Dressed in their Sunday best
Toothy grins
Pristine shoes
Eyes sparkling with joy
A simple family picture
The epitome of innocence
'Spick and span' as they would say
A nice family outing
Where you ask?
Church?
A family picnic?
Day trip?
No.
They dressed up in their Sunday best
To watch a black man succumb to a slow and labored death
To watch his long drawn out last breath
The slowed movement of his chest
Giggling as the now still mans body stops all movement
They await their turn to take picture
A forever reminder of their first lynching
Categories:
lynching, children, discrimination, memory, prejudice,
Form: Free verse
Their tears drown out truth
In a thick coating of white lies
Used to prepare our demise
Each tear, a loss, a death, a wound
That seals our communities doom
A cry for war without any real cause
Our flesh the only thing it burns
A pain that continues into the next generations
Fragility they use for power
Without it they would starve to death
Insecurities dictate their minds
Flooded by the truth of how they feel
Dominating their being without attention
They don't just crave it, they need it like the air they breathe
Or the alternative dealing with their thoughts of inferiority
Whilst being clouded by jealousy
They feel to the race they claim to hate
Yet copy everything we do
That steals everything we've built
The power of the white woman's tear
Is something to be studied
Something so dangerous it's killed more than the white man
Curated a war against the black man
Killing the innocent with their blood Soaked tears
This a crime gone unpunishable for centuries
Categories:
lynching, cry, discrimination, power, prejudice,
Form: Free verse
Stalked all their life
Stained by a crime not committed
A permanent mark on black skin
A reminder how we will never fit in
Labelled as criminals
Despite being exonerated
Probation was for those in need of reformation
Not those who already good behaviour
But any chance to stereotype
The oppressors will take their chance
To keep the invisible chains of oppression are locked in and secured
A way to surveil those who now walk in the light
Constant checkups, now a normal routine
Having to ensure their record is squeaky clean
Being suffocated by the fear
Of breathing wrong
They'll do anything to keep us behind bars
Freedom they promised, yet freedom we haven't received
Being watched doesn't equate to being free
Especially when we still hang from the trees of your critique
You can't claim slavery ended when we are still slaves to your constant surveillance
Not when incarceration is used as a way to keep us hidden
Not when we live a life of normalcy
Yet are still followed
By the law that claims to help
Yet shoots us as soon as we open our mouth
You can't claim it ended when we live under the power
Of the white man
Categories:
lynching, discrimination, freedom, power, prejudice,
Form: Free verse
The case of lynching vs suicide
A black man
Hangs
Lifeless
Silent
Eerie
The only sound
Is the wind thrashing around
As it surrounds
The black man
Screaming loud
Trying to get the man to make a sound
The wind howled
In pain
In agony
Watching as the whole town
Laughing like he was some kind of clown
The police never showed
In the report they'll label it as a suicide
For them case closed
Why they were part of the show
They think they'll clean up the mess tomorrow
And because they had all the power
They had the upper hand in this matter
They also had control so it didn't matter if they were murderers
Especially if their victims were black
No one would care if they were attacked
Except the black community
And the worst part is they couldn't have a funeral
Because they didn't just kill him, after they also burned his body
Even in death he had no autonomy
They stole the right to say goodbye from the family
And just like his body
They burned his story
Categories:
lynching, political, prejudice, race, racism,
Form: Free verse
They kept finding different ways to lynch us
Oh we're still spectacles
They just watch from their smartphones
Watching as we struggle
Watching us be tackled
They don't see us as victims
Just waiting for a pundit
To say we deserve it
Let's not forget about the 13th ammendment
Instead of being slaves they just entered our names in the system
As an excuse to reduce us to numbers
Instead of being slaves we were just labelled as criminals
Technically 'slavery' was abolished
So instead of being whipped
We were punished
With imprisonment
They just found a loophole
A different form of control
Don't get me started on the education system
A place where our history is hidden
A place of division
And preferential treatment
Of a certain race of students
They do it just enough
To remind us of our place in this institution
A constant reminder of how we will never fit in
All because our skin which triggers their racism
If you think racism has ended
Then you're choosing ignorance
You need to be educated
But us black people won't do it
Categories:
lynching, color, education, racism, truth,
Form: Free verse
RamaRajya, Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent utopia of mutual tolerance, has no place for bigots who lynch and leech the Weak.
