top of page
Search
Writer's pictureKayla Huggins

The Desperate Black Man (Poem)


I’ll never forget the look of desperation on this Black man

Knuckles wrinkled

Face tired with unkept stubble

A chipped tooth visible when he smiles

If he smiles


This one forever gazed with a daring fierceness

If they know he means business they’ll leave him alone

The cops still stop him

The blonde still ushers her son in the opposite direction


He is hungry, but not for privileged children

He is craving the feast of ascertained freedom

As the latest guru, tells him he is impaired by the tendrils of spiritual poverty

It's just poverty...and a world that heralds men of his contrast


He's another Black man beaten down by the rain

And people dare ask him why he is wet?


He sweats

Wiping his brow and waving at the guitarist on the corner of 3rd

A man of the hardened people

Dwellers of caves and intricately crafted hideaways

Places where you can be dangerous and brilliant simultaneously


Behind layers of concrete he is Adonis

Raw power

Not the wraith of someone else’s narrative

Or fowl needing to be saved

He is what cracks look like when they’ve been patched too many times.


73 views1 comment

Recent Posts

See All

1 commentaire


underafullmoon1111
12 juil. 2023

Very prolific indeed.

J'aime
bottom of page