Click here to listen to Blackman Preach read this poem.  

Building Me A Home  

I’m building me a home

near the graves of slaves

I’m building me a home

I am building

great institutions

from the debt that’s owed

I better receive 33 college degrees

I’m building me a home

I am building

on top of

adders and multipliers

to increase the wealth of a Black nation

in education

job security

health care & the accumulated

value of my 40 acres & a mule

times 600 years of  mass production

from cotton to reparation

that will give birth to a much

clearer season

while I live in the now & now &

so & so

I’m building me a home

I am building

on the wall of history & the graffiti reads

the truth has set free

former enslaved Africans

from the invisible trickery

of modern day slavery

working for seven dollar an hour

with just enough crumbs to feed the pigeons

at your milk crate table & matching chairs

it’s painful

painful watching television through

the eyes

of your windows

nothing but unemployment, crime

& peddling drug addict—you see

I’m building me a home

I am building

like the ancients on temples

freeing up my peoples from the

treasure chess of Willie Lynch tricks

that

we continue to stumble over

I’m building me a home

                        I am building me home.  

The preceeding poem is included in Blackman Preach's self published chapbook titled, "The State of the Ghetto Address."

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.