"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 . . .!