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Orange sherbet ice cream, oatmeal cookies the smell of dove soap, grandma’s spaghetti Black-eyed peas and hot buttered hot water cornbread
Family reunions barbeques and holidays Food family and fun
New additions fiancés, girlfriends and boyfriend’s Old people and new babies
Tacos wrapped in light orange paper Delicious egg rolls and soul food cafes
Thousand Island dressing Red patent leather book satchel
Red, green and blue plaid jumper over a crisp starched white snap down shirt
Steep driveways, bikes, skateboards Green grass, doorbells and the smell of liquid pledge
Friendly neighbors, barking dog’s lonely back yard fun
Pooper scoopers, garage filled with toys treasures and memories
Large plate glass windows 7up floats, gin and tonic, rum and coke
The sound of Motown Palm trees, sidewalks, Johnny Carson and the 11:00 news
Breadboxes, cookie jars, penny jars and pocket change Credit cards, wig shopping, Sears, fezzes and lodges
Airports, air planes and long vacations Nuns, volleyball, bat mitten, white t-shirts and blue gem shorts
Pop aid and britches Loud burps and foil funny frats black and white checkered floors, Floor heaters, clothes lines mass and confessions
Potentate, hats and watches Scary rallied polis, white wall-to-wall carpeting
Early morning mail delivery Comfort of a room called a den Rotary dialed phones, catholic and public schools
Smell of royal crown, Dixie peach and pressed hair
Crossing the Tracks
Railroad tracks, gang turf and sects Helicopters, gunshots, family feuds Black and white police cars, junkie’s pushers and pimps
Afros, black panthers, bean pies, and soul train line Welfare government cheese
5 twin beds in one room Rat’s roaches and mice Beans, ketchup and rice, Thugs, killers and gangsters
Walking canes, blue against red, drive by shootings, Fires riots and lootings, Starched creased Levis and ies,
black broke back corduroy house shoes Old man hats and derbies Domestic violence, senseless shootings
Heroin addict withdraws and kicks Skid row, Angela Davis and the FBI Patty Hurst, Ted Bundy, Helter Skelter
Imperial and Avalon, Jordan downs and Nickerson gardens Slang talk, Crip walk, Levis and chucks
Ten speeds, radios and turntables, eight tracks, albums, Schlitz malt liquor, MD and old E Tuna fish, potato chips and red kool aid
Young funerals, cussing, fussing and stabbings LAPD beat downs, cluttered jails and prison visitations
Viet Nam, hungry children dope fiend parents Tricky and the peanut man Hand me downs Moms and her man sex sounds
Potato wine, machetes, dead hookers, tigers and monkeys Buffalo nickels and Indian dimes,Fake uncles, dollar boogies and magazine dreams
Doughnut biscuits, back alleys and sun valleys, Reported shootings, riots and lootings Black power, solid, slide me some skin
Express yourself, say it loud I’m black and I'm proud Martin, Malcolm and Mandela Water gate, Soledad, son of Sam and San Quentin
Broken limbs, angel dust, jerry curls and jelly beans, Windowpanes, flips and bangs
Touch football, broken bottles and bike ramps “Yo mama†capping and bagging
Pop locking, break dancing and street fighting What up cuz what up blood Bounty hunter here Hoover Let it rain let it drip aint nothing but a Crip
RUN DMC, NWA and the Sugar Hill gang, the smell of burnt pancakes Baptist church, old long-winded preachers
3.50 In the collection plate, Youth choir, Sunday school, Sunday morning message we all going to hell except the preacher man
Swift blows of the Holy Spirit, Fried chicken and chitterling dinners, crooked deacons and hateful preacher’s wives
Vacation bible school, crackers and Welches grape juice, Standing room only on Easter and Mother’s day
Prissy smelling cousins, alcohol soaked uncles, Shouting aunts and forced baptisms Precious Lord and Amazing grace
Get me the hell up out this place Yellow jackets and valiums Spade games, dominoes, and shooting carps
Loud music and smoke weed filled rooms All wrapped up in a ghetto hell
