Tuesday, December 15, 2009

"Walking The Path"

Originally, this was a #30in30 piece, but I suddenly realized that this is a draft of something bigger.



We step down
A step
Which many take in vain
Painfully skipping histories and
Pages with each footprint
left on unstable sand
Catch them slippin' on demand for
They skip
Skip Skip
Skip on and run
Ruuuuuuuuun past their own legacies
making mockery on top speed
Running on empty
Full of shit
Dismissing their African traditions
my home is not a plate
My continent isn't mispronounced or separated by vowels mistakenly
This here is a clue to all those
keyless
clueless
less of a man or woman to
Skip skip Skip skip skip
down memory lane and
Fall and bust their asses
Cause how can you lace the truth
when you're trippin' amongst the masses
My great grandmother smothered brothers like
me, with baseball cards and Sunday dinners
near Dallas Cowboys games
My grandfather built bridges for me
with constructions and hearty laughs
haircuts from Gipson and go-carts on the back way path
My cousin did me a solid and we collaborated
on rap rock, Heavy D, Beastie Boys, and Run DMC
So we run from we...
My mother let it be known
that even until i was homegrown or foreign soil spoiled
my name will be said in all languages among the most high
to respect the women and don't tread on them on the low
and love with all my heart, and believe in the one
that casts shadows upon those who tarried, trampled
dragged, marched, stepped and never
Skipped in the unstable soil
now paved over by granite tough ancestry
Let my legacy have a leg up on me
Mentally
We no longer
skip skip skip
when we stand upon the shoulders of thee.


© 2009 Ifeanyi Okoro II

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