these signs of the times
I see everywhere I walk
I can’t understand
why I’m chased off of the block
why segregated we stand
inspired by Norman Rockwell's “The Problem We All Live With (Ruby Bridges)” 1964. symbolizing the struggle for civil rights and school desegregation in the United States
When President Eisenhower sent the troops to Little Rock
in ’57 to enforce brand-new federal desegregation laws, you liberals didn’t object
After all, Governor Faubus‘ states’ rights’ was a lawless Confederate anachronism
an obsolete holdover from the racist South in the Civil War
But now that DJT is trying to enforce long-standing immigration law in America
you sanctuarians are up in arms, obstructing justice and invoking ‘states rights!!’
the most revolting moniker I can think of
~ But then again, you’all are pretty revolting yourselves
I
Our cry, silenced.
We watch the murder of our freedoms
Like spectators at a lynching.
Our Twenty-first-century forbearance rubbed out,
Our twentieth-century sensibilities never happened.
High court corruption,
A misogyny hell-bent on a 19th-century revival.
In its myopic mendacity,
In its mockery of fundamental democracy,
We all take great comfort in knowing
A woman’s body is now state-regulated.
There is great solace in knowing how
Raped little girls will be forced to give birth.
II
Our cry, silenced.
Oh, see all the words never included,
Never even considered in the Constitution:
“Lesbian,” “gay,” “desegregation.”
Too busy were the founders with tending
Their slaves in 1789.
Too busy they were in stealing land from
Native Americans.
The founders never wrote of Jews or Muslims,
They never knew the word “Latinx.”
But something in the mischief of children
Tells us who we really are today!
Not when women were executed for witchcraft.
Not when the founders made a Constitutional guide
Like sausage.
Published: Dissident Voice 10/23/22
A
simple
walk from home
to all white school
was needed to break segregation rule
fate chose little Bridge to brave that first walk
in her school frock
freedom won
for us
all
1st Placement
picture 1
double tetractys (7) poetry contest
Eve Roper
Written 14/02/2021
1,2,3,4,10,10,4 3,2,1
Rosa Louise Parks
refused to give up her seat
“First Lady of Civil Rights”
back in fifty-five
civil disobedience
‘fore Martin Luther King’s time
courageous Rosa
kept her seat and caused a stir
faith told her she was right
created equal
in the colorblind eyes
of a Lord who loves mankind
desegregation
took decades to accomplish --
a Maverick led the way
*Entry for Cyndi’s "Mavericks" contest
This choka was tweaked by having six instead of seven syllables in the second line of the third verse.
Rosa Louise Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) An African American, Parks refused to obey a Montgomery, Alabama bus driver’s order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. Congress bestowed upon her the title “First Lady of Civil Rights.”
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