Niyi Osundare
II
Black Life Martyrs,
Their voices rise from untimely graves:
Amadu Diallo, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Botham Jean, Breanna Taylor, Philando Castille, Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd. . . . .
Any Hall of Fame
For Trophies from Police hunts?
*
To be and not to be
To wallow in want in a sea of wealth
To shout and not be heard
To stand and not be seen
To sow and never to reap
To live all your life below the Law
To be stopped and frisked stopped and frisked stopped and frisked stopped and. . . . .
To be told countless times
To forgive and then forget
Yess Sur, Yes Maa’m. . . .
Put them at ease with your Negro smile
Your low, low, bow and your high regard
That cool façade is your saving grace
The “Angry Black Man” is as good as dead
*
911, 911, 911, 911
My name is Sue, a bank accountant
Calling from my car in City Park
There’s a black male around
Whose dark shadow menaces my tender sight
Send a cop; my life is at risk
*
Our Police know their oath:
To serve
&
To protect
*
And the Emperor snarls
From the bunker of his White Castle
Vowing “vicious dogs and ominous weapons”
Rolling in guns to “dominate the streets”
His unhappy nation now his “battlespace”
*
Choke-hold, choke-hold
Stranglehold and dash dangle
400 years of knee-on-neck
*
Black Lives Matter
Black Life Martyrs
*
Asked Louis Armstrong, the smiling Trumpetman:
What did I do to be so black and blue?
*
I can’t breathe
I can’t breathe
I can’t bre. . . . .
- . . . .
