The Sounds of the Ghetto
A Ghetto Ballet ( Part Two )
Only during the summer months,
is when you could hear
the sounds of the ghetto
floating through the air,
screams were almost like
a musical beat,
and it wasn’t so much
the August heat,
but the humidity,
that kept the people on their feet,
and it made it an edgy city,
death doesn’t really need a reason,
but it does enjoy the summer season,
mothers were crying
because their young boys
were fighting and dying,
and in the housing projects,
a man shot in the head,
lies dead,
on a blood soaked carpet,
then a woman on the bed,
blood splattered all over the wall,
no one would hear her call,
first, forced to breathe into a pillow,
hands and mouth taped,
sodomized, beaten and raped,
then down the hall,
violence continued to coat,
a dead man
with a hole in his throat,
so deep you could see the whole thorax,
blinded with Clorax,
summer should be the time for fun,
not watching a homeowner,
looking out his window clutching a gun.
© 2012 Frank Atanacio