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’

Zayid Muhammad

Zayid Muhammad is the chair of the NY Malcolm X Commemoration Committee and author of the soon to be released “Crossin Ova’ Blues: Memorial Poems of Ancestral Praise and We Ride: Offerings for Malcolm, the Panthers and Those Who Dare to Heir!”

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