Tag: black

Blakk Amerika – From Prophets to Pimps

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Image Copyright © 2015 Israylite Heritage

If you are in the Chicagoland area, I am inviting you to go and see this play! Tickets go on sale midnight and no matter your religion or nationality, you HAVE to see this play. Below is a synopsis and the link to the website, check it out if you can:

“4000 years ago bible prophecy spoke about a mighty people who would be taken captive and brought into a strange land in ships.  They would undergo mistreatment by a ruthless enemy for four hundred years.  Who are these mighty lost and suffering people? What is the true history of African Americans before slavery? Why have we endured so much hardship? The Bible foretold of our entire history in the West thousands of Years before we arrived here. Come out to witness this ground breaking stage play for a night of Truth, poetry, Song, tears, laughter and answers to Questions that have gone unanswered for hundreds of years.”

From Prophets to Pimps

Click Here to be taken to the website

His Birth Pains

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There’s a woman
laying in the hospital
and armed with the next generation in her womb,
and she’s about to give birth real soon
she breathes
in another breath as her body jerks,
to the sound of the television… it is the news.
reporting another mass murder of black men
he moves
inside of her
tucking his head underneath his soft bones
she moans
at another kick
to her ribs
his tiny fingers have just curled around them
holding her insides with the delicate force of a newborn
he hesitates “This is it.”
The end of nine months only to see another nine years
of bars
he fears
this new place
leaving no more space
for his body to stretch out
than his face
pressed tightly against
the skin of his mother’s uterus.
Of this new world he thought he’d be curious
but the sounds of the outside has only made him furious
the sounds of police in the distance
kicking,
he kicks again this is resistance
forcing the woman into painful sensations
but he kicks
constantly
cause this is not an invitation to leave
it is a plea to stay
“Don’t worry lil man”, the doctor says, “Mama’s just a lil tense,
but he shutters at homelessness
debating to himself if to pass up his first breath is worth it
his ground iron
his heavens bronze
his prayers polluted like falling stars
trying to break lose what’s already bent
rocking his mother’s body once more
this can’t be heaven sent
but
it’s too late
something has pushed him out of his place
and its holding him tightly,
his screams echo, “let go of me.”
but he has already lost his authority
and he doesn’t even know his name
and these are just the beginning
of his birth pains.

Freedom: The Illusion

There’s a strange fruit

hanging from the trees

but not the kind of Billie Holidays days

with

blood all on the leaves

but these

are a different set of trees

and they bear a strange fruit

called ignorance

with an illusion up its sleeve

an illusion so thick

sometimes it’s hard to breathe

I feel like I am in the days

of Dr. Martin Luther King back when

black folks marched and sang songs

and Martin had a dream but,

what exactly was his dream?

I found myself

asking myself

over and over these things

what exactly was his dream?

I thought and so my thoughts led me

to February 1818,

here was born Fredrick Douglas

a man who also had this dream

To not have to work the cotton fields

courtesy of the curses

was his dream see to

not be so dark

so black

this too was his dream and in

1845 he found himself

on the “winning” team.

Tired of hearing screams of being slapped up

he slipped up into a secret society.

Wanting to be a part of this world so badly

he joined the American Anti–Slavery Society

mistakenly joining a secret society

determined

to tear him away

from his own

society

This was his conclusion

Mr. Douglas my friends

got caught up in the illusion.

So being women some of us and

enjoying the company of women the other half of us

our thoughts led us to some women tales

we thought

well most certainly

we can get our answers from Mrs. Ida B. Wells

But as I studied her story in search for this dream

my mind began to drift away

as I saw that she too had this dream

she too had this purpose

she too wanted to escape

the curses

Blinded by a fake reality

she too joined a secret society

also known as the NAACP

created by Jews

but led by intelligent fools

with black skins

who sought to escape the bodies they were in

So

like Douglas

Ida became confused in a world of turmoil

that led her to believe her own confusion

she too was caught up

in this Illusion

but we had to figure out some way

somehow our own existence

our own being

therefore we continued our search

for Martin’s dream

our thoughts destination

had to steer towards education

so take it

it’s yours

this led us to of course,

W.E.B. Dubois.

something about this man caused an excitement

that ran through you and me we

became amazed

and began to admire his level of maturity

when it came to intellectual ability so we thought sure

“Now this man can school me.”

