will they know me?A Poem by manchilld99you can go home ... even being a stranger therewhen they see me on their street abuzz in wonder at who and why I am strange and misplaced but undaunted? will they see a stranger be suspicious of the outsider resent the curious interloper who looks through them as though not there? i might be a five-oh sniffing for clues in their no-snitch badland of urban-isms staring at a spot on their proud ‘hood concrete where colored boys spilt blood fifty years ago where i walked a puppy and climbed the steps of a stoop to a building long-since knocked down do they hear the loud country talk of newcomers escaping jim crow into dire tenement poverty? their stares and leers and glares will beseech me please fear them as they fear the outside world from whence I came to this place called home eyes and ears will fix upon me suspiciously will they know I fear not to tread here as it was decided a lifetime ago to fear not that this is a good place to live when we came from places we knew were only good for dying will they know? how could they? why would they? the persistence of commonplace striving and yearning brought me here, sent me forth, now beckons me back to this bronx street that once was not a ghetto block © 2012 manchilld99 |
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1 Review Added on October 18, 2011 Last Updated on October 4, 2012 Tags: ghetto, integraton, home, bronx, 1960's Authormanchilld99rochester, NYAboutI write poems and stories, and have broadcast a blues show on the radio since 1982. I am from Harlem, currently live in Rochester, NY, but have been around. more..Writing
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