The black robed mistresses warned in strict and knowing tones
Never to watch “B” movies
This, when the siren song of sex had yet to sound in our brains or loins
This, when we, bewildered, could not tell a B movie from a bee hive.
And so we stood gravely upon the parapets of our mortal souls
Poised to turn away any invader daring to sport the dread letter “B.”
Meanwhile, our “A” movies taught us
To fear bare-chested red savages who warred irrationally against our kind
To laugh at lazy sweaty brown men who dozed daylight siestas at cantinas in sandy towns
To detest the vicious yellow men who, in their madness and bile, guided planes and selves into our ships;
To find it natural that Black men were always the butler, the servant or the clown;
To settle all disputes with blazing arms and flaming cannons;
To chuckle at women with ambition beyond dusting and washing,
Whose role on space ships was to wear short skirts and serve coffee to the pilots;
To sideline the crips, the dumb, the spazzes, the retards and the fags.
Come to think of it, the mistresses had it backwards.
A megadose of Vitamin B:
Bare bazooms, booming bars of blues, blacklisted bohemians
Was the supplement that led to our soul’s salvation.
Image generated using Dream Studio
Love the twist in the last few lines.