28 Days of Poetry Celebrating Black History

I Hear Music, I Hear Drums

2007-02-28T00:10:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

I hear music
I hear drums
I hear singing
Of Africans

I see the buffalo
I see the spear
I see white men
Drawing near

I see a rope
I see a bag
I feel scared
I feel sad

I see the boat
I feel the chains
I see my people
I call their names

I see the ocean
I see the sky
I see the dark
I start to cry

I see the light
I see dry lands
I see my people
Chains on their hand

I see fields
I see cotton
I see Africans
Being bartered

I see slavery
I cannot cope
I see freedom
I see hope

I hear music
I hear drums
I steal away
Steal away home

Copyrighted © 2007 Latorial Faison

We See Color, We See Skin

2007-02-27T21:57:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

We see color
We see skin
But can we see
The truth within

We see brothers
Of strong mothers
Bringing tears
To many others

We see sisters
Without wishes
Wasting lives
On ghetto issues

We see black boys
We see black girls
Kidnapped by gangster
Underworlds

We see black
We see white
How do we learn
To see what's right

We see color
We see skin
When will we see
The truth within

Copyrighted © 2007 Latorial Faison

Reversing the Curse

2007-02-26T22:25:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

We've got to do something to pick up the slack
We've got to do something to get us all on track
Somebody cried to get here
Somebody died to get here
We've got to do something; we can't turn back

There's a mother turning over in her grave
There's a father donned in rope praying for a save
All because they dared
All because they cared
There's a child set free, a man who's not a slave

Tell me when will we make up no excuse
Tell me when will we stop all of the abuse
Too many children left behind
Too many grown folks in a bind
Tell me when will we stand up and be of use.

We're like a backbone broken in too many places
We're like a great leader with too many faces
Can't seem to get ahead
Too many in our bed
We're tearing up the roads that were paved instead.

We've got to do something to pick up the slack
We've got to do something to get us all on track
Somebody cried to get here
Somebody died to get here
We've got to do something; we can't turn back

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

Vote Black America, Vote

2007-02-25T22:19:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

Vote Black America, vote
For without you, there is no hope
Just better ways to make us cope
With politics beyond humanity's scope

Loose the shackles upon our children's feet
Send the "good ole' boys" into retreat
Withdraw our men from terror's street
Vote for honesty, vote for peace

Vote Black America, vote
For without you, there is no hope
Just failed democracy on a slippery slope
And shattered dreams at the end of our rope

Stand up for the cause of right
Stand up proudly for those who fight
Make a difference, make a change
Vote for progress, vote for gain

Vote Black America, vote
For without you, there is no hope
Vote this time for you, for me
Vote now and ever for history

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

The Streets

2007-02-24T23:44:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

I don't think I'll ever understand the streets
What about them makes brothers and sisters get knee deep

They fall in love with the likes of trouble
Sworn in by fast money and drugs on the double

They say education’s overrated; honest jobs a joke
They talk about watching backs; they fear getting smoked

Cruising and boozing on their boulevard
Living ain't easy, so you got to be hard

No longer does crime prefer the city street
Now it even reigns in the country deep

There are no friends, just enemies in this game
Next thing you know, the feds are changing your name

Black life has value, more than you’ll ever know
So when the streets come calling, just say no.

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

One Day

2007-02-23T18:14:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

One day we will cross over
And God will see us through
One day we will be free
To do what black minds ought to

When I think about the chains
That bound our hands and feet
When I think about the thousands
Who met their deaths in the deep

I think about the struggle
Back in the mother land
I think about America
The inhumanity of man

One day we will cross over
From red and white and blue
One day we will cross over
But it starts with me and you

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

From the Bottom

2007-02-22T07:54:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

In dirty, filthy rags
Standing on bare feet
Tired with calloused hands
And not a drop of food to eat

Beaten and mocked
Lynched and burned
The reality of slave labor
Was not a penny earned

Don’t trouble yourself
With the big white house
Just you stay quiet
Quiet as a mouse

Your kind can only do
the small, simple things
Plowing all the fields
For harvests in the springs

Don’t ever put your hands
On nothing that is white
Because if you ever do
You could lose your life

Stay right down here
Down here in your place
The bottom of the barrel
With the rest of your race

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

If These Trees Could Talk

2007-02-21T22:49:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

If these trees could talk
Black stories they would tell
If these trees could talk
They'd speak of auction and sale

