Abeng Poetry: Pounds of Black Ice (Urban Poetry)

               Urban #Poetry: Pounds of Black Ice (Justice Can't Breathe)

                                 Copyright  K. Omodele 2015

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

You stop us; frisk us

with yuh Giuliani justus*

You sweat us; no let up,

Now it's ninety-six degrees

You go me swingin' on a noose

in this Home of the Freeze

Strung up in a tree

It's so hard to breathe.

You got me 'gainst a wall

moving slower than Diallo

reachin' for I.D.

Your gun hand tremblin' like leaves

yuh fingers twitchin' up to squeeze

tension tighter than a sneeze

You want me down on my knees-

strange fruit me up in trees?

Fifty lead-starred shells

hammered young Sean Bell

pounded promises of life

from his never-will-be-wife.

Black Life? Candle flames

flickerin' in Chi-town** winds;

flutterin' blades of grass

driven by the breeze.

So tread light, Trayvons!

Noose tight! My fight?

Those iron tones and shifty vibes

Garner-ed behind officers' hooded eyes.

I hear the CRACKing of yuh whip

in gavel CLACKS and cuff CLICKS

Mass incarceration slick; three TICKS-

TOCK. Lives stocked behind a fence.

You say, "Justice is blind." Right!

The dirty slut couldn't see?

Charleston BLAMMED down to his knees?

Rice Mama soaked in tears of grief?

In Staten Isle I can't breathe

Oh Eleven London banged up

Oh Twelve Linden pushed her hands up

Now, Cleveland stand up? Slut can't you see?

Chocolate cities screamin'

Baltimore burnin'

Same song 'round the world

Same turntable*** turning-

spinning sounds of strife,

how a pounded Black life

is worth so much more than pounds of black ice.****

In this world of ruby sunsets, can you believe?

Justus got me on a noose, it's so hard to breathe.

* justice for some; justice for a selected few

** Chicago

*** record player

**** black ice - black diamonds

WRITING IS CATHARTIC

"#Writing is cathartic; it is a cleanser of the conscience, it is sanative to the soul." ~Kaya Omodele

http://consciouspen.blogspot.com/2010/12/catharsis-when-i-write.html

http://consciouspen.blogspot.com/2015/01/caribbean-poetry-ca-thar-sis-ii.html#VoF22LYrlkq

CARIBBEAN POETRY: Broken Trust a Haiku

copyright 2016 K. Omodele

Broken trust's a burst -

'way kite; heart string snapped, dropping,

flopped from breathless heights.

#haiku #poetry

New Year's Resolution: Live In Life's Moments (Dirty Diapers and Baby-Daddy Material)

by K. Omodele @theabeng

Bless up this New Year, bredrin and sistrin!

Resolved- let's all immerse weself in Life's moments. Let's notice beautiful, even intricate things like "the color purple in a field before we piss God off." See, some of we go wheelin' through stretches of life at a million miles an hour, tryin' to make up for wrong-way turns and dashed-way time. But lost time is a thing we can never reclaim, no matter how we try.

Wait! You don't do that? So, it's only me, one, then? Alright...

Sometimes I just have to remind myself to brace and be still within an experience. Live it, breathe it, touch it, taste it, take it in, live within it. And when I do, I wind up creating meaningful-life memories I'll draw up one day like a bucket from a well of knowledge and wisdom.

Like nappies,* for instance. I'm my mother's first son, and child, and I was seven going on eight years old when my little brother came along. By then I was constantly revving to get out the house and go liming** with my ragamuffin friends, them. One day Ma drew down my gears long enough to show me how to fold my brother's diaper (because they were square pieces of cloth then, no pampers), put it on and pin it up before I jammed back into gear again and screeched tires out the door. Over the years I changed his and my sister's nappies a few times.

A few years ago, I was zipping through another patch of life again and made a pitstop with the fiance over my littlest sister's home to visit my then new-brand nephew. After a couple hugs and two talks, Lil Sis asked me to change Nevvy's dirty diaper; but, she was grinning with my girl like it was some sort of challenge; like it some type a daunting mission like she wanted me to go invade Iraq or something so. Silly rabbits...

I un-taped is pamper; wiped, raised him by his tiny ankles, wiped again; discarded wipe; laid new pamper and discarded old; powdered and covered him then taped pampers up- straight, like that. The two of them looked on, amazed. The fiance had whipped out her camera phone, muttering, "Yep, good baby-daddy material right here," under her breath but the video captured her. Please, I am a King!

Don't know why they looked so shocked; I didn't even have to fold and pin.

#creatingmoments

*diapers

**Liming/lime - hanging out, to hang out