Here are three links to poems written and/or published in the wake of this week’s trio of horrors. I think they capture a lot of the emotions many of us are experiencing. My own poetic response follows, as well.
From Rattle, Nicole Homer a poem of mourning.
My friend Quassan Castro offers a troubling painful reflection in his poem, “A Black Boy’s Fear.”
And here is my response:
THREAT ASSESSMENTS
His hands were empty, will stay
empty as his body, lowered
into the dirt, is left
to rot. He had a gun.
A carry permit. It was legal.
He was black. He was
empty handed, compliant. Dead.
Alton Sterling’s dead. Philando
Castile’s dead. Tamir Rice.
Laquand McDonald. Sandra
Bland. Dead. Dead. Dead.
Bodies robbed of breath, made small,
inert. Less than human. Less
and more, magical
hulking figures, perhaps,
how we see them, as
comic-book villains, able
to alter space with
the mere fact of their bodies.
Minnesota. Carolina.
Baton Rouge. Chicago.
In Ferguson, a dead teen,
riots. Threat analysis,
reasonable fear. It’s as if
Michael Brown’s black body
swelled, a golem bulked up
in rage, looking through me,
past me, my white
form nothing more
than a discarded can
to be stepped on
and kicked down the road.
Nothing more than,
nothing at all, not worth
the effort, leave it
uncovered for hours
like roadkill. I guess
that’s what he was, what
any black kid at the cusp
of manhood can expect,
to be treated as parasite,
vermin nibbling the teat
of polite society, as
predators — isn’t that what
Clinton called them. Not boys,
not men. But animals
devouring their prey.
Hank Kalet 