Photography © Jack Marty
Watching George Floyd’s Tragedy Footage with My One-Year Old Plus son
i clap the muteness of water over you today the day you stream
beyond the oceans take the world by storm son the sky does not deserve the stars
but let her darkness teach you a lesson you are black you are black you
carry the color that attracts stars rising star
rise a rising star hope is a bastard flee it it’s the only reason
why i will never forever be your angel it was the same promise i gave your mother and until now
i have failed to grow wings and boy butterflies are distant dreams
when you speak for the first time in a foreign land your cheeks stuck with a
colony of fleas fear watch where you go when you are by yourself don’t question the
the curved finger on the trigger they’ll tell you to raise your hands up in the air and this does not mean you will survive still they’ll tell you to say sir which means to reduce yourself which means to assume your place beneath the foot your body pressed in full embrace of dust son i leave you with an infancy song
this poetry is tuning into a sad song but boy I am trying to fan dead coals back to fire
my tears flooding a room full of black mothers holding wreathes for their lost sons
son I lid your ears with palm oil verses I lid your eyes with my palms because your body is yet feeble for grief for the neck’s helpless groans under the brutal knees of another man in uniform calling for mother pleading for breath and no one comes to this cry of help and everyone is busy filming and now is no more
Goodness Olanrewaju Ayoola is a Nigerian poet and teacher of English who reaches out to poetry as escapism from the contentions within and around him. His poetry has appeared in Pangolin Review, Deepwater Literary Journal, Brittle Paper, Mojave Heart, Ethel Zine and elsewhere. He is a Best of the Net Award Nominee and author of Meditations (WRR, 2016).
Jack Marty takes photos when he feels like it. Today’s photo was taken at the Black Lives Matter protest on Tuesday June 2.
Powerful, mournful.