If these trees could talk
Sad songs they would sing
If these trees could talk
Their words would really sting

If these trees could talk
They would speak of all the tears
If these trees could talk
They would recall the many fears

If these trees could talk
They'd cry for all the wrong
If these trees could talk
They'd sigh at all the harm

If these trees could talk
They would speak loud
If these trees could talk
They would testify proud

If these trees could talk
They'd tell me of the days
If these trees could talk
They'd point me to the graves

If these trees could talk
They'd tell me of the rope
If these trees could talk
They'd talk about the smoke

If these trees could talk
They'd unrobe the Ku Klux Klan
If these tree could talk
They'd reveal each coward's plan

If these trees could talk
Just once to you and me
If these trees could talk
They'd tell our history

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

P.T.S.D.

2007-02-20T22:26:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

Praying for a change to come
Or for the slave masters' ancestors to help
Send you
To a better place

Taking you back to Africa where they say you are
Royalty
And your bloodline is precious
Until you study the
Map of the Middle Passage so much that
Anything and everything becomes
Too offensive
It scars you to know that
Cold water was certain death for

So many of your people who
Loved life and freedom to
A point where they died for it
Vowing to be free
Eternally

Distributing reparations
Is it the door that leads to the
Stairway
Of
Righting hundreds of years of
Deceit and wrongs that
Every one of us
Remembers

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

Reach Out

2007-02-19T22:08:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

Reach out black boy
Touch my soul
Reach out black girl
Make me whole

Reach out black boy
Feel the pride
Reach out black girl
Dance inside

Reach out black boy
Have yourself a dream
Reach out black girl
With higher self esteem

Reach out black boy
Feel my love
Reach out black girl
Rise above

Reach out black boy
Imagine new worlds
Reach out black girl
With kinks and curls

Reach out black boy
With your style
Reach out black girl
With your smile

Reach out black boy
For stars and moon
Reach out black girl
Soon, very soon

Reach out black boy
Here I stand
Reach out black girl
Take my hand

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

The Moses Of Her People

2007-02-18T21:54:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

Araminta was her name
She was born around 1819
On a plantation to slaves
Benjamin Ross and Harriett Greene

As a slave in Dorchester, Maryland
Harriett later took her parents' names
They were of pure African origin
But she would achieve American fame

As a child, she suffered whippings
She endured the ills of slavery
And at the age of only twelve
Harriett was wounded maliciously

When she refused to help tie up
A fellow slave who had fled
A mean slave overseer
Struck Harriett in the head

Later Harriett met a free black man
John Tubman was this free man's name
Her owner allowed her to marry him
But Harriett was a slave just the same

Harriett came to realize that her greatest fear
Was being sold into the south
So five years after marrying John
She planned to escape somehow

Harriett was helped by white neigbors
Who wanted to see black people free
In a wagon, covered with a sack
She was able to escape from slavery

In Philadelphia she met William Still
Who worked with the Underground Railroad
This meeting was the beginning for Harriett
Of everything that her future would behold

Along the the Underground Railroad
Harriett freed hundreds of slaves
She led them up north
And helped them see brighter days

During the Civil War
Harriett served as a spy
That she was a brave woman
Nobody could deny

Harriett worked as a nurse
And an abolitionist too
She became well known as
The "Moses of Her People" too

We remember Harriett Tubman
For her fearless bravery
On the Underground Railroad
Helping slaves to be free

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

George Washington Carver (1894-1943)

2007-02-17T21:29:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

In Diamond Grove, Missouri
Back in 1894
Another slave child was born
A bouncing baby boy

This slave child was called George,
George Washington Carver
Who knew that he'd grow up
To be a revolutionary farmer

George was just a baby
When from the plantation
He and his mother were abducted
By a band of slave raiders.

