A special team
shot a dream last night
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway

Streams of blood
flood the Bronx tonight
Off Broadway
Off Broadway

Is this what Africa
means to me?
Oh hell no
Oh hell no

It's not like you were looking
at a plastic bouquet of white roses
while pissing in your mother's bathroom
and hope that today was not the day
that you bumped into four cops
who happened to wake up
with a bad case
of contagious shooting

From the Bronx to El Barrio
there were enough shots to go around
we heard you fall face first
into your lobby of equal opportunity
forty-one bullets
not giving you enough time
to hit the floor
with dignity
forty-one bullets
like silver-colored push pins
holding up a bloody
back to Africa announcement
on the sheet rock
where your body is mapped out

Before your mother kissed you goodbye
and blessed your dream to go make it in America
she forgot to look at the evening news
she forgot to tell you
that mosquitoes kill in this country
and kids get shot in schools and churches
and are mourned for a whole year
while you go away quietly

Before you could show your I.D. and say,
"Officer —"
four glock clips went ahchoo
and smoked you into spirit
and by the time a special street unit
decided what was enough
another dream submitted an application
for deferral
it was la vida de la surpresa
surpresa de la vida
and you probably thought
I was gonna say loca
but be you prince
be you pauper
your color
makes you a usual suspect
around here

By the time you hit the floor
protest poets came to your rescue
legal eagles were ready to fly into dream teams
your mother was on t.v. looking suspicious
at the defense
she knew that justice will keep one eye open
for the right price
By the time you hit the floor
they said they forgot everything they learned
at the academy
and the mayor told them
go and beat up a million black kids
who try to celebrate themselves
while your spirit seeped through the tiles
in the lobby of your equal opportunity
through El Barrio
through the Bronx
there were enough shots
to go around