Ghetto Life

Ghetto Life

By Nadine Thomas- Brown

Remember the days when chicken was a treat
when wi lived in a tenement pon nine union street
and di rats and di roaches
and di sound of gunshots
at night?

Remember di night dem seh rolling calf
(mi look back now and mi haffi laugh)
set Mr. Stapleton fowl coop pon fire?
roast chicken fi weeks…
remember di move ‘pon di back of di truck?
wid wi few belongings most a dem bruk up…
belongings few, but wi did have each other
fatherless but wi had wi mother
who always managed somehow to keep hunger at bay.

then the concrete jungle where male lions prowl
wid metallic paws that spit fire under the sun’s high beam,
and the night wi see di man under the tree
hands clutched ‘round the submachine
and the whores getting beat up outside our bedroom wall

remember the days we used to walk to school
and walk back home in the hot afternoon
and pray she dinner did done cook
cause hunger was a teacher and welfare was not happening.

and the longing and the praying and the hoping and the doubting
and the hunger for a better way of life( a pipe dream)
cause daddy got kicked to the curb, licked to the curb or just
sitting on the curb doin’ nothing.

Remember when the gas station fire claimed plenty friends
and police fire crush plenty ends
and the growing up little by little everytime acid put an innocent soldier six feet under

den the night mi bredda show me a gun
and the night mi start mi own gang
(black spiders) forever cause badness was the lick of the day
remembering the blood guts and gore
and knowing what I know about ghetto lore
I can’t believe how far I am from the ghetto

den di growing up den di starting over
den di looking back pon how far mi come
how some a dem never mek it dis far
how some a dem still stuck in wars
and some in limbo……..

Hell mi can’t believe mi get ‘way from the ghetto.