Sirens fly by day and night
all the seniors in the highest rise
watch the Lake reach forward
then sink back and swallow itself again.
There is no happier sunrise,
no better surprise,
than the full mood of the full moon's tide
often times, it feels like I'm wasting time.
Trying to condense all the finest points
gun violence gone domestic,
watching as crack, heroin, poverty
continue to decimate the South and West sides.
It's like a modern day Holocaust
people are feeding off each other
just to stay alive,
the kids on the streets at night
thinking the poison they sell will save their lives.
You stare at a blank wall long enough
you start to go crazy
think of how it must feel
to walk through empty fields where homes once stood
dodging bullets just to get a sub-par education
in a system that's set up for failure
systematically a people are being destroyed by the dozens,
covert population control
leading them like sheep
down the path to nowhere that leads to jail,
the illusion created by gangs
the false sense of security and parental replacement
the love they never got, the money they never had,
makes it difficult to see the light
at the end of a non-existent tunnel.
If your train has derailed
get off and walk- better yet, RUN,
run like the wind,
and hope the long arm of the law
isn't the noose you've been running towards,
hope it doesn't slam you head first into
the darkened lamp post of the midnight jungle,
face first, face down- concrete
until you are just another statistic,
a modern day slave.
There are more Blacks in the American prison system today
than there were slaves in the 1800's.
(isn't that fucked up?)
Justice is a blind eye with a patch on it,
greasy palms and sticky fingers,
runny noses and itchy triggers,
the white man has ruined the black man
with subliminal messages in fast food and liquor, pawn shops,
welfare and government checks,
locked them up in high-rise cages
in hopes that maybe they'll just
destroy themselves,
that they'll all kill each other
so we can shut off the ventilator,
close the curtain, sweep it under the rug
and whitewash history one more time.
The truth only comes when it's already too late.
My heart aches,
my heart breaks
to know the inside secrets
of a supposed first-class city.
It's hard to be proud to claim allegiance
to a corrupt government
even on such a microscopic level.
A windblown city with lead on it's shoulders
she walks stooped behind the glossy finish of the exterior...
it hurts just looking
and it hurts to know that I'm in love
with something I can not fix.
I struggle to find the balance
in my world of fledgling privilege,
in the confusion, the chaos
the police of Great Divide,
to let the outsiders know that
there does exist a Chicago out there
beyond the invisible safety net of the city's North side.
-Kelly Greenwood
