Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Rage/Grief

I never want to go to another rally where we play the same rhetorical political games with the same mouths that speak the same language as the system that can justify 

justify, justify.

I want to build a bonfire. And I want the drums to beat. And I want ululation instead of words. I want to call on our backbones. I want to watch skittles simmer in the heat. I want to wail

for every gunshot that's ever carelessly left its home and found tender flesh in a black man

I want to scream for every black woman who has left pieces of her soul on the ground. I want to

hear a silence so fierce it mirrors the
tension I have in my shoulder
blades from being an agreeable negress.

I want to slice that silence with a roar that echoes in the past so loud that my ancestors bones wake 

from the bottom of the ocean and come dance round the bonfire.

I want to split the world open a million times for every girl 
 cut
and sewn shut with razors, glass or words

I want to pound the earth with my fists until the moon trembles

I want words that don't mean shit to become extinct

I want the core of the earth to spew lava on every lie ever told about
black folks

I'm fucking pissed

I want all my children back
and in their right minds

I want to roll in the ashes of the fire and wail
until this grief floods the world 
and we realize what the fuck is really going on

I want us to stop being spectators to real hunger games
and get real intimate with the depths of our own souls
so we can be fucking human
instead of input/output machines.

This is not an extensive list of my demands. more later. 


Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Mother of a black boy

My son told me, when he was four
or five, that
If I threw my heart in the river
I would change
the world. I guess 
I really don't have a choice 
in the matter, my son is 8 

now, climbs mountains, fences,
stays away from gated
communities and the like, 
I have yet to tell him that I am not so
concerned about his cavities
while I instruct to get a bag of plain
chips and no drink
when he, big man,
walks to the store half-
a block from my house
I haven't taught him how to

defer, politely, yield, stop
my son goes hard
and so I question
If I fucked up
if I made him think 
things were like a skittle commercial
though there are no
random gun fights in 
skittle commercials
and there are no frightened black boys with hoodies
and my son, 
middle name Courage
is often frightened
tugs his hoodie round his face
like a security blanket
trying to hide

vulnerability from me
when he asks me
if that is
another gunshot
and should he stay away from the windows
and what is death like
and what is it like to get shot

and why isn't it safe?
and he trembles just a bit and draws in on himself like a wind just chilled him and
now even if I hold him real tight
he still trembles a bit
cause the wind speaks to him
like I'm not even there.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Karma

You let Karma beat the shit out of you when fuck that... no really, fuck that... feeling bad about being celestial...

Guilt is quite paralyzing. Most of us got some sort of addiction to some sort of destruction of ourselves for not fitting into some dumb predetermined cultural meme.

That goes for the subsets of culture as well as the dominant culture in this society.

What will it cost for you to be yourself? What is it costing you not to be yourself? And what are you willing to lose to gain your soul?

Blood Lotus: An Online Literary Journal: BL #23

Blood Lotus: An Online Literary Journal: BL #23: In This Issue... I'm in here! Yay!