CARIBBEAN POETRY: If We Must Die by Claude McKay (Jamaican Poet and Novelist of The Harlem Renaissance)

If We Must Die

by Claude McKay

Strange Fruit

If we must die - let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die - oh, let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
Oh, Kinsmen! We must meet the the common foe;
Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

More about Claude McKay

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