I am the Rage Read online

The agonizing wails of postpartum depression

  of child abandonment

  From a nation trying to circumnavigate its responsibility

  For a problem she has brought to her own shores

  Snatching away the teat from those left wanting

  Eroding all trust

  Leaving her bastard children vengeful and resentful

  The reddening earth from each battle we fight

  Trying to bring about some reckoning, resolution, fairness

  Serves as a metric to our growing enmity

  Which has few boundaries

  Children, who in Your self-­righteousness

  You have carelessly fathered and left behind

  Nor wish to claim as Your progeny

  With mothers no one loves

  And whom You no longer wish to recognize as Your passion

  The music has gotten away from the melodist

  The dance has devolved into a tormented and ragged musical

  Which we must reenact every few decades

  Coming no closer to resolutions or solutions

  In My Rearview Mirror

  In my rearview mirror

  I hear the sirens long before I see the lights

  Before the vehicle comes into view

  Is it a fire truck?

  An ambulance?

  Or a police car?

  Two of these cause no trepidation

  No quickening of pulse.

  When I look again in my rearview mirror

  I see the police lights

  Rushing toward me

  Sirens blaring

  Getting louder

  Closer

  I am certain they are not coming for me

  Well, reasonably certain

  I have done nothing wrong

  I go over my internal checklist

  Speed limit –­ ok

  Correct lane –­ check

  License in purse –­ yes

  Registration and insurance in the glove box –­ yes

  Everything I might need to reach for clearly visible –­ yes…

  I think

  Tags up to date –­ probably

  All should be well

  But I know what I look like

  I know how the world sees me

  I know that sitting or driving in my car I fit the proverbial profile

  Black

  Too dark sunglasses

  Dreadlocks

  Sex, unknown

  Probably singing too loudly, even though my windows are closed

  Out of fear

  I slow down

  I drift further to the right

  I try, with some sense of urgency,

  To blend in with those driving much too slowly

  I struggle to get my breathing under control

  Loosening my grip on the steering wheel

  Checking to see if there is anything else that looks suspicious on the front seats

  Even though I know in my heart and in my logical mind that

  Nothing and everything can be suspicious

  They finally pass me by

  I almost drop my head to the steering wheel in relief

  A trickle of sweat running down my back

  Because of the fear

  The real fear is this:

  One day this will not end so well.

  America’s Music

  As I drift off to sleep

  I hear and feel a concussive blast which shakes my house

  And I know the streets are alive again tonight

  Pulsing with

  Fires and violence

  Tears and screams

  Sweat and force

  Fists and batons raised

  I live upstream from tonight’s violence

  So it probably will not touch my home

  Nor take my life

  We can be assured that little will be achieved

  save venting of outrage

  We will still gain no freedoms

  We will secure no justice

  The ephemeral hush is interrupted by a staccato of gunshots

  That pierce my heart

  My psyche is startled

  But hardly shocked

  The flaring of nostrils

  The rhythmic chants

  The stamping of feet as they struggle to push the march forward

  The beating of fists against riot shields

  And clubs against heads

  Bass notes played by helicopters not too high above us

  By pilots who have not yet realized

  That this is all part of the native song of America

  Our national anthem of greed, violence, suppression, and oppression

  To which we have all learned to dance and dutifully accept

  Until the next time

  Numb to the News

  The news has become so repetitious

  It has become almost boring

  Esoteric

  Unbelievable

  Unless you are of color

  Little girls with their molars coming in

  Sleeping on grandma’s sofa

  Dead

  Sleeping with your Boo in the middle of the night

  Anticipating your morning shift

  Dead

  Skittles

  Dead

  Violin

  Dead

  Hoodie

  Dead

  Suspect handcuffed

  Running backwards

  While holding a weapon on two officers

  Dead

  Suspect handcuffed

  In the back seat

  Of a patrol car

  Shoots himself in the head

  Dead

  Traffic stop

  Dead

  These and many more deaths can be dismissed with a single phrase

  “I was in fear of my life”

