Killing Her Song
killing her song
(for Adhimu aka Lawrence Hamm and Sheila Reid*)
by ‘bro. zayid’
“I'm gonna stay on the battlefield
“I'm gonna stay on the battlefield
“I'm gonna stay on the battlefield,
Until I die…”
--Freedom Song
this is not rocket science…
no experts need be empaneled
to further milk this cow of genocide…
u say that ‘all lives matter’
but this is not happening to
pete, or heather or bob…
it is our sons getting shot
with their hands up
it is our sons getting shot
with their cellphones in hand
it is our sons getting shot
with their hands in their pockets
or their hands behind their heads
or their hands cuffed behind their backs…
and it is our daughters
being pummeled into highway asphalt
our daughters
getting body slammed into their windshields
face first in midsentence
trying to answer their questions
it is our daughters
being found throatless in putrid jail cells
after minor traffic violations
as if they have no names…
and we are the ones whom death is shooting apart
surrounded by squad cars amp’d up
to enjoy feasts of state massacres…
this is just not happening to bob, heather or pete…
and it doesn’t even matter
that it is now happening to us on videotape!
grand juries
let it go
local courts
let it go
state courts
let it go
even the justice department
lets it go and explains to us
why we have accept it all
and accept what they won’t do…
why? why?! why?!!
insulting the saltburned flooded eyes
of the growing litany of mothers burying children
over and over and over and over and over again…
even the leaves the grass and the soil
are offended by the volume of our earthburning tears…
the universe yelps
at the outrage
of the bleeding imbalance of injustice…
their warning whispers
of the lethal consequences
of the violent lunacy of white supremecy
continue to be ignored…
there is more to whats wrong in Milwaukee
than the beer and the cheese going bad…
so when the fat lady’s toxic bloated belly
bursts
into an indiscriminate lava of blood
soaking the streets of our cities
ruining yr gentrifying grand plans
u will have no one to blame
but yrselves
for killing
her song…
*Lawrence Hamm is the founding chairman of the People’s Organization for Progress(P.O.P.)…He has put more foot soldiers on the streets of New Jersey over the scourge of police brutality over several decades than any other so-called ‘leader’ or ‘leaders’ combined…He is currently directing a Justice Mondays campaign where P.O.P. rallies at the Justice Dept’s Newark office every Monday…Sheila Reid is the mother of Jerame Reid who was shot by Bridgeton police officers with his hands up on videotape on December 30th, 2014. On August 22, 2016, the Justice Department said that they would not charge these officers for that spectacle killing. This poem is a response to that decision…
‘bro.zayid’ Muhammad is a Jazz poet, stage actor and activist. Also known as ‘Baba Zayid’ to young people in the greater Newark area, which means ‘father’ in Yoruba, he is one of the more well-known cubs of the legendary NY chapter of the Black Panther Party. He is working on a new volume of poems called The Soul Poems-Offerings of Love and Resistance…
©2016 all rights reserved
Copyright © Zayid Muhammad | Year Posted 2016
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