Miles Hodges - Harlem lyrics

In H arlem they ruled the world like kings and laughed at it like children do from history's dearest neighborhood. They never sang songs but sang the innocence that their age boor, all so foolishly with every sugary step down Lenox Avenue. Singing in tune with the sun as it traveled over their heads peeking in and out of the Project high rises- And it was summer so the sun would shine down from its conceited as f** spot in the universe and fill up 135rd street like an ocean. Shine down and bounce up off the fire hydrant. Water littered crack pipe and homeless saliva sputtered park floor to curdled ten feet near, with a mix of sweat and left over cigarette smoke. Roached blunts and roached joints were scattered around the purple, pink, and black chalked R.I.P. signs as if whispering from the Concrete Jungle “I'm resting in peace and high.” Why look at all the black kids scribbling their names into the cracks in the streets They're older than time almost as old as the corner stores and sweet fruit lemon aide stands from which they sprang like trees- like dark colored dogwood trees. Scale the limbs young brothers, as if they were monkey bars or unbagged d**. These days it's pick your poison I guess That color and they have reserved half my body to call its own. Like half of me is, like my father was, and like my grandfather was, like my great grandma Annabelle too. She'd cook for you too, yes you, you with the basketball hoop and foul line for a father, back pocket journal for a mother and summer day to compare the rest of your life against. But my smile is lined by 400 years of white sin, but- I made this his poem is for you to play the trust game with- It will catch you when you close your eyes, spread your arms out wide, fall backwards, Use it as a shield when the inner city or the white man tries to shoot you down. Tell them to load their hand guns with rose petals and aim at your feet so when they shoot enough you can dance on those blood colored clouds. Tell them to load their shot guns with slugs made of me and I'll prove that bullets do know what color your skin is when I pierce your chest and tip toe vicariously around your lungs and light your heart on fire so it bursts into three parts. You, me, and the rainbow . Us. Just us. No race. Just us, and like our chained ancestors from Africa before us we will always sing. Sing, singing, singing strands of hope before they caught us black skinned symphonies, With every note before they brought us face to face with the son of man and that poet holy ghost that sinned and Her only plan, her only plan was to bathe in the endless water which still breaks from the wombs of all those raped slave daughters, raped slave mothers, and sisters, and fathers, and brothers, and lovers who'd cover their own children from their own screams, and dreams, and whiplashes if they could, - Like Harlem does Like Malcolm X Little would have, Like King stood bellowing at the future from every hill side mountain top “ Freedom will come someday, but until then as a culture in unison we pray and sing!” Sing- “I'll emancipate myself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds. I have no fear for atomic energy.” Because the “N” word, quote on quote, is a lot closer The government is a lot closer Nicotine is a lot closer Coke and Coca-Cola keep getting that much closer till I have to make like the wind and run like a two past the not so empty crack houses where the lost souls of men who k**ed themselves without committing suicide, drip down and climb up the walls like ancient Brazilian vines. So God, God of Color God of Plague God of Happiness Socioeconomic status and God of Summer Days- Break me, my light skinned and my dark skinned brothers off a piece of paradise- If not hand me pen, Point me in the right direction If I have to I will write all the colors of the rainbow away by… By any means necessary, as Mr. Malcolm would say.