A TALE FOR THE BLACK BUSINESSMAN

Step by step
I placed profiles
and portfolios
before Executives,
Governments,
and Universities
only to find
that this Black man,
who placed the Sun in the sky
and the Earth at his feet,
fed billions,
and built the pyramids,
taught an illiterate World
to use the mind
in place of savagery,
I found that this Black man,
who gave GOD a name,
and a shape to the Universe,
a man who traveled the continents
by land and by sea,
seeded the soil
and built pillars, arches, walls and domes
to be walked through and copied
like doors
this Black man now uses
in rejection
all because he is too qualified
and one more than the quota.
This Black man
leaving with the knowledge of Bach,
Chopin, and Mozart upon his lips
and the answers to both life and living
in the shadow of erasure,
this Black man
denied his quest for existence
because he is too qualified to sweep floors
-- floors he placed underneath his feet,
to sit at desks
-- desks in corporations he created with
the blood,
sweet,
and tears of his essence,
this Black man denied the ability
to build,
to evolve,
to grow
because he had the qualifications of strength
and wisdom,
and courage
conditioned by an eternity of existence,
can only but leave a resume to be considered
and filed for future reference.

A Tale for the Black Businessman by Shazza Nakim
Copyright © by Peace of Mind Publishings and with permission by Shazza Nakim