Ode to the Black Panthers

Life.time.water.waves.sand.one

Notice… how time moves in waves

Like water at the beach

Slow, until the sand shifts

That soothing spritz

Tickles your feet sink as the water retreats 

As it always has done

You are already one

With both the water and the sand

Understand?

appreciate all of the lessons yet to be learned

The mistakes that you make today may seem heavy

But when you take time to relax and are ready

To understand the ways that this lesson will assist

Your future perspective, I guarantee that you won’t want to miss

The chance to appreciate all of the lessons yet to be learned

Do what I say, not what I do, your current error is no reason for concern 

You like me, tend to overthink things and are way too hard on yourself 

I hope this wisdom that I’m sharing with you today will be beneficial toward your heath

Tell me this is real?

Tell me this is real?

Not a dream or the truth, but how you feel

All our time and history can’t be fiction! 

Memories together just a plot or description 

Of a cruel author’s pen

Characters doomed to paradise or hell, may all depend 

If I’m awake or asleep, but I only care

If you’re really real and I’m actually there.

They turned ‘DEI’ back into ‘DIE’

When there’s no there there, what should you do?

When love, friendship, goods and services aren’t equally exchanged, you already knew!

After 1865, our ancestors couldn’t get a fair wage or a loan

Without chances and opportunities, they made a way on their own!

Before the invention of the phone 

Until their black Wall Streets and churches were burned

They said to hell with other cheeks being turned

American governments and businesses discourage diversity, equity and inclusion because…

Honestly, I don’t even care to know what the oppressor thinks or does 

They turned ‘DEI’ back into ‘DIE’

Because black, brown, and red bodies are just fossil fuel for America’s engine 

Centuries of Native America bones and nightmares 

Misspelled in cities and states as brazen dares

Slave labor...

For real, for real, for real, for real?

For real, for real, for real, for real?

That’s the cost for just one single pill?!

A new house will cost you over half a mill?

$300 for a summer month electric bill?

Don’t even think about the lifetime price of a thousand fast food ‘value’ meals!?

$5,000 for a set of braces

$300 for an analog wrist watch faces

A dozen dollars for a dozen eggs?

$200 for my daughters braids?

$50k for a brand new car?

$50 for some drinks at the bar?

All of those streaming services set me back a grip!

$6,000 for a family trip?

$60k for a year of tuition?

You need $50 dollars to go with this slip of permission?

For real, for real, for real, for real?

Gas cost me $60 dollars today, just to fill up my tank?

The ATM charged my three dollars just to pull some money from my bank?

See you when the light’s bright!

I’m so apoplectic, I'm overcome with anger

With the last inauguration, my nation became a stranger

Presidential pardons, billionaires bending backs and knees

Cryptocurrency and AI, inflation will drive up the price of eggs and cheese

The middle class is last, replacing omelets with corn flakes and water

My mother and wife’s past was brighter, compared to the dim future of my only daughter

Trying to make heads from tails, but my conscience asks why bother?

Wild fires burn in California, as snow falls in Louisiana

Used to be a fan of Nelly and Snoop, but I deleted Doggy Style and Country Grammar 

Up is down, wrong is right

Our sticks and stones are useless, as America challenges us to a automatic rifle fight!

So we’re hibernating for the next 4 years, see you when the light’s bright!

Time, water, and sand

Notice… how time moves in waves

Like water at the beach

Slow, until the sand shifts

That soothing spritz

Tickles your feet, as the water retreats 

As it always has done

You are already one

With both the water and the sand

Understand?

Make them believe like a fairytale lead!

Ideas to reality, work from success

Critics first doubted, but now they’re impressed!

You had to make them believe

Like a fairy tale lead!

Years of perspiration and winkles, on worn rolled up sleeves

Hands get filthy when one builds impossible dreams!

Dirt plus work yields the birth of great things

Dirt under your nails

And cloudy water in buckets and pails

You got it out of the mud

Like a worm or a bug 

Persistence paid off in due time

Doubters bore witness once your treasure began to shine!

Thoughts sprouted and grew like a tree

High in the clouds, though most still can’t see

The roots that anchor and nourish reality

Family separated by slavery

My last name is Moore

Because during the Civil War

My Great Grandfather (age 10) was a slave

On the Gordon plantation, and some jerk with the last name of Moore paid

$500 dollars for a kid that was good with a horse

That transaction split up a family in Tennessee and changed the whole course

Of my family’s history 

Beyond ‘emancipation’ the Gordon’s remained a mystery 

To our family for a few scores and a century!

Until my father, our family’s genealogist

Did some research online, and discovered historical records at some colleges 

Birth and death certificates, and DNA cousins on Ancestry.com

They had an annual family reunion in Nashville and invited my dad along!

Dad said it was so odd to walk around the hotel lobby, where the reunion occurred 

To meet so many strangers that looked and s...

The more you know

Scientists say that it rains diamonds on Neptune…

They must study something more useful soon

Sustainable food and clean water for those most in need

Discover aquifers and more disease resistant seed

How about laws to ban violence and greed?

No more gadgets and gossip to consume 

Less division, more understanding and room

Diamonds in space are useless if millions are still starving and cold

As the powerful few steal and horde all the diamonds and gold

Rebels of the future, know once you destroy the status quo

Ignorance is bliss, sorrow grows with the more you know…