bling 
 
 somebody jumped off slave ships 
 fr this 
 somebody mailed himself in a box 
 from slavery to freedom 
 fr it 
 somebody else ran like hell 
 from the paddyrollers 
 fr it 
 & somebody stood up to the koo klux 
 fr it 
 somebody rioted fr it 
 somebody sang their heart out fr it 
 somebody blew somebody’s socks off fr it 
 somebody blew their own brains out fr it 
 somebody died fr yr bling-bling 
 even as julian bond wrote 
 look at that girl shake her thing 
 we can’t all be martin luther king 
 somebody fought just & unjust war 
 fr yr bling-bling 
 somebody died on parchman farm 
 at the whipping boss’ hand 
 fr it 
 somebody became baraka ntozake 
 madhubuti sekou touré so you cd be 
 P, snoop, biggie, lil jon, lil kim, 
 lil slim, jeezy, uncle kracker 
 somebody else with perfectly decent anglo- 
 saxon names~fred hampton and mark clark~ 
 died shot to death at four am fr this thing 
 somebody upheld our long tradition of thought 
 dudley randall wrote about the melting pot: 
 Shove your old pot. You can like it or not, 
 I’ll be just what I am. 
 somebody died not to be called boy 
 their noble deaths allow you to be “big boi” 
 somebody bled to learn the alphabet a to z 
 giving you license with all 26 letters 
 & the apostrophe 
 somebody dreamed not this dream 
 but a way out of nightmare 
 & you wake in the middle of it–bling! 
 thinking it’s free and clear but things 
 aren’t always what they appear 
 somebody died a ludicrous death for ludacris to appear 
 a son of emmett and ishmael recklessly 
 eyeballing everyone under the sun 
 somebody learned the dictionary from aardvark to the end 
 fr yr bling 
 somebody’s black titties suckled whomever they had to 
 fr yr bling-bling 
 somebody played maidbutlerdummymammyconvictslave 
 so you cd be marilyn monroe in blackface 
 so you cd bring hollywood to the hood 
 bling 
 bling-bling 
 somebody gave one insignificant, unsung, whole wondrous 
 life fr it. 

Copyright, Judy Juanita/
All rights reserved by author.