Child, circa 1950s. copyright Mary Perry Stone. Click image to find out more about the artist.
Law and Order
Justice is a young girl
locked in a cell
torch without light
a green-tongued judge
is her torturer.
The keepers of justice
extract the girl's heart
feed it to their blue
god the war machine
black people die.
In the reddened streets
split black skulls
plant roaring seeds
a different garden
of law and order.
--Ed Stone
Paul Robeson
played pro football
but he wouldn't play hard ball
with whitey. Loved beautiful women.
Loved beautiful white women,
which is illegal.
He's red and Black, way too
hot for the '50s. In D.C.,
Hollywood, and Peekskill,
the Klan nearly lynched him.
At his career's height, the FBI
took away his passport.
On his deathbed he insisted
that the CIA tried to poison him—
not in Mississippi or in Alabama
but at a party in "godless"
Russia, for god's sake.
--Maggie Jaffe
Robert Earl Mack
Glory. 1972. copyright Mary Perry Stone. Click image to find out more about the artist.
42, laid off, charged with the murder
of Michael Konz, 25, a "human
relations counselor," hired
by General Dynamics to represent
the Corp. against rank and file.
Mack has 24 years on the line
assembling Tomahawk
Cruise Missiles
in sunny San Diego, voted
"America's Finest City"
by the Big Money.
Mack's lawyer will offer
a plea of insanity.
If found sane during the shootout,
Mack, who is black, who is black,
will fry a lighter shade of gray,
even if Amnesty International
calls the electric chair,
"barbaric."
Mack, his eyes "bulging
like golf balls," according to
the L.A. Times, said:
"They just stole 25 years
of my life. What was I supposed to do?"
--Maggie Jaffe
Mr. Fulmer
had a satyr’s soccer-ball stomach,
flaming red hair and beard
along with a redhead's quick temper.
Somehow, he conveyed his faith
in us as complex diminutive humans.
One time he even allowed
us to scream at each other
and to jump on our desks,
for no good reason
except for our imprisonment
in south Brooklyn's P.S. 203.
Our rebellion was (I think) his pedagogical design.
During the roaring Sixties, I read
in The New York Post that a few
of his neighbors torched his house,
murdering his wife and son,
yet their adopted child, who was black,
survived the blast.
--Maggie Jaffe
To Paul Robeson
They don’ let us sing our songs, Robeson,
Eagle singer, Negro brother,
They don’t want us to sing our songs.
They are scared, Robeson,
Scared of the dawn and of seeing
Scared of hearing and touching.
They are scared of loving
The way our Ferhat loved.
(Surely you to have a Ferhat, Robeson, What is his name?)
They are scared of the seed, the earth
The running water and the memory of a friend’s hand
Asking no discount, no commission, no interest
A hand which has never paused like a bird in their hands.
Flowers from the Death Squad. Circa 1980s. copyright Mary Perry Stone. Click image to find out more about the artist.
They are scared, Negro brother,
Our songs scare them, Robeson.
I am not my color. I dislike
being picked on every day,
being insulted, because
I am not white.
I tell myself I am not
welcome in this world.
I come from a rich family.
I also come from a poor family.
I travel a lot but I live in the USA.
I always think that
I was born to make
everybody's life like hell!!
Sometimes my life is just boring,
but most of the time, my life is hard.
Every night I think about these things.
Why can't people respect me
for who I am, and stop judging
me for the color of my skin!
--Luis Carlos Pereira
Reprinted from Blue Collar Review
www.partisanpress.org
The Wrong King
It's the wrong King
the wrong president
an evil puppet swindled into power
over the voice of the people
but this is different --
The wrong King
not the Elvis impersonator
on the beach but
much worse --
The wrong King
That familiar face adorning January
eyes set wide
on the promised land of justice
seems an impostor
a pretender to the dream,
a one dimensional doppleganger.
Despite the preacher's and politician's
shallow acknowledgments and
the recognizable visage
this is not the King that called his country
"the number one purveyor of violence in the world"
or that called for a guaranteed annual income.
Not the King that talked of the "triple evils
of racism, economic exploitation, and war"
so popular but unmentionable in these times.
No, the face looks right but
the message is all wrong.
They're confusing Martin with Rodney
"Can't we all get along?"
--Al Markowitz
Reprinted from Blue Collar Review
www.partisanpress.org