His mother was sold and shipped away
To some place south or north
But little George was traded
By his master for a race horse

George worked as a farm hand
Yet he had a passion for knowledge
He got a high school education
And was the first black at Simpson College

Carver studied the science of farming
For he had an agricultural touch
And he later became famous
For deriving new things from peanuts

The south needed Carver's research
For cotton was its main source
But with Carver's research and inventions
The south would be known for more

Carver's research included
Creating many useful products
100 uses for sweet potatoes
And over 300 for the peanut

George Washington Carver
Died in 1943
But his extensive research
Made agricultural history

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

I Need to Know

2007-02-16T21:31:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

I need to know
My original name
I need to know
Without any shame

I need to know
About African slave castles
I need to know
About white slave masters

I need to know
About the slave trade
I need to know
How America was made

I need to know
About the Middle Passage
I need to know
About lynching and lashes

I need to know
My father, my mother
I need to know
My sister, my brother

I need to know
About the Amistaad
I need to know
That Africans had heart

I need to know
About the dirty south
I need to know
About the plantation house

I need to know
About Brother Nat Turner
I need to know
About Sister Sojourner

I need to know
About the laws of Jim Crow
I need to know
About a minstrel show

I need to know
About emancipation
I need to know
About segregation

I need to know
About Madame CJ Walker
I need to know
About Justice Thurgood Marshall

I need to know
About Malcolm X
I need to know
What King's dream meant

I need to know
About my family tree
I need to know
About my history

I need to know
The color of my skin
I need to know
Of the truth within

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

Strong People

2007-02-15T20:11:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

strong people
don't fade away
or trade places
they come to stay

strong people
don't lose their pride
they cherish it
from deep inside

strong people
don't forget their past
they remember it
until the very last

strong people
don't hate their brothers
they protect them
from the hurt of others

strong people
don't curse the dark
they find the light
press for the mark

strong people
dare not neglect
common sense
and intellect

strong people
that's who we are
as strong people
we can go far

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

B.L.A.C.K. L.O.V.E.

2007-02-14T07:41:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

Being black and
Learning to love yourself
And everything about you, your
Color, and your
Kinship and history

Love is the inevitable, the essence
Of knowing who you are and giving
Voice to your black ideas
Each and every day

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

I AM

2007-02-13T20:54:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

I am somebody on my way somewhere
I am she who interrogates those who stare

I am too much for this wayward world to digest
With pen and paper, I paint pictures with frankness

I am the pages, I am the pens
What whiteness begins, my blackness ends

I am the black man's rage, the black woman's stage
If you care to recognize, just turn the page

I am the journey, the memory of yesterdays
I am the surprising result of evil ways

I am Jesus Christ crucified,
They hang me high and stretch me wide

I am the ears that hear the cries of the deaf
I am fingers picking up those pieces left

I am the hands that write the words
I am the prophet you've never heard

I am the music that bears the beat
I am the stranded enduring the heat

I am the parent who lives with the shame
Of children who step outside the family name

I am the rape victim turned inside out
I am the child abused who cannot shout

I am black America's complex
I am white America's "What's next?"

I am Dr. King's Dream,
I am Malcolm's extreme

I am the Catholic Pope's next big issue
For every child politics leaves behind, I am the tissue

I am the dream dared, the broken repaired
I am the truth challenged, the minority compared

I am the arrival of hope, the departure of pain
the explanation of turmoil, sanity for the insane

I am somebody, on my way somewhere
I am she who interrogates those who stare

I am too much for this wayward world to digest
With pen and paper, I paint pictures with frankness

Copyright © 2005-2007 Latorial D. Faison

Way of Life

2007-02-12T20:44:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

we pick
corn, cotton
and
butter beans
and
we even
make
history
with
collard greens
after which
we knit
and
sew the seams
of clothes
that
wear us
in our
dreams
we might
dance
quietly
down by the
stream
but we
will
serve
the Lord

Copyright © 2006-2007 Latorial Faison

No Child Left Behind

2007-02-11T20:42:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

Never had the ancestors imagined
Our children being left behind

Church meetings were
Held and praises went up
In search of a GOD way to end the
Loneliness of being left out
During a terrible era of racism

Learned men have decided that
Each child's education is
Funded by the state
To whom do we owe the pleasure?

Because little black kids and
Even the poorest whites in the
Hold of America's hands are
In need of a revolution
Not a revelation
Do you hear me?

