"lynchings" poems
Why do we ignore all these spoken words?
We've had
poets,
rappers,
artists,
and actors
*tell us as
it were.*
*Now I, myself, have spit one or two verse
and I need to let you know* I will be heard.
You call for a social media blackout and
there they sit thinking, " How absurd!"
But when it comes down to it
what do you do when there is
no reaction to your tear-filled words?
Is it because we have adapted to being so passive,
when there's **** murders, lynchings, and theft*
we just take it in passing?
Or is it because we can look the other way,
when the hands of a white man
take the life of a different ethnicity away?
Is it in relation to power?
*We close our eyes
and pray.*
But where is the action
for justice in this final hour?
What is it that you do to help this land?
Other than observe and comment snidely
on your fellow man?
It is no tragedy for a loss of life?
While you ponder your "newsfeed"
via social media
via your Iphone
via your wifi
....
Consider the point when you lost touch with real life.
Dec 15, 2014
Dec 15, 2014 at 4:52 PM UTC
two hundred years ago
or so
this title might have read
"America", etc.,
according to the myth
that then was strong
and still exotic
and promising to aliens
with no experience
today, after Wounded Knee, the Trail of Tears,
the Civil War, the Restoration, all the lynchings,
after Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Nicaragua,
the Gulf, Iraq, Afghanistan,Lybia, Syria & cetera,
Ferguson, Baltimore, & cetera,
"America" has disappeared
it has, in fact, become quite evident
that to subsume the continent
on the far side
of the Atlantic or Pacific
with this name
will do no more
in truth, it rarely ever did
the mythic notion
of a just and free society
was definitely buried at My Lai,
Panama City, on the desert plains
of Kurdistan, the Baghdad prisons,
and Guantanamo
by racist violence & arrogance
and pitiful ideas of white supremacy
the usa today lies bare
of the old promise of 'America'
street people, rampant fundamentalists,
drugs, and low employment rates,
in a society that longs
despite its cherished myth
of tough but honest competition
for holy war in order to rebuild with profit
what it has destroyed with arms
that, to all evidence, cares not
a penny's worth for
the unbuildable
which never shows in the domestic census
or for the lives of others but their own brave boys
preferably white
who have in recent years
though with increasing discomfort
upon appointment by their country's presidents
achieved the dreary fame
of bombing back into the stone age
distant lands that had
just barely begun
to make it out from there
* * *
May 14, 2015
May 14, 2015 at 3:13 PM UTC
Perfidy and perfume,
Wars and well-being,
Caligula and Beethoven,
Buckenwald and the benign,
Slavery and Stars and Stripes,
Flags and fireworks and Jim Crow,
Lynchings and liberty,
MAGA and magnanimity,
Hate and love.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jul 15, 2023
Jul 15, 2023 at 10:20 PM UTC
Revolt is not Riot
Appropriate reaction to state violence
80% unemployment for black youth
Poverty has its roots
In Slavery
Victims of death by ******
Unnatural
He did it himself they say
He died
His neck snapped
And broke the silence
Disturbed the peace
Inciting violence
Sparked Light
Of resistance
In the hearts and minds
Of the confined
And fear in the hearts of those who don't matter to mind
Modern lynchings
At the hands of police
And they call us thugs?
When we're killed for making eye contact
Or walking home from a store run
By maniacs with or without licensed guns
For having the nerve to shop in Walmart
Or playing with a toy gun
You know,
Cops and robbers?
But what happens when cops are now robbers of lives and justice in our communities
Then all too often they shift the narrative to you and me
Of why unemployed and underemployed thugs are stealing food from the grocery
Occupied like Syria and Iran
For failing to purchase
With dollars they don't have
In a store like CVS that is insured by the flag
How will order ever be restored?
Apr 29, 2015
Apr 29, 2015 at 11:12 PM UTC
The United States of America has never been a democracy. Our Constitution, drafted and ratified in 1787, legalized slavery in all 13 nascent States. Eight of our presidents were slaveholders, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who owned more the 600 slaves. Though the 13th Amendment legally abolished slavery in 1865, the KKK , founded also in 1865, began to flourish in the Deep South when U. S. troops were recalled in 1877. White Supremacists used a vicious range of deterrents to keep Blacks from voting: Deep South State constitutions and laws; poll taxes; literacy tests; the "grandfather clause"; and outright intimidation, including lynchings that occurred at their peak from 1890 to 1920. Today, Trump supporters have swept through almost all State legislatures "legalizing" myriad ways to keep minorities from voting, as well as other ways to invalidate their votes. In addition to brutalizing Blacks throughout our nation's history, we must not forget the genocide perpetrated by our government against indigenous peoples who had populated the continent for millennia, culminating between 1860 and 1890 with the coup de grace of Wounded Knee. "Manifest Destiny" was not democracy. It was manifest inhumanity.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jan 4, 2022
Jan 4, 2022 at 2:39 PM UTC
the lost
the freight train
RIDE!
hobo
RIDE!
i am only
NOT KIDDING
--
the lynchings
the cluster bombs
(what are these?)
the terror
the terrorized
WE
---
the naked
the pure
innocent reminders
of our loyalty
to hatred
and vain profit makings
YOU MUST BE KIDDING!
