Ransom fed my Father's Life, Do not deign to write a Mystery, Rather Crack-Cocaine and Modern Art, Could be a sufficient History, Apollinaire and Conrad, were required reading, Yet Bache-Martin Elementary School, was the Education I was needing. I was white, and they were Black, This was around 1990, A Philadelphia Tool, A lunch-bag snack, A cracker kid getting Grimy, The Blacks, They were a feral lot, They let me know I was White, And to be absolutely honest, They were indeed, Quite Right. I can't begrudge the past, Nor complain about the future, This leaves me with the bleeding Present, that I desperately need to suture.