Memorial Day, 2007

Memorial Day, 2007

I am a veteran

Not of foreign battlefields

Like my father in world war one

My uncles in world war two

And Korea

Or my friends in Vietnam

even the Congo “police action”

veteran none the less

Exiled, jailed because I refused

To visit Vietnam as a running dog for imperialism

I visited Canada , Mexico and Belize

Then Federal prison for a minute

But veteran I am of the war in the hood

The war of domestic colonialism and neo-colonialism

White supremacy in black face war

Fighting for black power that turned white

Or was always white as in the other white people (white supremacy type II)

war it was and is

Every day without end no RR no respite just war

For colors like kindergarten children war

For turf warriors don’t own and run when popo comes

War for drugs and guns and women

War for hatred jealousy

Dante got a scholarship but couldn’t get on the plane

The boyz in the hood met him on the block and jacked him

Relieved him of his gear shot him in the head because he could read

Play basketball had all the pretty girls a square

The boyz wanted him dead like themselves

Wanted him to have a shrine with liquor bottles and teddy bears

And candles

Wanted his mama and daddy to weep and mourn at the funeral

Like all the other moms and dads and uncle aunts cousins

Why should he make it out the war zone

The blood and broken bones of war in the hood

No veterans day no benefits no mental health sessions

No conversation who cares who wants to know about the dead

In the hood

the warriors gone down in the ghetto night

We heard the Uzi at 3am and saw the body on the steps until 3 pm

When the coroner finally arrived as children passed from school

I am the veteran of ghetto wars of liberation that were aborted

And morphed into wars of self destruction

With drugs supplied from police vans

Guns diverted from the army base and sold 24/7 behind the Arab store.

Junior is 14 but the main arms merchant in the hood

He sells guns from his backpack

His daddy wants to know how he get all them guns

But Junior don’t tell cause he warrior

He’s lost more friends than I the elder

What can I tell him about death and blood and bones

He says he will get rich or die trying

But life is for love not money

And if he lives he will learn.

If he makes it out the war zone to another world

Where they murder in suits and suites

And golf courses and yachts

if he makes it even beyond this world

He will learn that love is better than money

For he was once on the auction block and sold as a thing

For money, yes, for the love of money but not for love

And so his memory is short and absent of truth

The war in the hood has tricked him into the slave past

Like a programmed monkey he acts out the slave auction

The sale of himself on the corner with his homeys

Trying to pose cool in the war zone

I will tell him the truth and maybe one day it will hit him like a bullet

In the head

It will hit him multiple times in the brain until he awakens to the real battle

In the turf of his mind.

And he will stand tall and deliver himself to the altar of truth to be a witness

Along with his homeys

They will take charge of their posts

They will indeed claim their turf and it will be theirs forever

Not for a moment in the night

But in the day and in the tomorrows

And the war will be over

No more sorrow no more blood and bones

No more shrines on the corner with liquor bottles teddy bears and candles.

--Marvin X

25 May 2007

Brooklyn NY