when i put on
my gangsta stroll
i feel the eyes
of a small town
fall on me
like a murder of crows

i know the first question
"what is he?"
the dreads
make them think
i'm a dirty hippie
or maybe
just some high yellow
nigger
so i shake them
and whip them
to give warning
a  lion is amongst
the sheep

then they hear
me sling the slang
and sometimes
i break out
the jazz
of some nuyorican spanglish
yeah
i spic articulately

i've heard it all before
all the "rice and bean eating
scarface
latinus spicticus
bilingual nigger
taking our jobs
and our women
drug dealing
uneducated
little spic mothaf***a"
comments

and my favorite
"go back to where
you came from"

i love that one

but what you don't see

is the colonization
of the americas
one thousand years
before columbus
tainos in longboats
navigating their way
into a culture
that america can't kill

slave ship cargo
that blessed me
with wooly hair
no amount of sheen
can make me ashamed of

i got ivory coast rythyms
and pack them into
arawak baggies
and your daughters
always
come look for a hit

smallpox blankets
and culture rape
and still
"i rise"

go back to where
you come from?
this is my land
and you've just
been served
a pink slip

the blood of two warriors
burns under my skin
senegal
my father
agueybana
my mother
and bartolome de la casa
performing the wedding

i realize
the source of hate

the pure cold jealousy
in the recognition
that i am the dream
that is america