--
i call upon you
as you know
the last freight train
the whistle blows
RIDE!
angel urchin
RIDE!
WE ARE NOT KIDDING!
Oct 1, 2010
Oct 1, 2010 at 2:47 PM UTC
The city was hungry. A mewing came from an alley. A hollow exchange.
The innards of the district had been gutted by libertine sons.
We were scared of the silence, so we filled it with shootings, and lynchings, and stabbings, and rapes.
You came an empty reflection. It was the night before the bombs fell. I remember the way my atoms shifted. You lying there in the morning.
We fell into one another, like rabid dogs at corpses.
Limbs lined the streets.
You were distant that day. I broke two fingers climbing over a fence, and lined them with the rest.
The radio tower looked abandoned.
You told me three years later you didn’t care either way. I walked you to the bridge and watched you swim the Styx.
I’d never cared from the start.
The world ended soon after.
The moon’s belly cracked, guts spilling onto the earth.
Children pelted one another with flesh. Parents stood in doorways, smiling.
The swell stretched infinitely, reaching neither peak nor fall.
I fell asleep on your grave, nestled in the cold of yesterday’s ache.
Dec 5, 2015
Dec 5, 2015 at 10:35 PM UTC
By: Cedric McClester
Paranoia tends to grow
Cuz people fear what
They don’t know
Still they refuse to learn
And so
We still have quite
A ways to go
Conveniently we forget
Our ugly history
And yet
We fail to feel
A sense of debt
And rarely show
Any regret
I remember
Lynchings still
And truthfully
I always will
Think about
Poor Emmitt Till
By now I think
You know the drill
America the beautiful
Hasn’t always been
Benevolent when it comes
To men of colored skin
But this is now
And that was then
So I guess
We just pretend
Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2016, All rights reserved.
Feb 10, 2016
Feb 10, 2016 at 6:17 PM UTC
lauren elise Normally I wouldn't instigate like this, but NFL players aren't simply taking a knee for the fun of it. If you want to go as far back as Normandy, let's talk about the forced migration of slaves to the United States, the colonialist division of African nations, and the pillaging and ****** that accompanied that. Let's talk about the forced separation of black families as they were sold off like livestock, the rapes of slave women, the beatings of slave men. Let's talk about the implemented indentured servitude after slavery was abolished, that kept free black people enslaved and poor because they had no resources, no money and no dignity. The lynchings and the discrimination. Let's talk about the de jure segregation that divided school districts, neighborhoods, and deprived people of color of access to equal education and job opportunities. How about the exclusion of black women from women's rights movements? They did not receive the same rights at the same time as white women. When segregation was abolished, how about the de facto segregation, the redlining, the defunding of black neighborhoods that sentenced them to poverty and disqualified them this American notion of "equal opportunity?" What about when the poverty and lack of education increased the crime and drug activity that has led to the mass criminalization of black communities? The school to prison pipeline? Think about the fact that people of color have not been legally "equal" to white people for even 100 years. The police brutality today mirrors the police brutality of the Civil Rights era. Everything that black people face on this day is a result of the dehumanization and discrimination that white people imposed on them from the start. This is not coincidental protest. This is not ungrateful. Our soldiers have fought for our rights from the start, but not always for the rights of people of color. Peaceful protest is an American right. Plus, let's not talk about disrespect for American soldiers and veterans when our very own "President" is the first person to disrespect them.
Sep 28, 2017
Sep 28, 2017 at 10:30 PM UTC
I look up to you greatly
Thou art an amazing lady
In you, do I see a fire
That refuses to die, no matter what
You lay your soul threadbare
Wit, is one of your greatest assets
Never do you back down from a fight
In a tunnel full of never-ending darkness
Are you the light
Which keeps emptiness and depression at bay
And puts us firmly on the path to happiness
Come what may!
I look up to you greatly
Your writing is so fiery
That it can spark a raging inferno
Full of righteous anger
Against all the injustice perpetrated by the Indian State
The lynchings that refuse to abate
Poor and underprivileged children dying of hunger
People being denied homes due to their caste
While the government has the sheer nerve to boast
About its so-called achievements
Your poems are a testament
To the famous saying "The pen is mightier than the sword"
Very hard-hitting indeed, are your words!!
I look up to you greatly
Never dost thou fail to amaze
Every story of yours is a maze
Full of character arcs and plot twists
Ensuring we get hooked very fast
And by the time we finally put the book down
Our minds would have been blown!!
I look up to you greatly
Never dost thou fail to raise your voice
When it cometh to social justice
Yet, somehow do you manage to maintain your poise
In the face of never-ending malice
Which is constantly thrown your way
The way you keep your detractors at bay
Is something we must all learn
Thanks to people like you, have I gradually started to unlearn
Certain things I once considered gospel truth
Excel do you, at transforming the narrative
When it cometh to our Hindu myths
For your community, do you live
Not yourself
Hopefully, more books of yours may soon adorn my shelf!!
