Poetry
Kept In Kept Out
Bars on windows
three locks on every door.
Curtains drawn to hide
in from outside.
Fenced in yard,
topped in finest barbed,
keeping in, or keeping out,
concrete yards.
Through a crack in the door
he greetsa neighbor,
a chain holds them apart,
a child grows up
not knowing,
the forest or the trees,
but a sidewalk and street lamp
holding up a drunk
and no parking sign.
Neon lights and skyscraper stars
lighten dark gangways
from streets, where rivals threaten
for the color of a scarf
and imaginary boundary
drawn by OGs.
Hold your gunfire
hide your knives
hear the music play,
an artist that lived here
wrote those words.
Time to feel the notes and let them sink
in this barren lot
and let them lift us
so we can rise.