However, with him too my mind became stumped

as I ran across this myth

and

found that my admirer was in favor

of the talented tenth?

To my astonishment

he too had this dream

He too wanted to be on what he thought

was the winning team

(even if it meant only 10% of the winning team)

see because Dubois didn’t understand the curses

he created the crisis

magazine

so as we caught up to Dr. Martin Luther King and we

heard his many speeches singing “I had a dream!”

we too began to lust for this very dream

even if it was not real

all we had to do was feel

feel like we had this dream

even after our depression still lingers

and our arthritis can still be felt in the fingers

and our AIDS rate keeps growing

and our blood stops flowing

even in the midst of the curses

and the confusion

we’d still rather give ear to this Freedom

the illusion.

Break the Chain

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Thought I saw her self-esteem in the carpet.
Her back bearing the burden of bare floors
and
forks that scraped the bottom of clay plates
Thought I saw pain on the side of her state
of mind.

Thought I saw her spirit cut low like the grass.
Scattered pieces of forgetfulness floating fluently throughout her bones
that
clung its skin like melted wax welding its warring arms wildly in the sun
I asked her
Why she allowed herself to suffer she said, “I’m waiting for a change to come.”

I walked on…

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I felt metallic liquid lick my cheeks, the blood of one who’s hung.

His body shriveled up in the bowels of his own sadness,
His face “a raisin in the sun”

I can see that his faith had fallen down to his knee caps.
But his eyes bulged boldly on and his life sped passed me in just a few years
Till my taste buds could create a meal from the salt I saw dancing in his tears
Telepathically he told me
that he didn’t die right here beneath this oak tree
But, “stepping foot inside this land is what killed me” He said
And like a mad woman I stared deep into a dead man’s eyes and said, “I see.”
I said.

“So why do you hang out here like one whose been hung?”
He told me, “Cuz I’m waiting for a change to come”

I walked on….

At Play Near The Robert Taylor Houses

And this time crossed the Jordan
And I could hear nothing but the soft laughter of children in my ears
Shouting…jumping,
till I realized I had not entered the promised land,
but this was a street court filled with Jordan fans
Where
hope bounced back and forth to the sound of merciless concrete
polished “Niks” was like knives reaching for revolution in the air
it was cold
but the men were hot
contradictory

the American dream tied around the wings of the goddess of victory
these were project kids with $200 dollar Nikes
unknown vehicles hitting the streets
and then the seats
were suddenly empty

I realized then that I had been standing in the middle of a blank street
a court turned into a corpse
Low income homes now funeral homes, they trampled upon one another
fighting to “one up” one another
silently and still
I saw it
pieces of paper scraped up and scattered to the four corners
(Guess that’s why were still fighting one another for street corners)
a
basketball balled up and clumped like a clot of blood
carved into the cracks in the streets where crack addicts one day roamed the streets
I asked
this balled up clot of hopelessness “Where are you from??”
it told me,

“I wish to go back… but I am waiting for a change to come.”

Guest Feature – Exerpt from Ntozake Shange

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For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is Enuf Copyright © 1975, 1976, 1977 by Ntozake Shange

i can’t hear anythin

but maddening screams

& the soft strains of death

& you promised me

you promised me…

somebody/anybody

sing a black girl’s song

bring her out to know herself

to know you

but sing her rhythms

carin/struggle/hard times

sing her song of life

she’s been dead so long

closed in silence so long

she doesn’t know the sound

of her own voice

her infinite beauty

she’s half-notes scattered

without rhythm/no tune

sing her sighs

sing the song of her possibilities

sing a righteous gospel

let her be born

let her be born

and handled warmly.