By Alfred Brown
This is the poem where I finally got to use the sentence that had been rattling in my brain for a few years “Everything was fine until I got shot in the face.” I wrote it first sometime, probably around 2013, then I did some edits to it around 2014 or 2015. The intention with the edits was to make the poems into songs.
11 -8 shuns
I have heard the wailing and cries and lamentations
I feel sadness and grief and other strange sensations
I know i am powerless to change their situations
I can only admire their strength and hope and patience
It is mere chance that i was born to these stations
Whereby i experience love and joy and jubilations
I can achieve and succeed and make many creations
Were it only true for all cities and states and nations
12 -can only sing
If i could id make you so happy
But that be just what that be
If i could id make you love me
But this is all there is of me
If i could id buy you a new car
But as they are funds are sub par
If i could id take you so far
Past the sky and the farthest star
i cant do anything
Anything but sing
Sing of you and the love
The love i have plenty of
Please dont ever leave me
Tell me that you really need me
Leaving would so grieve me
Tell me you can hear and see me
Say you dont want to lose me
And let some other girl choose me
Cause my life would get so gloomy
It would then mean nothing to me
If you see me and we’re about to meet
Don’t cross to the other side of the street
Don’t let you head tell your feet
To walk on by so we won’t greet
Cause you know id try anything for you
There’s not much i wouldn’t try to do
But there is much i can’t do it’s true
All i can do is sing and always love you
13 -Livin ain't easy
Livin aint easy but somebody’s got to do it
Actually we all got to go through it
But one will get done faster than the other
Never becoming a father or a mother
Never making another walk the same mile
While the other will lead children single file
And it repeats and repeats with each generation
But who’s to say to the same destination
It’s easy for one to start
And ending isn’t the hard part
The middle is where you strive
What happens while you’re alive
Dyin ain’t hard but no one wants to do it
We have to go but we want to be truant
Or we want to hasten the final release
But we aren’t sure if then they’ll be peace
Someone said that the rub is the dreams
Or the perchance of it, whatever that means
per chance or per fate, is what i wonder
What is better, or is to question the blunder
It’s easy to come and go
From whence or to, though
Is not for us to know about
But merely maybe find out