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

Some of Us

2007-02-10T18:46:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

   Some of us see
Some of us don't
   Some of us hear
Some of us won't

   Some of us speak well
Some of us do not
   Some of us make it
Some of us will not

   Some of us understand
Some of us are confused
   Some of us are enlightened
Some of us are abused

   Some of us stand
Some of us fall
   Some of us dream
Some of us stall

   Some of us save
Some of us squander
   Some of us think
Some of us wonder

   Some of us realize
Some of us never do
   Some of us interpret
Some of us misconstrue

   Some of us watch
Some of us don't
   Some of us need
Some of us won't

   Some of us drop
Some of us hold
   Some of us dare
Some of us fold

   Some of us try
Some of us fail
   Some of us lose
Some of us prevail

   Some of us follow
Some of us stray
   Some of us curse
Some of us pray

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

Old School

2007-02-09T18:27:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

Don't ever forget
They experienced Jim Crow
So they know the truth

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

A Poem for Rudy

2007-02-08T20:40:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

Redefining the state of our
Union as Black folk
Dealing with the duality
Of our own truth, to
Love or hate what we, as a
People,
Have become

Lest we forget
Every voice of the past
While waiting for what was,
Is and will be our
Savior

for Rudolph Lewis, editor of ChickenBones: A Journal
www.nathanielturner.com

Copyright © August 2006 Latorial Faison

In Search of a Time and Place

2007-02-07T11:32:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

We are still in search of that opening of the heavens, a time and place where those who seek justice will find it. We are still in search of that place that Martin preached and dreamed about, the time that Malcolm demanded, the time our ancestors wondered about and whether it could ever really exist, a time where field hands and seamstresses could hope to do more, a time where black kids and white kids could finally escape the ugliness of being adults and thinking separately on the colors of equality. We are still waiting.

We are still waiting for the black church and the white church to really become one church. We are waiting for black politics to meet white politics and for somebody up in Washington or in the state house to say “Enough of this!” We are tired of black rhetoric. We are tired of whites being halfway apologetic. We are tired of the Jews who say “we got over it.” How can you ever get over a past that maintains your present and was destined to kill your future? How can we forget? How can we move on, except we find that place in the heavens, out of hell, where the very basis of good sense and love prevail?

Of course, it’s a new day. We have a myriad of new ways, but black children are still in the ghetto getting “got” by the system. The poor throughout the country all across America are still waiting for help that . . . even after King’s dream, death, burial and his constant resurrection through words . . . still has yet to come. Where is that help?

Where is that help in New Orleans? Where is that help in Broward County, Florida? Where is that help in the streets of Brooklyn and Harlem? Where is that help down in Atlanta, Georgia and the slow moving, no moving streets and back roads of Mississippi? Where is that help? Is it prowling the streets of Baghdad? Is it searching the Afghan mountains for Osama bin Laden? Is it wrapped in foiled envelopes and distributed to members of the Republican and Democratic parties? Where is that help that we all know America is able to give?

Where is that place? How can we get to that place? Is there a road? Is there a map? Has anyone been there? They speak of it, and they say that we can find a place, but where is this place? We are more than ready to find it, to live in it and to love in it. We are ready for its schools, its places of worship, its people, its politics and its love. We are ready for that place. But how do we get there?

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

What If?

2007-02-06T08:04:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

What if things were not always what they seem?
What if words were not what they really mean?
What if life wasn't life or love wasn't love?
What if the ground wasn't down or the sky up above?

What if we came in actually going out?
What if that's what being born was really all about?
What if the stars were made to look up at us?
What if to scream really meant to hush?

What if Africa was England and America was Iraq?
Who would you picture riding on a camel's back?
What if Christians were Muslims and Buddhists really Jews?
Which of these do you think your Jesus would choose?

What if iron was silk and water was dirt?
What if amputations felt good and joy really hurt?
What if woman came first and man gave birth?
What if our weight equalled or measured our worth?

What if life was death and death was life?
Would you hate prosperity and pray for strife?
What if my kids were your kids and yours were mine?
What child would America then leave behind?

What if different was normal and similarity rare?
What if when interracial couples walked by nobody would stare?
What if black was white and white really was red?
Would Africans have stolen America instead?

What if there was no darkness to paint the night?
What if day was not really scattered with light?
What if for the blind there was no natural insight?
What if what is was wrong and what if was right?

What if there's a Shepherd, but we are not the sheep?
What if we wake up tomorrow and find ourselves asleep?
What if God's already taken His best up to Heaven?
What if we got left behind because our favorite number wasn't seven?

