Black Men with Guns

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Black Men with Guns

They shoot horses don’t they?

They shot panthers back in the day

Doesn’t matter what you say or do

They shoot black men with guns too

Good old boys call themselves militia

And march right up to the capitol dome

Wearing swastikas with weapons of war

They are made to feel at home

But if blacks gather in the city square

With rifles over their shoulders

They are pronounced terrorists and thugs

Their reception could not be colder

They are told they are not welcome here

Go on home and take your guns

If they refuse and claim their sacred right

They will soon be on the run

Round here black men do not carry

And they do not mix with whites

But most of all they never claim

To possess a white man’s rights

Thirty Heroes

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Thirty Heroes

To be named an American hero

should be an honor that outlasts time

To be named an American hero

by the worst president in history

is something less than honor

How would Frederick Douglass feel

knowing that this president speaks

the language of the confederacy?

How would MLK feel knowing

this president has welcomed

white supremacy to his fold

and legitimized the Klan?

There are no native Americans

on the president’s list of heroes

There are no Asians or Chicanos

though some are “good people”

There are no scientists on the list

No artists poets or resistance leaders

To not be named is a badge of honor

The mendacity of this man

to think that he can dictate

American values and American heroes

is unbounded in the chronicles of time

We shall choose our own heroes

and you shall not be among them

What Color Am I?

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

357.  What Color am I?

I’ve been told I was a slacker

Who didn’t care about my country

Who disrespected old glory

With no regard for the men in blue

I’ve been asked to go away

And I just sigh

What color am I?

I believe that black lives matter

I believe we are entitled to justice and equality

I believe in welcoming newcomers

Who work hard and earn their way

I believe the dreamers have a right to stay

I believe in a right to happiness

A right to die or not to die

What color am I? 

I’ve heard it said I’m lazy

And I’ve never earned the right

To speak my mind

I’ve been told I’m crazy

That I ought to be ashamed

That everything I think is wrong

That my entire life

Ain’t nothin’ but a lie

What color am I?

I am a human being

Entitled to every right of humankind

The right to live my life according

To the dictates of my mind

The right to speak when I see wrong

The right to make it right

The right to call a lie

What color am I? 

The color of rise

The color of fall

The color of everything

And nothing at all

Hold the Line

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Hold the Line

We’ve been pushing so long

Our bones are starting to push back

Decades of resistance

Centuries of struggle

Truth be told

Millennia of pressure

On our worried minds

Hold the line

So tired my eyes close by themselves

My back aches my legs pulsate

My brain screams at the endless plight

Every step reminds me

Of the struggle ahead

And the struggle behind

Hold the line

Work until your fingers bleed

Talk until you fold

March until the sun rises

Watch until you’re blind

Hold the line

Nothing worth achieving

Was ever accomplished with less

Than everything you’ve got

This is our time

Hold the line

No matter how many times

They beat us down

And trample us

No matter how times

They batter us

No matter how many times

They take our money our homes

Our peace of mind

Hold the line

We will prevail

We will take what is rightly ours

We will right forever wrongs

We will stand our ground

We will not fall behind

Hold the line

For all who came before us

And all who will follow

For our children

For posterity

For all that we hold dear

For peace and prosperity

For justice and equality

For the good and the kind

Hold the line

Mount Rushmore

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Rushmore

 

While we’re taking down statues

Of confederate heroes

Consider the abomination carved

Into the sacred mountains

Of North Dakota

 

Think of them what you will

Slaveholders or emancipators

Conservationists or buffalo killers

Racists or liberators

The great white fathers

Do not belong in the Black Hills

Sacred ground to the Lakota nation

 

Crazy Horse belongs in the Black Hills *

Sitting Bull belongs in the Black Hills

Black Elk belongs in the Black Hills

Big Foot belongs in the Black Hills

 

Take down the defenders of slavery

Deglorify the traders of slaves

Break down the great white commanders

In the home of the free and the brave

 

Replace the symbols of white supremacy

With the defenders of equality

Replace the champions of treason

With the proud guardians of reason

 

We are what we deify

We are what our books embrace

When our history teaches lies

Our entire nation is disgraced

 

* (Crazy Horse Monument is just down

the road from Mount Rushmore; its

inscription reads: “My land is where

my people lie buried.”)

