Red Room Where the Writers Are

Web Links

Home

Warm hugs of my mother's arms

The aroma of love cooking on the stove

brothers and I crowded in one room

Talking, laughing late under the moon

Shouting, arguing, maybe a fight

I found a quiet corner sanctuary

Dodge-ball, double-dutch, hide-n-go-seek

Mother-may-I, football, rock teacher

Running, screaming owning the streets

Soul rhythms blare from an open window

Screams from children ricochet like echoes

Michael got mad went home with his ball

Suffocating summer humidity and heat

Anger pops like water thrown on hot grease

He set her on fire she screamed like a siren

The neighborhood gentrification

Prophesized when three homes burned down

Distrust crept in strangled elder's wisdom

Crips and Bloods came like invading aliens

Crack riddled through the community

Like Sean Bell's body by thirty police bullets

And the country held their collective breath

‘til white teens died from using ecstasy and meth

Silently we cried throwing dirt on young coffins

Poverty pecked at the marrow of my spirit

Hungry nights squeezed my chest like asthma

Every hour looking for Ra to sail his boat

Anxiously awaiting to be an adult

Pages of life's literary non-fiction

Brings perfect spiritual diction

So I check for smiles in cloudy bitter eyes

Brothers sharing heavy laughter

Not cracking each other with knuckled fists

Sisters supporting from their commonality

Instead of carrying out assassinations

For a car hopping bopper's dream

Perfection only occurs in children's fantasies

I closed my eyes and touch happy memories

Where I am from for many became a tomb

Shame does not mock me to call it home