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

Willie Lynch's Plan for the Black Man

2007-02-05T19:42:00.000-08:00

How To Make and Break a Slave
by Latorial Faison

It was the year 1712
On the banks of the James River
When a British slave owner from the West Indies
Spoke to colonists of Virginia

This white slave owner, William Lynch,
Had created a working plan
And he took great pride in being able
To break more than the backs of black men

Lynch boasted of his mind games and methods
For keeping blacks mentally enslaved
The plan he devised was so diabolical
That even on their differences he preyed

He told the Colony that there was a way
To keep black slaves under control
Lynch's first making-of-a-slave technique involved
Turning the young Negro against the old

He stressed Virginia's problem
Of slave runaways and insurrection
He implored the use of his plan
To keep even aggressive slaves under subjection

He claimed that his way was simple
And would last for over 300 years
It didn't include treating slaves as people
But focused on increasing the slaves' fears

The Lynch plan called for envy and distrust
To control the Negro woman and man
Making differences in intellect, in shade and in size
Were part of Lynch's how-to-make-a-slave plan

He advised reversing the Negro's nature
Putting females first and males behind
Lynch testifed that the best slave
Must have a strong body but a weak mind

He proclaimed that to make a slave
Was to make a black man a mindless fool
For a slave without the will to think
Was a slaveowner's best economic tool

Lynch went on to design the fate
Of even the slave woman's young offspring
Slave girls would protect submissive slave boys
And this, my friends, would change everything

He advised breaking and breeding slaves
Like the breaking and breeding of horses
You steal their minds, silence their voices
make em' hate each other, and limit their choices

Strong were the chains of slavery
And today they exist just like poverty
Instead of slavery the old Massuh's way
The chains are even more psychological today

You can whip a man nearly half to death
And you can even break each of his bones
But break the very spirit of a man
And you'll find that his hope is also gone

Stop for a moment, take a closer look
At the black man and woman today
What do you make of Willie Lynch's ideas
On how best to make a slave?

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

I.N.J.U.S.T.I.C.E.

2007-02-04T04:00:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

It was a racially unjust time for
Negroes in America, but the Negro never gave up on
Justice and hope. The sons and daughters of slaves
United spiritually, emotionally and
Socially to sojourn, to press, to pray,
To fight, to march, to speak out, and to denounce every
Injustice directed at the Negro because of
Color. The evil, the bigotry, the lies had to
End.

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

The Plight of Sojourner Truth1797-1883

2007-02-03T06:21:00.001-08:00

by Latorial Faison

Her name was Isabella Baumfree
born to slaves Betsey and James
In Ulster County, New York
Dutch slave owners created their name

Isabella was one child of many
Yet many siblings she never knew
This was just one form of cruelty
That slavery put her through

She was sold to new slave owners
Along with a lot of sheep
Because she spoke Dutch intead of English
She was beaten with rods of heat

But Isabella did learn English
And in 1828 she was freed
She became a spiritual spokeswoman
And then she began to preach

Isabella changed her name
Calling herself Sojourner Truth
And this name was quite fitting
For all of the noble work she would do

She befriended some devout Quakers
Who encouraged her spiritual growth
With her will to help the underprivileged
She strived onward, under oath

She sojourned to liberate the enslaved
And she spoke up for all women's rights
She travelled a many dangerous roads
In search of higher heights

Sojourner was a charismatic orator
And her most famous words
Spoken at a convention in Akron, Ohio
Impressed every woman who heard

"Ain't I A Woman?"
Declared Sojourner Truth
Demanding equal rights for women
She sought to kill injustice at its root

She campaigned for the government
In search of land for free slaves
She preached the Word of God
And helped lost souls to be saved

It was a long, hard life
But Sojourner vowed to do it again
She saw it as her plight
To help the disenfranchised win

Sojourner was no ordinary woman
She stood nearly six feet tall
The voice she gave to the oppressed
Was her most significant contribution of all

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

Black Hope

2007-02-02T08:31:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

if you’re black
and don’t have it
you’re doomed
but don’t know it

there’s something to
look forward to
some thing or some one
for which or whom
to get living done

without hope
the colors of skin
become sin
and sin becomes the world
we get stuck in

when there’s no hope

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison

A Taste Of Freedom

2007-02-01T07:42:00.000-08:00

by Latorial Faison

Expecting miracles
Xylophones to beat like drums
People to look like God and
Everything to fall fresh like snow
Rivers to part freeing us from racism, classism, sexism
Innocent children, victims of the system
Espoused to pain, history, and black-on-black tragedy
Neglecting to grow, gain or give
Creedence to the word
Emancipation

Copyrighted © February 2007 Latorial Faison