Twisted History: A Legacy of Shame

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Twisted History

400 years since slaves arrived on the American shore

220 years since the birth of the Underground Railroad

200 years since the Missouri Compromise

163 years since Dred Scott

159 years since the inception of the Civil War

157 years since the Emancipation Proclamation

156 years since the burning of Atlanta

155 years since the 13^th Amendment

154 years since Lincoln’s assassination

154 years since the birth of the KKK

153 years since reconstruction

150 years since the dawn of Jim Crow

124 years since Plessy V. Ferguson

99 years since the Tulsa Massacre

83 years since the death of Bessie Smith

81 years since Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit

75 years since the Civil Rights Act

65 years since the lynching of Emmett Till

56 years since Nina Simone’s Mississippi Goddamn

55 years since the killing of Malcolm X

55 years since the summer of Watts

52 years since the assassination of the King

51 years since the Hampton and Clark

29 years since Rodney King

7 years since the nullification of Voting Rights

7 years since Black Lives Matter

6 years since the murder of Michael Brown

6 years since Tamar Rice and Eric Garner

5 years since Jamar Clark

4 years since Philando Castile

3 years since Charlottesville

2 years since Botham Jean

1 year since Danquirs Franklin

4 months since Ahmaud Arberi

3 months since Breonna Taylor

2 months since Sean Reed

1 month since George Floyd

1 day since Rayshard Brooks

After 400 years of twisted history

False promises exploitation

And brutality

Atlanta burns

America wonders why

Willful Ignorance (for James Baldwin)

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Willful Ignorance

The words of a great man

From a former generation

Haunt the white man’s world

With the weight of eternal history

And the depth of eternal knowledge

“If you can overcome the curtain of my color”

Then we can live in peace

If not we will be at war perpetually

A war like most wars that no one can win

“I want exactly what you want”

I want to be left alone

I want to walk the streets of America

Without fear of never returning

To my home

I want my children and theirs

To grow up in safe neighborhoods

Where kindness and wisdom thrive

Where hatred and brutality fail

“You will listen or you will perish”

And we will perish together

Like pigs in a pen

Like fools in a pool of madness

We are human beings

We are not bison or beavers

That you can hunt into extinction

We are not leaving

This is our land as much as yours

You brought us here as slaves

But we are free

We have won our freedom

And we will not yield equality

We are here to stay

Make peace with that reality

(respectfully for James Baldwin)

New York Breakdown

RANDOM POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

New York Breakdown

Brutality on the streets of New York

Betrayal of the public trust

The shining beacon on an island

Has gone from boom to bust

New York we love you

But you’re beating us down *

The city of enlightenment

City of dreams now broken

And scattered into a million

Little pieces on bloodied ground

When the pandemic smashed into you

Like the first wave of a tsunami

We turned to you in admiration

We looked to you for salvation

We held you up for inspiration

We felt for you and prayed

Now you revert to political form

And blame the beaten

For being bruised

New York we love you

But you will be forsaken

After centuries of injustice

It’s time to awaken

[* LCD Soundsystem:

New York, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down]

Lockdown Pennsylvania Avenue

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Lockdown Pennsylvania Avenue

