Truth is where I found you

In the cusp high over ultraviolet waves

Between your time as a slave and mine

Fighting off the results of *******.



You were a woman who accepted no

Excuses for the lack of rights

For our mothers and daughters,

Demanded more for those who followed.



I am a woman who accepts that most

White men are fixed on one idea

As to how the world should be,

And it is on me to change their minds



Through words, or actions, but never

Through guns or swords, white bonnet

Wrapped on my head as I push

Away racial insults and profanity.



You never forgot to say who a woman

Could be, what a Black woman could do

When we eschewed weakness and misogyny.

No one helped you. You just carved the trail.



No one helps me either. That’s what I learned

It means to be a Black woman.

To be strong, to plough, to plant, to raise barns.

That’s what you did. I do that metaphorically.



Now, I raise children, plough through journals

With my pen. I always remember to never

Pin my tongue for fear of other’s thoughts

This is the way you walked.



I try to get my half measure full,

But I think it is a little less

Difficult for me as it was

For you. Thank you for the

Quarter you earned.



It took us a long way, but

Today, the world is still

Turned upside down

And we are working

Hand by hand to



Flip it

Right side up

I did errands today
and I was confused

Something was wrong, astray
I mused

I settled into the evening quiet
And my disquieted soul shouted

"The flags were not at half staff"
As the West Wing staff and Cabinet was trimmed by half

Yesterday, Congress was sieged by riff-raff
45 egged them on

Congress counted the Electoral votes
but our troubles are not all gone

Today, I needed to see that flag half-mast
My grief begged for a symbol against the bombast

And yet the flag waved, full staff, as if nothing and no one mattered
And no one has said a word

"America I've given you all and now I'm nothing."

Nothing.
An empty chair in town hall.
A piano with no white keys.
An asterisk in the legislation, if I'm lucky.
I ate your bread,
attended your circuses,
burned my bridges for promises you made.
I remember I saved four-thousand dollars
after college and believed I had foresight.
You burned it all before me
and then pierced my eye with your sword of justice,
placed me on the scales and found that
all your wealth weighs more than I do.
The American Dream!
Yet, how am I to dream if I cannot see?
And do you feel heavy?
No, I don't believe you do.
You have your patriots to prop you up when you begin to slouch.
And good on them for being more blind than I am,
or good on them for otherwise.
But that is not the American dream, is it?
I think not, but then again, who am I?

when we first came to this land,
blood was shed for our entitlement.
when we first came to this land,
we took the things that were never ours
and trampled its native growth.
when we first came to this land,
we instilled in it a sickness that may never be cured;
we tarnished sacred lands with greed we call virtue,
and when we did so, we stood on the throat of humanity.

there are some people who are doomed to repeat history.
there are some people who will trample native growth,
spread sickness,
and stand on the throats of our people.
with the heavy weight of six centuries upon our shoulders
we stand,
a hobbled nation no longer able to stride,
heads held high,
through this sea of blood without meeting challenge.

with six centuries passed, we commit genocide anew.
it is not the native growth that suffers,
but the very peddlers of greed who are infected
by the sickness of consequence.
but they alone will not suffer.
as we march through this new iteration of history
wearing death masks instead of cloth,
thousands of innocents lose their lives
in a battle of which they were never a part.

the single day that we dedicate to gratitude,
the one day of the year some remember
to give thanks in between passing heavy dishes,
is not a commemoration of discovery.
it is a commemoration of consequence and greed.
and six centuries later,
it is our own people who we will massacre with the cry of freedom.

were it easy, we would be so lucky
but, alas instead, here we're found
where our ground is scaffold
its tarrish glue fractured
the brown boards we walk, cracked
the whole thing creaking under its own weight
poised for collapse

American barcodes
All sit with a grin.

American barcodes
Can’t you see my skin?

American barcodes
I’m wearing my mask.

American barcodes
The police don’t ask.