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    Love the Ones You're With

    In the 60s and the 70s

    The economy was booming

    Guns and butter

    Better times were looming

     

    But not for everyone

     

    Sit-ins and marches

    Riots and rebellions too

    Trying to level the playing field

    Tired of not making do

     

    The blacks insisted

    The whites resisted

    The browns were two-fisted

     

    So the door opened a crack

    Room for a few who were new

    What did people do?

     

    Two by two

    They entered America’s ark, a new place

    Equally unequal

    They came color by color to state their case

    Black Brown Yellow Red

    Separately they made their bed

     

    The idea took hold:

    Love the ones you’re with

    Black Brown Yellow Red

    Separately they made their bed

     

    A few got through

    And moved on up

    A few more got through

    And moved on up

    But then came the 80s

    And the economy moved on down

     

    It was morning in America

    Time for Reaganomics

    Worldwide competition

    The race to the bottom had begun

     

    Today

    A generation later

    Seems like everyone’s sliding down

     

    From redneck to Rastafarian

    And everyone in between

    No health care

    No wealth share

     

    Does poverty still have a color?

    Yes!

    Look at any prison

    It’s not just the rich who are missing

    Once the book of exodus said

    There’s a job in Chicago for anyone from anywhere

    Now it’s ninety per cent black teen unemployment there

     

    Does poverty still have a color?

    No!

    There are counties in Kentucky and West Virginia

    Where over half the kids are poor

    And Rust Belt towns are now the outer ring of inner cities

    The factories have left

    The gravy days are no more

     

    Does poverty still have a color?

    Let’s just say the situation is fluid

    And that fluid is building up

    And the dam’s about to break

    When the stock market crashes

    And the real estate bubble bursts

    Your house note

    You won’t be able to pay it

    If you got a prayer you better pray it

    The sheriff will come and he will say it:

    “Get out! You cannot stay!”

     

    There will be a rainbow of repossessions

    Two by two and ten by ten

    When this will happen nobody knows

    But our economy cannot last

    Its only foundation is credit card flows

     

    The middle class of every color

    Will be pushed out into the street

    Sharing what space they can find

    With the new folks that they’ll meet

    Those others without a roof or a floor

    Those others who never got through the door

    The homeless

    The gangs

    The welfare moms, the Gulf war vets

    The immigrants who gambled on America as the land to place their bets

     

    This will give new meaning to

    Love the ones you’re with

     

    Love the ones you’re with

    A change of thinking so profound

    Makes you wonder if we’ll hear that sound

    So we have to ask the poets to get us ready

     

    From redneck to Rastafarian

    And everyone in between

    No health care

    No wealth share

    We have to ask the poets to get us ready

    To love the ones we’re with

     

     

    Poem / 2007

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