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of the best minds of my time. I have seen them
wandering these fanged streets
their hands up,
scratching the tear gassed sky
(hear)
a blues black woman,
her voice kneeling
on the rice strewn threshold
of our nation
of our history
stuttering its’
rhetoric in the crack
rhetoric in the crack
rhetoric in the crack
of equality
The LP, now a CD scratched, And Still We
ain’t gonna let nobody turn us around
but blood is the dwelling of our throats
the red river stitches us
to our parents in Selma
Bloody Sunday bridges
mine eyes have seen the glory
and it is not pretty-- mamas
rocking, shrieking, cradling
broken baby bottle
lives
this one
is for the brother’s that ain’t here
we don’t have that much
time
that kinda money
Our fallen dead are not carved
in black marble memorials
instead
we mumble into mercy
into canisters of rage
peace is not the way
we feel, it is a strategy
the whole world is watching
as nausea rolls over us
a great sea of clacking bones.
What color stitches blood to humanity?
if we exercise our right—
carry the Wild Wild West
in a holster,
if we walk into supermarkets to buy
bread with our .38 caliber PEACE strapped
to our hips
would we survive your assumptions?
Can we cowboy like the Caucasian? I saw,
a bulging khaki clad
ghost man, striding
by art posters on 2nd Avenue
his gun holstered.
I called ‘cause
I didn’t want to be the one to say
yes, I’d seen him moments before
he bulleted a school, a movie theater, a post office,
a school, a school, a school
911, “oh it’s ok, he’s not a threat.
oh, it’s ok? he has the right.”
Our skin is a weapon
you are afraid of
Your skin is a grenade
you have used
I have seen
the boys in black, the boys in blue
the boys in black, the boys in blue
wandering these bruised streets
looking for an angry fix
I have seen them sewn together
by the red river thread.
we have forgotten
black, is not a color
white, is not a color
only blood