Bigotry

“Intolerance” by Joaquin Abella

you squirm with the worms

in your cankerous

craters of ignorance

deep in its damps

where sunlight can’t cleanse

your arbitrary filth

yet somehow you thrive

with your burgeon

of slithering isms

you now and then scrabble

up and over the rim

don your sheets

mount your dragon

and visit our civilized

precincts to peddle

more unctuous bilge

until someone like me

kicks your pustulant ass

back down that black hole

where your mortified

parents abandoned you

 

 

From my book Bullets from Bones

Bigotry

“Open Casket” (Emmett Till) by Hannah Black

 

you squirm with the worms
in your cankerous
craters of ignorance
deep in its damps
where sunlight can’t cleanse
your arbitrary filth
yet somehow you thrive
with your burgeon
of slithering isms
you now and then scrabble
up and over the rim
don your sheets
mount your dragon
and visit our civilized
precincts to peddle
more unctuous bilge
until someone like me
kicks your pustulant ass
back down that black hole
where your mortified
parents abandoned you

 

 

(originally posted April 2013)

Juke Joint

 

“Juke Joint” by Janie McGee

 

 

stepping smooth across rocks and rye
drinking the wood grain from planks
soaked with jazz hunched and swaying
on stilts in the muddy red clay of Jim Crow
wringing blues from a shantytown sax
pearled with sharecropper calluses
moist with the heat of a Saturday night
every teardrop shaped note that escaped
the tin roof made magnolia tree blossoms
hang heavy with redolent sweating sweet
shame of their pink and white bystander guilt

 

 

(originally posted December 2013)

Black and Blue

Abstract Black and Blue
Facebook Timeline Cover
From profilebrand.com

both lives matter

precisely because

of the truism

all lives matter

every band

on the spectrum

even when drawn

into tension

though differently

loved by the light

shines inherent with

moral equivalence

pity the fool

unwilling to see

all colors identical

down in the meat

in the pith neath

congenital tints

of the skin or the

dyemaster’s work

on the uniform

broadcloth of duty

Racial Overtones

Full Moon
Photo by NOAO Mosaic CCD Camera
From noao.edu

who are you to deny the
complexion of the moon
who are you to praise only
its bright pearl-white light
as if blind to its rich
inklike islands of black
and deaf to the truth that
it’s further been graced
by the gamut of grays

No Words

“Anguish”
Painting by Dena Cardwell
From fineartamerica.com

I have
no words
only hatred
for evil
no pity
no mercy
hot anger
eyes cry
burning tears
my violent
anguish
wants only
a sure stroke
of vengeance
from justice
one life
for nine
nothing less
and I’d do it
myself

I know
I must be a
poor Christian

but a man
who brings
racism’s
bullets to bibles
with vicious
intentions
who slaughters
the innocent
prayerful
at peace
in their
holiest
gentlest
expressions
of faith
such a man
is no man
but the vilest
of beasts

poor Christian
I must be
I know

but forgiveness
comes hard
to this sinner
who loves
and who hates
with what
I surely pray
is a moral
distinction

Sublimation

Hawaiian Orchid Lei
Photo from withouraloha.com

tropical garlands
islander gifts to haoles
redolent nooses