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chispoken
This poet practices good karma and posts comments 12700
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Learn youreslf before attempting to love someone else.

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BRIGADIER GENERAL

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Chi-Raq

CATEGORY

life

Views: 382

In my home town…
In Chicago…
In Chi-raq we witnessed more deaths last year
than Iraq during war with the U.S.

My home base is a battle ground
A war zone with no middle ground
We fill trenches with empty bodies
Play chicken with shallow graves

I’m from the city
Where even shooters with the prettiest of aims
Realize bullets have no names
So on any given day,
A corner you pick
Could force you to become a statistic

In my home
We play chicken with shallow graves
Raise our youth to be slaughtered cattle
Teach them at a young age to be mindless sheep
The blind leading the blind
And it’s been so many years of the same last names on obituaries
That fam doesn’t always get to say ily (I love you)
Before loved ones lose at chicken,
And bullets leave powdered stares in innocent chests

This is a plea that in my home
The next shell will be used
to build a rocket ship or satellite dish
instead of resting in the crater’s of my cousin’s flesh
He wasn’t even 18
He wasn’t even old enough to be at war

Chi-Raq
Is a war zone with no middle ground
Filling ditches with soulless bodies
Our terrain is a morbid landscape
Of potential and beauty
Overly cluttered by corners
With gun shops and liquor stores hugging the same curbs
They’ve shown us how steel can kill
Demonstrated how steel will won’t break nor bend
But I’ve acquainted too many bodies in the last year that will

A war zone with no middle ground
Overly cluttered corners
Where the abandoned and taken for granted meet
Giving systematic shakes of acceptance
Performing gang rituals of entrance
On the helpless elderly or the unsuspecting mother

In Chicago…
Back home
We’re at war with ourselves
Chi-Raq is where we plea to bullets to forget names
A war zone with no middle ground
A battle ground of trenches filled with reckless ignorance
We play chicken with shallow graves
Double-Dutch with angels
There is no such thing as protection
I play football with linebacker ghosts
Powdered smoke is on more corners than McDonalds,
So let’s look at the logistics,
And for once be realistic
On any given day
A corner you pick
Could make you a statistic.

©Paris “Chi” Butler, “Chi-Raq”. All Rights Reserved. 11/14/2013.
 

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COMMENTS

Contest Winner  

The Immortal Wize says:

Very touching truth told I know this story well and I join you in the struggle to survive.
Contest Winner  

chispoken says:

It's sad but it's my home
Contest Winner  

2b2b2 says:

Damn....truth hurts much....and even moreso for those living such a reality check....Peace onto you and yours and all the Chi-Raqz everywhere......ONE.....Poignant Share!!
 

DallasCowgirl says:

Felt this.

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