IN THREE STANZAS I, too, am America, but… The exclusion From tomorrow, The dinner table Admits privileged company still, My colour continues To be a strike against me, Despite the claims of equality, The back door Is still the only entry point And the dinner guests See me more As far less Than they— Today, Justice is… Holding an intense conversation with me At home about the crimes this country Committed in her midst. She ain’t blind. This Native American sister with braids Is going deep into the well of her people’s History, how they were suddenly made Prisoners and underdogs on their own Land, a large mass of dispossessed. Let me tell you, Justice wasn’t all about Sorrow. She laid some hope on me, for Justice is proposing on how all the iniquities Of the past can be reversed. The best, Smartest ally this darker brother can have— I will write the power by… Becoming the hero I need to be For myself And my long Suffering race. Speak out When the blustery Voice of hate Tries to assert itself Over mine. To silence This verbal drama That divides us, Creates the wrong Social distancing. That’s what The powers that be Count on— They shall have No excuse from my end— W: 9.8.2020 [ For Andrea Blackman and Rashad Rayford. ]
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Dee Allen is an African-Italian performance poet based in Oakland, California. Active on the creative writing & Spoken Word tips since the early 1990s. Author of 5 books [ Boneyard, Unwritten Law, Stormwater and Skeletal Black, all from POOR Press, and his newest from Conviction 2 Change Publishing, Elohi Unitsi ] and 28 anthology appearances [ including Your Golden Sun Still Shines, Rise, Extreme, The Land Lives Forever, Civil Liberties United, Trees In A Garden Of Ashes and the newest, Colossus: Home ] under his figurative belt so far. Allen is in the process of working on two poetry book manuscripts and seeking a publisher for each.
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