  Perhaps we should pass out cards

  to facilitate and streamline the news reporters’ jobs,

  As well as the angst and the agony that follow

  No repentance for crimes

  No remorse for loss of lives

  Presumptive guilt

  Injustice meted out with “evidence” as flimsy as cirrus clouds

  Not to be too seriously investigated

  Presumptive guilt

  Presumptive penalty

  Death

  Snake oil salesman telling us it is all in our imagination

  We are blowing things out of proportion

  We are wrong about

  Brutality doled out by bullies

  Seeking to extinguish the brands called “Black” and “Brown”

  Seeking to eradicate “others”

  To bolster their own insubstantial pride

  And reassure them of their moral superiority

  Because

  You cannot be superior without someone else being inferior

  You cannot have a top with no bottom

  Up with no down

  Upper hand without a lower hand

  Excellence without “less than”

  Nobility without serfs

  Rank without file

  Insider without outsider

  Us with them

  Masters without slaves

  Rhetoric

  The constant din of rhetoric

  Rotting away even the vaguest of hopes

  That things will change

  Get better

  Police strutting like cocks in a henhouse

  Champing at their bits, clutching their clubs

  waiting for the
curfew hour, and the beatings to begin

  Acting out orders embarrassing even to the Germans

  While others kneel and walk with the protesters

  Numbered quotas of arrests and beatings

  Solidification of hard hearts

  Tightening of helmets and flak jackets

  The erosion of freedoms

  By plague

  And the wellspring overflowing from a deep well of loathing

  The broken and boarded-up windows of the dreams of others

  While our blood stains every sidewalk

  Prayer warriors offering thanksgiving

  for having come this far

  By faith

  Which is where exactly?

  Clinging again to the dubious threads of anticipation

  For another watered-­down version of slavery

  Which should appease us for another decade

  It is a ghostly form, an apparition

  That walks among us

  One that can never truly become whole or visible to all

  While this river of blood continues to flow

  In every city and lives in every battered soul

  We Still Stand (Noble and Proud)

  Trapped beneath the floor

  Underneath the glass ceiling

  We can never break our stride

  Nor sow our downcast spirit

  While we wait for the breakthrough

  Whether a tramp strolling by

  With all belongings in a prized supermarket basket

  Or a stranger preaching on the street corner

  “The End is Nigh!”

  Deemed cagey by the hue of his skin

  Rather than his message or the state of his mind

  Or a bird boy checking out his charges in the park

  Accused of harassment and molestation

  Abundant as the unplowed fields of our 40-acre “gift”

  Rising and rising again like a zephyr

  Undaunted by Your desires to erase us

  Grateful that our forebears possessed indomitable spirits

  And the fortitude to believe and hold fast

  To their dreams of freedom

  Of better tomorrows

  But at a heavy cost

  Their lives

  And the dearest things to us/them

  The lives of their children

  We continue to traverse this land

  Pushing against the fetters of Your mind

  And the cramped lives You have carved out for us

  No matter our station nor lot in this life

  We still stand as noble and proud people

  Unbowed and unashamed

  Knowing that

  You may kill a few of us

  But You will never destroy us

  A Shocking New Race War

  This newest war on racism is new to You

  Not to me

  You have discovered that you do not know me

  Trying to learn more about me and my “kind”

  Stuff I have always known

  Angling to increase Your count

  Of how many Black bodies

  You can call friend

  Even though we are not

  Never have been

  Fawning over us like new expensive toys You bought Your children for Easter

  Picking up and putting up with

  Choosing us as the cheapest, droopy puppy You took pity on while shopping at some mall

