***Inspiration by fellow poet & good friend: LeJuan Bowens - CEO Of So Many Words Ent. and member of IREP Mag. - we "used" to go back and forth regularly on so many pieces.***

BLACK POETIC EXPRESHUNZ
BY: KEENAN M. GORHAM
(The Renaissance Poet)



I Am America
(----To Be Continued)
(c)2008 LeJuane Bowens


I AM AMERICA
Continuation (response) by Yours Truly:
“The Endowed Hand – The Renaissance Poet”
(c)2008 Keenan M. Gorham

I am......... America
the place where freedom fighters fight for equality
but their intentions are unequally yoked
and my officials more crooked than the black seas that run
through me ‘cause they’re too afraid of foreign nations to see
the purpose of the liberties I own
My worth now manipulated ‘cause all my presidents have lost their
precedence and all my trades reduced to falsified insignias
my enemies are able to strip away my eye of regality
and trample atop the crest of my centuries,
‘cause even though I’ve come far from being just ameri-KKK-a
to now an am-iracal homeland, my defense is at its weakest
and all my departments within raw dawgin’ each other while just leaving
their shit in the Bush’s tryin’ to over mastermind one another
I still don’t have my own authority nor am I able to
call peace treaties when that’s all my sisters and brothers bein’ askin’ of me
I’m still segregated like the Kings and Kennedy’s that once
promised to uplifted me, from fields to plantations and
boardrooms to oval offices my children die nightly in my arms
no-matter what I do, and even as I raise the bars of egalitarianism
no-one supports me when it’s all said and done so my parties
within themselves drive great wedges like the legendary woods
and leave nothing but jack-asses and selfish dumbos in charge
fiscally I run myself into depressions and wonder why I’m depressed,
Nationally I’m indebted but regionally I’m acquitted when
everyone’s stalkin’ me and my markets are shot to hell in my
streets where bulls and fifty flags sleep
All time highs hit me and all time lows fuck me...
Yeah! My head covered in black face as the world watches me get
slain, it’s hard bein’ America when no-ones tryin’ to back your
name or honor your worth
Some of my bills are forged – to purchase wages meant to destroy
and some of my bills are vetoed –to ensure those wages
are unwaveringly deployed
My own people build their foundations on the premise of my short-comings
and my allies remove their foundations on the speculations of my
incompetence, and it pains me
I’ve given my all to make sure everything and everyone I’ve enlisted
gets a chance and all things are secure, but I am spited
From the land of the free to the home of the brave
I’m the one enslaved...
I’m killin’ myself tryin’ to evoke peace when I myself function off of
upheaval. As I attack I’m bein’ attacked, as I grow I’m bein’ torn down,
as I create new laws I’m bein’ accused of breakin’ others
and actually... I do it all because I don’t know what else to do
I am America, America is not me therefore those I raise bump
heads on my beliefs and my convictions
My motto: “Be all you can be and be an army of one”
but none of my own step up and be what they’re destined to be,
but rather what they’re afraid not to become and none hold dear
to the creed to be an army of one but rather an army fighting amongst
one-another that is
So even the change in my currency exhibits iniquity –
In God (I do not trust), In me (I have no united front) and for
my states (none honor me as an abiding country) therefore
This much I know is true...
I am one nation, under no-religion with no recourse but tragedy
because all that I’ve ever stood for, now falls down to victimization,
illegitimate reparations and predictable violence
There’s a war...war...war... in America
and I’m tryin’ to get away from me as we speak

I am America...
America I am...
but America is not ME!




(c)copyright2008-Keenan M. Gorham