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Friday, June 8, 2012

"Dramatis Ars Poetica" (Dramatic Poetry): "Strike The Gong"

This is the Fifth in my Dramatic Poetry Series, where different characters give their 'take' on life and the world they live in.  Now here's the next effort . . .

Strike The Gong . . .


As the Stage lights up, we see what is obviously an inner city neighborhood in dire disrepair; battened down, decrepit houses line the streets . . . even a burnt-out hulk is visible to the audience. 
Slowly and steadily we hear a sonic collage of news stories about ‘Black Suspects’ and the police actions associated with these reports.  They all rise to a fairly loud level . . .
Then these sounds start to subside a bit as the Public Enemy song “Fight The Power” starts to play, rising in volume until the other earlier sounds are a subdued roar.

Then a Black Man enters.

He’s dressed in all black military garb with cap to match, complete with black military-grade shoes encrusted with dirt.  The black cargo pants are neatly tucked into the boots. There is a pair of dog tags around his neck in clear view.  The black shirt was once a long sleeved shirt, but the arms have been crudely and jaggedly ripped off, making his top, for all intents and purposes, a button-down tank top.

The man is really well-muscled and we can see tattoos of the Marines and the Black Panthers on his arms.  The man is also armed with a Glock 31 and the requisite holster wrapped around his right thigh.  Strapped about his back is black backpack, also military issue.

The identity of the man is clear now

He is a Black Panther

As the man begins to speak . . . various times during the following, he pulls out his weapon loading and unloading it, safety on and off . . . mock firing as he makes his ‘points’.



BLACK PANTHER

“It’s been so long . . .
Why can’t we all just get along?”
That’s the same old song
They sing each time we hit that Gong . . .

That rings of things . . .
Things meaning, demanding,
Amends, change in the modus operandi
Of a system so faulty
It transforms into casualty
The mentality of people
Who look like me. . . .
Its vampire-like thirst for minds
Leaves behind,
Only a husk and bitter rind
One will find, on examination
That this great nation
Has long been ardent manipulators of the mental
Usage of vices subliminal
Have been instrumental in common conception national
Of people who look like me . . .
In the media early this century
My features, mannerisms, speech were seen as funny
By audiences who consumed the tainted fruit of minstrelsy.
The creators of this travesty
Made no effort to conceal the bigotry
That had infected their hearts
So thus this ‘Art’ played a part
In my peoples subjugation
By further twisting home the notion
That we are like beast of burden
Not capable of cognitive collusion
Devoid of human emotion
Which in turn served as justification
For the rape, lynching and castration
Of many after both wars in Germany
When many came back from o’er sea
Fighting for this country . . .
Fighting for this country!!
Fighting for right of humanity . . . to be diverse
T’was such a stinging irony
To see, that sergeant Uncle Sammy
Turned out to be
A worshiper, maybe even the founder, of the supposed enemy’s
Bloodthirsty ideology,
Of quarantine and sequestration ‘cause of color of face,
Of prompt muting if reservations, about an unjustified, unfair situation
One dares to raise.
What war did we spill our precious blood to win
Fighting the Nazi enemy,
When on our way back
We’re felled by fire supposedly friendly?
Seems like boss and enemy are kin.
How many Black Cops are shot for looking ‘suspiciously’
Even when on the Job doing their Duty?
And just how and who presently started the war on drugs?
Do you seriously think the young black ‘thugs’
Have the resources to bring Colombian Sugar into the community?
How was Crack ‘immaculately conceived’ in traditionally brown counties?
After decades of being virtually drug-free?
Now with the ‘exclusivity’ to our communities assured
Sentencing disparities of 100:1 of this ‘New Prophet’s Ashes’ vs the Wall Street Pet’s
Dander . . . have resulted in yet more and more
Brown Skins locked away so hard their humanity they forget
When released from the bowel of the beast
They return unchecked, damaged to the inner cities to feast
On their kin . . . but not to fear:
There’s an invisible leash tied around their rear
To yank those who deliberately did not receive rehabilitation
To toil in perpetuity on the Prison Industrial Complex’s Plantation
But that was so long ago . . .!
Right!? Nope!: This is the New Jim Crow!!
A little harsh you say?
The present hypocrisy and apathy makes me feel that way
But all you say  . . . is

“It’s been so long . . .
Why can’t we all just get along?”
That’s the same old song
They sing each time we hit that gong

