Bumpy Tymes

Click here to listen to Blackman Preach read this poem.

The revolution is a plow

digging

six feet deep

with the splinters of its’ handles

caving to the bone of the people

resisting

the storm is raging & blows out the night

on the wick of the candle—

the rain is coming

fire is hard to come by, now—

drenched by the puddles a generation of youth

are washed into poverty—they’re hungry

while dodging gun totting criminals

blasting at their foes

to survive on these mean streets—Piri—Punto

the established in 2001

said

no child left behind?

Behind—it’s all I see in them

the load a parent has to bare

as they bury their sixth child

killed by gangs

their seventh child bullied

& scared to go outside and play

now—suicide claims the youngest son

due to insufficient funds

community centers and schools

are failing rapidly

and the grave mark is getting far worst

while changes are not directed from inside

the white house

unless serious demands for changes are made

by the people

we’ll continue to wonder… and the change

will never come

but too the materialist eyes of the new slave

with no more vision or freedom

than the jailed political prisoners worldwide

the journey has no life to continue

and follow

Moses or Jesus to the other side

of freedom’s mountain

there’s no desire to make it over

our focus is blurred away

to distracted by the science of technology—

TVs tune up hip-hop porn

and un-educated writers for variety shows

it’s too painful to watch

Flava Flav playing himself for the capitalist devil

that America has designed

with Black folk leading the billon dollar campaign

while their mother’s still living in the projects—

almost 40 years deep after the Civil Rights &

Black Power Movement we’re pacing at the crossroad &

won’t vote—

Amerikkka’s about to institute the pic-nic culture

to choke the families of color

and remanding descendants of Africans worldwide

don’t you read the news on?

Cancel Negros Now—(CNN)

it’s being delivered through you ear-hole

with a headset to your cell phones & iPods

our psyches are to mesmerized & distracted

from the horrible situation in New Orleans

they’re coming—

the violent ones—

Satan’s little evil spirit Bush, FEMA, Cheney, Halliburton,

Condoleezza—hands all in the details

the builders and thieves all at once

concealing the lies that destroying

the entire world and they do it so—gracefully SMILING.

white teeth, white hands;

white teeth, Black hands;

white teeth, Asian;

Native,

Chicano,

& Latino hands

are going to be the real reason,

we’ll be burning in hell’s deception

of wars and rumor of wars

as they push the button of mass destruction—

they do it so, gracefully smiling.

The preceeding words are lyrics from the title cut of 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.