Gil Scott-heron Enough
It was not enough that we were bought and brought to
this home as the slave, locked in the bowels of a
floating shithouse, watching those we love eaten away
by plauge and insanity, flesh falling like strips of
bark from a termite-infested tree, bones rotting
turning first to brittle ivory then to resin.
that was not enough.
it was not enough that we were chained to leg irons,
black on black with a piss stained wall forced to heed
nature's call through and inside of tattered rags that
strained our privates, and evidently years of slavery
did not appease your need to be superior to something
like a crazed lion hung up on being the king of his
corner of the cage, backs bent under the wieght of
being everything and having nothing, minds too like
bomerrangs curving back into themselves kicked and
carved by the face-straining smiles that saved my life.
that was not enough.
somehow i can not believe that it would be enough for
me to melt with you and integrate without the thoughts
of rape and murder. i cannot conceive of peace on earth
until i have given you a piece of lead or pipe to end
your worthless motherfucking exitence. imagine your
nightmares of my sneaking into a vieled of satin
bedroom and attacking your daughter, wife and mother at
once ripping open their bowels sexually like a
wishbone. imagine that magnified a million times when
you realize that the blinders have been stripped from
my eyes and I realize that slavery was no smiling
happy-fizzy party. your ancestors raped my foremothers
and i will not forget. i will not forget that Yale or
Harvard or Princeton or In-Hell because you are on my
mind. i see you everytime my woman walks down the
street with her ass on her shoulders. i see you
everytime i look in the mirror and think about the
times that i would pat myself on the back for not being
too black afterall. i think of you morning, noon and
night and i wonder, "just exactly what in hell is
enough?" everytime i see a rope or gun i remember, and
to top it all of you ain't through yet. over fifty you
have killed in mississippi since 1963. that doesn't
even begin to begin all of those you have maimed, hit
and run over, blinded, poisoned, starved, or castrated.
i hope you do not think that a vote for John Kennedy
took you off my shit-list because in the street there
will only be black and white. there will be no
Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, Conservatives,
Moderates, or any other of the rest of that shit you
have used to make me forget to hate.
there ain't no enough. there ain't no surrender. there
is only plot and plan, move and groove, kill. there is
no promise land. there is only the promise. the promise
is not vowel until we have been nerve gassed, shot down
and murdered, or done some of the same ourselves. look
over your shoulder motherfucker, i am coming.
