Time to Love Your Black Beee-ing

by
RL Cook
©Copyright 2009. All Rights Reserved.

I am old
Black man
not so old
for people going back
when Time started
actually
pretty
young.

No exaggeration
every
day
not one
goes bye
I see young
eager strappin black boys rappin
yappin
quick to draw
back fists
& squeeze
that trigger
snappin
out of bubble jackets
& black hoods
in freezing school yards
in streets sub-
urban
as well as Roxbury,Watts, Southside
ready really to kill,
quicker than any New York city
racist cop(---imagine that!)
their own mirror image! Mirrored, un huh, yeah man.
the other eager strappin black boy rappin
yappin snappin
out his bubble jacket two,
back at em!
Yeah killing them-
selves.
Can’t SEE
they own selfhate
for da life
of them-
selves.

(hey,Who put da kool Uzzi-gun in they hands
ya might wanna Know
causz they
too ignorant to make one-
-Now everybody Know
that!)
Why this keep
GoingOn
every Which-a-Way you look
all the globe over
Same’s in Darfur
Monrovia, Port O Prince,Congo
sure as you please!
What’s Wrooonnng
with The Black peoples!
(Oh, somebody say they tribes?)
in Nigeria killing stacks of em,
in oily shiny shiny streets
mirrors of black people killing
black people
mirrored
the globe over.
not a White shooter
man,
no where!
in sight---
No
not one---
unless they be hiding in the Woods
using remote controls.
What’s wrong with the black people killing
people
black?
One Another
so passionately like that? Like flys
(Like they is flys I tell ya
the small child
in
the black old man
in me,
ponderously
wants to know.
...And then not!)

Cause,
when he looks
back
over Time
to the Diasporic
black passage
from that place
which mothered
creation
it dawns
on him
this same stuff
was going on
Yeah,
back even when-
in the origin
of this
Black Sin!

Surely a White man
is good,
but
not nearly so good
as to be Superman
which hedda hafta been,
I mean
to chase my ancestors
(I’m talkin ‘bout my very own- maybe not yourn)
through ancient Africa bush
and catch some
of us ons
enough to make it back home
to EuropAmerica land worthwhile.
(Come on
now, you don’t believe that old nefarious-tale?
Do You??
Why
my brother, my sister we wuz conquered & we wuz robbed of our heritage( not kidnapped) and sold
off slaves
like Joseph wuz
by his own
brothers.)
Wake up people! Bill the Cos done told ya.

This stuff
this killing this black killing black stuff
the whole wide world over
this stuff going on for long long long long
long tiiiiiiiiiiiimmmme! (Sometime old black child,
me,
wonders wistful
why
don’t them bad black rappers
who so very very baaad!
at least every once in a while
now and again
point and fires their pistols
if only by accident
at some one White
Who a Racist
instead of another black selfhater? Uh, “A brother”)
But, then, maybe they shooting the right target after all.

Stevie Wonder is getting old
like me.
Here lately he been singin’
It’s Time To Love.
Maybe my grandson will join in his song
after all,
after all
these selfhaters
complete
their
suicide
Thing.



February 23, 2006

Listen to poet RL Cook reading
"Time To Love Your Black Beeeing"

Windows Media Player File:

Mac users, if you cannot hear this recording, you're invited to click here for a free download of Flip4Mac.