What was his crime? / He only killed his wife. But a divorce I say. / Not final, they say; Her things were his / including her life.” Convicted not of murder / but of “womanslaughter” because “Men cannot kill their wives. / They passion them to death.” For this murder in Texas, he served […]
learn moreThe first thing you do is to forget that i’m Black.Second, you must never forget that i’m Black. You should be able to dig Aretha,but don’t play her every time i come over.And if you decide to play Beethoven – don’t tell mehis life story. They made us take music appreciation too. Eat soul food […]
learn moreThey say you were a farmer, I never heard your voice, I heard you were the oldest child, Did you ever have a choice? Did you ever have a choice to say, “I want to be a girl?” Did you ever have a choice to say, “I want to see the world?” You lost a […]
learn moreKneegrows niggas colored coons splibbs spades
Pimp scag tracks poor disenfranchised Vietnam rayzors
Kneegrows niggas colored coons splibbs spades
Baptist malnutrition moonshine democracy numbers hoes
Kneegrows niggas colored coons splibbs spades
Hate blackwomen hate blackmen hate thick lips
hate natural hair you hate yourself
Kneegrows niggas colored coons splibbs spades
See dick, see jane see spot can jump syrup and bread
No ownership, no control, no resources black power, muthafucker
hill harlem hough birth-control pills pig feet no land
no constitut
When they shot Malcolm Little down
On the stage of the Audubon Ballroom,
When his life ran out through bullet holes
(Like the people running out then the murder began)
His blood soaked the floor
One drop found a crack through the stark
Pounding thunder-slipped under the stage and began
Its journey: burrowed through concrete into the cellar,
Dropped down darkness, exploding like quicksilver
Pellets of light, panicking rats, paralyzing cockroaches-
Tunneled through rubble and wrecks of foundations,
The rocks that buttress the bowels of the city, flowed
Into pipes and power lines, th
In 1944
the lives of black boys
were worth nothing
and you were
no stranger to bloodshed
or the drives of men
in a Southern sawmill town
That Carolina dawn
came tender
and 2 white girls
raped and murdered
led to a black boy’s door
You were 14
no stranger to bloodshed
or the drives of men
In newspaper photos
eyes caved with wisdom
lips without question
a child resigned
to a man’s fate
In 1944 the
lives of black boys
were worth nothing
and George Stinney, Jr.
A river of tears is my story A river of pain in this land A river of angry fire
Will I burn and never tire Until I am treated like a man Until I am treated like a man.
I am moved by passing winds,
Spun mockingly upon one stand
Where all flight ends where it begins.
Strange breezes, from a distant land
Have called me,, too, and I have turned
And turned and could not understand.
Beneath each season’s sun I’ve burned
With you, and watched freed wings depart
For dreamed-of-places where I’ve yearned
To go.
learn moreAt seventeen your thoughts
were younger than your face
and your smile mirrored in dishwater
was Mississippi pleasant
you had large eyes and larger hopes of
marrying somebody rich
or famous or something
you settled for a little house
so close to the tracks that the sound of a train
shook some of everything
you settled for a boy
with eyes larger than your own
you settled for dishwater
just as deep as that you knew at home…
Over the eye behind the moon’s cloud
over you whose touch to a Stradavari heart shames
the chorale of angels over Mr.
