We need a Nelson Mandela

America needs its own Nelson Mandela
Someone we can sing songs about
Someone in whose name we
The people
Can take to the streets
And take matters into our own hands
I'd do it
But I'm not a forty year in prison kind of guy
And I'm already nearly forty years old
Besides
For the prison time to be worthwhile
You have to be able to convince folks
That they are suffering
Under a sort of class focused apartheid
A caste system
If you will
A social order
Put in place and enforced by both custom and law
And I can't convince my wife
That family story is a good idea
And just as a two year old doesn’t listen every night
Every one isn’t perpetually untouchable
And everyone doesn’t see me as my wife does
And Nelson Mandela wasn’t a poet so
I’m not the Nelson Mandela that America needs
But maybe if he or she does emerge
I can convince my wife to let me
Write poetry about it