Written & Performed poems
"Do The Right Thing"
I’ll never forget the bass
That boomed out of his chest
How public enemy’s
Fight the power blared
From his lungs
Like blown out speakers
Demanding officers do the right thing
Constantly we live through
Reincarnated scenes of radio raheems
We are in search of buggin out
He is a memory
Relived through poems
In the basement of
Our bellies
Hungry for justice
Or
Sometimes
He makes himself
Present
Through mobs
Of black and brown bodies
Thrown to police cars
We relive the hottest day of summer
Dead set in the slumped shoulders of
Brown bodies withered and wintered
Tracing their ghosts
Through towns
like silhouettes of fort sumter
Civil wars fought
Over the fact that there’s
Nothing civil about disobedience
That there’s nothing accidental
About an officer pulling a trigger
And meaning it
"Grandma's Hands"
Yonder they do not love our flesh…O my people they do not love your hands.
Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty… - Baby Suggs
I.
my grandmother’s hands
remember fields of cotton
her fingers remember
the process so well
they curl effortlessly
in pick position,
white doctors
call this arthritis
my grandma’s hands
still remember
white women’s kitchens,
still remembers
their husbands
how they used to try
to grab and caress
her hands in silence
II.
my grandma’s hands
still remember
the lynchings
still remembers
how they used
to tremble at the
shadow of trees
said she always
saw the shadows
of severed limbs
among the leaves
III.
during a lynching
white mobs would
gather beneath
black feet, dangling
positioned to catch
black souvenirs
white fingertips
snatching for severs
of ear, finger,
and genitals
pieces of flesh
and bone
to pocket home
amid snapshots
of black rot
left hanging
IV.
this is a song
for the unnamed
pieces of black bodies
left mutilated
amid a southern breeze
a song for
the negro heart
cut into fours
for parts of
negro bone
sold for 25 cents
a piece to the
white folks
who couldn’t afford
the cost of slivers
of the negro liver
this is a song
to never forget
how black folks
consistently
have had to
piece
themselves
back into
wholeness
V.
my grandma
tells me the
one thing
she’s grateful
she made it out
of Shreveport
with,
is her body
in one piece
i can tell she's
still haunted by
pieces of the
unnamed
buried in the
chaos of
her body
pieces of the
unnamed
buried beneath
the diabetes
that threaten
to claim her feet,
her hands, and
her heart
how she breathes
heavy, like the blood
hung on a southern breeze
Yonder they do not love our flesh…O my people they do not love your hands.
Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty… - Baby Suggs
I.
my grandmother’s hands
remember fields of cotton
her fingers remember
the process so well
they curl effortlessly
in pick position,
white doctors
call this arthritis
my grandma’s hands
still remember
white women’s kitchens,
still remembers
their husbands
how they used to try
to grab and caress
her hands in silence
II.
my grandma’s hands
still remember
the lynchings
still remembers
how they used
to tremble at the
shadow of trees
said she always
saw the shadows
of severed limbs
among the leaves
III.
during a lynching
white mobs would
gather beneath
black feet, dangling
positioned to catch
black souvenirs
white fingertips
snatching for severs
of ear, finger,
and genitals
pieces of flesh
and bone
to pocket home
amid snapshots
of black rot
left hanging
IV.
this is a song
for the unnamed
pieces of black bodies
left mutilated
amid a southern breeze
a song for
the negro heart
cut into fours
for parts of
negro bone
sold for 25 cents
a piece to the
white folks
who couldn’t afford
the cost of slivers
of the negro liver
this is a song
to never forget
how black folks
consistently
have had to
piece
themselves
back into
wholeness
V.
my grandma
tells me the
one thing
she’s grateful
she made it out
of Shreveport
with,
is her body
in one piece
i can tell she's
still haunted by
pieces of the
unnamed
buried in the
chaos of
her body
pieces of the
unnamed
buried beneath
the diabetes
that threaten
to claim her feet,
her hands, and
her heart
how she breathes
heavy, like the blood
hung on a southern breeze