Grandfather sure did a lot of marching in those shoes just to prove
the black man was a man
I would not do that to my Timberlands