THE BLOCK

The street's no fun no more.

Gone the days of brotherhood

and neighbourhood;

brothers

on the block

chilling,

bird watching,

catcalling,

doing high fives

while getting high

sharing

a joint or roach;

grounding

with Walter, Che and Mao;

reasoning

with Marcus, Marx and Malcolm,

Cesaire, Sartre and Fanon;

peacing out with one eye

open for the pigs.

But then with time the lime

became a game

of mayhem.

The pistol has been fired;

consciousness false started,

disqualified and departed,

leaving a mental block –

crime powered off the blocks

and breaking tape and records,

long crossed the finish line.

Now all remains

of brotherhood

and neighbourhood

is the hood

and the greed.

The green, the grass, the flowers

and the love

have left

concrete pavements, cold,

painted red in blood,

yellow with our fears

of gangs,

gangsters smoking

guns, drugs

and ourselves.

©2013  by G Newton V Chance