Grass Don’t Grow in the Ghetto

Glass glistens where grass is supposed to grow.

Gruesome grooves pierce the ground jutting upward

Like black fists punching stale air.

 

Sharp petaled flowers memorialize

Dreams, wishes and whispers of hope

 

And for the life of me I can’t figure out why grass don’t grow in the ghetto.

 

Gaping glok gashes sets his face aglow

In the afterglow of a grappling with the Po Po.

 

Gory glimpses of faded glory is merely

A glimmer in his flittering eyes.

 

Groping for remnants of his vitality,

It slips through his fingers

His mother curses the fingers

That pulled the trigger.

 

THEY SHOT MY SON! Mowed down like blades of green grass

Growing toward a glaring sun. MY SON!

 

His spirit pierces white clouds, thrust upward

Like a black fist punching stale air.

 

Still can’t figure out why grass don’t grow in the ghetto.

 

His homies pour libations

“1 sip for you….10 gulps for me”

Believing that the blood stained tree roots next to the yellow tape and chalked silhouette

Would serve as his esophagus and deliver liquid resurrection power

 

But before he could rise from the dead,

His homies would wash away urban poetry

With hawk spits and hot piss

Leaving nothing behind but

Shattered liquor bottles and the stench of dreams deferred.

 

Still wondering why grass don’t grow in the ghetto?

 

Our sprinkler system spews putrid defeat

We fertilize our seeds with

Maggot-filled cow chips and

Avaricious dung

AKA a bunch of real stinky SHIT.

 

We eat our young and throw up our old.

Killing our future while immortalizing our past.

 

We excuse hate when the hater is the hunter

And a little black boy is the bate.

 

Grass CAN’T grow in the ghetto as long as

The grass stays greener on the other side.

 

As long as economical, medical and educational divides

Are wider than the spance between my eyes.

 

Glass will continue to glisten where grass is supposed to grow

Until our so called social services become true human services

 

Until our equality is no longer a no go

But something we do know going forward

 

Until our narcissistic greed ceases to be our ladder

And the lives of black boys and girls really do matter

 

In the meantime, we’ll politic, pontificate and perseverate

The problems that plague the brown people

Ignoring the glass that glistens where grass is supposed to grow

Acting like we can’t figure out

Why grass don’t grow in the ghetto.

(c) 2015