I went to the hospital one day because hey, this was the place where you go to get help if you were sick or mentally unstable, I walked up to the counter with the nurse and said hello, my heart is beating erratically and mentally I am clinically brain dead, can I get some help, she handed me paperwork to fill out and said doc will be with you shortly, he called me back and put his hand on my back as he analyzed my deep breathing, he said your lungs are seething, but unfortunately, we cannot do anything major for you at this time, because your insurance coverage only allows for us to give you pills, but hey, we’ll give you the best drugs that you’ll take three times a day with water and hopefully, you’ll feel just fine, and if you have any complications, please come back, and as I contemplated on why I had to exchange my wealth for my health, I stumbled out upon a church, I walked through the doors and noticed that the congregation looked much like the hospital lobby, full of people who were sick and needy, and then the pastor who I didn’t wanna say is greedy, said the following statements, God is telling me there is 20 people with $100, now God is telling me there are 40 people with $50, God is now saying there are 100 people with tens, for if you tithe in the name of the Lord, he shall remove all of your sin and all the diseases laid upon you, and one by one, people went up to the altar, dropping their funds, and much like the doc who put his hand on my back, slap, pastor started laying hands on people, one by one they started to fall, he would start speaking in a crazy language and then say it is done, and the elders of the church would then come and put blankets over those lying on the floor, the same way they do in hospitals when they become deceased, so I walked up and said pastor, I have no funds left, I used the last to get a scan of my chest but all they told me is these pills will be my cure all, and as I waited for his hands to touch me and make me fall, he simply said son, we will pray for you, and that’s when I realized church and hospital are one in the same, corporations who house the clinically insane and those trying to relieve suffering for their pain, both come in buildings which ironically have crosses on top, both usually start with the name saint or mount, and lowkey both are insurance companies that put state farm and Allstate to shame, because if you don’t pay your monthly or weekly premium, you are left to struggle in your last days, both will read you your last rites, and even as you die, they’ll both offer you flowers to decorate your grave site, see I know that death is the last income tax we pay to mother earth, but I’m wondering why must I give my life savings to extend my life, ‘cause Jesus broke bread and said, eat, this is my body, but if I don’t break bread consisting of white men that are dead, my body is left to get eaten by maggots, see I’m not an Atheist by any means but I now understand what people mean when say they don’t believe in God by any means, because if you don’t have the means that are green, you may die from gang green, or some other dysfunction, that leads to depression, so if this is the cost it takes to cure me or get into heaven, let me know when the next house catches fire so I can walk in and burn with it, cause I’d rather take hell before paying a price for my own existence
Artist JoeMac
 19300
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Books Written By Poet
The Price We Pay
CATEGORY
life
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COMMENTS
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The Immortal Wize says: This is so thought provoking as well as phenomenally profound, you are most definitely making your mark. |
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Tali says: Profound write and very true! We should all be questioning the establishments of religion and healthcare. |
OTHER POEMS WRITTEN BY Artist JoeMac
2020I’m not gone talk about Kobe dying in a helicopter crash, I’m not gone talk about Chad, as he lays the same as his egyptain ancestors, crossed arms, embezzled in a tomb, waiting to cross into the afterlife, nah, I’m not gone talk about Father John, meaning John Thompson, who had me thinking Georgetown was the most gangsta HBCU, he was the reason I started wearing grey and blue, see skip all that, I’m not gone talk about George Floyd either, or the eight minutes and forty six seconds, just let me go off for about three minutes, with a grace period of maybe ten seconds, cause see corona may have taken the world by storm, but they have trying to eradicate this virus called my Blackness for multiple centuries now, they took all precautions, wearing masks, made of white cotton with two eye slots so when they seen us in public, it was six feet minimum, stay away from the s, we have to keep our social distance because if they achieve social justice, we can no lon...  |
Being Me...This white guy, runs up to me after one of my shows and says man, I wanna be just like you, I asked why, he said man you speak with authority and command a rooms attention, I said thanks, He says man, you just look like the type to keep a beautiful woman by your side, I said yea that’s me, and thanks again, finally he says man, I wish I could be exactly like you, that’s when I paused and asked him do you really wanna be this, would you really be willing to give up your privilege to walk down the street in a nice neighborhood at two in the morning without a neighbor calling the police on you, just to carry this pigment in your skin, do you really wanna mark your body up with artwork that is nothing more than the last screams of dead Black men gunned down by police, criss crossing my arms and ending at my chest because they hoped that my cardiac could provide their last breath, do you really wanna walk a mile in my shoes, because Black men don’t walk, we are accus... |
PedophileThere he go girl, oouuu he so clean, oouuu I’m just gone wait for him to pull up, nah by, I don’t want you, you a lame a** dude, you get good grades, but he got the box Chevy on the deuce deuces, twenty two's, it’s amazing that his rims match his age, but hers is seven years his junior, may I also add the fact that she is only a junior in high school, see she was smart enough to skip a grade but not intelligent enough to recognize statutory rape, now maybe you can blame this on parents who rely on television to raise their seeds, failing to see that the light from the TV is only visible when the lights are out, and no flower has ever grown properly in darkness, you can maybe blame the child, who carries herself as a young princess around the king and queen who created her, but becomes a peasant in the midst of the her project court jester girlfriends, who know nothing else but to entertain and play the fool, or we can just blame the predator, who’s pea... |
