I'll Not Be There Poem by raymond letsitsa

When the walls of Jericho
fall on the heads of
pagan christianity
When the prison doors
slam like hip hop on the face of a rapist who took
a two month old baby's virginity
When the crimes reported about these polygamous presidents with no integrity
I'll not be there
When rastafarians are made a disgrace because of the purity of their hair
Judgments of the wise reveal the impurities of the fair
I'll not be there
When you see the leper dying
and pull him roughly from that wheelchair
When the nude arts of your satanists leaves your chest bare
I'll not be there
When you rape my sister at the corner of that bar
When you molest that lesbian in pairs because you think she don't know who you are
I'll not be there when
because of your hunger you'd steal my car
I'll never be there when
my mortuary brother rapes that corpse
I'm never gonna be there
when that prostitute sister gets killed by the cops
But I'll always be here
so that I can give you poems that deliver this message
Remember that you're not alone
In this sentence and in the middle of that passage
I wrote with
you in mind
So you can move forth
and not remember
what's left behind
The sight of the
faint-hearted cannot give
meaning to the focus of the blind
And when you seek and
can't find me here
Ask the dead next door
neighbor who got raped because of her skirt
Who ran like athletes but couldn't escape the hurt
Of gossippers talking her to the dirt
And it'll bring you near
To that message poetry always wants you to hear
Of the deaf who speak for
the poor
And I'll be there.