We don’t need anyone else telling us about the problems of our community and how more money will cure our ills.
Well I ask how is more money gonna bring back Big Mama who died in the kitchen near her favorite stove.
Big Mama who thought that good cooking would help Sammy cut loose those drugs, and a good meal would help Annie Mae forget through her bruised lips the pain filled explosion caused by Larry’s inability to sustain a functional erection.

How is more money gonna recruit the brightest teachers for inner city schools when not one truly feels the pain of the poor in spirit.
Like a pair of Air Jordans on your feet negate the fact that they are walking on debris and feces filled streets.

How is more money gonna change the look on your face when you can’t see past the grill in your mouth, the bling for a king is shouting; DO YOU SEE ME, I AM ALIVE AND VALUABLE.
I think I’m valuable as if metal mouths expressed self worth.

How is more money gonna stop carrion of their making every time the children are robbed because of their lack of knowledge not being taught at the fireside college.

How is more money gonna fix our ills when our elderly can’t buy their pills; living too long it seems to be just another burden for society.

Skinny folks are getting fat by manipulating stock markets while the poor just get FAT.
Well I’m fat and old as you can see.
Eye sight going and water on the knee.
Hands in pain and back hurts too.
But not too much to discard wisdom stew.

So proud of my younguns; these real poet friends who I’ve embraced as my next of kin.
They are young and strong and filled with a fact if they don’t win it’ll be our last attack.
So write and teach.
Use your rapier swords fired and honed with the strength of your minds and when I begin my final sleep I know that money don’t make a Malcom or a Wilfred, a Rosa or a Yablonski, a King or a Lumumba, a Robeson or a Gil Scott Heron, a Langston Hughes, a Nikii “G”, or a Toni Morrison, and Gwendolyn Brooks.

Money makes books that most refuse to read and originality of thought is as scarce as yesterday’s weed.
Food is killing us instead of sustaining us as if our girth could protect us from each other when all we need to do is reach out, embrace, share, protect and love each other before it is too late.
It’s a family affair but too many forget that when the family dies we all die.
So if yours is dysfunctional, create a better mold, and pass the pie please.