Bone to Pick

December '61.
my Dad's wages light.
Still on that salary
we, all four, could sleep tight.

Right now if you drank from
that very same well,
you'd need a run of luck
to score a bed in a trick hotel.

Is this the legacy of
too much for too few
that I see?
The kind of legacy that's
tossin' some good men
to their knees.

The 'Great Society's'
maligned concrete cage
sits dead and vacant now -
at least it kept out rain.

With all those corners cut
the cracks grow wide and near.
I heard some cash was saved
but where it's gone ain't clear..

Who goes down next I don't know.
I don't know nothin' anymore.
Tomorrow's legacy that's
layin' in state
awaits reprieve.

I always thought that when a man goes down
you do your best to pick him up.
But how can the milk of kindness trickle down
when it's syphoned off and cheats the cup?

That's the way it begins -
you try to behave,
yeah, you try to fit in.

But when you rise and stand
you find a lock-step march -
no room for jazz.

Born bad-
with a slight-o-hand
I go from jam to jam
with a crash, boom, bam.

Born bad -
I dodge a sucker punch
and drop a bomb, like Liston,
on an animal hunch.

I've been down.
Yeah, I've spent some time downtown.
I've covered sacred ground,
soft and slow and round.

I gave up.
Yeah, I learned to give it up,
thinkin' that's the final cut.
But it turns out I was wrong.

Born bad -
that's the way it began,
stuffed a young pink lung
down a rank glue bag.

Born bad -
this is where it all lands
for a bull headed, corner hangin'
problem child man.

I grew hard.
Over time my scars toughed up.
When gettin' even just wasn't enough,
I had to choke my conscience off.

I've come far.
Yeah, I had to travel far.
Peel through layers sick and raw
just to taste and touch once more.

Born bad -
like a synchro-mesh shift
that's stuck in third
just smokes and burns.

Born bad -
with a cig-hangin' lip.
A talk-back baby on a
star-crossed ship.

We must fight
the good fight
changing wrongs to rights.

Like Malcolm X -
kissed off his slave name,
kissed off his master's god,
raised his fist in righteous rage.

And Dr. King doesn't rest in peace
due to the spread of this disease.

The clock
has struck thirteen
for all us pups in Centerville -

'cause this triage
ain't no solution.
Heaven help the man who can't sing or dance.

Who cast the stone at WWII
'bout the good neighbor turnin' on the Jew -
when time will recall us in the same breath,
you and me?

Fight the good fight.

The scope gun of indifference
is trained on our souls.

The gravespin of heroes
seeds the cloud with dust and blood.

Not buried deep enough
to distance the thunder of truth.
(better bullet-proof your boy).

Bullys are cowards naturally,
spin on one and sink your knee,
right the wrongs of history.

Fight the good fight.