Breaking It Down!

The sanctuary inhaled Ibrahim's quiet
Intercession
For Palestine's displaced, detained and dead.
Through teachers' gasps, the plea took wing
To the rafters,
Its echo settling onto our stooped small heads,
And arced over the rough gray blocks
To the cell that held Dr. King.
The doors swung open,
And the bell did ring.
All the children, breaking it down.
Come on, children. Break it down.

Inside a vine-eaten warehouse,
Under rust-soured towers,
Distorted truth buzzing through a busted P.A.,
Sons and daughters of bankers and farmers,
Miners and lawyers,
Eyes shut and hollering, hips all asway
In sweating hope, clinging to each other
Like flesh to the bone,
That they'll be able to rise up and walk
Without having to leave home.
All the children, breaking it down.
Come on, children. Break it down.

Crowned with a chain of wildflowers
Plucked from midfield,
He stands among sunlit pillars of gnats.
And, draped in the jake-brake chattering of I-20,
He twists his jersey up around his narrow white chest,
And throws his shaggy head back.
And the rowdy counsel of laughing black boys
Clap and shout:
"Cotton candy, sweet as gold!"
He rolls his hips and grins wildly,
As the other team, from over the mountain,
Points and sneers and spits and moves in close.
But, like a vision, the host draws round about him,
Arms like wings, voice like trumpets, Rasheed bows up.
He says: "You're on the Eastside now.
You fuck with him; you fuck with us."
All the children, breaking it down.
Come on, children. Break it down.