I look up to you greatly
Thou art a wonderful role model
Bestsellers, are your novels
You love your profession
As much as Israel loves to lie
You yourself are an institution
And always do you aim for the sky
So much have you done for our society
With an absolutely brutal honesty
That beggars belief
Your writings provide some much-needed relief
In these dark and difficult times
Where even mere dissent is often treated as a crime!!
I look up to you greatly
For you, is impossible nothing
And social justice, everything!!
By the Grace of God
May all your dreams come true
And may you have nothing to rue
Finally, must I say
More power to you, Meena!!
Apr 11, 2024
Apr 11, 2024 at 12:44 AM UTC
•
•
Faith
•
Will you ?
••
Ain't nothing hidden here
----
after genocide
after slavery
After lynchings.
What DOES a people call themselves?
----
FAITH
--
Now is the hour of child abuse
Are you a child ?
• ? •
under the drone killer sky
They come for you
•
Faith
•
Eternal the day
Eternal the night
ETERNAL THE TRUTH WE ALL CAN LIVE
•
Should you choose to live
You may
•
Faith
Mar 14, 2014
Mar 14, 2014 at 4:15 PM UTC
In a tragic of despair
that she could espy of something unseen
but what I know now in the nowhereness of triumph is the oblivion that’s long forsaken . My mother, the earth , has loved the truth of my words . My mother of memories, where my intricate roots embedded in her many wombs , with her,
my mother who is the mind to my soul, with her crystal teeth, puncturing the veins of my spirit, I am uncured from the illness of illusion.
with the love that is filled with the sickness of the cerebral ;
that every nerves, they only now yearn to forget, to erase, to delete,
what should never end , will ;
of those forward to ,
is like catching light,
my mother's arms, wrapping my dead body,
for that great freedom that ought demands
but now encountered swords that I see no farther onward impulse stirr'd,
from every dew-drop in this sequestered heart.
it inculpates the soul’s wigwam,
to love , that is unpure
powered of perception ;
for me , do so as what say I
the abyss will never know -- without noise, bad field of unfamiliarity, to create the creation of layers, layers of spectre, phantasm, apparition;
I exorcise & exterminate this being of nothingness, name that is uncelebrated ; & be merrily skipping in their long farewell,
you gave your face , I gave mine
& there shall be a bow of
hypothesis, musings, mirage
I inject, dementia
trying responsibly to digest over
my own ignis fatuus
/
there will be hanging gardens
the commotion of untendered bones
down beneath your cloaks,
knowing sympathy, to bully an empathy
death come, came & in repeat
through the lullaby of Antioch,
sorrow wholly unexpected, in scarcely discernable; but far descried
black winged demon vanished through the chested barrier of feelings, when justice lynchings in the centre of my core,
twixt vows, where from descended upon myself alone, indecent, in deep scrutiny —
May 2, 2019
May 2, 2019 at 10:13 AM UTC
'
a shadow moving softly thru the woods
( she )
::
we are ... (?)
Well
What !
::
The peace
Comes and the wars are over
( or it doesn't //& the wars remain )
""
why do we what we do !
Ultimately
For money
•
I saw the lady kneel by the stream
Her eyes were soft
And her tears were honestly falling
/::/
I & the mountains remain
STRONG is love
( real love )
••
We are a nation of lynchers and lynchings
..
Welcome
//
( oops ! -- you didn't say THANK YOU yet )
::
She
She is one with the solitude
Upon which all life is dependent
::
Her & I
We teach each other the laguage
Of creation
•
the darkness judges
If it thinks you worthy of light
It goes away
Revealing the free world
There all the time
""
none can harm us
We are immortal
We are immortal
But we are afraid !
////::
She
( my love )
Ever
Victorious
//
The love of love
Is her name
Sep 14, 2015
Sep 14, 2015 at 5:04 PM UTC
.
3 lynchings from the tree
You know , the one on 7th avenue
over in the good neighborhood
;;
clever ! A lighthouse !
Keep them sailors safe out there
Good for corporate profits you know
::
We came
We saw
We let die
•
Someone wrote I LOVE YOU in the sand
someone making love on the rocks over there
2 little orphans holding hands
Jan 22, 2016
Jan 22, 2016 at 3:49 AM UTC
//// • ||
<>
/ ( ( \
/ \
## ^^^ ##
a beautiful girl
## ^^^ ##
( Gentleness )
""
Walks the dead ***** streets at dawn
Visions of the slave ships
the hot lynchings and the cold whips
she
Doesn't forget
:::::
Till we
Right the wrong
:::
~~~~
Just a beautiful girl
) (
^
^
I am a man of strength
I am here
To guard your innocence
as you walk the streets at dawn
Aug 28, 2015
Aug 28, 2015 at 4:21 PM UTC