Negotiated Whispers
By
Alfred W. Tatum
June 26, 2012
9:57 pm
Silenced by an iron muzzle
Strapped to the back of our heads
Speaking with our eyes as our chests throbbed
Fourteen tongues tied together
Trying to negotiate a new language
The head bob said, “What’s Up Brother.”
Our first whisper of rebellion
Strengthened as we learned to move beyond whispers
That had little chance to echo
Beyond the small space that consumed us. This broadside was informed by facts. See the information and image below:
When persons being held as slaves were accused of insubordination they might expect to be fitted with an iron muzzle. In his autobiography, Olaudah Equiano described his first encounter with such a device in the mid-1700s. . .
10 comments:
Forgotten
A past life of him
Just like him
Same case
Different races
Past life of him was hung
By a rope of which anger had strung
Another past life of him
Just like him
Same case
Different races
Past life of him was shot
In the abs from a gun that straight hate cocked
The life of him now
Now gone from a cliché click and POW
His screams went down after the bullet
A shame he had to take a state and a rainbow with him
But there’s something I can’t hit
Why fight for something we’ll soon forget.
Emmett Till and Trayvon Martin
Same race same case
Both died tragically in a way they didn’t deserve
A white girl he wished to talk to
By first sending calling sounds from the pucker of his lips
Ending up in aquatic limbo
Arizona was his only destination
And skittles he wished to retrieve
From the other side of the rainbow
Ending up in a field of stained maroon grass
We feel the pain and anger not physically but mentally
We crave for vengeance
But justice is only far from arrival
-Ryan Blackwell
Hopeless
In Dunbar Village, there is no law
No help to hear the villagers’ call
The night air filled with terrors
Broken souls lamenting on justice’s errors
With mothers and girls being raped and put to shame
Soulless demons think “It’s all a game”
Poor Haitian woman forced to have sex with teens
And her own son, just to have life by any means
The suspects get the NAACP’s help, the same organization
That should’ve been helping to end this devastation
With sympathizers calling the arrests of the suspects a racial crime
Saying “It’s not fair” that the black rapists had to pay the fine
Only after this rape, with years of death and robbery taking place,
Was the police department willing to show its face
Several Dunbar Village residents, with no hope in their chests,
Had but one response to the crime: “So, who’s next?”
Now, if the family met a helping hand after they faced a gun
Then how much wrong has to happen before right is done?
Hopeful
Though life gets tough
There will always be a winning source
The forced sex, crime, and the course of death
You have to keep strong to know what’s going to happen next
No money or job
Homeless out on the street
You are still out there not seeking for defeat
You see the wealthy driving in the Ferrari
While you’re outside asking for some money
As I was in Haiti to see the earthquake devastation
Not until the people heard and came to their aid
Just like hurricane Katrina in New Orleans
People still didn’t lose hope after that big catastrophe
You stay strong no matter what’s the circumstance
And you’ll understand life isn’t in another persons hand
Change
Living grim reapers roam the city
Draped pants and hoodies of color
Depending where they come from
75 established crowds with street soldiers filled with rage
50 years ago it was about “Robbin’ old folks and makin’ a dash.”
Putting up fists before pulling out the 45 piece
March 19th, 2012
49 wounded 10 people killed
Including a 6 year old girl
From fist fights and settled handshakes
To a 43 by 19 by 14 inch casket
What happened?
War
We call this war.
We’re a gun is against gun
Fist against face
And women ripped and raped
The pants of the gangster
Is his trademark and his grandparent
If an educated being said,
“Pull ‘em up”
The gangster would think he was hatin’
They throw BD or GD
And call it sign language
The police are everywhere and so are their enemies
They fight and we decrease
Because we’re in jail
Our brothers still fighting
You see your gang member in jail with
So you know they quit
What for?
We’re so defiant
Blind
We don’t know that we sparked war
Barry
Born in Hawaii.
A regular kid.
Who had no Intention on becoming what he is.
He wanted to Catch, hit, run, and steal bases, explore the universe or design and craft buildings.
He liked to swipe the knowledge out of texts and loved the sound of hearing Spaulding and net connect.
Swish!!!!
11-4-2008 Barry was a new Person with a new attitude because
He Was the First,
He Made History.
Catastrope
By Jabari Harrell
The Stand Your Ground Law
Keeps yourself from getting harmed
That coverd a killing of an African American boy at 17
Was killed by a 9mm gun at close range
Though all he had was an Arizona fruit juice
All this did was enrage the black culture
The lies and the violence have gotten people potesting
For us blacks don’t need to be uncertain
George Zimmerman is a man with no concern
That’s why our brother Travon was only alive for a short term
Pointless
By Keelun
Travon, a young man, one of many
Killed so young, their deaths are plenty
Where is the logic? Why so many deaths?
When will these killings of unblossomed lives make sense?
It shouldn’t take a life for us to look for an improved life
This violence is unneeded - the people don’t need this strife
You and I must stand and let our voices be known
This action is better than the hand we’ve been shown
We may be common people, but a group’s voice is better than one
For now we have yet another motivation to get our problems done
A stand must be taken, whether it’s for better or worse
‘lest a family should gather ‘round yet another brother’s hearse
Lost
BA 1
My mind gasps for breath
as it is choked by the thought of death.
