Poetry

Black folks had pride:


Black folks had pride in the 70’s,

Now the last black folks that tried is in they seventies.

Something happened in the 80’s and it wasn’t just crack,

Turned our love for the Soul into love for the cash

 

Name another black cinematic since Pam Grier

Have her own series of movies, year after year

Damn shame when you think about that

Thirty years later they had to remake Shaft

Cuz ain’t no new black character scripts written

Them roles was written for white men you be seein’ Will Smith in

Do you know what he had to do to get where he at?

Told himself by any means necessary, “oh I’m a get that”

2008 and we still living in Malcolm’s reality?

N****s is brainwashed, we need that Negro mentality

 

We Great Debaters but never on wax

Forget about speaking the truth and only spit facts

Like “I got this” and “I got that”

If you a prophet then profit by more than just talking ‘bout stacks

We makin’ billions and ain’t even tithing

10% of Def Jam could stop Africa from dying

 

We come from a people who survived off of oral tradition

Now if the beat ain’t hot then the kids don’t listen

And if the kids don’t listen then we don’t make ‘em

Applaud 3 year old divas for bootie shakin’

 

Do our children know Buffalo Soldiers were supermen?

Or do Soulja Boy just Tell Em to Crank That again

Not trying to offend, but recommend that we be conscious

Martin Luther had a dream, but he wouldn’t want this

Only a couple of us rich and we steal from our poor

Who you think they need us to endorse their products for?

 

I have a daughter who’s one and she loves 106

But I make sure she hear songs that don’t make they list

I’m not a hypocrite I love BET

We might be emancipated but Black Entertainment ain’t free

It’s held by the bondage of dollars and cents

We can’t think outside the box of a white picket fence

They gave us a dollar and we stopped trying to make change

The definition of a n**** . . . a slave without chains

 

We stopped celebrating us and tried to be them

Chasing after the paper, when mighty is the pen

Giving up our 1^st Amendment for radio play

Harming future generations by what we don’t say

Heritage cannot continue in the absence of culture

Thinkin’ We Fly High like eagles but we feeding like vultures

Don’t even know we been bamboozled and still in black face

Got the best athletes in the world but can’t run the black race

Published by H2O Magazine, May 2008 Issue, Opal Ellyse 2008

Spoken Word I Did for the Lussier Education Center’s Black History Celebration 2010

So they wanted me to talk about black history, but I’m going to tap into my southern roots and give ya’ll a little back herrstory. . .I mean Her Story. . .

And I’m a peep you to game with the story I spit,

So excuse my slang and Inglorious wit

Like a Terrantino flick I’m a start at the end,

Take you back full circle and return it to send

Can’t quite comprehend? People that’s ok,

History takes the shape of it’s beholder it’s a lot like clay

And not just cuz it’s gray with its black white ties,

Or because it’s hear say with its black white lies

But because of the eyes, that ever changing perspective,

Eyes that 5 years ago couldn’t see Obama elected

10 years before that couldn’t see poets gunned down for their words,

Understand what happened to Biggie and Pac was absurd.

Think of Langston Hughes taking shots at Zora Neal,

I digress but I was 15 and that ishh was too real.

Cuz 10 years before that my bliss was in tact,

I had this much knowledge of what it meant to be black

That it was supposed to mean lack, shoot I thought it meant pride,

Cuz that’s really all you see looking through 5 year old eyes

You see what’s inside, and resilience shines through,

I had no idea resilience comes from all you’ve been through

And boy our people have been through, and endured more than most

But we made it ya’ll, we made it, and I don’t say that to boast.

But I do raise a toast; raise it high like a Panther fist poised in the air,

That was years before my time, but my soul, it was there

It was rare in those days to find a soul without passion,

We no longer wear our beliefs on our sleeves, just logos for fashion

And we’re crashin’, not in the sense of a plane, but in the sense that we’re sleeping, unaware of the fact that we are living The Dream,

And yes we reached this destination by swimming upstream.

But we are far from done, and only just begun to see the light,

And the only way to make what happened to Emit Till right,

Is to continue the plight and fight for those civil rights

And refuse to go gently into that Good Night,

Not with this or with life.

After all the slaves dreamed that their children would be free,

And that impossible dream is realized in me.

So how much greater should my impossible dreams be?

Oh the limitless potential when a soul is born free,

So don’t say woe is me and don’t say woe is we,

Bless the child who can see beyond the slave owner’s  Free!

                                                                                                                                        -Opal Ellyse 2010

Part of my art is poetry and spoken word, if you have community or educational events and would like me to be a part of it as a non-profit please email luke@opalellysemusic,com  and I would love to.