Maria Kennedy

Maria Kennedy is a traveling nurse with a Bachelors of Science in Nursing from Univerisity of North Carloina at Greensboro. She has lived in numerous states and cities throughout the USA, but California is always her favorite place. She has traveled internationally for leisure and with the American Red Cross but desires to do more work outside of the USA to help the medically indigent. Her first major in college was physics and she wants to encourage more minority youth to pursue degrees in the sciences. Her first poems were written at age 9 for an assignemnt in class. However it was not until 2005 that she first read her poems publically. She was a featured poet at the Poets Jazzhouse in Los Angeles on Crenshaw Blvd. "It was the first place where I actually felt comfortable reading pubically. I thank everyone there for encouraging and welcoming me into the family." If you are ever in Los Angeles, check them out. Maria's message can be summarized with one word, love. Her hope is that more minorities will see the need to volunteer. The best book she read this year was "Life of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins. The funniest book she read was "Wy Black Men Date White Women" by Rajen Persaud. "My desire is that people turn off the tv and turn the pages of a book. The truth is out there but like wisdom, you must seek it.". Maria Kennedy can be reached at jislove@hotmail.com.

I remember looking at the little black girl

I remember looking at the little black girl
I was angry with her, upset, insulted by her look
Why doesn’t she just comb her hair-I thought
She knows she shouldn’t look like that
Look like what? You know-look like that
Like kinks, curls, waves, and coils bouncing
Like a bullhorn resonating, like a black voice announcing
Look at her self
Look like the way God made her
Why
Well even with her hair in many or even a single braid
She is less offensive
She is less intimidating, give her a perm, straighten her hair then she
is more worthy of dating
She is demonstrating
Assimilating
Into a society that will never accept her whether she looks like them or
looks like her self
That is stimulation for my psychological scalp
I can’t figure out where I am going, where I have been, or where I am at
Now I’m looking at the little black girl
I was angry with now I love her
I embrace her essence in natural form
I am not insulted by her natural form
I am insulted by the uniform belief
Universal code, American creed
That states little black girls are not beautiful curls
Nappy locks, dreadlocks, are all part of a dark underground world
Straight hair is better
Never again
I won’t believe words from that voice
I will believe in the little black girl within
She should look like that
Look like what
You know like black
Like kinks, curls, waves, coils bouncing
Like the spirit of God, his voice announcing
Look like I made you


Remain in chains

Why is gas so high
He says it is because there is a war
But if that is the case, we control the place, so we control the prices once more
He controls the place, and the place and the rate and you get pimped
every time you walk through a gas station door
And why was the voting act for blacks allowed to expire, why would
anything like that have time constraints
He needs to remind all of you slaves, niggas, negros, colored, black,
African-American people that no matter how you call it, you still remain in chains


Television is No Vision

U believed what they tell you and you’re lying to yourself
In your mind every word you read confirms to you that the truth can’t
come from anyone else
A poll was taken and another study done
When was the last or even the first time you were included in one
Yet you believe somehow that it must be a true representation
Of the state, standard, and lifestyle of everyone in this nation Contemplation
Every line sold on the shelves of media in the bookstores and magazine stands of America
Every line sold is just that a line sold and you don’t realize the need to beware
U believed with your ears when you heard Bush on stage
Telling lines of how he loves everyone while his policies appropriate
mistreatment of Mexicans and gays
U believed with your eyes because you saw him on television hug two blacks and one Latina
But his arms and eyes weren’t embracing on 9/11 and he refuses to close out problems of Katrina
The money isn’t available for the victims of Katrina b/c they their tax dollars were sent to Iraq
So they tell you with a telethon and some sad music it is your job to give to those who lack
U believe with your heart that actions speak louder than words
That it is why you see what they want u to believe and don’t what not supposed to know
On television did you see Bin Ladens family flying out on 9/11 two thousand and one
Or did you only know after watching the Michael Moore movie just how things were done

Bush is doing a whole lot and 90% of it we’ll never see
Only the 10% cut edited and reviewed for your TV
His hands arms and hands are occupied holding oil fields of gold
Money runs through the senate like chill on cold
Like crack on blacks, like HIV on the poor
It is not happenstance thousands die but Magic lives like he has the cure
You see him living it up and on and on
Without one mention of how these medications should become affordable for the poor
Has he fallen for the television scheme too?
Opening up Starbucks in CA and Chicago but not a hospital or a clinic
Can we get out of tvland, stop dropping money at the Starbucks stand and give our people one minute
One minute on television for every civil rights victim who died
One minute on television for every time a president lied
One minute on television for how cancer causing chemicals are in our food
One minute on television for acrylamide, no it’s not on television but it’s in our food
One minute on television for lawful genocide (Sudan)
One minute on television for every time Koffi Anan turned his African face
Away from the situations annihilating his own race
One minute on television for tears I share
One minute on television for truth is one minute that will never be there
Get out of the television and get your own vision
Life is not rehearsed or edited
No money to feed the poor
More than enough money to blow up innocent victims of war
Sure the drug problem in America the government continues to fight
Fight to keep the rich on the top making money and the poor on their
backs talking about what ain’t right
Just really think and ask yourself “why is the war on drugs still going on”
It is never supposed to stop b/c when it was started it was already won
Crack is placed in our hands, and we continue to get the job done
Bush cooks crack, he just does it in your kitchen with your hands
He makes top dolla but you have the nerve to say “I’m the man”
Only on your block
You have money but cash isn’t stock
You have value but a Lexus isn’t an investment
You have a plan but no last will and testament
You got bank but it was never your money
That is why the police came in they laughed in your face but u didn’t find it funny
There will not be laughter from your mouth when the man takes back his crack
There will only be handcuffs and lock up while you fall flat on your back
Now limited to fast food employment because the charge on you is for life
Now limited to make a profit sufficient enough to eat now limited on choices to do right
You now have 2 choices struggle and work or glide while you sell
Sail like a sailboat yourself straight back to "living hell"
Where your product has life or death consequences to even the ones who don't use it
don't smoke it don't abuse it
we are all victims every time we walk through the ghetto every step is another chance
chance for you to die after a crack addict cracks your head
trying to stick you for your paper, but you don't have enough so now you're dead
while babies are born addicted to a substance they did not want
while mothers walk away from the hospital like zombies unaware that life starts at birth
unaware that they walked away from life and returned to their death
the slow sinking kind that comes with every inhaled breath
of the killer crack, sold from the bloody hands of one to another to another
let us not blame or give another line of that lame, "the man is killing us" when the brown hand gave it to his "sister or brother"
In their minds they say thank you for the continual genocide of your selves
Keep selling that crack, from Black hand to Black and your only excuse is the man.