People are killed for every meaningless reason.
It doesn’t matter what time, place, or season.
Thugs stand at the corner ready to pop off no question,
the swift wails of the forty-five give kids no time for protection.
We only make up 13.1 percent of the United States that’s all.
So unless you want to be extinct stop killing over drugs and alcohol.
Rate of killings rises to 38 percent in Chicago
Black boy says “You wanna succeed around here ya better off playin the lotto”
We live in a place where the police are trying to shoot ya
And the army is trying to recruit ya
We need a new modern day Martin Luther King
Maybe some day we can do the right thing
The Lottery
BA 10
0 2 6 0
Those were the winning lotto numbers last night.
Zero was the amount of seconds it took for my
eardrums to adhere to the gunshots
reverberating through the hot Chicago air.
Two bullets lodged in my spine.
Brass flowing up my back,
paralytic lullabies seep through the spinal fluid.
My parents had to bury me.
Ten years too young for six feet under.
My screams won’t break through the soil.
You can feel the ground vibrate but harden to the sound
of innocence
and cracks like the badlands.
An apology unheard afrom the bullets.
Bye
By
Corey Ellis
I got in the car to go to work.
Not knowing I could be hurt.
My girl I saw before I left.
Radiant and fair her lovely stare.
20 years old I’m Adrian House.
Damn I guess this was my way out.
A yo Dee Adrian fu***** Triana.
Wat fool pass me my gun a get n da Beamer.
East Lansing they at her sister crib.
This is sum messed up shidd
There he is comin out the driveway.
Speed up my friend wud like sum word play.
Bang Pow!!
Whispers In The Dark
By
Jhaylin Benson
June 27, 2012
Well, it’s been two years since your death
We all have not forgotten what happened
The memory of you laying with that girl is stuck in my mind
I know that you were taken for no reason
But who is to blame for this
You, Dee, Triana?
All I know is that you better leave me alone
The rent, my child, my duties are too much
I already am on the edge
I feel your pain overpaying the price of tasting a forbidden fruit
You like Blake Johnson could have been spared
Both died in a drive-by
Either way stop attacking my brain
I know I see you daily in my mirrors
You are not fooling me
This is Déjà vu
No Denzel Washington
Stop your whispering in the dark
Catastrope
By Jabari Harrell
The Stand Your Ground Law
Keeps yourself from getting harmed
That coverd a killing of an African American boy at 17
Was killed by a 9mm gun at close range
Though all he had was an Arizona fruit juice
All this did was enrage the black culture
The lies and the violence have gotten people potesting
For us blacks don’t need to be uncertain
George Zimmerman is a man with no concern
That’s why our brother Travon was only alive for a short term
Pointless
By Keelun
Travon, a young man, one of many
Killed so young, their deaths are plenty
Where is the logic? Why so many deaths?
When will these killings of unblossomed lives make sense?
It shouldn’t take a life for us to look for an improved life
This violence is unneeded - the people don’t need this strife
You and I must stand and let our voices be known
This action is better than the hand we’ve been shown
We may be common people, but a group’s voice is better than one
For now we have yet another motivation to get our problems done
A stand must be taken, whether it’s for better or worse
‘lest a family should gather ‘round yet another brother’s hearse
Destitution
The Europeans forced us to dance to keep the mortality rate low as we sailed to the Caribbean
Stripped naked on their ships
and forced our melanin to cry under the Atlantic sun.
Have food shoved down our throats,
and let the bile rot at our stomachs,
Now we waltz along sea-side street corners,
to ease the pain.
We will call it destitution.
Giving our lives meaning by tangoing with the
trigger.
Force fed by the idea that identity is found
through syringes and sex.
To keep the mortality rate low.
Self-hatred is a social disease.
It's time to slip through the grasps of this construct,
trickle down the brandywine,
sparking the gun powder.
We will rise to a new idea,
something bigger than the hands of time,
Build with our minute hands a society to be proud of.
Acrimony
The truth is kept hidden by the dark cloak of anger
Masked by the painstaking mistakes of ignorance
We are forced to lie down
While we listen as Society tells us a bedtime story
About who we are and how we came to be
We are fed the expired box lunch of what media has served
But that can no longer be healthy for us
We must break away from what everyone has told us
And we must show the world our real beauty through our pain
Annihilation by Will Thorpe
It was a sniper on the roof.
Aborting 30% of young black warriors. (scholars and doctors)
Killing the youth before they hit the surface.
Those who survive go straight to prison.
Tired of seeing this rigged game of Monopoly.
193,000 Brothers need to see books instead of bars.
The youth is brainwashed
Communities are bamboozled by poverty.
Poverty spreads quicker than maggots on a corpse.
Redefine justice.
Increase comprehension.
Deeper Than Life Its Self
By. Zack Mitchell
As I walk down the street of my block its like a war zone. Scared to pull your hands out of my pocket. Somebody please take me out of this Hell hole I hate it here screaming to myself in my head. The government is brainwashing the youth why so they can get more money for the taxes as they say. Scared of the government because they have big guns I have a Big mind that I'm not scared to fire.
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