I know that it is a jarring din in your ears
I’ve been hearing it for years
As my people rot away
Day after day, day after day,
Trapped in your fowl coup, lain head to toe
Lain head on toe.
Hundreds of years ago
That coup was the slave ship,
Kept in check and compliance by gunpowder and cat o’ nine tails whip.
Today though,
With no sail for the wind to whip
‘Tis transformed into the inner city or . . . The Ghetto
Where we reside like some caged lab project
At the mercy of when they chose to affect
Changes in our vital equilibrium
Which leave us sinking in an eminently fatal conundrum.
You see, since slavery
They’ve been in awe of this man’s body.
Apparently . . . they saw what I possess as a threat to their virility
From thence was spawned a perverse hostility towards me
From selectively carved cadavers borne on a lynching spree
The pieces kept as macabre trophies, offerings to the Klan Pantheon of Deities
To the subsequent devouring of my ancestral sisters’ femininity
With impunity, violently, cruelly over the centuries . . .
A strange type of Dog that serves as a sponge for illicit, carnal ‘plundery’
They’ve had a most queer obsession with black sexuality
They tainted my brothers’ masculinity
Being unknowing subjects in the experiment at Tuskegee,
And there is evidence more recent
That they possess a warped penchant
For the indecent.
One has only to look at the tube to see
They still rape and violate with impunity
God give strength to the countless Victims and Their Families.
How dare I level such accusations at thee?
Maybe you’ll listen finally . . .
Instead hiding behind that lyrical wall of apathy . . . as you sing . . .

“It’s been so long . . .
Why can’t we all just get along?”
That’s the same old song
They sing each time we hit that gong

Yes, I make noise . . .
I do so with regal poise
For what they start,
I will finish
I want no part
The water they give me is brackish
Was it to quench my thirst,
Or my veins to burst?
On that piece of cellulose that enables life within this society
They blare ‘Equal Opportunity.’
But at that lofty level that we esteem
Blacks are nothing but a stingy portion of sprinkles on the surface of vanilla ice-cream.
Where when the economic climate gets too hot or harsh
This colorful layer of souls drips like the hot treat on down to the toe
Never to be refrozen used again tomorrow.
Wiped away with as much nonchalance as drooling backwash.
A comment here, a comment there
What you don’t hear
You’re walloped with in a passing stare.
They don’t want you here.
When asked, they sputter how dare . . . You
Question their work ethics, dub them illegal sprinkled with untruths.
True you’d find it hard to find blatant testimonial
They’re real professionals at redirecting the subliminal
This age-old practice,
Filled with malice,
For subtle exclusion and denial based on skin tone
They, although now illegal, continue to hone.
What?  Don’t they think that to God they’ll have to atone?
And what about the example for our children growing up
Any adult in supposed power has just as much as a pup
They must be of personality type Oreo
Being controlled on corporate strings like Geppetto
Did Pinocchio . . . stripped, sanded and whitewashed of all ‘color’
Inside, outside all over.
Their résumé must show impressive trends
Of snitching on their own as a means to an end.
And yet they pretend
That the milk of kindness they drink is pure
I gag on it, can’t breathe, it reeks of manure.
They say we have a lot to be thankful for
Like the fact that we’ve even made it through the door
For it would not have happened before.
What more am I looking for?
I want to see more . . .
More . . . of my people in high places
So that my children can look into their faces
And see that we are capable of greatness
Of the caliber and extent of Nefertiti the great empress
And live a life with the grandeur and pride of their ancestors on the Nile
I’ve paid my dues, no more of that, ‘Let’s wait a while.’
But it seems no matter how amendable
The Constitution, they are bent on making my dream impossible.
As I make fuss I’m branded uncivilized, violent, terrible.
Thanks to them reunions with relatives in the East are impossible to stage
With no variables in the equation, the numbers we can’t gage
So we’re stuck here and this War of Opportunity, and Equality we have to wage
To saw through the rungs of your filthy cage
That is determined to contain my upward mobility
That is determined to maintain an atmosphere of perceived mental sterility
I’ll be damned if I’ll let them do that me
Before I’m through, they’ll respect my inherent ability, even superiority.
So I’ll tick or sign ‘I choose not to answer one.’
In the section, on the application
About Race, Creed and Religion
I hear the ancestral drumming
Tells of better times coming
So you just keep on humming . . . your song . . .

“It’s been so long . . .
Why can’t we all just get along?”
Before long, you won’t be singing that song
The Next Time . . . We hit That Gong . . .!



 






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