Capital Slam by El Jones
A poor woman evicted is on the sidewalk With her home stacked high in cardboard boxes. See how they got her out in the cold with the kids beside her Surrounded by everything from the jewelry box to her mother’s diamond box Her engagement ring came in until she pawned it off To her box-spring mattress. And her landlord got her locked out. I tell ya, she’s beside herself, because once homeless, How can she check the boxes on her welfare form? And a PO box don’t cut it as a permanent address. And down at the shelter, they’re saying they don’t got space Like this woman’s life is a gift box that Can’t be returned if you don’t like what’s inside This poverty cycle, it’s like being sent to the penalty box, Except it’s for life. And so she’s looking at her cardboard boxes, Wondering what it might be like to raise a family inside. And there are so many ways that poor women get behind. Like maybe she got cancer of the voice box From all the chemicals in those bottles and boxes of products used for scrubbing Those toilet boxes. Or mopping floors of luxury boxes, Until they laid her off from her job cleaning office boxes And in this box office, the only blockbusters are the cops, Who took her baby daddy off the block to put him in a prison box So ever since the auction block, we all end up with lives in boxes. So this poor woman has got to box her feelings in, She’s locked up tight like a strong box with No time to cry into Kleenex boxes She’s got to keep on keeping on to send her kids to those public school boxes With no food in their lunchboxes, And no computers to do homework on and type in the search boxes And they come home and beg her for XBOXs and Reebok shoeboxes That they see on the TV box. She feeds ‘em chemicals that come in boxes labeled ‘Kraft Dinner’ And sugary juice boxes Because this is the only food dropped off in food bank boxes, it’s toxic. And it makes ‘em sick; it messes with their heart boxes, Like breathing without oxygen, and it stops them from doing so well on the test Where they fill in the boxes so they can be labeled and put in the right boxes And evicted from the classrooms to resource room boxes That prepare them from getting locked up. This poor life, it’s like shadowboxing And problems keep popping up like a jack in the box So, too many men faced with disappointment end up boxing With their girlfriends’ faces. And there are not enough boxes in the rat race to fill the limited positions They fit us in like jocks, Who can box their way out of poverty, Or by hitting homeruns from the batting box, Or beat boxing to get a record deal To release a box set to play on those speaker boxes. And the deal is, the schools don’t lay the building blocks for us To build with each other on the block, And there is no political soapbox, Or our faces in the press box, And most of those who are voted in the battle box shake their heads and say Those are the brakes, so go to work on that loading deck stacking boxes, Or in that drive-thru box, Or that supermarket cash box, Or clean some big box store where they lock you in after hours, And clock your bathroom breaks And with that wage, you can’t make payment So you end up on the pavement with your home stacked high in cardboard boxes. They say that in a fiery crash the only thing left intact is the Black box from the cockpit but our families are not so indestructible And our hearts break when our lives collapse, Like in this stock market crash where our jobs are the first to hit Like how most of our jobs have been lost to boxes. Like ATM boxes and robots with brace brains made of wire boxes And you even get a voice recorded into a box when you call emergency, And some box-shaped man, behind a box-shaped computer monitor Ticks off the boxes to monitor our taxes And when there’s an absence it sends a man with a toolbox to cut off the fuse box. These economic shocks, they’re obvious on the sidewalks of our urban projects, Littered with cigarette boxes where even the busses don’t stop In neighbourhoods with no sound boxes to play in. They even cut off the public phone boxes, The cab drivers sit behind bulletproof boxes With guns in their glove boxes And refuse to drop you off unless you live in a house with that picket fence And mailbox where life is not like a box of chocolates. It’s more like Pandora’s Box, except that there’s no hope within For victims of a criminal justice, An education system designed to stop us from thinking outside of the box Because one-by-one, they are putting us into boxes, They are boxing us up, boxing us out, and boxing us in. |
|
February is African Heritage Month
Current Events
Poetry