Urban Poetry

I knew when it was diner time I heard moms whistles out the window it would echo echo echo, I would drop everything haul ass to my house to feast, wasn’t guaranteed that the next day we would be able to eat, that’s just how it was. Moms would buy two slices cut them in half, now there’s pizza for the four of us, no coke or pepsi, we shared two fifty cent buss offs, that’s no frills soda, more like coloring with bubbles in water.
We went down hill from there, it got worse when I lost my father, we wanted those two slices like usual but without daddy we was always short a few dollars, his presence was crucial. We had to give up that fine Italian dinning, for rice with cans of corned beef or those blue boxes of craft Mac and cheese for a few weeks, out of the month this was dinner for the next 21 days, add a little whole kernel corn now were eating gourmet.
on the week of the first and third welfare and s s I , we ordered an entire pie, we had beans and steak with that rice, ground meet to the Mac and cheese now we got ghetto ziti, I wished that wasn’t triweekly, I would of been strong like John Henry, no worries mommy when you said eat as much as we can, I knew the message being sent, my old earth needed the rest of the money for rent.
I understood….
I hope she understands….
What type of man would I be? although I was a twelve year boy, how can a man watch a women fall and not pick them up? Well I got tired of moms on her knees praying for all the things we need but couldn’t afford, got tired of asking her why housing men kept banging on the door, why they embarrass us and tape eviction notices on our door! So I became one of those lost kids selling crack in from of local neighborhood bodegas, crack dope coke weed whatever, it wasn’t for fame like most of these lames, I had an agenda, I know I know we both sold substances to make people other than themselves, so me and them lames were no better than each other, I just wanted to help my mother after loosing my father, to help feed her and my brothers, I dealt with the elements like a piece of weather stripping , rain, hail ,sleet ,snow I was out there pitching, I became an alley cat amongst kittens, in time the big dogs started showing me love, I became the runt of the liter, this is not contradiction this the illegal life transition, so I transitioned into position after position, I no longer was pitching, I no longer had to cook with moms dishes in her kitchen, I was making money that’s what I was wishing, and that wish became true! From cans of roast beef to filet mignon, from 50 cent buss offs to moet and chandon, from foot patrolling to Beemer and benzes with Harmon kardons, and Rockford fosgates, blasting rock me Amadeus, tka’s tears may fall, or krs 1 getting his foot in the door with Scott la rock had em all, I was living that life style like it was my life, it was like if i was married to the game the streets were my wife, we was living like stars shinning ever so bright, first class flights.
I’m not poor any more and I love it!
Or do I?
One by one life was getting dark, stars were no longer shining, the money flow started declining, kids was killing kids we were dying or going to jail, Funeral precessions, or incarceration, no more money for bail, from living lavish to living right back into the ghetto, our modern day hell, fathers of the dead look at me and they see their sons, mothers of the dead look at me and call me their son, those dead sons called me their brother, i was supposed to be my brothers keeper, why wasn’t I there when they fought the reaper, we traveled in packs, why was there only one white bag with a lot of red being packed in a human zip lock, these were my friends before the rock before the money, I left it alone , lord may I have them back this is a cold world without them I feel so lonely
The aftermath
I breath poetry , I write to African beats that move me, it does something to me, puts me in a trance, so I let my pen dance like Alvin Ailey , with my art I’m gonna save some ghetto babies , I’m gonna change the visions some adults see, most see one dimensionally, my words and visions are hi fi plasma three dimensional , like Che- malcom either one and Garvey, my urban prose poetry is non conventional, I’m a project life, ghetto street atlas, a hood paraprofessional, poor people’s readers digest, I wanted to make change now I’m making change, I’m a bicentennial
Infinite the Poet 2012
Albert Carrasco
www.infinitethepoet.com