Wrangle words, twist defenses
Round heart and soul,
You need the bricks
Behind which
You hide, denying
the blackness all see
Of the hate you spit.
Remember Jacob’s hip
After wrestling with God.
I take the truth
for it is mine,
rolling myself in it until
protected from the acid of the asinine
that drips from the pens, the tongues
of many and power,
of those we call elite,
of those we once called—
friends.
I grieve the words spoken
by asinine tongues
and actions taken
by hate filled hearts
that do not comprehend the words
we were taught—
“love your neighbor as yourself”—
The second commandment.
Darkness gathers upon the horizon of our land:
A land we have loved with the lives of our sons and daughters,
A land we have bled for,
A land we have built upon golden ideals,
Shining as a beacon to other nations
But the darkness gathers upon the horizon of our land:
For which we have done things of shame and sin,
For we have killed our sisters and brothers
Of all different colors,
For we have kept others in chains of injustice
Because we saw others as less than.
And now the darkness gathers in our cities,
Creeping along the horizon of our land.
Now. Now is the time to carry that torch
Lifted above the water of a harbor
And see its light spread across our land.
We must be the promise
For which our daughters and sons died.
Driving out the darkness,
We must all be the promise of the dream—
Liberty and justice for all.
Too dark
Too light
Too in between
Too bright
Too rosy
Too peach–
Just too much
Or not enough at all.
This has always been my plight.
I am African-American
But not black enough .
I am Native American
But not red enough.
I am Latina
But not brown enough.
Just mixed enough for most
To assume whiteness of me,
Sparking comments about a whitey master
in the woodpile of my ancestors.
In this ocean of the mixed
There’s affinity
But no belonging
As I reach for a new shade of blush
That is just close enough.
An orchestra of children
Provides a symphony.
The violin of a two-year-old
Sings the plaintive cries,
“Daddy, Daddy!”
The lone flute of a three-year-old
Soars above the din,
A painful wail,
“Mommy, Mommy.”
Then the scratchy oboe
Of perhaps a four-year-old,
Keening for an aunt to be allowed to come
And take him to her home to stay.
Next all the whimpers,
Sobbing, moans
Squalls, and laments
Of trumpets, tubas,
Violas, bass and all the rest
Join the cacophonous clamor
Of such a discordant melody,
Harmonious to the hardened of heart
Who give ear to this orchestra,
Deserving of nothing but the pain
Contained within the symphony
The progeny play,
As less than they.
More delicate than our dying Earth,
The fragile blood of our children dries,
Blistering in a baking sun
While we watch
Our babies gasping
Like hooked fish.
Our humanity broken,
We are wooden pawns
In the game of masters,
Men who would be kings
Posturing outrage
Over plans known
By them alone
Made in black secret rooms,
Selling us all to Mephistopheles,
Trading on the fragility of our attention
With the lives of our children,
Who made us human.
Nothing is left to wonder at,
But if this is the day
Humanity made
God tearless.
A battle won,
Time now to rise,
Rise in the streets to remind
Of a time when
With a banging shoe
Our damnation tolled
As shouts and threats
Of our burial
Brought us to the brink.
We must rise,
Rise, take to the streets,
Stand beneath the feet of great ones
They plan to topple and disgrace,
To show we see the link
Smelted and forged in gold
With the man behind the curtain.
We once caused a wall to fall.
Let our numbers now rip down
A curtain made of gold.
The Lady went dark,
feeling the decline.
The dawn trembled,
as the power of the mother raised
a sisterhood united.
While the capricious one
and his band of merry fools
turned tiny hands
to the magician’s tools
of distraction and deflection,
whipping their devout disciples
to a rabid, foamy hate,
ready to trample their different siblings.
Thus, the mother within the sisterhood
and a faction of the brotherhood
joins them to rise,
persisting in resisting
to protect a nation
for the next generation.
The once silenced sentiment
Finding voice in our modern age
Now screams in rage:
BUILD A WALL
WHITE POWER
MY PRESIDENT SAYS WE CAN KILL YOU NOW
GET OUT OF MY COUNTRY
And on it goes
Until an absence of color
Signifies ownership
Of Justice whose scales were sold
And tore off her blindfold,
Of Liberty whose anger more than scorched,
That book of law before that torch
She turned and hurled into the Caspian
To douse the betrayed flame.
Robes torn, heads covered in ashes
Justice and Liberty now sit on the ground,
Crying out:
With headstones overturned
And threats to Abraham’s schools,
How long before another night
Of broken glass?
With two now dead in Crescent City,
How long before the crosses burn
As the noose is placed round
The necks of Nubians
How long before the crosses twist,
And on them, shepherds are tied
And left in the cold to die, crucified?
When did the colors of our flag turn:
Red, White, and Black?
Place the saddle,
Force the bit,
Ride us all
As you wish.
For that’s your dream
To feel such power,
As you surely never felt
Surge between your thighs.
But now the blood flow to the brain
Must be your impediment,
For you to blunder and believe
We could be fooled, trained, broken
To your prideful will
By whipping us with hate
And all the while saying
It is for our own good
To know our place
Till we become beaten slaves,
Smiling, nodding, shuffling on,
Muted and grateful you own us
Since we, at least, survive.
While you, smug and smiling,
Play the benevolent, loving master,
As is the lie of your fantasy.
Cloaked in liberty won
In the blood of our history,
We watch
Your strutting, angry buffoonery
As we stand proud,
Refusing the saddle and the bit,
Fighting against the whip,
We will not smile
We will not nod
We stride and march,
Rejecting everything
You would twist us into
As you claim to make
Our nation great once again
We rise to free our nation
From you, the enemy of democracy,
As is the reality.
Poetry by Trisha Leigh
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