My black is majestic my black is smooth
Even when I was banished from public pool
Even if I was portrayed black face fool
I was a raven flying above you.
I am much more than kinky hair
Thick thighs brown eyes and ebony stare
I am the truth if you want or dare
Take my hand and I’ll take you there.
Black is deeper than had been enslaved
Nothing weaker than to steal me away
From my history where I am great
From times mystery of healing faith
October 17th we celebrate
All black poets on black poetry day
You don’t have to know it that you are a poem
written by spirit, fruit of the loin strong.
Most of us poets are not well known
In our hearts we find gem stone home
For literacy and for fuchsia full blown
Purple royal words we call our own.
Categories:
blackface, appreciation, black african american,
Form: Rhyme
Fields that once were ripe with crops
Now play host to blackface and cheviot
Where the children ran and played
Among the bluebell and the thistle
Now screams the wind in bansidhe wail
Looking for those who once dwelt there.
This land was once our land
Where we lived and loved
Rings now with silence
In this our last dance.
In wooden vessels on the clyde
Like the silver darlings
They were packed side by side
Across the mighty sea
To lands of distant shore.
Homes in ruin lie ivy on the roof
Grass cropped short by a million mouths
Flies the eagle his gaze on land below
Looking for the people who danced to natures tune
Still grow the bluebells among
Pine and birks and stream.
Apm 4/1/14 1.25 am.
Categories:
blackface, allegory, betrayal, longing,
Form: Dramatic Verse
Governor Terry Twinkle ** ** not his real name (ha, ha)
Over us did sprinkle
Some clumsy, inadept sprinkle
How'd he win the governorship?
His opponent's racism he ripped
Now it's Twinkle
Whose wings've been clipped --
Appearing in a photo
That he shouldn't have ought to
In blackface beside a Ku Klux Klanner
We insist he resign
He responds with this whine --
To err is human; I'm not divine
Categories:
blackface, leadership, political, race, racism,
Form: Burlesque
Blackface
By Valerie Odom
March 24, 2017
Blackface
White man down
Black paint
Yell our race, stand in the crowd
While you screaming “All Live Matter”
Our men being shot to the ground
Blackface
But you got white lips
Blackface
Why you making your white supremacy the top of the list?
Blackface
You tryna catch these hands?
Cus’ you can catch me outside
Take that black paint off Man
You’re a fool
The disrespect is on 10
Claim you’re just having fun
These lies needa end
I’m tired of the mistreat
I just only want peace
Next time I see you with that black paint on
It’s finna be a rumble in the streets
Categories:
blackface, black african american, bullying,
Form: Rhyme
No’s
Talking to themselves in the third person
Detached, separate,
ominous—a stilted nuance that does want to know
Abrupt attention spans lashing out as the deadends foreclose
Cutting back on all the backslapping
Having wanted to believe all the
smooth lies and all that crap brings
Devolver minds snapping
Struggling to get out from under makes denial clear
That hate will only listen to fear
Ground-zero panderers jacked up on anger and lack of reason
Birthers,
churchers,
hardrighters, flinching through all the circumspect treasons
The angryanxiety fringe
A binge of onthemake bumper-sticker values gone rouge
Corrosive
these druthers and their blackface esthetic:
the avarice acumen pathetic
Offish flaws as validation, rage as wisdom
What the No generation has become
A reality TV worldview that sees itself through its swindled delusions
Overmedicated, undereducated—the slander ethic
70%-off prosperity
Nightmare personalities who just don’t get it
Alibiing
the next impulse—gimme now
Rationalizing the next urge—gimme now
Surging the absurd—gimme now
Going for another denial do or die—gimme now
Categories:
blackface, political, urban
Form: Free verse
Sundays, my mother and I watched movies on PBS.
Jezebel, Sabrina, In the Good Old Summertime
Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, Judy Garland.
I practiced their detached look of desire
In bathroom mirrors, when no one was looking.
I learned to smear lipstick across my face,
As if readying myself for a ball,
And dot the beauty mole where my lips creased upward, conjuring Marilyn.
Why didn’t anyone in the movies look like me?
The darkest grays were servants mumbling “Yes’um, Ma’am” or “No, Sir.”
No blonde hair or come-hither lashes.
Maybe Nat was right: “Madison Avenue is Afraid of the Dark.”
Recently, I’ve watched Shirley tap in movies
For a few minutes, I did wish I was her, with my curls
Bouncing in the air, my dress a frilled tower -
That is, until her young voice cracked, “Mr. Bones, Mr. Bones.”
The musicians walked out in blackface and I remembered.
Categories:
blackface, black african american, imagination,
Form: Free verse