Maintenance Mode

We Know #melanafroindiaboripoly (Poem by Stephen A. Dantes)

 

In the black and indigenous communities

we know 

Straight hair or coarse,

broken in or broken out

we know

Infinite shades of melanated decrees

we know.

We know

the unspoken horrors, 

the terrors innumerable in years,

the stagnant wells - 

the tears that irrigated the coffers,

the pilfer - an audacious display of privilege

museums of the anaemic rite 

we know.

We know

as we are the offsprings of the whip

the bastards of royal civility

blackbirded, blacklisted, blackmailed, blackballed then blackfaced

We are anagrams of our shadow selves,

unworthy of our weight in gold,

and unable to pull our wait in the world

but perfect mules to work the acres stolen

til aches, hers swollen 

to give of and give up, 

to receive none, 

but a promise of they to save us

as promises arrest the rest of us

to rest a rest until the left of us forget

or die with their secrets.

We are the child-friendly versions of our parents’ nightmares,

the real life equivalence of the Midas touch

as ALL economies today stand proudly on our backs

still unbroken, unbent, unbeholden.

But we know,

that their God shall judge them for judging us

We know.