Hate
It’s the same hate
That made the snake
give the grape
to Adam and Eve
when they were out on a date.
It’s the hate behind a rape;
It’s the fate of KKK;
It’s the way of CIA
and the bashing of a gay;
when the cover of the night
meets the passion of the day.

And the same hate
incarcerates
and locks a kid away.
It’s what makes a ho a ho
and what earns a pimp his pay.
It’s what fills up all the lakes
with pollution that we make,
and what makes a girl ashamed
of the darkness of her face
or the fullness of her waist
or the fact her mother can’t
speak the language of the state,
It’s what makes a holiday
when we used to celebrate
a holy day in sacred space;
Now we fold and mutilate,
we boldly desecrate
what the Most High did create
as we gamble with our fate.
Did you see the Golden State
pass a law to designate?
In attempts to make it “safe”
Now the youth are “all in gangs”
and we destroy a block a day
as our sons get locked away.
Yet we wait for clocks to say
that its’ too late to plot the way.

And the same hate:
it blinds a face,
binds and separates
When we’d rather look to race
than our own humanity.
Use this hate to motivate,
We can make a plan a day.
Instead of screaming “keep it real”
Really keep your family
If a man abandons hate,
then his situation ain’t
a mountainful-it’s nothing more
than a ripple on a lake.
And the power she relates
is like a nipple to a babe
whether cripple or a slave,
presidential or a knave;
Incremental in the change
when you rearrange your brain
mental frame
bend the grain
lend your name
it remains
simply plain
when to change:
End the hate.