I had the license to drive it.
I got it so I could drive the
grain trucks for white farmers to
big old Kansas City while wearing
my big hat and my big boots;
learning to cuss just a little.
Driving to pay my way through school
and on to something else
and starting to lose my mind.
But now there I was across
the state; might as well have
been another world.
There I was in St. Louis
right in the shadow of Pruitt-Igoe;
warehouses for black folks
built by white folks who did
not understand or did not care to
know the truth of what was.
There I was
trying to make sense out of a
country that no longer made
any sense to me; John and Martin
and Robert were all gone and so were
Chaney and Schwermer and Goodman.
So here I was
trying to dip my toes so carefully
into waters that I knew nothing of
because I could not stay away.
I had the license to drive it.
So I was not so much asked
as appointed -
White college boy
we need you to drive the bus.
You have the license and
we are going to Karo.
So I drove the bus to Karo.
In some places this would be Cairo
but in Illinois it is Karo
kind of like the syrup;
all sticky and sweet
too much of it
and you shit for a week.
Just works that way here
amid the hot and humid
amidst the decay and
forgotten hopes.
I had the license to drive it
Little rickety old bus;
yellow like we wouldn’t be
seen otherwise.
Black and white folks
were always noticed riding the bus
together in 1970.
There was no mistaking our mission;
there was no confusion about where
we were going.
Riding the little yellow bus to Karo.
Those white boys in Karo
don’t care who you are.
If you don’t fit in
you might not get out.
Little yellow bus to Karo.
It was the hot summer time
but the living was not easy;
not for folks of Karo and not for us
and the only AC was the holes
in the floor board of the bus
that drew the wind through the windows.
The same ones that would let the
cocktails through once we made it
to Karo;
Cocktails all lit up for us.
We knew the stories of
other buses in other places.
Little yellow bus to Karo.
I had the license to drive it.
We arrived in that tiny, big place
small sliver of land between 2 big rivers
waiting for us to fall in.
Accidents do happen in Karo.
And so we marched down that
Sad and forlorn main street.
Little ol’ white country boy
scared as the day was hot.
But we marched behind folks that
were no longer scared
no longer willing to wait.
We marched through
the deathly, stinking quiet
and saw the eyes
of the folks of Karo.
Folks that might have wanted out
but who wanted us out even more.
(Funny how we might have all
wanted the same things)
We marched from one end and back.
We looked up and into those eyes
and saw those sly smiles.
Hardly a sound was made
except for beating of the drum
by the Black Panthers leading us
like we knew what we were doing
and where we were going.
Like the Panthers would lead us
across to the promised land
if we only walked on.
And when it was over
we got back on our little yellow bus
and the little yellow bus took us home
and the only difference we made
was in ourselves.
I had the license to drive it.
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