Down the street
are people
I’ll never meet
who will never
understand who
I am or what I
think about anything
and who don’t
care to learn about me
or how I might be
a great person or
someone they
would love to know–
they don’t want to know
She is frightened of the
Black man the darkness
The question the unknowing
Bigness of it lurking
Riots Hangings Violence
Don’t matter who done it
The scene unscrolls like a nightmare the eyes have seen
The glory of putting down evil
And All it represents
Black evil
White good
Good white
Evil black
For the uneducated the
World Must be simple
Must be and complications
Need to be smacked down
What do I do with
What I don’t understand?
What do I do?
What do I do with the rush of the question that makes me feel
Not curious but bad
Oddly ugly
Out of place because
I see what I am capable of becoming
I feel the trigger in my hand
I know what to do
What is my right to do
When I see a bad thing
A black thing threatening
A poor white girl like me
I shoot why I shoot
I shoot shoot.
More at http://writersnreaders.blogspot.com.
Seems as though
they want the paradise
without the reason,
the promise without the work,
the friendship without
returned kindness, one
culture revered above
another. It doesn’t always
work both ways. Seems as
though there is growing
yet to do, movement still
to make, yet again.
More at https://onpossibilitypoems.blogspot.com.
I’m glad you think I’m pretty
and I really did like
the little ceramic cup with my name on it,
but you voted to zap me straight and cis,
deport the scared closeted trans girl
with no memory of the country she was born in,
take away our health care,
send the harmless theology student in Ohio
who loved to talk Semitic linguistics
and the guy down the street who hosted the car wash
for the Red Cross the Sunday after 9/11
into a war zone of America’s creation
that your vote has only worsened,
and enable a confessed sexual predator
who thinks it’s me and the people I love
who shouldn’t be allowed in public restrooms,
so you can love the sinner from a distance.
Visit his shrine. Believe him. He’ll make us great, promote American values.
Expel the heretics, build a wall, deport immigrants, ban Muslims,
protect American values.
Listen at his pulpit. Honor him. Bring your anger, your bully
attitude, it’s just words.
Lyin’ Ted, little Marco, crazy Bernie, woman pig/slob/dog—praise
American values.
Relax in his sanctuary. Trust him. Try something new, what do you have to lose.
Violence will be banned in black neighborhoods, he’ll fix it,
promise American values.
Come to his altar. Rely on him. The chosen, smart ones will answer the call.
Paying no taxes is the holy, intelligent option. Preach American
values.
Approach his sanctuary. Put your faith in him. He will change. My name is Jo
and I do not approve this message. I stand with my granddaughters, my American values.
Three times now
I have heard someone use the term colored
And all three times
I had the same thought
“Just what color am I supposed to be?”
Furthermore
If this color is the recipient of derogatory comments
A capitulator of negative connotations
An obstruction of the natural order of things
Why is so much time and money spent
Typically, excessive attention given to
Strange rituals
Vain pursuits
Perverse attempts to obtain it
Whips of black spatter dark skin in blood
time moves on like a drunk garden slug
terror in the night, nooses swing on oak
burnt crosses hot as white hoods dance.
Land meant to grow, plant dead in rows
hallowed minds are shallow in icy piety
given no reverence or primal empathy
graceless matter to a mindless patter.
Cotton, melon and okra now planted
above the graves of the persecuted
murder at night, forgiven on Sunday
regrets be that of the spineless drivel.
Madam Justice Ginsburg
allow us to carry your torch
of absolute outrage at the prospect
of the weak flocking behind Trump
as the next President
Such a catastrophe
that the whole world can do without
Cultivating hatred as a means
to promote racism no doubt
Like Hitler using followers
to exterminate millions not so long ago
Have we learned anything
as we watch similarities we should know
I hear those desperate for privilege
over those who don’t look like them
They figure Trump will deliver the goods
given the rooted hatred in him
We will gladly carry the torch
Madam Justice Ginsburg has made her case
and now we decent people need to step up
to prevent this inhumane disgrace
I can feel their eyes piercing through my skin, their judgments
stripping me of my dignity. My soul is pure, yet they say I’m the Devil’s child because of who I am.
Struggling each day to keep myself locked inside, putting on a different persona everyone can like, pretending to be someone I’m not, someone society wants me to be. Afraid of rejection, I hide like prey does from its killer.
Craving acceptance. Stifling my conscience.
Its time for a change.
I am who I am
and the only thing you can do is accept me as the human being I am.
Because, at the end of the day I’m just like you, our blood has one color.
I am not less than others but as equal as all. For equality is freedom and the world is my oyster.
I am who I am
And shall live each day as myself.
I am who I am.
Oscillating randomly around any true signal
Buzzes all kinds of noise
White, Pink, Brown, Black, Shot, Poisson, Normal, Phase, Transient
Temporary flares awaiting mean reversion
So to equate an unrepresentative spike
With a bona fide increase
And dub an anecdote
The new status quo
Is the mistake of an amateur
Fool or fraud with ulterior motives
Like when after the election of our first black president
Some claimed that racism had come to an end
“We have reached the top!
Now let us dispense with this pesky climbing gear.”
Only to have it roar back — broad swaths of people
Discounted wholesale
For their language’s
Word for God
Skin color
Or parent’s birthplace
— in its ugliest form
With a fool’s gold face of Orange noise
So now that we have a woman similarly poised
Brace yourselves
For similarly false grand claims: “Full Gender Equality
Achieved!”
Followed by
(Even more) misogyny
Hysterical, shrill, and overly emotional itself
And yet one hopes against hope
These victories are not outliers but indeed indicative —
Hope: echoes of that word reverberate manifold from bygone cycles
Transmogrifying the ‘o’ to an ‘a’ and the ‘p’ to a ‘t’
these melancholy days —
Of real progress, though the ever-increasing standard deviation makes
conclusions
All but impossible to reach
More at https://twitter.com/thenamesmatta.