A World at War
My mother didn't give me life, she gave me time
To speak my mind, to express some insight of mine
To write a rhyme, because that expression is a right of mine
To open a mind and to fight a crime
To ask why we are so blind when our sight is fine
To stop, rewind and take time to unwind
All of the things that undermine this life
Deconstruct the pain, all the suffering and strife
How we go to war when there's nothing left to fight
Why mothers and children shed their tears in the night
You see hindsight shines the mind's light
On the darkness of humankind's plight
Because we as a people never seem to act when the time's right
But when times are tight how can we put faith in world leaders
When the strong bully the weak like cats at birdfeeders
And kids on the block stash heaters to protect themselves
And strap vests neck to belt to deflect the shells
The politician will let them kill each other to collect his wealth
And still look in the mirror every morning and respect himself
His lust for power will infect our health
And attack the masses like a virus
Darker than the iris beneath his closed eyelids
The struggle is timeless
We are blind to the violence condoned by our silence
And the cold dead eyes of the once vibrant
Youth now focused on the diamonds
They'd give their right hand for
On their hands and knees with nothing left to stand for
And damn sore from a lifetime of slammed doors and few opportunities
When gang fights and drug wars eat through communities
No failsafe plans no routines and no immunities
None of this is new to me but what loses and confuses me
Is the lack of unity and action despite the scrutiny
Of society's microscope—who will hope to fight or fight for hope
When Big Brother has sliced the throat
Of the common man and made tight the rope
Around every neck that sweats in a blue collar
Story of another daughter out on the street turning tricks for few dollars
Many kids growing up with few fathers, living nickel and dimed
Forever trapped in the cycle, a pickle, a bind
Their tears trickle with time as they wander without shoes to fill
They kill for shoes, they'd kill to choose but they choose to kill
While fat men booze and swill up on Capitol Hill
Eating their fill from the pockets of those footing the bill
And still every night they will pray for their own deliverance
Because in a sense, this world has lost all innocence
We plead repentance but we bleed for vengeance
And buy 10-karat pendants to hide a life of pain
To pretend everything is right as rain
Knowing that profit doesn't mean the slightest gain
When your life is duller than an iceless chain
Your shame burns hotter than the brightest flame
And at the end of the game—
Blood, Crip, poor, rich—we all meet the same death
Screaming war and peace, love and hate in the same breath
And when we die, still two names will remain left
Sorrow and Slaughter, the twin daughters of mankind
As blood spilled from sons killed waters the sands of time
And as tears smear the lines of a candid rhyme
I ask why those three planes couldn't have landed fine
Now that patriotism means hatred has risen, dissidence is branded crime
And the media feeds us lies and screens our eyes
As they demonize these terrorists until we bear our fists
And the scared enlist; they swear to persist until death but how fair is this?
There are no heroes when the war is a lie
The soldier is a shell of fear with nothing more in his eyes
Told of the glory and prize, not the gore when he dies
Not the gaping holes the machine guns tore in his sides
That he sheds his blood so the eagle of liberty can soar in the skies
In the name of our President—the Lord of the Flies
A morbid demise, sordid with lies but no matter how poor the disguise
Or how flawed the plan we believe it
Accept it as the law of the land because we need it
We eat it and breathe it, feed it and breed it
We repeat it and we make damn sure his preach is heard
No matter how weak his words he'd rather die first than eat his verbs
He speaks in slurs, lost in his own lies and alibis he sneaks and swerves
Heats and girds our anger hoping to reach a nerve
And people refuse to see that the meek deserve
More from their leader than a freakish urge to defeat and purge
To seize and search the whole world, he depletes reserves
He wreaks and stirs havoc like a dragon when his sleep's disturbed
But he won't sleep for sure until every city in the Middle East is burned
Leave no rocks, stones, or trees unturned-entire villages plundered
Turned over to soldiers to pillage and sunder
Leaving a wake of illness and hunger
And caught in the middle I wonder, all I can do is ask why
Why the maze of brazen lies? Why everywhere we gaze our eyes
We see another F-15 suspended in the hazy skies
From out of the shattered window of a broken home where a baby cries
Itself to sleep to the melody of sirens and gunshot lullabies
And everywhere I look around I see a war zone
Stray dogs out on the block looking to score bones
Broken piggybanks foreclose on poor homes
Kids killing kids for rocks because they can't afford stones
No more loans, and the shots dot the spot like Morse codes
But who will be there to stop our sobs
When we realize no force of arms can box with God
In a world that's ass-backwards like cops that rob
Addicts on the street looking to cop a nod
Their eyes tell me the gates of freedom are a locked faÁade
Guarded by a mercenary who mocks his job
He'll look out across his empire and praise what he's done
And when it crumbles from the inside I think maybe he'll run
My country didn't give me a chance, she gave me a gun
Told me to kill another man under the Arabian sun
But the knife doesn't need to cut me before I see the point
To see the war waged in L.A., New York, and Detroit
And my father didn't give me a pen, he gave me a voice
What you do with my gift, he said, is your choice.
