Hate the Game

[pinerow]

Hate the Game
© Ramón Pinero 2/1/2007


Hate the game.
Don’t hate
the player.

I’m trying
to wrap
my brain
around that
concept.

Guy walks in
takes out
an AK47
kills two
people
minding their
own business.

Their crime?
they stopped
for bagels
at the
corner
coffee shop,
instead of
heading into
the office.

I hear people
Say “hate the game
don’t hate
the player”

Little boy
off to school
thoughts of
cookies and
cartoons
dancing in
his head.

Brought to
the morgue
shot in the
head,
caught in the
crossfire
between
livin’ and
dying’.

Dying won
this round.

Hate the game
don’t hate the
player.

I cannot
seem to
get on that
bus.
I cannot
seem
understand
what has turned
into the excuse
of the moment.

R. Kelly
in a video,
and all
I hear
is
“hate the game
don’t hate the
player.

A little
fourteen
year old
girl
runs from
a dysfunctional
nuclear
blow up
in your face
family
only to
come into
the life
on East 14th;
and yes
I know it’s
International
Drive
But what’s
in a name?
A pig in evening
clothes is still
a pig,
no matter
how you
dress it.

Hate the game
Don’t hate the
player…


The Interahamwe
killed hundreds of
thousands.

In Darfur
countless souls
are being discarded
with little thought,
but we care
that Tom married Kat
and Britneys’ Fed-Ex
have a sex tape.

Hate the game
Don’t hate the player

Idi Amin
Adolph Hitler
Augusto Pinochet
Stroessner in
Paraguay
Mengele in
Argentina
Eiichman
Goebbles
and the many
who aided
the many
who abetted,

Those who
slept through the
horror of the game
closed their eyes
when the
players
played
their game.

Hate the Game
Don’t hate the
Player…

I just
can’t
wrap
my brain
around
that.