My Version of Two Poems

We were learning in class about how Negros' microsystems and macrosystems were affected by the "Jim Crow Laws" and how many people wrote poems to keep people from giving up hope for freedom. We learnt about a very famous Negro Poet named Langhston Hughes. He had made many famous poems such as "dream keeper", "Let America Be America Again", "Dreams deferred", and "Mother to son". We had to create our own version of "Let ___ Be ___ Again" (blanks are for the country the person lives in), and "Generation to Generation" using our own microsystems and macrosystems.

Let america be america again

"Let America be America again"
By Zachary Shaya and modeled after Langhston Hughes' "let America be America again".


Let America be America again
Let it be the awed land it used to be.
Let it be the developer of the world
In peace and harmony.

(America never was peaceful for me)

Let America be the land the people had foreseen
Let it be that big developed land of peace
Where never things are robbing we
That no man is overtaken by greed.

(It always seemed like greed to me)

Oh, let our land be a land where harmony
Is never killed for unnecessary greed,
But our hope is peace and amity,
No weapons hidden in the leaves.

(They've always used weapons towards me,
and never had peace in this "Land of Amity")

Say, Who are you who chatters behind the door?
And who are you who stops the way my message works?

I am the forgotten man, pushed and shoved about,
I am the slave with no place to be seen.
I am the infant who was a slave's son,
Never knowing what was "fun"

I am the pioneer, new to the land
Fearing that past and scaring pain.
Of Enslaving the natives, Of stealing their land,
Of killing those who try and wreck the plan.

I am the innocent baby, getting killed right on sight
I am the slave, knowing they were not right
I am the soldier, who was recruited on sight
Not knowing what to do in a fight.
Being shot when trying to make peace with all might.

Yes, that is they way they are in peace.

Peace?
Did I say peace?
Nobody here did?
So who?
Definitely not the millions who want it?
Or the 10's of 1000's of soldiers?
The millions of farmers beaten and robbed?
For all the people who'd been shot
and all the innocent children who'd died.

Generation to generation poem

Well, I'll tell you;
Life for me hasn't been no steady drive
It's had close calls
And potholes
And blown out tires
And broken bumpers
But all the time,

I've been driving on
And making u-turns
And sometimes going at night
With no headlights
So, boy, don't get out now
Don't you walk away now
Because you'll find there's nowhere to go
Don't you abandon the drive now-
For I'm still driving, honey
Still driving on.