behind bars

8/23/18

​I'll look a white man in his eyes
and tell him 
my daddy didn't do it
knowing he did
but justice comes
not at the smash of a gavel
or the red white and blue lights
of the 5-0 
on the down low
justice comes like
cause and effect
I do not seek to be 
accepted by you
simply 
I seek to be left
a loan to pay me
the attention stole
when they came 
to take him away
in his robe
and house slippers
robbed of focused affection
in the form of rejection
made real by his absence
it took no action
to be felt
white man good
come to home
with gun
take bad black man away
rip manhood from
​essence uncloaked
place hands behind back
body now behind bars
learn 
to exchange love
through glass
say hello again
to this past
where do the memories reside
with the body now free?
Have you ever caught a felony?
Independent black man
do best he can
make fun
or make fire
with judgment
of a path they said wasn't 
but it was when 
he carved it 
chopping wood
to build mama home
he missed 
and shoulder was chipped
now a coldness exists
like boulder
where heart
turned to stone
avalanche
shake the Earth of him
down the mountain side
break apart the rock of him
and roll to a stop
the shards of a broken heart
to pierce Mother Earth
and her babies
please
mend body
recover life
and continue to rediscover
spaces of us
Sons now sun 
to the light of truth
their flesh removed
to ensure survival
to ensure eternity
I turned to the right
as they busted in the door
and made a cardiac arrest
only 4 revolutions around 
the sun then
now at the age of sacrifice 
I can attest
to the crucifiction
for I have seen 
with my own eyes
Mystic Law
calm my bones
find peace
in foreign tongues
English is a failure
a teller of tales
to tear down change
things I remember
things I forget
like cotton in September 
and prison in June
like funerals and feds
like Dorothy and Arkansas
like Jack London shipyards
and jook joints
like Tulare and El Dorado
the freedom of the North
and the truth of Western State
hospital not university
an inhospitable reality
time traveling in DNA 
​now I sell medicine
this one is for sleeping
when your dreams
still rule the
waking day
this one is for anxiety
when the pop n' lock
of handcuffs and cell doors
on cell blocks
won't go away 
put hand to glass
and phone to ear
you can look
but you cannot touch
they put my father 
behind bars
so I compose with them
how many bars 
does it take 
til you get to the 
center of hate?
on that morning
before kindergaarden
unguarded from the 
truth of this world
a mourning set 
in motion
before I could spell it
I started writing 
before I could read
memorizing the dance 
of each letter
hoping
if I built the bars
maybe he could come home
and live with me
the poetry of panic
turned patience
turned to
persistent prose
thawing frozen memories
now ready to heat
and serve