Dreams Deep-Fried
Children playing
90-degree sun
The ice cream truck hums
A tune
Kool-Aid freezes into an ice cup by noon
Momma's praying
Daddy's saying
"Children get out of the streets"
Juking to the beats
Running through the alley
Jumping double dutch
Shooting hoops
Completing homework on the stoops
Shuffled cards for bid wis
An argument ensues
A drug dealer was dissed
Shoots ring out
The intended target, missed
Dreams are scattered
Grandma shouts
Who raped my baby?
Ryan Harris had a dream
Starkeisha Reed
Our children continue to bleed
Grown Folks filled with selfish greed
Nobody knows Vincent Gordon
He took a shot
Not like Jordon
His was in the back
Are the Bradley sisters somewhere dreaming?
Hopes are shattered
Boarded windows and doors
Who comes out for laughter anymore?
Written by Sharon M. Ponder in response to inner city children losing their innocence during the crossfire of gang and gun violence. Several of the children in this poem sat in my classroom as eighth grade students, the Bradley sisters Tionda and Diamond are still missing after seven years and their mother holds a candlelight prayer vigil each year in my childhood community.
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