Depressed State of MindPeople wanna know what depression looks like, it comes in the form of casual clothes, normal acting, socializing with friends, hahaha, how you doing, man yea I seen that s**t last night, boy I had to cuss my boss out yesterday, gone tell me some s**t, I was like f**k you, hahaha, then, there’s the ride home, there’s no more friends, there’s no more music for your heart to line dance too, there is no more women to feed the overweight ego you sometimes have as a man, that friend who keeps you in check like a pair of nikes is gone and ironically yo mama named you timbaland, so the phrase if the shoe fits wear it got a whole other meaning for you, you insert the key into ya front door and pause, because you know with the next right turn, s**t is gonna go way left, welcome, you are back in the hellhole that even the devil vacated, misery stands on its own two feet from the couch, applauding, because it has missed its nightly company for the past few hours, here n***a... |
The Oscars
I don’t talk about celebrities, I mean, I got way more content in my arsenal than to shoot shots at those who consider my bank account target practice when they’re bored, but today, I'll make an exception, see for once I grabbed the tabloid papers, fed into the gossip, TMZed my TV for hours with bowls of popcorn because someone else’s misery became my company in the living room, and I know me paying attention turns into their paid attention, but the cost of this celebrity’s life was priceless, and there it was, right there on the front paper, in bold words, coming to a screen near you, BLACK MAN KILLED IN COLD BLOOD, now this may sound like a common occurrance, but trust me, this celeb is known worldwide and this is by far the summer blockbuster we all have been waiting for, the minute he steps out his front door, flashes are snapped, enhancing his image with special effect blood and holes that no green screen on earth could create, ca... |
TwinsMy mama had two boys at birth and we were both separated, identical twins yearning for a brotherly bond that we only achieved in our dreams, then, I remember the day it happened, we connected after 30 plus years..on facebook..he sent me a DM saying brother meet me at the taco shop, see I liked his taste already, upon greeting I was astounded, we both had the same scar on our right jaw, we both talked out the side of our mouth, we both had that missing patch of hair, yea right there in the middle, just like our daddy, but there were a few differences, he said brother I’m gay, I said ok, I’m straight, he said I let these dreads hang to never forget our ancestors who were hung so we could have better, I said I keep these waves to never forget how we were brought over here on boats with that trans atlantic slave trade, he say I have no tattoos because you never see a bumper sticker on a bentley, I said I have twenty six of em, because you never saw a wall in a pyramid tha... |
Color BlindWhen people say I don’t see color, I look at em like do you have cataracts mutha***a, I mean when I look at a I see that it’s pink, when I look at the sky I see that its Blue, and when that orange muth***a starts talking I just cut the tv off, see when you combine your red, white and blue its makes purple, to match the color of bruised brown skin when it encounters blue klansmen, with gold badges, who have active greenlights on you from the time you walk down your concrete grey steps, they watch you jump into you white car, and that better be the only white yo blackever get into, or they’ll milk the color red from your forehead as if it were the rose colored titties sitting at the bottom of the cow, whose skin also defines their racist ways because all major cities in America love their majority white population, but those patches of black land are the badlands, or the other side of the iron colored tracks, so tell me how this color blindness of yours exist, c... |
Corona2020 was like a earth sized version of the Maury show, I waited for the results to see was I responsible for this madness caused, and then came the card, when it comes to baby Corona, JoeMac, you are not the father, oh , I wanted to run around on stage and then through the crowd, high fiving s who on any other day I would probably avoid, I watched baby girl take off backstage and I swear for the life of y’all, that hallway is 100 yards long before they even reach that couch, but then I looked at baby corona, sitting their lonesome, and I realized how much the virus of human life can cause social distancing amongst two people who once came together to create, fathers keep a minimum distance of 10 feet from the tree that sprouted in the garden they planted a seed in, but on the flip side, some mothers remain in permanent quarantine, keep would be daddies away at all times, saying for the safety of MY child, we will remain in house, purposely locking daddy out when he tryna pu... |
Black and ServingMy friend asked me what it's like to be Black and to serve, I said, it’s kinda like being the kid that no one really wants to be around, but your parents bought you all of the cool toys, so they allow you to play in their barbed wire playhouse, make you feel like you have all the friends in the world, I mean nah, it's kinda like being a blood, because you can shed blood on bloody battlefields, but the minute you get home the boys in blue is after you, and maybe they crippin, I mean trippin, but the navy floats on blue seas under blue skies so maybe that's why they bang on us, a military ID can’t save us even when we walk through the gates, cause two strikes have been placed in the spot of your rank insignias, snipers with their rifles stand watch on the tower locked and loaded, waiting for the order to fire until someone comes across their radio channel and says hold it, he’s one of the good ones, don’t shoot, and I put my hands up out of fear ... |
My Dreads...I still got a good amount of hair on my head for a 35 year old, I look at some cats from my high school class and that has disappeared like the looks and body shape of the popular girl senior year, some linings have been pushed back like black folks at the bank, applying for a business loan, and yes, I don’t have a full head of waves any more, but there are still a few ripples up there which allow me to swag surf on microphones, I am grateful I can still put a stocking cap on after greasing my to step out the door in a suit, take my woman out on a date so I can see her walk that walk in those heels, because I may have lost some of my hair at 35 but I still haven’t lost my ability to ***, so I’m grateful, and in the good book my man Samson’s strength was in his hair, then Delilah cut it, so maybe that’s why some Black students are told that you can’t walk across this stage until you are trimmed up, nice and neat, meet the standards that won&rs... |