I wish someone told me sooner
about the magic in my afro
about the beauty of my skin
how there’s nothing wrong with
hour glass shapes
even if yours is bigger than your neighbor’s
I wish I knew sooner
that there’s no asterisk after beauty
that I am
beautiful
even when no one else thinks so
Y’all should buy my cd cause I use to sell crack
Y’all should buy my cd cause I got shot 3 times in a 3 to 9 and all that see
There’s a market 4 niggas
There’s a market for niggas that target figures to purchase $100,000 jewelry
And 4 million automobiles don’t fool me I know pain when I see it
And he would probably give it all away if he hadn’t signed his life away
Just to realize that a few million dollars was a small price for them to pay for his dignity
And I suppose that if I earned 100,000 dollars a show that haven’t all ready been spent on security, entourage, groupies, and blow it wouldn’t be so sweet
And I hope that Talib Qwalli realizes it’s not that black folk don’t like positivity
It’s just that we don’t have half of the school grown income to purchase tons of CD’s
But little rich white kids in the suburbs by CD’s 10 at a time
And the more ignorant the nigga the more he gets to piss of his mom
So if the song calls his mother or sister a bitch
Or says he’s willing to kill his brother in order to get rich it just makes it even better
The bigger the monkey the bigger the money
Just throw cash at her watch her take off her dress
Throw cash at him watch him expose his chest
Somewhere y’all there’s a prostitute sniffing blow to take her mind off of how she earns her living
Somewhere y’all there’s a rapper sniffing blow to take his mine off of how he earns his living
But there’s a market for niggas
And spoken word is the shit
But poems don’t buy big homes
And poems don’t light up rist
And it might be nice to make all y’all jealous of my bank account
But all that matters is that my mother’s respect is priceless
And it use to be back in the days
You could cover your face with black face and red lipstick
Black people would hate but you’ll surely get rich
Just take a picture poking out your lips
Eating watermelon
Guarantee your show was selling
But now a days if your effectually rapping about the gun clapping of another black
Then say no more nigga… you platinum
With half a dozen races
Millionaires willing to back them
Y’all tell how there’s anything different from back then
The more he shows his jewels the more he gets applause
If he’s willing to play the role of society’s savage
The society will make him a star
Cause there’s a market for niggas
Just write some bullshit
There’s money being made convincing people that Jill Scott does not exist
Cause if young girl believes that she is golden she won’t allow herself to be called no bitch
And it’s only common sense that if you take away her self confidence
She’ll believe that dropping it like it’s hot for a soldier is an accomplishment
And if it’ll increase a young black man’s chances for going to jail they’ll promote it
And I guarantee everybody right now
A thousand dollars
Your record will sell if it sounds like Willie Lynch wrote it
Just focus on being a stereotype
Just waking up every morning just dying to fight
Just snapping pictures of stackin riches, and clappin triggers, and slappin bitches
You wanna get this shit started
Fuck your pride nigga just act retarded
You think im playing
As long as white folks got money there’s
A market for niggas
Lyrics added! Thanks ^
(Source: youtube.com)
Sometimes people come here looking for poetry by poets of color. Here are some poets of color from the Punch-in-the-Face archives, in semi-alphabetical order. Starred poets are poets whose work I particularly like, or who have several poems in the archives.
the world is heavy
but your bones
(just a cubic inch)
can hold 19,000 lbsounce for ounce
they are stronger than steelatom for atom
you are more precious than diamondand stars have died
so that you may liveyou need to remember these things
when you say that you are weak
and worthless
(Source: sinandserotonin)
by Maya Angelou
“So, I’ll believe in Liberals’ aid for us
When I see a white man load a Black man’s gun.”
Christopher Columbus, you are the most
successful real estate agent who ever lived, sold acres and
acres of myth, a house built on stilts
above the river salmon travel by genetic memory.
They ripped our fruits,
Cut our branches,
Burnt our trunk,
But they could not
kill our roots.
-Nahuatl Poem (Anonymous)
(Source: canelaklug)
HEY
C’MON
COME OUT
WHEREVER YOU ARE
WE NEED TO HAVE THIS MEETING
AT THIS TREE
AIN’ EVEN BEEN
PLANTED
YETby June Jordan
if i closed my eyes right now, the sounds of my neighbors cooking and yelling, the cars rushing by could take me somewhere else. drove with the windows down, sunset light, cool breeze and slight smog meant another country. today i got home, greeted by workers on bicycles, kids walking, dogs barking, someone cooking onions. and this is why i could never leave the city.
“I gather up
each sound
you left behind
and stretch them
on our bed.
each nite
I breathe you
and become high.”
Poem n. 8 by Sonia Sanchezbeautiful.
What if we had sons?
Our children will be born with guns in their hands.
Guilty painted across their eyelashes with tears made of prison bars leaking out.
Just babies, already their fate decided.
This brown skin a road map to failure.
What will become of them?
Will we build bricked roads for them to travel, up away from the mess that has become our culture only to see them strain away from our carefully laid path in search of familiarity?
I understand the craving for similarity.
Brown skin.
Our greatest trait yet the most serious indicator of what will become of us.
How will we protect them from where other’s intentions may lay?
I never intended for it to be this way.
What if we had sons.
What if we had football players and little men built like brick houses
too quickly turning into men.
What if we had sons.
What if we raised them right but still they walked wrong.
they talked wrong and somehow still ended up in places that were wrong.
Being on the wrong side of someone’s wrong side.
Still wrong.
What if we had sons.
What would become of them, I wonder?
Why are these questions
we are constantly
asking ourselves.
10 HONEST THOUGHTS ON BEING LOVED BY A SKINNY BOY
Rachel Wiley
1.
I say, ‘I am fat.’
He says ‘No, you are beautiful.’
I wonder why I cannot be both.
He kisses me
hard.2.
My college theater professor once told me
that despite my talent,
I would never be cast as a…