I wanted to revoke
The black man’s legacy,
But now I cough and choke
As fortune beggars me.
I wanted to stand tall,
A man of words and wisdom,
But I was really small
Propped by a cheating system.
I did my best to bend
The rules to stop that man,
To lie and slander, spend
Great effort—hate to fan.
Contemptuously I did
My best to show disdain;
No disrespect I hid
But made the matter plain.
And after all that effort
I’m made to feel the fool;
Hope’s prospects by time Zephyred,
Subject to ridicule.
My sun begins to set,
An old man, sore reduced
To shame not over yet
As stems from truth traduced.
Except in mockery
My name will not live on—
Because that hated legacy
I lose, if truth has won.