The Murder of Amilcar Cabral

By Kalamu ya Salaam

be careful what evils you tolerate

or how easily you blink away the blood of others

as though murder were simply water under the bridge

be careful, look beyond appearances

to the blind, dead fish and jelly roll funk smell the same

there should be an amber light in both your nostrils

read the fine print, don't just sign your name

to unexamined copy, your x on this earth spot

will be used one day to demonstrate that you complied

remember, every vote is a wrong vote

if you have only voted for the lesser

of what you did not want to vote for in the first place

don't claim ignorance, ignorance of reality is no excuse

a little steam of sweetening can make atrocities

palatable if you just want the illusion of health

why does a dead animal, a decapitated chicken for instance

or a angus bull whose throat has been slit, seem

to smell better after it has been cooked,

is it not still dead and decaying?

listen closely to everything that is not man made

for instance, the trees crying

their tears if acid rain scarring their tender

brittle barks as branches are cut off to make

toilet paper, ah i envy the bears who shit in the woods

at least they have cut out the charmin' middle men profiteering

off our need to cleanse our funky behinds

remember, nothing that is absolute is relevant

relativity rules us all

bach will be bach will be bach regardless of where he's played

but there can be no secondline without dancers

there is danger in reading without thinking

why are we taught to read but not to think, there

is danger, like the times picayune,

a paper in which it takes longer to read the ads

than to read the articles, early in this century

the picayune in typically backward prophesy warned us

about the addictive evils of jazz but it was too late

to save the symphony that spends millions of dollars each

year and has yet to produce a pops, a jelly roll or

anyone who has changed the way the world hears music

some of you will not understand this poem, that's alright

it took me  a long time to understand that the murder 

of amilcar cabral was just a dress rehearsal for

the inner-city slaughter of our youth confronted

by their own ignorance of hwo and what the real enemy is

be careful dear hearts, be careful

the present is not a safe place to sleep

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