Lynch my body
Pinch my soul
Punch my pride
Drench my blood
Staunch be your henchmen
Bunch of bigoted hooligans
Flinch us they from progress
Wrench us they from justice
Exhaust every trick in your bag
Pull every arrow off your quiver
Bribe your cheerleaders forever
Swing your dagger far and deeper
Behold! Destiny’s Wheel will one day turn
In your own inferno shall you burn
Hate will then find no buyers
Fade shall every Fake Soothsayers
Rama’s Rajya will then re-assign
Love and equality will re-reign
Unity and Diversity will re-align
Tolerance will do India define
***
(From the anthology, Mantra of the Oppressed, available on Amazon.)
Categories:
lynching, freedom, political, religion, violence,
Form: Rhyme
We saw blood on the leaves
Yeah! Blood filling the roots
Our ancestors hanging from trees
Their blood flowing out to the slave seas
Chained crews taken
To the cane fields
Haiti toppled from the outside, see reels
Shaken down to it’s knees
What they set out to achieve
Ain't no lie, ain't no dream
The enslaved Screamed
Our Blood on the leaves
Copyright March 4, 2023 by Brian Pierre-Alexander
© All Rights Reserved
Categories:
lynching, black love, discrimination, grave,
Form: Narrative
Santa went out last night dressed as the Grinch.
Partied too much got into a tight pinch.
Woke with aching hangover.
Mrs. Santa, boil-over,
Bells ringing, threaten with deer's reins to lynch.
11/13/2022
A Fun Holiday Limerick Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Tania Kitchin
Categories:
lynching, bullying, marriage,
Form: Limerick
You know that they are many
And you’re asking ‘if any?’
Those who could kill for Penny
For it search Nook and Cranny
You know that they are heady
And for lynching The Ready,
For every touched property
And The Thief of Puberty
And just there - Pubic Hair
Making The Theft Quite Unfair …
A Poverty of Ideas
By Man who Poverty fears!
Categories:
lynching, corruption, death, evil, violence,
Form: Rhyme
Chicago native Emmett Till would no longer be alive
after he was lynched in the state of Mississippi in 1955.
Till was on summer vacation in a village called Money.
It's located in the delta region of the river Mississippi.
The fourteen year old was beaten and shot in the head.
His body was dumped in the Tallahatchie River when he was dead.
Till flirted with a white woman in a grocery store, allegedly.
What really happened there remains a bit of a mystery.
The woman's husband and his half brother were the culpable party.
They were acquitted of all charges by an all-white jury.
Since the Constitution protects citizens against double jeopardy,
the two later admitted their guilt in a magazine's story.
This was one of the most infamous events in our history.
I thank wikipedia.org for information I obtained to write this poem
Categories:
lynching, america, history, murder,
Form: Rhyme
Today, lynching has gone
From roped necks and trees
To piercing bullets and klan knees;
Free from guilt and doing no wrong.
Yet, the hued victims remain the
Same;
And seeking immediate justice seems
Just insane;
Today’s dead man walking, is surely
A young or old black;
There’s no shadow of doubt that normal
Racist murder is back.
Those blacks that the present pandemic pulsating virus
Don’t infect and kill,
Many—you can bet—roving racist cops and their peers
Most surely will.
No matter which perpetrator of the two will cause our
Black families to grieve,
Keloid memories will be echoes of those ghostly words,
“I can’t breathe…”
From many rains ago, it has been proven that with racism
“[We all can’t]…just get along…”
And while we wander racist injustice together, it also seems
“Burn baby burn” has not gone.
Categories:
lynching, america, analogy, bereavement, black
Form: Rhyme
Mountains were coming down to
never-home,
in surreal rebuff to shaking earth;
emerging from the shadows of sky.
In groping for the legs
this was the myth of lynching.
You are drenched in the rains
of promises.
A kiss for each lethal penetration,
for global time-
you are becoming a wasteland
borne out of swollen fingertips-
who would not write any name.
The many words of pain are finding
a new meaning from the vocabulary
of conceit and betrayals.
A deliberate isolation brings
the sound sleep to ashes to become a thing.
Satish Verma
Categories:
lynching, art,
Form: ABC