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