Poems by Copper 30

Detroit Public School – Black History Month

 

Close the doors and pull down the shades

It’s February again and the teacher has some words to exchange

She wants to know – What do I know about black history?

And then if it’s not much

she is going to put us back in touch

But she’s in a rush

cause she’s only got an hour and she needs to say so much

 

Its hard to believe but at the tender age

The time when I’m so easily influenced

She wants me to know the past

so that it can always influence

Whatever it is that I’m doing

She wants me to find a dream and pursue it

 

Hold my head up high and have some respect for myself

“the knowledge that you receive is a weapon itself”

And just like a soldier moving in stealth the underground railroad

Never got away from myself

 

I know that a book is a tool

That lays ignorance and cowardice to waste

A book is a mode of travel to get you out a bad place

A pen and pad are like a sword and shield

Or more like brick and mortar

And I’m ready to build

 

Please don’t find me to heavy I did this all for you

put my mind and my sanity on the line all for you

I use to write in the dark now I write in the light

And fight so hard to make sure that I’m doing it right

 

And I’m making the rules so even if I’m breaking the rules

I feel that I should have the first right to refuse

To do anything other than to be black and die

Instead I just get up of my little cot my little pity spot

 

And I stand or I sit

I ran or I writ or I wrote

That even if I’m no politico

I know that it was important

For people to die to vote or to be put into jails

Prison in such

 for refusing to touch

 or enroll in the militias and such

 

Please soujourn soujorner

 and win for these losers

And if you can do it under pressure

 then I will accept

The first right of refusal

 

The right to defy

Those who deny

That I can say what I want

In the way that write

 

Just as long as my song shows that It came with a gift

I used the powers of good and I came to uplift

 

So in that moment in time in the back of my mind

I’m thinking about the movie as she’s pressing rewind

And I’m trying to find

the love for mankind

 

As I’m not sure if she showed me my soul

or the twoness of it

If I could march like a King

Am I Fredrick Douglass  

Could I be one of the Pantha’s brothers

 

I’m so conflicted  by this point in the lesson

Yet she is steadily pressing

 me to answer some questions

Will you fulfill a destiny fore written in failure?

Or will you write your own story and drop it in a mailer?….

 

What was I supposed to tell her?

What would you have told her

Fall off into mediocrity and hear her every day for 15 years

standing over my shoulder

Now I’m getting these words off my chest and they feel bigger than boulders

But this is the only way that I can see to give

Her efforts some closure

 

end

since writing this poem i have to shed light on a sad situation

someone took a picture of a dps book depository http://www.flickr.com/photos/tedguy49/312196513/in/photostream/

i don’t know how accurate this is i am not a journalist but this is heart rending i’m going to see if i can post the picture below

 

i hope this isn’t true ya’ll hit me up and say it isn’t so