Mr. Africa Poetry Lounge!

Recession Proof Sex


the unheard screams
in the missing uneasy lives of the
unprotected innocents imported from china, europe,
russia, africa, india, the americas and cracks in between,
ever growing numbers of not yet teenagers,
clean girls, smiling sisters and daughters with inadequate fathers and brothers,
crippled mothers, families and hollow governments to nurture their tomorrows.


they fuel the oldest recession proof profession in the world;
claiming the young and youngest with failed promises and
quick lies spoken, written, read and rewritten by men
in the service of men as history denies the victims their own
stories, memories or horror voices guaranteeing that
misogyny remains the language of commerce.


that keeps the enslaved ignorant, beautiful, drugged and submissive.
sold and traded on an under/over ground world market
to men demanding profit, pleasure and "immortality"
by way of the vaginas of virgins.


the muted cries, the waterfall screams disappear
under the weight and rape of youth being stolen, defiled and brain damaged.


most innocents do not have sex as an act of love or pleasure;
they sex to procreate,
they sex to survive,
they sex to eat,
they sex to protect their children,
they sex to pay their father's and husband's debts,
they sex to better their lives,
they sex for pennies or less,
they sex to join families and tribes together,
they sex as expression of love expecting love,
they sex as an act of work,
they sex to maintain families,
they sex to keep men,
they sex to satisfy the lust of men,
they sex to question and answer,
they sex for education, promotion, and for others,
they sex for protection,
they sex as an act of religious obligation in the service
              of the pathological patriarch.


girls becoming women learn liberation on the streets of brutality
snatching knowledge, information, running routes and
modern underground railroads from the mouths of
customers, johns, tricks, coworkers, new friends and husbands.


most seeking good dreams, love and personal selection
quietly and systematically many plan to steal away into the night to
painfully make a life as goes the songs of billie holiday
somewhere, one day, finding my own way.

Written by Haki Madhubuti

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Mr. Africa Poetry Lounge