PowerLess

Somebody lied to us, Black men

after the doctor slapped in life

patriarchal man said, “don’t cry” “be tuff”

&

what’s real star power, brother?

deny the people, gain access and showboat

your end-zone dance with twenty - 150,000

dollar cars, flossing with

3 mansions you hardly sleep in,

now - to prove you are a man

you’ll need a few decisive attributes of manhood

that has been crippling males since birth

layers of unnatural masculine identities

forced and customized through physical punishment

football

wrestling

boxing - to enslave young boys & men - to be brutes

detached while fighting your emotions daily, cause

the learned experience - if there father’s are at home -

more than likely - boys are pressured to live up to his

father’s expectations

as tears are suppressed

face it - you’ll be in a funk til’ suicide become

the only salvation out of the burning house -

consumed in pain, so painful

it rips part of the core things eating at you:

you so dumb

you ain’t eva gonna be nothing

you’ll be dead soon

the pity on the woman

who’ll support you worthless, jobless, relationship-less

confusion of a man - the powerless man

trapped in a whirlwind of dysfunction and illusion

it gets worst: planted in the lived experience

in the early stages of childhood

you’ve made a few mental notes to remember

dating 3 months - 6 months - 5 years

whether you’re getting the booty or not

you’ve set self sabotage mechanism to automatically disengage

any healthy relationship &

forever be misguided and enslaved with

inward anger that threaten the stakes on a functional family

& in the wing - is the question asked earlier

what’s real star power, brother?

twenty 150,000 dollar cars - flossing between 3 mansions

you hardly sleep in

but he’s a man & he can take the mental & physical abuse

& live with the lie

but all the time

he just wants to be free from the master tools

of patriarchal thinking - be tuff - take it like a man - stand your position

as a man from outside in

with no emotional attachment to sensitive matters

all things must be met with the iron beast inside you

to devour the weak and spit them back to their guardians for a band-aid

& comfort

because the only way to freedom is death of the patriarchal man.

The preceeding words are lyrics from the CD Bumpy Tymes

Click here to listen to Blackman Preach read this poem.

BlackCommentator.com Spoken Word Columnist, Poet Blackman Preach (Cedric T. Bolton), is a poet (spoken word artist) and producer, born in Pascagoula, Mississippi and raised in Paterson, New Jersey. Cedric received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Western Washington University and currently resides, with his wife, in Syracuse, New York.  He is the Founder of Poetic Black Fusion, a writers' workshop that provides access and opportunities to poets of African Ancestry living in Central New York.  He is also the co-founder of Voices Merging, a student-run poetry organization (spoken word) at the University of Minnesota that provides a social outlet for undergraduate students to develop as writers, network and express themselves on stage. He has been writing poetry for 14 years and is published in the Ethnic Student Center's Newsletter at Western Washington University, The Spokesman Recorder, and St. Cloud Times. Click here to contact Blackman Preach.