Tag: USA

Honestly Good

~ Vanessa ~ 2 Comments

They told us to trust authority,
To think empirically
To put two and two together,
To critically think,
And then they said no more.

They told us to look closely,
To see the hidden image,
To glimpse behind the curtain,
And then they said we can’t trust what our eyes see,

They told us to care,
To be invested deeply,
To train our emotional intelligence,
And then told us “no” to empathy.

May the lessons nurtured by a caring world outlast oppression,
May our skills of living, breathing, feeling, knowing, seeing, thinking be carried on,
And instilled in the young,
May we remain unjaded,
Steadfast and aware in our moral understanding of basic ethics,
A guide that filters right from wrong,
Sympathy from cruelty,
And in times like these make the heart ache deep into the night,
Ache for basic, human rights,


May we be a shield of love and light,
Of Hope withstanding;
Resiliently, defiantly
Knowing and illuminating the truth when observed,
By our senses, by our sight, by our awakening;
Trusting intuition, trusting truth laid before us,
Trusting in our hearts, what we know is
good.

Hate Being Right

~ Vanessa ~ 1 Comment

2016:

Pattern recognition,

Look, look! I said,

I saw the signs.

I know my histories, 

Histories that pump with both guilt, and defiant survival in my mulatto veins

Histories of Europe, of Africa, of brave new worlds of US,

Of capitalism and conquest,

Doctrine of discovery

Of colonization,

And enslavement,

And subjugation, 

And decimation,

Of erasure,

Of cruelty of the most egregious kind, 

The kind too sick to even imagine.

Only, I asked you to imagine it, 

to 

connect 

the 

dots,

To try to

Stop it!

–But I 

was “crazy”,

But I 

was “unwell”

…2026:

But I saw true,

Just maybe it took a little 

longer 

than foretold, 

But, here we are.

Distraught and livid,

 I’m still in it,

Just changed, 

Still trying to plan how to just be;

Survive,

And to help pull us, 

minister us through hell. 

I knew too much, 

Too soon,

Ahead of the times.

But, maybe for once the historians, the oracles, the crazies just needed the mic in the room,

To have kept us from this present doom.

And now the black truck wagons I saw circle,

In this Apocalypse of our own making,

it burns my tongue not to mention it,

And I don’t

(It is of no use now)

There’s No satisfaction in this “I told you so”

But, God damnit, 

I hate having been right.

9/11: Years Later

~ Vanessa ~ Leave a comment


911,
Whats your emergency?

The world as we knew it ended,
And we are still picking up the pieces
And will be,
Indefinitely,
From the impact and blowback,
For years into the future,
And for somethings we won’t
Even be sure why,
Though we will remember,
In our lived history;
Memory survives.

Stolen

~ Vanessa ~ Leave a comment

They are unearthing babies,
Children
Who never had a chance,
Against a system we still don’t understand,
That takes and takes and takes,

My human heart hurts,
My sentient heart hurts,
My living heart hurts,
For a wrong far too late to correct,
And as the numbers tally up
Let us not lose sight of the numbers that are really lives,
Of the lives that were not lost
But taken
Stolen,
Genocide in and of our recent time,
And we haven’t learned our lesson,
As we hold stolen children,
This time immigrants in cages,
For being the wrong…
Color,
Creed,
Nationality,
Ethnicity,
Race,
An inconvenience to other plans,
Inconvenience in this land,
Stolen,
Stolen lands,
Stolen children,
Stolen lives

What is Justice?

~ Vanessa ~ Leave a comment

[IMAGE: Mural in Minneapolis by Xena Goldman, Cadex Herrera, Greta McLain, Niko Alexander, and Pablo Hernandez]


What is justice,

When the only proof of a lynching is the very image of it happening,

Again and again?

What is justice when this is the exception?

This is a sick feeling of knowing,

Nothing will bring back

The life battled for,

Too little too late,

What is justice when the very judgement brings with it a greater sense of fear for those of deeper pigmentation?

For vigilante retribution? Revenge?

Why does the hammer of judgement only

Bring to mind more images

More worries

of breathless lungs,

bodies burning,

Of bodies swinging;

That strange fruit

Our people know too well?

May our prayers of peace,

Of this first as a trend

Be met with a  change,

A shift,

Be met with true justice,

–Let [it] “roll down like waters

and righteousness like a mighty stream”

Black Joy

~ Vanessa ~ Leave a comment

I need more joy,
Inside my world,
My spirit in need of uplift, of sustenance,
So many tales of those dark skinned like me,
Being taken for granted,
lives taken,
so many brothers, sisters
in need of reminder
that black is beautiful,
and also of joy,
deserving.