“I do believe the poets are our modern amazons — riders, defenders, explorers of the loneliest outposts of our kingdoms”
– Audre lorde
“I held eyes with one cop that night/Could taste their fear against my famine/The bloodlust of my silence./Them not knowing/If I was one of those who had nothing to lose or live for”
~Alao Olama-Ya
That blue beast under your body will not save you
in its slaughter, look at him fear
tearful, body weaponed and armored but still
weak under the weight of you in this storm
of rioting bodies. Look
closer, at your reflection in his eye
Is this who you want to be ? Remember
the roots of who you are
Here. Let me hold you
soul in water, mind in sea
feel the ocean in your chest, welling
up through your throat, this is the drowning
the free, vessel-carried people chose over captivity,
You are warrior aren’t you? You are prophecy and ruin
You are storm, disaster, body and will of the amazons
then drop your knife
and pick up your weapon
pillage poetry from every living moment of rage
from the fear in his eyes in this moment & the titanium
music of the blade as it hits asphalt freed from your hand
Èjì.
“Tell me something/what you think would happen if/everytime they kill a black boy/ then we kill a cop/everytime they kill a black man/then we kill a cop”
~June Jordan
“not that he was not strong, but his gentleness/over-ruled the rest & he sang/& he bent & sang half-forgotten folktales/to the child in his arms”
~Diane di Prima
My blade at his throat becomes a feather
I slit it across his throat. It spells
out the first line of a poem
I lean my body heavy into his on the asphalt
my knee on his chest, covering his mouth
and in his ear I whisper
that he’ll never earn enough forgiveness to blind us of this mountain
of bodies still begging for breath
beneath their uniforms
blue blood pooling beneath him
leaking from his ears
I drag my tongue up the side of his neck.
It’s ink.
Listen, I was raised by pacifists, I’ve always been
a pacifist and right now I believe
it isn’t enough.
Look at what they’ve taken from us
and keep
taking from us. Nothing will change
I look at his black face
I hold his gaze, my body pinning him down,
I stretch my arm across the ground
where I dropped my blade
and I slide it gently
into his neck
his eyes
dart around like
he’s looking for
someone, a loved one
to rescue him. and
then the stillness
penetrates me
I drop the blade for the second time
wearing a clean crimson coat
and I
start trembling
and in my chest, I-
a man meets my eyes
he grabs me
by the shoulder
gently
and nods at me
with sad eyes
like he
understands
& then he
continues
rioting
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