Soul's laugh soul's cry
Soul's live soul's die
But what of the soul's of trees
Sipping soil in which we bleed
Nature uses our body to feed
Colorful tears shed are leaves
Falling like a ballet in breeze
Whimsical dramatic blue melody
Trees that stand as nations fall
Despite wars in lands they stand tall
Hearing all our tales bittersweet
Fearing our own power in peak
Chopping trees down despite need
Shrilling sound of dying greenery
The soul's of men hang low
Hanging then during Jim Crow
Brown bodies lynched from branch
Trees do scream in this land
But we ignore, don't listen at all
Animals we are and sure to fall
If we don't learn to hazel hear
Trees that cry colorful leaf tears
Categories:
lynch, america, angst, animal,
Form: Rhyme
A splendid job you did clinch:
One helping you to others pinch;
And warn them to not move an inch,
Freely going mad when they flinch,
Half hoping to a life lynch.
It has been your dreamt role:
To strokes of the cane increase;
And where there’s none try a pole,
Causes giving faces to crease;
The inhuman you unleash with ease
Of mounting pressures no release,
You’re advised to roles switch,
And at the sight of blood twitch.
Categories:
lynch, absence, anxiety, bereavement, betrayal,
Form: Rhyme
Mississippi 1954
"Don’t you bring that no good
So and so 'round here.
If you bring him to ma door
Bobby Roy and Billie Joe
Will make him disappear."
But Mother, I love him.
"She’s a spool of trouble, son.
A stitch in time may save nine
But ain't gon save you from the vine."
But Papa, I need her.
(And ooh ain’t love a thrill)
"Son, inteegration works in Paris
Even better in Buenos Aires
But in Mississippi-
Oh, that can get you killed."
"Son, a White girl ain’t what you missin’."
"Girl, get a White boy to give you kissin’."
But neither one of them would listen
They walked hand in hand
Down love's long highway
Singing,
Gonna have it my way
Gonna get married
Two children down the hallway
Oooh Bee Oooh Bee Dooo
Six cars pulled beside them
When that Southern sky grew dim
Billy Joe said, Boy,
We gonna put you on a limb.
But they kept right on singin’
(Ooh love is such a thrill)
We’re four-thousand miles from Paris
We were searchin' for Buenos Aires
But we got each other still.
Oooh Bee Ooo Bee Dooo
Categories:
lynch, conflict, heartbroken, love, race,
Form: Rhyme
Clinton Lynch
1862-1912
It took a long time for me to die.
Five long years; from the moment
Doctor Barmore told me my heart was bad,
Until the day I was on my deathbed,
Staring listlessly through my envious window,
At a world that was alive with people living,
A truly strange and wonderful world, that
Was presently passing before me,
Like a final grand parade in time,
With all my old friends, dead now,
Waving from carriages festooned in gladioli.
In the end, I had no living friends. Instead,
I had my elderly mother tend to me,
With stern patience, and kind forbearance.
At my funeral, here at Mt Olive,
Eleven people attended my final rites,
Performed ably by the coughing Pastor Hadley.
My final epitaph is nothing grand or profound;
It is simply a simple farewell,
From a simple man,
Who lived a simple life.
And it is okay if no one remembers me.
Categories:
lynch, death,
Form: Epitaph
lynch an empty chair
and wave a flag of freedom
in racist delight
gives proof that legislation
can’t whiten a blackened heart
Categories:
lynch, life,
Form: Tanka