by Joy KMT
(Approximately)
~The first question was, who told you you were wrong
for breathing? Who tried to erase you?
who knew the name of god in you and sung it backwards
trying to unravel you?
who chants your mother’s name, banish her
to apes and name you crazy?
who turned your celebration to bullets?
who turned your celebration to bullets?
you, with the clutched knees, stone-carved face and smoking
cigarette
who told you to kill yourself so slowly?
a november thursday
I’m thinking of indigo plants,
why geechee don’t wear red.
corn watered with tears.
I’m thinking I’m a refugee from my own language
and my own mother wouldn’t recognize me.
These streets
used to be temples, and i won’t romanticize
but the Allegheny and the Monongehela were stolen, now look
at them. all sluggish, carrying the weight of death and industry
in their ripples.
I will talk about the land,
the people. folks used to all wanna be cowboys,
fronteirsmen on the look out for red scalps and painted faces
ruining the Birth of a Nation. Now
descendants run to get high
off a pipe heroic forefathers never deserved to carry
everybody asking for peace.
i’d send them down the road
tell ’em go get baptised in that river
go get baptised in that river
that river that the fish float in
that river that lets to the ocean the pilgrims came across
that salty-tear riverbed that runs to Greenwood: Archer and Pine Street
I’d tell them
peace is not something tacked
on a long story of interweaving holocausts. Not an ABraCaDaBra type of word
more like blankets of pus-filled wounds
while the sword and muskets still rest in their hands
I’d say millions murdered
for the privilege to toy with plastic totems
pink dreamcatchers, Indian past-lives
we stand on a land of broken dreams and homeless Natives
so we can play dress-up with heritage.
I’d say the year I was born
black babies were killed in Philly by the Governor
and we still call it Brotherly Love.
I’d say we need a language that tells
that we are celebrating massacres
and it’s not okay
to talk about peace
without talking about justice
thankfulness without acknowledgement
forgiveness without action
love without truth
*
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