pale sun
(for George Floyd and Julia Wright
and an African Liberation Day that wasn’t*)
Photo Credit: Josie Gonsalves for Public Square Amplified
To Olatunji’s Jin Go Ba**
“Jingo
Jingo Ba!
Jingo
Jingo Ba!
Jingo
Jingo Ba!
Jingo
Jingo Ba!...
Jingo Ba
Jingo Ba
Jingo Ba
Lo ba ba
Lo ba ba
Lo Ba Ba-…”
there was nothing liberating about this day
this eyescalding screaming choking day
the sun went pale in revulsion
as a badged bully stole the breath of legions
on the neck of a helpless man
a man handcuffed, flat on his face,
totally subdued and very afraid
on the neck of a large conquered
expendable black man...
because the bully
sick with settler obsession
said so...
and the bully had buddies
drunk on the same cocktail
who protected the bully
choking the day
choking a people
choking our time...
the dutiful badged bully
carrying out a sacrifice
for the sanctity of white privilege
and the cornering and controlling of black lives
putting them back in their place
vowing to keep them there
with the ever present threat of sudden death...
a pallid putrid day...
it was a day that should have recalled
our ancestors,
their continental homeland
saying goodbye to colonialism
a day that should have been full of color
kente rich
cut shaped draped for the nkrumahs once among us
a day that should have been buoyed
with celebratory drums and dance...
not this day
as gagging haunting coughs
spat the names
of already chokehold dead black men
from that black man’s bulging dead eyes
Javier Ambler
Elijah Mclain
Eric Garner...
not this day
hot with death and hate...
Not even the sun
pale with outrage and shock
could keep his composure
not even from his safe sacred seat
in the sky...
*African Liberation Day is May 25th. George Floyd was killed on May 25, 2020.
Julia Wright, author, poet, activist, daughter of the legendary writer Richard Wright.
This piece was my response to her piece on George Floyd entitled
To Silas Hoskins And George Floyd...
**The Olatunji soug Jin Go Ba, from the album Drums Of Passion launched at the top of the 1960s, was a seminal music moment in modern PanAfricanism …
©2021 ‘bro.zayid’
