Leroy Moore

BURIED VOICES

The next generation
Is being plucked off one by one
On the streets, in schools and in prison

Little ones snuggled
In small coffins
Buried voices have many stories

Voices from down under

Have a lot to say but no one bother to listen

Buried voices speaking in harmony
They want their justice

Hunting the soulless
Young spirits creeping in the minds of the old and wary
Their hit list is endless

Years of abuse
Caught up And can't get loose

Black, young and disabled
Always been labeled
Home was not stable

Elders set in their ways
They want to lock us away
Can't teach old dogs new tricks

Christopher, Seth and Dion
Blacks disabled boys can't grow up to be Black disabled men

Buried in mainstream news
Buried in the community
Can't breath, can't hear, can't see

Layer after layer
Ism after ism
Wrapped up like a mummy

Buried voices are singing in the cemetery
voicing their short and painful history

Buried voices rising with the sun
Young disabled corps walking the earth
Talking back and heading north

Now everybody is scared
Running in fear
Cause judgment day is here

Parents, teachers and politicians
Listen to the voices
They demand your attention

Buried voices
Are always with me
They are in my head guiding my pen

I write with the blood of disabled youth
I'm their agent
Writing and speaking their messages

And they told me to tell you
Many are still in pain
Bullets and fists falling down on them like pouring rain

Poems can't bring them back from the dead
Do you hear that, buried voices want me to speak the raw truth
This poem wants you to think with your heart first then your head

The truth hurts
But it also heals
We need to get real

But I feel the tension
Every time I mention the reason
Why I wrote Buried Voices

Leroy F. Moore, Jr. is a Black writer, poet, hip-hop\music lover, community activist and feminist with a physical disability. He is the creator of Krip-Hop Nation and produced Krip-Hop Mixtape Series. Moore was Co Host of a radio show in San Francisco at KPOO FM, KPFA FM and creator of Krip-Hop radio show www.alltalk.net that lasted for two years and is a longtime columnist at Poor Magazine in San Francisco. He has worked in the field of race and disability concerning blues, hip-hop, and social justice issues in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and South Africa. He is also the co-Founder of Sins Invalid. He is currently working on a book on Krip-Hop Nation.