The Holy Mecca
Sometimes Detroit is everything I Love
Sometimes Detroit is everything I Hate
On a scale from Coney Island
To senseless violence
We’re not all bad
But then again
We’re not all great
That’s my mistake
At perspective glance
We are all great
Just in a congested space
Where we’re tricked into
Thinking we have to step
On our friend to get to 1st place
They fooled us once…
And I’m thinking if they fool us again
At what point do we start to feel disgraced?
Don’t have much room
On my plate for disgrace
So I got together with my friends
We created a play…
Let’s take it back to black bottom ..we said
Let’s call it Paradise Valley: THE NEW BLACK BOTTOM
Yeah that’s it…we liked that
And as we liked that
We started to Love it..a lot
We worked hard on a plot
A plot to thicken minds of color
Join together company’s of color
And while in the company of each other
Work to strike a financial flow so wide
That it reaches back to Africa
And writes a new chapter for
For all of humanity…
It all starts here
In Detroit
By Jessica Reed
On the city's west side,
Summer scents of blackened charcoal watered my mouth in hunger for hot dogs perfectly grilled, burnt on top.
My stomach danced to Mr. Softy’s childish jukebox,
kids on my block hustled for $1 passports to ice cream dreams.
Nothing stung like the buzz of the ice cream truck
passing us up ‘cause our shouts were unheard, hands waving into fading hopes,
rising again
when the next truck came...
By La'Shante “Shaunie” Grigsby
...I'll take the good, bad & the ugly
The cold nights under the fire
No lights but that didn't matter
It was the calm and the storm
The love from your child un-torn
It will forever remain the same
It is embedded into my soul that itches to learn of every story untold
Forever and always, I remain Detroit
by Chani The Hippie
Oscar Grant was on his way home.
Mike Brown was in front of his home.
Aiyana Jones was in her home.
Why aren't we safe in our homes?
by Heaven Harrell
A woman, beautiful in every way but what happens when that beauty is taken away? Forced into the darkness, her smile, once as bright as a sun’s ray on a summer day, is dimmed, why? Is it because she dressed a certain way? Were her jeans too tight, did her dress fit her body just right? Does that justify what he did that night?
By Rosie DeSantis
Kofi & Lauren & Louie & me
(Aaron too),
we found the hatch up to the roof
during recess, said
today, now on,
everything gotta be different...