  Continuing to shove and steer us into roles

  Ill-­suited for us both

  The proverbial square peg into the tiny round hole of Your design

  I need you to stand with me and walk beside me

  Not rushing ahead of me

  because You know better than I

  what should happen to me next

  The road is unfamiliar to You

  But not to me

  I have traveled this road many times

  Literally spent the days of my life upon it

  Like some worthless coin that goes in and out of fashion

  I lick the wounds from the last two, or is it three, race wars

  For I have lived a long time

  And try not to remember that You were the one

  Who fell behind

  every time

  And then dropped out of the race

  Without a backward glance

  Abandoned the war

  Leaving me dangling in the breeze

  Alone

  Again, naturally

  Outside Your world

  in the cold

  With yet another heavy noose coiled around my neck

  Holding me in place

  How Could We Not Have Appreciated That

  How could we have judged ourselves so harshly and so poorly

  So poorly that we did not recognize

  Ourselves as beautiful

  As graceful

  As stylish

  As magical

  And unique

  Nightly nestled between my mother’s knees

  As she ruthlessly corralled my “nappy” and unmanageable hair

  Into neat cornrows

  Determined to plow the paths straight

  So that the rows remained intact for at least 24 hours

  Gently applying Bergamot

  Less so the stinky Glover’s Mange

  To force little seedlings to grow

  How could we not have appreciated the beauty and art of that

  Preteen years aligned with

  An overwhelming desire

  to have “big girl” hair

  Sunday morning

  Snuggled between my mother’s breasts

  Seated by the stove

  The dreaded curling iron moving deftly

  To make ringlets

  That would barely last through church

  Chastised for moving too much

  Trying to preserve the tops of my ears

  To only end up with

  Burnt knuckles instead

  With ribbons and my finest clothes

  My Sunday-­best

  Topped off with patent leather shoes

  How could we not have appreciated and celebrated the beauty and the art of that

  Many years and dollars later

  Hair

  Mutated

  Weaponized

  Revolutionized

  And much to my mother’s dismay

  Transformed back into “nappy” hair

  Cake cutters and Afro Combs

  Adorned the largest crown the little seedlings could produce

  Beautiful in its message

  Soft as lamb’s wool in its texture

  Colorized to highlight its singularity

  I wore a blond streak in mine

  Individualized to sing each souls song

  How could we not have appreciated the beauty and the art of that

  Greasily Gerried

  Traveling back in time

  To ringlets that would last for months

  Braidable

  Moldable

  Almost too long to manage

  Who would have thought all this could be birthed from such paltry seedlings

  How could we not have appreciated the beauty and the art of that

  Now braided

  Or locked

  Or plaited

  Or extensioned

  Or Afroed

  Or dyed

  Or fried

  Sending new messages to a deaf world

  A message that says

  We are indeed individuals

  Each one of a kind

  And we may wear our crowns of hair

  Our crowns of beauty

  Our mother’s glory

  And God
’s glory

  In any manner we choose

  Because we are beautiful

  Too long languishing and not seeing

  Ourselves as we are

  How could we not have appreciated the beauty and the art

  The beauty we continue to make of every part of our bodies and our lives

  In spite of,

  Or is it because of,

  All we continue to endure

  How could we not have appreciated the beauty and the art of all that we are

  Why We Beat Our Children

  Born into a world that understands the gross mishandling of people

  As property

  Importing forms of punishment

  We ourselves disdain

  Dealing with the pain in our own microcosms

  Trying to right a long and terrible wrong

  Born with the invisible psychological scars

  Matching the physical scars on our ancestors’ backs

  How do you keep a child safe and alert

  How do you corral a free spirit

  Without destroying it

  How do you clear away the cobwebs of disobedience

  The randomness of thought

  How do you manage the natural disagreeableness of teens and preteens

  And spawn a new and improved version of the thing you love most

  You use what you have learned

  From my grandmother telling her daughter

  To go get a switch

  To her

  Telling me

  To go get the belt

  The emotional anguish of that long walk

  To get the instrument of your own torture

  To the trauma indelibly marking

  A relationship that could have been different

  Maybe

  How do we try to keep our children safe?

  We use what we have learned

  We beat them

  We restrain them

  We hold them in check

  So that they learn to obey commands

  Especially from white police

  But we cannot have it both ways

  As we eventually learn

  We cannot have the warm and cuddly relationship presented on TV

  And have children we are certain

  Will return to our arms safely

  So we pass on this hateful system of crime and punishment

  Praying that they can see our love and agony beneath

  And that they will find a new way to protect their own children

  Or

  Maybe

  The world will change

  And we will not have to work so hard

  Trying to keep them safe

  But probably not

  A New Song