Freestyling My Thoughts on a July Afternoon

by Ernie McCray

Life a bit crazy,
hazy,
spacy,
racy.
Like looking at reality
through a grease spattered
kitchen screen,
trying to make sense
of a wide scope of happenings,
white dudes
thinking they’re supreme,
possessing superior genes,
spelled j-e-a-n-s,
if you get my drift
and know what I mean.
Folks drowning in their dreams
or too scared
to dare to dream,
wanting to scream
for ice cream
but the ice cream man
is no longer on the scene
as the world
is social distancing,
asking human beings
to save their ass
by wearing a mask,
which some people
view as a task
that infringes upon their rights
to be a horse’s ass
and they’re given a pass
and now we have no idea
how long our isolation will last,
and there seems no difference
between the future,
the present,
and the past
as my childhood seems
as though it will last
longer than the days
that are now my last…
and visions dash
en masse
in my mind
and reflect in the worry lines
of my face,
too much of it relating
to a national disgrace,
an orange faced cretin
who, sans anything
approaching a social grace,
holds in his hands,
much of the fate
of the whole human race
and it seems,
if just for the sake
of the scheme of things,
that anyone with such
power should,
even if they’re not
particularly civil and nice
or sunny and bright,
at least know
the difference
between wrong and right
and possess a resume
that highlights
accomplishments beyond
screwing and suing
and hiring
ass kissing
attorneys and lackeys
who, on the whole,
have no souls,
immoral to the bone,
all about the Benjamins,
as, in their world,
not to be is a sin…
And here we are.
Americans.
Strutting our stuff
as “the chosen ones”
yet, in many ways, we stand alone,
in a world
that these known morons
have shunned
on their own
which means
we’ve got to right the world’s wrongs
on our own
but what path are we on
with some of us,
all smug and snug,
double daring
a killer bug,
shrugging their shoulders
like they just don’t care
that grandmas and grandpas
are dying everywhere,
and so too are the farmworkers
who are mostly brown
and who harvest
what little food there is in town.
What’s our direction
with some of us
speaking conservatively
like there’s something left to conserve
and others finding life itself
stomping on their last nerve?
With some of us rethinking
health care and welfare?
With some of us
calling on the Lord
in prayer
and others using His name in vain?
We’re driving in different lanes
some singing “God bless America”
while others hang their heads in shame;
some are trying to “get out the vote”
because too many folks don’t vote
and some are trying to stop the vote
by making it hard for some people to vote
dashing their hopes
with
disinformation and change of locations
and
eliminations and limitations
and
different kinds of identifications
like
chapters out of the Book of Lamentations.

But in the frenzy
I see
Robert E. Lee
and other relics
of the confederacy
falling from
heights they never earned
in our history.

With that I will end this spree
as that is a beautiful vision to me.