SOUL-PROOF STROLL TO THE BEACH

a lost bandaid
decorated
with comic strip fun
is glued
by the heat
to the pavement
where lizards
frolic

it is difficult to tell
which palm trees
are not artificial
they are so polished

an unfinished ice cream cone
is a rivulet
of delight
for obese pigeons

a gaudy restaurant
includes the seaview
in the prices
on the menu

a half-full bottle
of imported mineral water
is discarded
at the entry
to the air-conditioned mall

but in Gaza
where the sea is also blue
there are no bandaids
to reglue
the missing heads of babies
their families cannot find

but in Gaza
where the sea is also blue
the last trees
still standing
are felled by U.S. fire

in Gaza
there is
no water mineral or otherwise
for dehydrated bellies
for overbrimming latrines –
and the children’s beloved ice cream carts
can no longer serve as makeshift morgues
because ice
is unheard of

in Gaza
where the sea is also blue
genocide
is the only item
on the menu

THE JUDAS WITHIN

for less
than thirty pieces of silver
William O’Neal
assisted the FBI
to assassinate
a brother,
Fred Hampton –
then committed suicide

when Huey P. Newton
lethally wounded
and bleeding out
of a gunshot stomach wound
crawled into a hospital
and appealed
to a brother
who was the doctor on the shift
for help and a gurney
the negro responded with shackles
as he called the police –
he later committed suicide

but
when Standing Deer
recognized
the FBI could not order him
to assassinate Leonard Peltier,
his leader,
he lived luminously
to kill
the Judas within

WHAT IS IT THAT IS SO WHITE HOT?

I was only half joking the other day when I said I renamed the egg timer I use to minute my speeches to “death by incarceration timer” or “DBI timer” for short. No more time for long mike-held diatribes because our political prisoners are on DBI time. No time for silence because our silence is complicit with DBI.

what is it
that is so white hot
but
also icy cold?

what is it
that almost bursts
my eardrums?

what is it
that is so barren
that i cannot plant
freedom dreams
for our caged brothers
in it?

what is it
that if i walk on it
i may encounter
landmines of betrayal?

what is it
that is so loud
that i must scream
soundlessly
to drown it out ?

what is it
that surely the ancestors
will give me
a wise and loving
code to
decipher it?

is it
your silence?

RE-MISSION

“I wonder as I wander”
Langston Hughes

l leave the doctor’s office
still reeling
because
i have been told
i am still in remission

as i wander home
under the bright sky
i taste the word
as the sweetest elixir

reeee
miiiiii
siiiiiiii
– a joyful song
undoing the Blues

as i wander home
i wonder
that i have been spared
and why

but something whispers to me
that the renewal of my mission
is because I still have to serve
and the ancestors
have lovingly decided
to cut me some life-slack

Fighting Words

Journal of the Communist Workers league

SOUL-PROOF STROLL TO THE BEACH | THE JUDAS WITHIN | WHAT IS IT THAT IS SO WHITE HOT? | RE-MISSION

Poems by renowned Black leader and activist Julia Wright