a struggle against settler colonial dispossession is a struggle against u.s. military aid budgets is a struggle against borders bred in blood . . .
Poem
You Know He Shot at the Police Right?
you know he was a weapon. didn’t beg for his life. or call for his mother. or his partner.
you know that nigga went out on his feet. brought a gun to a gun fight. brought mutiny to a slave ship at the atlantic shoreline. you know that nigga was a nigga and not like haha nigga not like next democratic presidential nominee nigga not like run fast jump high nigga like worm food covered in tree bark like lead water clogging an artery like dead leaves stuck in a gutter like storm the arsenal and shoot the masters like one of those give me liberty or give me blood types nigga got the nerve to want freedom and do somethin bout it. . . .
There’s Fires to Start
private property did a number on our humanity
capitalism fashioned platforms out of protest posters
podiums don’t belong next to gasoline canisters . . .
The End of the Fucking World
the end of the fucking world came again in May that year,
nine minutes and twenty nine seconds
stretched to hours, broke to days, forced into months.
and it sounded the same way the end of the world always sounds . . .
a poem in which we shoot back
i love my people. i protect and serve my people. i’ll die to neutralize any threat to my people. . . .
“The First Black”
by Too Black “The First Black” the Clayface of the Black race — shape-shifted to fit the state’s mission Muddying the waters of slaughter A farcical marvel; built by white guilt Sculpted and welded to quell a rebellion “The First Black” is almost always the safe Black Raised as a docile rotwild Taught to bark down at its own breed, but rarely seems to bite the white hand that feeds “The First Black” the single needle conveniently placed within the colonized haystack Handpicked — personified as the proverbial reminder, “Hey, maybe now the evil empire might have a soul???” Or . . .
Spiritual Warfare
Owolabi “Perhaps there is a monstrous origin to it, after all. Perhaps to lay hands on your child is to prepare him for war.” – Ocean Vuong Part 1 I wrote poems of gratitude to my father. Poems of honor. Poems imagining survival in Mississippi in the days when the crakkas had free reign over Black bodies. My ex-wife wondered why? She heard my stories, my heart, and only saw my tears. For years in our marriage, I cried. I processed pain and how his discipline came with fists and belts. I processed silent pain when I didn’t hear the . . .
The Comfortable Ones
This poem is for the comfortable ones. For the bureaucrats who exist to insure their existence. For the civil servants who are not civil and do not serve. For the teachers who teach what to think but don’t know how to think. For the policeman who serve capital and protect property. For the doctors selling health, the lawyers selling justice, and the politicians selling their souls. For the upwardly mobile, down pressing, respectable, well mannered, individualist. For the use-to-bees, claim-to-bees, and wanna-bees. This poem -is for the wealthy ones. For their peace absent justice, structurally adjusted, debt servicing, payment balancing, . . .