The brown man was sang

Some sort of sing-song tune.

I watched him mesmerized

In this month of June.

I asked my father

What was the matter

When the man went away

To the "coloured" section

Of the restaurant.

My father stated

"That's the way it is,

was and always will be."

He frowned at me for asking.

He always frowned at me,

I rarely remember his smile.

In fact, I rarely remember him at all.

The brown man sang his tune,

Tapping his jingle-jangle feet.

Tennis shoes with bottle caps

Glued on the soles.

Man, he could dance, sweat on his brow.

My father waited until the crowd thinned,

Then we left to go home.

"We don't discuss these sort of things," he said,

When I asked him again.

What did I know?

I thought "coloured" meant me too.

I was seven or eight,

What did the world know?

06/17/1971

Author's Note: to growing up in the sixties...

Posted on 10/18/2007
Copyright © 2024 Joe Cramer