Men Of Certain Age

   
Musing the future at 13    
Never though I'd live    
Past the age of 33    
But here I am    
2 score 9 years later    
   
And here we are    
   
We don't know each other
But we know of each other    
Be it different hoods
It's the same story    
Told through    
A simple look    
A casual nod    
A gesture    
     
Where the eyes speak of those    
Drunken eulogies and tales told    
As we passed the 'old gold'    
And poured some on concrete    
Asphalt or dirt roads    
In honor of those    
who lay six feet under
Casualties of cultural dissolution    
Of disenfranchisement    
Disillusioned      
Due to forces seen and unseen    
Of which we now have    
A firm overstanding of
     
As the blurred reflections    
In Life's rear-view mirror    
Become more defined    
Looking back through ghetto tales   
Of urban males livin    
In such an abysmal state    
Accepting of their dismissal from    
Their inheritance    
Going against the grain of intelligence    
Communal negligence the order of the day    
Knowing the difference between    
Right and wrong    
Choosing the latter    
Wondering how can we cry    
That black lives matter    
If they don't to us?    
   
And as guns continued to bust    
We saw that this is not    
All we were meant for    
As blind soldiers in a silent war    
That til this day has left open sores    
Upon our ghetto shores    
Thus we decided long ago    
To should strive for more    
Beyond our meager surroundings    
And speak words resounding with    
Truth and compassion    
To help heal the spirits of    
The children of trauma
...    
As we realized that    
With knowledge    
Not only comes power    
But responsibility as well
     
Responsibility    
Of the men of a certain age    
Who spent half their lives    
In and out of a cage wondering    
How many bids must a dude serve    
Before he can actually see    
That 'learning curve'    
As he approached that    
Fork in the road    
   
A grown man now    
   
Gotta know when to hold    
And when to fold    
Don't let the idle goad you    
Down the path    
Where the writing is clearly    
Written on the wall    
Spelling out the words    
 
DEAD END    
     
Easier said than done yes
Trying to re-define    
While walking that thin line    
Between younginz    
Wanting to earn their hood stripes    
Five-0 assuming    
We fit the stereotype    
And the women who bought    
Into the media hype    
Of Black manhood misunderstood    
     
Yet here we are    
   
Still struggling to manage    
All the damage done    
Still trying to salvage    
All those woulda coulda shouldas    
With those that really matter    
While balancing a scattered psyche    
And a battered Soul    
Striving to one day    
Be made whole
     
Yeah    
     
I see you brethren   
As you see me    
As we see this    
For what it really is    
   
   
Hold your head fam    
   
Peace