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A Philadelphia Love Story |
This is my Temple…Built as a monument to you…
It’s somewhat significant that
The most important women in my life seem to have crossed paths at the same place
1st place
Who holds it is unimportant
But like that place
They collectively hold me together
Philadelphia
This ain’t a tale of two cites,
Three women,
Or four walls so walk with me…
When I say I love her like Philadelphia
It has nothing to do with brothers, Sister.
Or cities that pulse like cardiac arrest they cause
Nothing to do with inflamed organs
Constipated charm, no flow, motionless
Clogged arteries, Flutter, irregular heart, beats
High blood pressure, even better food. I love her too.
“Sound” foundation
Ain’t going nowhere, I always come back to
When she calls me
I call her…
Home.
It’s what she is
And she’s one of them…
Just a little girl.
Sobbing
Bursting as teems of people throbbing
So much so a holy ghost sat floored outside
Looking shabby
Smelling nasty as pastor walks by and recognizes an apparition in need of fellowship
Like Casper the lonely spook whisperin’ whispers to the Wiz
If I only had an epidermis
So with kid in tow
Reverend Cromwell eased on down the road…
Sat her in the back, right pew on the aisle, my favorite seat to sleep
And she did.
2 years later on a project floor
She wouldn’t see the church again, and hadn’t since Cromwell
Just dreams of it being big enough for other dirty little girls
But you know what happens when your fall actually hits the ground in your dreams
They wake up even if you don’t, So Cromwell
Got to see her again… at the wake
Only belongings, a dumpster purse with a note from her saying the contents belong to the church…
Even if it didn’t have room for her, it had 57 cents, just so other little girls and boys
Didn’t have to NOT wake up in Philly hoods on floors…
So.
Floored,
Was the Pastor and the petal of this story
Like a burning bush engulfed this rose, her love incensed the church like potpourri
In cents
That’s a measly $12.33 today
A pizza pie for another week alive, but she preferred prayers and dreams
And the pastor preached
Her now a holier ghost, her 57 cents bought him wings…
I mean
A man told her story for what amounts to, her soul
And so the story goes…
If you’re dedicated you’ll have a wing at Pearly Gate Estates to call your own.
But since here is half way, inflation rates say you get twice as much…
So 57 cents started an epidemic of giving
Including a parcel of land that was given for the measly price of 54
And 3 cents hangs framed next to a picture of Hattie May Wiatt on the new temple’s walls
A college, Good Samaritan Hospital and a big ass Sunday School, girl
Angel gave the pastor plenty of wings…it became the Halls of Temple University ya’ll.
In the heart of Philadelphia
The city mama birthed, my grandma and my girl
Girls, girls, girls…
I love you like Hattie May
I love you like I’d fast the Philly Steaks and Pizza Pie’s away just to preserve your temple
And I don’t care if it’s an urban legend
I love you like 57 cents
Like fairytales make cents
Like I’m a church, the size of a city, with brotherly people, bursting at the seams of my epidermis
A girl
Whose wave reminds me of a wing
So I carry her in
Frustrated that the world won’t fit
And just save a space…for her
© Hakim Bellamy 2007
copyright 2007
Hakim
Bellamy |
