UNFINISHED BUSINESS
our social happiness and wellbeing
has been crassly and commercially
reduced to getting and keeping
a job, a new car, a man
some women, some money
but our people are really unhappy
children out late in the chill
of cold night seeking companion warmth
instead finding sewer sex and their pictures
pornographed in glossy slicknesses
our elders caught in catatonic states
half eaten cans of animal food
hidden in their pantries
no use looking at poverty
sisters dressed up, made up
without bras, without men
without genuine touches to share
with children but no future
other than drag
brother behind bars
segregated into cells
jails and mental homes, electricity
shot into their ears, white coated
blue suited bullies beating them
and intravenously feeding them
how many of us can grasp
struggle in these circumstances
how many of us dare dream of tomorrow
with optimism,
especially while waterways are on fire
chemicals color our horizon and
every possible diversion is thrown at us,
discos and dee-jays rubbling the air
with jibber jabber and no sense,
capitalists and presidents talking
turgid trash and tall turkey tales
about economic and moral recovery
while poor people of the world
rush toward revolution
we are unhappy because we are
oppressed and exploited
i write this poem
as insistent reminder
of the unfinished business
of revolution
liberation will bring love
—kalamu ya salaam