David Beckham

Dearest Son,


Today is the day that you are born
...

The man behind the dark glasses
Motionless in bed like a flag with no wind
Expressionless in bed like a still lake with no ripples
The race against death, lost
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Ophelia
Down in the burrow; my heart, Ophelia
She came at my weakest and cursed my heart to dream of her
Her oils, flame my love so that
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Laying on God’s green earth and staring at the far away sky blue
Then came the thought of a man I knew dressed in blue
But he quickly hauled me away with a gun in his hand and we sailed to some faraway place
Not that this was a dungeon where Hannibal Lecter* lived, indeed it was no such strange place
...

Dear Poet,

You brought your words to me
Your life you shared with me
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Listen darnit and listen hard!
Catch the echo in the room bouncing off walls
Echo so heavy, it weighs on your thoughts and feelings
The echoes of human struggle and disparity amongst peoples
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How sweet was that day I was born?
When now I imagine that the sun bowed out early to the lands
And the stars twinkled all night
The low hanging moon smiled immensely
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With the birds chirping ever so softly in that afternoon sunshine
And the streets buzzing with cars going zoom zoom
The crescendo hit peak and went dead silent
When you suddenly appeared
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I hate to talk about self
Why would I want to talk about self?
But been black and educated in my community
That makes me at the same time both…
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Cry, and thousands we cry
A million, heckled and shackled, we cry
On this river of tears, we cry
Suppressed and oppressed we cry
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The man with the voice, the rage, the stick
The boy under his roof, the child, the innocent

The man with a vision, a family, a job
...

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I found you at an early age
Took you under my wings...
My joy, my love, is you
Nothing can separate you from me
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Careless whispers, heartless talk
Where are you going with this?
“Daddy was not a man for me, mother was everything”
Ignorance breeds ugly talk
...

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Some days I wish I couldn’t read
So I could stare at words which are painful and laugh
Some days I wish I couldn’t see
So everything that brought tears in plain sight I wouldn’t know
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One …two…one…two
Follow me as I take you on a journey back to my hood
Pay attention to the heart beat of the street
At every street corner a vice
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Guess who is behind the door?
The red horned devil with a staff
Need I an excuse for all my failure?
All my tribulations, all my sorrow?
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Dead tired from the heat of summer and hungry from the days labor
Had I closed early today, I wouldn’t be wandering the streets
The street is quiet as a grave, not a life in sight
Fireflies ahead headed north
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What matters of the world that cause me to deep sleep
So that I was in a class watching a sniper on the roof
Then followed the shouting from across the hallway
To save two young men’s life who were about to jump off the roof
...