With the impeachment trial

An enemies list

Disdain for lawful protest

Rejection of civil rights

And disregard for civil liberties

The horrors of the day

Recall the reign of Tricky Dick

Who resigned in disgrace

But it was LBJ who hunkered down

In the Oval Office

Locked down in the White House

While an army of vocal protesters

Camped out beyond the fence

And refused to leave

LBJ ended his reign under siege

In an act of common decency

To spare the nation further pain

He refused to seek a second term

Acknowledged nothing more to gain

If only this president

Had the decency of LBJ

He would step down and fade away

But he is neither Nixon nor LBJ

He’s under lockdown behind razor wire

In the fortress on Pennsylvania Avenue

Alone and despondent

He knows now he couldn’t make the grade

He curses ghosts in the darkness

Lashes out at those he sees

Devolves into madness

Issuing his decrees

Johnson escalated Vietnam

Nixon doubled down

But neither put our troops

On American ground

Not Enough

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Not Enough

Justice calling with charges of

Second degree murder

Aiding and abetting

A first and second step

Toward peace

Not enough

Remove them from the force

And all their collaborators

End the conspiracy of silence

Review every case

The dirty cops ever touched

Compensate their victims

And free the abused

Put them behind bars

And ask how they like it now

Still not enough

Rebuild the inner cities

The westsides the eastsides

From the ground up

Provide decent housing

And living wages

An end to homelessness

And mass incarceration

Restore voting rights

Healthcare for all

Not enough

It will never be enough

Until the hearts and minds of all

Are altered at the core

It will never be enough

Until every bad cop

Is relieved of duty

Now and forever

It will not be enough

Until cops go to jail

For crimes committed

Behind the badge

Beneath the cover of darkness

It will never be enough

Until people of color

Can walk down the streets

Without fear of the color blue

Vampires of Protest

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Vampires of Protest

Looters and instigators

Thieves and agitators

Brick throwers and manipulators

Leeches and parasites

Vampires of protest

Who hide out in the daylight

And only come out at night

Bloodsuckers feeding

On righteous indignation

The poison well of exploitation

Poised to march and ready to fight

But the vampires only

Come out at night

Justice seekers hit the streets

Day after day soldiers of light

To change what’s wrong

And uphold what’s right

A cause subverted by

Losers and lowlifes

A disgusting sight

They only come out at night

Insurrection

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Insurrection

The uprising begins

The insurrection is upon us

Soldiers march on the streets of America

Our own against our own

Mounted police in the nation’s capital

Batons riot sticks and pepper spray

Facing down peaceful protesters

In the glaring light of day

The eyes of the world are watching

The earth bears witness to this offense

The official deployment of brutality

Against the right of the people to speak

The president declares insurrection

Swears an oath to beat them down

Like rabid dogs without homes

Put them in their rightful place

Restore law and order

As only brutes and monarchs can

Remember Kent State

Remember Ohio

Remember Jackson State

Remember Berkeley Square

The president declares war

On his own people

And we know how it ends

Someone must die

To appease the king

And uphold the lie

Of justice in America

Good People on Both Sides

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Good People

Some words never fade

They stick in your mind

Where you don’t want to look

And wait for a reckoning

A moment of clarity

When finally as if by magic

It all makes sense

Good people on both sides

Neo Nazis and civil rights protesters

Swastikas against peace symbols

Advocacy against insults

Reason against threats

Resistance against aggression

A woman crushed for taking a stand

Good people on both sides

A man killed for being black

Good people and bad apples

As the nation explodes in rage

Our president yields to silence

Except to encourage violence

Nothing against the racist extreme

Nothing against the white supreme

Blame it on antifa: the anti-fascists

Blame it on the leftist scourge

Get tough against the mob

Good people on both sides

Nothing about the man who died

Nothing to heal the nation’s divide

Nothing but MAGA pride

Good people on our side

The others are all terrorists

You know what we do with terrorists

Lock em up!

Crush em like cockroaches!

Stuff em in a cage!

Teach em a lesson they’ll take

To the grave!

Some words never fade

Some folks never change

Some are elected president

To remind us of our shame

Burning Down Your Own House

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Burning Down Your Own House

Rage has no direction

It radiates like reflective light

You’re angry at the man

You’re angry at the world

Righteous anger is understood

But don’t burn down your hood

 

Been going on since the dawn of time

And nothing ever changes

We pretend to understand there’s a

Disease that infects the nation

But as time goes by we realize

It’s just another initiation

 

Our hearts grow cold and bitter

Our voices silent as a mouse

Anger burrows but it doesn’t help

To burn down your own damn house

 

The time will come as come it must

To turn the world around

Murder by the men in blue must end

It can’t be tolerated

The vast conspiracy of white silence

Must be terminated

 

It’s hard to wait another minute

But you know it does no good

To burn down the house of justice

When it’s in your neighborhood

Outside Agitators

RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GEORGE FLOYD SERIES

Outside Agitators

At the end of the trail

Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce

Stands with pride for his people

Saying: I will fight no more forever

At the end of a long bus ride

MLK sits in a Birmingham jail

And writes that justice is the rightful

Inheritance of all human beings

At the end of a dusty march

Cesar Chavez stands with the farmworkers

Of Solano and Bakersfield

To declare their right to organize

At the end of a long hard road

Steinbeck looks out across the great

Fields of plenty and proclaims the right

Of all men and women to live in dignity

At the end of a long futile campaign

To win final passage of the ERA

Bella Abzug declares that the age of

Gender inequality is over

In times of crisis at the end of the day

Leaders rise to the occasion

To calm a divided nation

To ease our collective pain

To bring us together

(if only for a moment)

To reassure and awaken our faith

At the end of a twitter rampage

Our president wonders aloud

If he can send his opponents to jail

If he can outlaw voting by mail

If he can order soldiers to crush

Protesters in the streets

In times of crisis

Leaders answer the call

Pretenders fall